Guild Wars 2

Crystal Reid.2481:

Baltzenger.2467:

I have a question for you.
When designing our proposals, should we think of raiding as an endgame type of content, or a more horizontal type of content (available for all kinds of players)?

This is a good question. This is really more of a personal question and the answer is going to differ quite a bit between individuals.

If you want my personal take on this… Raiding for me is a type of end game content I like to partake in with a group of like minded individuals that requires us to master both our classes and the mechanics in the encounter. Nothing in an MMO is more exciting to me than killing a boss we have spent weeks and dozens (if not hundreds) of attempts mastering.

Remember this is just my personal opinion. There are going to be differing opinions in this thread. We want to hear all of them, and not discourage anyone from posting if they think we are going in a direction that is not for them.

So to get back to your question… Let’s assume that because raiding would be a very new type of content for the game that it’s possible for us to re-write the principles of the game that we have seen so far. So having said that where do you feel raiding falls (end game VS horizontal)?

Certainly it falls in the category of end game content. People always complain about how GW2 doesn’t have enough content, if raids go as end game level cap content then no one can say such a thing. Also WvW and public events are there for those low levels. You don’t have to cater to every single level. Just make it level capped.

cesmode.4257:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Neon.5976:

Crystal Reid.2481:

So having said that where do you feel raiding falls (end game VS horizontal)?

I’d want to see Raids as end game content. Others are right in stating that other games have raids as end game content – it’s what they are normally categorised as. However I’m not sure I follow the logic where that therefore means they shouldn’t be end game content in GW2. It’s not like end game raids make a game worse or less appealing and I don’t want to be forced to go play a different game to play the type of content I like. It’s important to avoid getting hung up on whether GW2 should or shouldn’t be taking cues from other games and to focus on making raids they best they can be, regardless of where the ideas come from.

I’d like to see raids as end game content as challenging PVE content is something that is currently missing from the game and raids could the thing that fills the hole. It’s not as if end game raids make all other content redundant. In fact if they weren’t end game you could argue they could be so similar to other content such as dungeons or world bosses depending on their final form that they would start making other content redundant.

I suppose ultimately people want raids to be accessible. However if they are too easy they make the game as a whole less accessible. Those who want easier content, who already have a very diverse selection to choose from will get more, which is great for them. But those who want the challenging endgame PVE content that is currently lacking would be left out. In that sense by making raids more accessible, GW2 could potentially miss an opportunity to appeal to a wider audience.

Personally I would also want to see raids as end game content and by that I mean level 80 only.

Chris

Hi, I mentioned this in my first post a few moments ago. I could be out of date as well as this mind set that we were given early on…but isn’t the entire game ‘endgame’ ? Hop in, do whatever you want to do. No pressure, nada. Take your time, the whole thing is your oyster. When you start creating level 80 content only, ala raids, you segregate the playerbase much like other games where its then a rush to max level to do the raids. All of the gorgeous 1-80 content you have in this game becomes completely trivial and a stepping stone to the real game. You might as well just allow people to boost to 80 via potions or something and skip leveling all together because it becomes absolutely meaningless. A meaningless time sink. I didnt need 80 levels to learn my class. Maybe less than two dozen and I had it down. The rest was just enjoyment because the 1-80 content was nice. I leveled through it without any pressure. Put max level content in the game, and we will feel rushed to get to the real stuff. Its human nature.

For this reason, I do not think raids belong in GW2. But if they are to be implemented, I do have suggestions which I have shared

People won’t rush to level 80 to do end game content. GW2 is known for it’s really solid and fun leveling experience therefore most people will still take their time and they won’t rush it. Also if people were to rush to level 80 it would be a very small amount of people. Therefore we don’t really need to worry about that small minority that wants to rush to level 80. People will rush to whatever level they want regardless of content.

What Could A Raid in GW2 be?
Events + Guild Puzzle + Guild Challenge + Tequatl/Triple Trouble/Whatever challenging world boss taking place on the space of an entire map with the format of completing objectives that drastically alter the map for a set duration.

Why an Entire Map?
Map size allows multiple groups of players of varied sizes to complete the objectives they feel comfortable with and draws on their specific expertise.

Being a separate elite map also means that you won’t have the problem of some event suddenly blindsiding a poor adventurer. If you’re on the map, you know what you’re there for.

How Would this Work?
As objectives are completed, various things unlock on the map and players progress till they come to the BIG BAD (think opening the gates of arah but with guild challenge and guild puzzle level events. oh, and lupicus and his 3 brothers jacked on inquest-grade steroids are behind the door).

Objectives are completed in event chain style and make a noticeable difference on the map itself (blow up a mountain to transport a megaweapon).

Objectives must be completed in tiers (events XYZ must be completed to trigger GATE ENCOUNTER A, meanwhile events LMNOP need to be done to trigger GATE ENCOUNTER B, and so on till the big bad is opened.)

What About Mah Guilds?
Guilds can “claim” cleared map objectives to confer some sort of specific bonus to members of their guild in the same style as WvW (if majority of contributers belong to a guild they can claim it).

Won’t People Just Show Up for the Big Bad?
Players participating in the completion of any objective are rewarded and receive a key (figuratively speaking) into the Big Bad. Access to the Big Bad is only given to those who contributed in whatever way (read: received objective completion credit). Could be done with an achievement that resets each week.

I Don’t Want to Feel Like I Have to Rush to 80!
Upleveling on the map.

We can reach a good middle ground on difficulty by having the raid get progressively harder as you move through it. That way lesser skilled players can at least get some minimal rewards before they hit their wall that will take them who knows how long to get past, and allows us to keep difficulty in the raids. If from the very beginning the raid is difficult as hell you risk alienating too much of the playerbase, and the result will be a lot of work that only a few people experience. Raiding is something that, if done right, will breathe some life back into the game and pull back a lot of players who have wandered off to other games due to boredom. The later bosses of the raid can be old-school hard where people are replacing monitors and keyboards (90’s video games), but allow the majority of the playerbase a reasonable chance at downing the first boss as long as they stay organized, maybe even with NPC prompts during the fight.

TTS actually has a good idea on how to manage the scaling issue, where the raid can be set at a recommended player number difficulty that you either have slightly more or less of. If we can find a way to make it work to have as many people be able to do the raid together as possible then we should do it.

Blaeys.3102:

I cant get past the 15 player set group restriction you’re trying to set, which basically shuts down the scaling option. Some of us have real issue with that and its potential effect on the community – that we have communicated very clearly – and making that assumption going in (after I and many others have clearly made valid points on this topic) means that I, unfortunately, dont feel welcome in this conversation.

Im sorry this comes across caustic, but this is a very disheartening issue for me. Ive been playing alongside groups averaging between 30-45 players (every one of which is qualified to raid, imo) for almost 2 years that I refuse to leave behind in set number raids because we cant divide them up by 15 reliably every time.

I was forced to do that for years in other games – Guild Wars 2 was supposed to be different. The devs were supposed to care about things like this and keep that exclusionary stuff out of the game.

I would love to join the conversation about mechanics, but not if the end result is something that will potentially fracture the group of players I care so much about in this game.

You’re perfectly welcome in the conversation even if you disagree, that’s been the case in all of the CDI threads, you just have to be flexible enough to discuss under the given parameters. I don’t claim to know what the devs think, but as someone in stark opposition to your thoughts on scaling (despite apparently having similar gaming background) here’s what I have to say to your post:
Constraints are necessary for cohesiveness. While it’s true that every one gets to play the world bosses regardless of group size, it’s equally true that the world bosses are very lackluster from the perspective of player gameplay. World bosses have their place: they keeps the open world alive, they’re exciting and visually stunning, they foster community interaction. But they have limits and are lackluster in other areas, such as gameplay, as a result of what they are.
If the goal of raids is to be cooperative challenging group content, certain constraints will have to be put in place to meet that goal. The devs are asking us to be mindful of those constraints as we discuss.
15 players sounds like a good amount. Too big, and the role of the individual gets watered down. Too small, and it just becomes a glorified dungeon party.
Chris has told us to work with 15, but there was flexibility in what he said, and that flexibility makes this discussion very inclusive to your desires. He said “with the ability to do encounters with less.”.
Making 15 players the dev’s point of balance, but allowing the instance to roughly downscale for smaller group sizes, would allow you to comfortably fit in your varying group of 30 to 45 people. Split 30 into 3 groups of 10 or 2 groups of 15, split 45 into 3 groups of 15, and everything in-between works as well.
Once again, you must work within constraints if you want good content though. In this case, up to 45 player varying sized raids doesn’t work, it’s not what this content is aiming to be. It’s not an instanced world boss. So they’ve constrained it to a smaller number for the sake of cohesiveness and good encounter design.

What’s more, even if they do go with rigid group sizes, it’s not the end of the line for you in this discussion. Think of ways, tools, features, that can aid you in managing your group so that everyone gets to play. Pugging is a powerful tool. In WoW, it’s how I managed to keep my small guild going, and it’s how the GM of a larger guild I was in managed to get everyone raiding when he split us into groups.

I’m aware this may come across as harsh but a couple of things I want to touch on about all this " ANET please don’t change your principals its why we came here in the first place ".

While its true " everything is endgame " the reality is its sort of not from the beginning. Orr can be cleared at level 1, Shatterer can’t be done at level 1, High level fractals can’t be done at level 1. Niether can any of the dungeons. Tequatl and Wurm as well.

I’m willing to admit a flaw here, but the primary drive is that this content happens to be tailored for those at level 80 that have at least exotics, want difficult content etc. Just the same way as the ruins being added in WvW didn’t effect PvE, why should one type of content please players of another type of content? It should encourage yes, but not be entirely re-written and changed so it displeases its original intended audience to keep its secondary audience happy.

That said, again as always I’m going to suggest compromise. I think this would be a genuine boon ( teehee ) to help coax newer players into the idea of raiding too. What about 1 low level raid for varying new players to experience. If you dislike the idea of creating an entire raid take existing world bosses like Shadow Behemoth and create a level 15-20 raid instance with just that one boss ( or only a few ) crank up the difficulty and make it so it scales any higher levels DOWN to a set level and have your gear scale to a set rarity too ( we already have these systems in place ). From there obviously the higher level raids ( level 80 ) would be designed around those at level 80 with exotics and likewise maybe even some achievements like kill this boss under x constraint is designed around full ascended gear with all infusions crazy stuff like that.

Also remember and please note, how many people CURRENTLY playing the game don’t have an 80? The reality is the complaints about " everything is end game " tapers off a bit for me when we look at the fact it rakes quiet little effort to level and get full exotics. Longer if you have less play time, in which I’d argue would you have the play time to be able to raid often? Would that instead actually provide LONGEVITY because you’re like " kitten son, all this leveling experience is crazy and even then when I get to 80 I have even more stuff to do ".

Now the " principals " I don’t want to ever see them throw down the toilet is things like, gear progression, I’d rather see all content be tailored around the exotic and ascended levels of gear forever, and then just make the challenge and difficulty through encounter design. From here every raid ever created would remain relevant, imagine down the track we have 10 raids each with 6 bosses, thats 60 bosses that all take the same amount of skill as when they came out. New players will have this PLETHORA of content and you won’t EVER see the WoW syndrome of having an old tier of content instantly become redundant because of stat bloat.

Also if I had it my way I’d make the combat even more dynamic and awesome, combat is already one of the driving forces of why this game is amazing but I’d love to see the following. I want REAL choice between damage CC and support.

A hammer for example does 1034-1166
A Greatsword does 1045-1155

Why are these 2 options remotely close? Would it not be better to see say a real decision be made between crowd control or damage? Instead of both? Now in a PvE setting I understand that yes at the moment its all pure damage craziness, but there is still an inherent problem when a glass guardian can still take his hammer into fractals and do solid damage and provide boons that his greatsword otherwise couldnt. There is no trade off.

Some encounters are going to be hard to design around when you emphasis those alternative roles without first at least taking a pass over them, making an encounter or mechanic around condition cleanses will just mean classes and specs will still go pure damage but run condi cleanse. Remove boon duration and make healing power give boon duration too, healing power could also alter the strength of boons 20% base protection up to capped healing power gives 50% reduction from protection as an example. Differing thresholds of healing power can alter the duration and power of combo finishers, number of aegis charges, number of condi’s cleansed per skill.

Reducing the damage of CC orientated weapons would give purpose to crowd control require mechanics, instead of just " Oh I’ll just sacrafice a little dps and still just aoe cc everything down, go team! ".

Anyway rant over. The main draw from this is yes principals like gear treadmill shouldn’t be changed, but don’t fall prey to assuming something can’t be tailored for max level, compromises can be made like lower level introductory raids.

As a side node to all the ideas.
If you are going to start developing Raid like content nomatter how it turns out. ATLEAST get your inhouse or hired testers to be able to get thought it with a fairly hard balance to the encounters as you see them going live.
And future! Get in contact with people who are serious communitys doing the world bosses and just general serious people, and let them try doing the raid on a test server without them being able to Stream/Post/Record or talk about it before it releases. This will give you feedback from the people that are hardcore into raiding in a GW2 style!

P.m me if unclear. I will do my best to clarify ^^

Arewn.2368:

Blaeys.3102:

I cant get past the 15 player set group restriction you’re trying to set, which basically shuts down the scaling option. Some of us have real issue with that and its potential effect on the community – that we have communicated very clearly – and making that assumption going in (after I and many others have clearly made valid points on this topic) means that I, unfortunately, dont feel welcome in this conversation.

Im sorry this comes across caustic, but this is a very disheartening issue for me. Ive been playing alongside groups averaging between 30-45 players (every one of which is qualified to raid, imo) for almost 2 years that I refuse to leave behind in set number raids because we cant divide them up by 15 reliably every time.

I was forced to do that for years in other games – Guild Wars 2 was supposed to be different. The devs were supposed to care about things like this and keep that exclusionary stuff out of the game.

I would love to join the conversation about mechanics, but not if the end result is something that will potentially fracture the group of players I care so much about in this game.

You’re perfectly welcome in the conversation even if you disagree, that’s been the case in all of the CDI threads, you just have to be flexible enough to discuss under the given parameters. I don’t claim to know what the devs think, but as someone in stark opposition to your thoughts on scaling (despite apparently having similar gaming background) here’s what I have to say to your post:
Constraints are necessary for cohesiveness. While it’s true that every one gets to play the world bosses regardless of group size, it’s equally true that the world bosses are very lackluster from the perspective of player gameplay. World bosses have their place: they keeps the open world alive, they’re exciting and visually stunning, they foster community interaction. But they have limits and are lackluster in other areas, such as gameplay, as a result of what they are.
If the goal of raids is to be cooperative challenging group content, certain constraints will have to be put in place to meet that goal. The devs are asking us to be mindful of those constraints as we discuss.
15 players sounds like a good amount. Too big, and the role of the individual gets watered down. Too small, and it just becomes a glorified dungeon party.
Chris has told us to work with 15, but there was flexibility in what he said, and that flexibility makes this discussion very inclusive to your desires. He said “with the ability to do encounters with less.”.
Making 15 players the dev’s point of balance, but allowing the instance to roughly downscale for smaller group sizes, would allow you to comfortably fit in your varying group of 30 to 45 people. Split 30 into 3 groups of 10 or 2 groups of 15, split 45 into 3 groups of 15, and everything in-between works as well.
Once again, you must work within constraints if you want good content though. In this case, up to 45 player varying sized raids doesn’t work, it’s not what this content is aiming to be. It’s not an instanced world boss. So they’ve constrained it to a smaller number for the sake of cohesiveness and good encounter design.

What’s more, even if they do go with rigid group sizes, it’s not the end of the line for you in this discussion. Think of ways, tools, features, that can aid you in managing your group so that everyone gets to play. Pugging is a powerful tool. In WoW, it’s how I managed to keep my small guild going, and it’s how the GM of a larger guild I was in managed to get everyone raiding when he split us into groups.

I respect and appreciate what you are saying here, but it is obvious that the “fewer than 15” part of that statement goes back to what was proposed earlier in the thread – in that groups fewer than 15 will be about creating artificial challenge (similar to soloing dungeons). That is unrealistic when groups first start to raid content – the time when members will most want to be involved and included.

If that is what they end up doing, I will be disappointed, but I will understand why (though still probably disagree). What I have issue with is placing that constraint on the conversation as a given this early in the CDI.

If were going to have a CDI thread about raiding, then it should include discussions, feedback and even compromises (hopefully) about the topics we care about – not dismiss them out of hand with no real back and forth.

It is a disappointing turn in a discussion I had hoped would be more open and productive.

Again, I appreciate the productive and even helpful tone of your post. I just still feel this issue warrants actual discussion and feedback.

The Great Al.2546:

Palador.2170:

Think of it like a typical multi-level dungeon in most RPGs. The first level is easy, but it gets harder as you go down. Getting to the boss requires good skill and equipment. Players are free to go as far as they can get. That way, only a part of the new content would be “raiders only”.

This is the opposite of what I would like to see. Hardcore players have to sleepwalk through ‘easy’ content, and casual players miss out on potentially some cool levels. I’d rather just see two versions of the same dungeon, one that is beatable by more or less everyone, and one that is truly difficult (with higher rewards).

I’d be happy with your way of doing it as well, I think. I simply voiced the idea I’d had because I’d not really seen anyone else suggesting such a thing.

Reading this thread, though, I’m beginning to realize that I honestly don’t think GW2 should have raids. Ever.

It might be better to go back to the very basics. What do people enjoy about raids? What do you want from them? What parts are fun? Once we know that, we might be able to find a way to deliver that without raids. If we’re going to see GW2 put their own spin on this, then we need to question everything instead of assuming that old answers are the right answers.

So, currently posting from a phone so this will be short and sweet . But expect a ton of involvement from me throughout this cdi. When discussing raids in gw2, i feel like the biggest problem we will face will be the individual contribution from the players. With a lack of designated roles such as tanks, healers, and other various supports, the individuals contribution and sense of involvement in the raid is going to have to come from fight mechanics instead of coming from the class mechanics of the players. I feel the perfect example of how the “no trinity” system in gw2 can still make for good , challenging, rewarding content, was the marionette event released along side the triple headed wurm. The largest role played in that event, was the players knowledge of the often challenging mechanics of the 5 different mob types faught. I feel raid content in gw2 will have to be based around this same concept.

Really quick.

As stated already, even though many disagree. Raid should have a party cconstraint. And as stated by others, discussion is necessary to explore all ooptions, but having a raid scale to size will take away from what a raid should be, a raid should not be am instanced world boss, but instead a series of challenging content with unique mechanics.

These should not be guild activities, forcing players into a larger guild, or forcing players into a raiding guild should not be a side affect from this content, I personally come from a guild of 10 friends or so that have been playing with me sense launch, requiring guilds to upgrade to unlock Raids would be a way of effectively “gating” off your player base until all requirements have been met, which I disagree with.

Rewards should be similar to those of dungeons, special currency for the raids, I was thinking individual currency for each raid encounter, for raid specific vendors, and a “raid wide” currency which can be used to purchase items not specific to a certain instance, but unique to raiding as a whole. This could include skins for weapon and gear, while the individual tokens could be used to purchase items and skins, possibly crafting materials for raid specific loot

I’ll have more to share later

Please don’t make this a guild activity. By raven…

So much discussion! Alas, having been out the past two nights I have not been able to keep up However, I have noted a lot of good ideas and want to add my voice to them.

Splitting Teams (My favorite core concept)
This was the glory of the Marionette. While I’d want fresh ideas in a raid rather than just changing the window dressing on essentially the same fight, the Marionette was absolutely brilliant. It kept me coming back long after I had all the achieves just because I loved the fight itself. Many people had to coordinate yet at any one part of the fight it came down to a handful of combatants doing it right. (There was the issue with griefers deliberately failing it; hopefully in a group who teamed up specifically for it, that wouldn’t happen. Or at least the griefer would lose future access to runs with that team).

Many people in this CDI have suggested variations on this idea. I love the concept of having different teams doing different things. Now, under that system, rewards could not be in any way tied to dps. They’d have to come from participation in all aspects of the fight. (Or not fight, necessarily. What about a raid that is a stealth rescue mission, or uses a lot of Zephyr crystal skills to reach levers to pull? Heck, what about having parts of the story of the mission where you’re doing Whispers secret stuff, akin to the DR party in the recent LS?). Yet many resist having their professions neutered by altering the skill bars, so there should be necessary profession action to pass various points, albeit different methods for different profs that achieve the same goal.

Non RNG Rewards
I see nothing wrong with a token system. The account wallet lets us accrue tokens towards a specific purchase based on relevant activities, without using up inventory space. If I want plant armor, I run TA. If I want temple armor, I work up my karma. It’s in line with the zone-specific reward system we see in Dry Top. Every time we put the effort in towards that activity, we progress towards the desired reward at a visible rate.

Sure, toss in random chances for precursors, ascended boxes, exotics, rares, and lesser loot. The same psychology behind Junk items applies. Much as some complain about it, it still makes you feel you got something for the kill. But make the special rewards definitively available for every player for the same amount of skill and effort.

Accessibility
I know this is a Guild Raid CDI. Yet I find myself agreeing that guild membership should not be an absolute requirement, though creating a raid instance might be guild-triggered. There can be a Raid Chat channel to allow text coordination with those invited along who are not in guild chat. (Or, as I’ve been begging since forever, give us custom chat channels. Those can be used in all aspects of the game and created on the fly for a raid, then deleted if desired. How to moderate them is a whole other issue, though). Just keep the social flexibility this game offers and avoid artificial barriers to entry beyond skill and finding people that want you in their raid.

Thus, no prereq’s to unlock raid entry, please. Especially not character based. Maybe a level requirement, as bringing a level 1 would likely be insane. And if issues with scaling can be worked out, let things be flexible moment to moment as to size of the raid.

I do want skill to be a factor. I chewed my fair share of glass in WoW raids and had the time of my life thanks to a supportive guild that laughed off wipes instead of going rabid at each other. I have no problem with a steep learning curve; the win is so much more rewarding when you get good! But I don’t think it needs to be split-second perfection over 30 minutes on the part of 20 to 40 people — that’s hard-core and not this game’s style. I .. am likely rambling to the word limit, so I’m stopping.

maha.7902:

I honestly get kind of worried that ANet will take on board these “make it so X and Y active defense mechanics don’t work on boss Z” suggestions. I mean if you make a game with active combat reliant on combat awareness, why would you then punish people who have the reflexes to actually dodge boss choreographs?

And if a raid is going to force us to spread out in a fight it would be nice if it was for a legitimate reason and not just "well, the community didn’t like meleeing so let’s have it so everyone runs around with ranged weapons because raid boss A has big scary one-shot pulsing PbAoE of doom.

Taking feedback from the community is good but I think the sillier ideas or ones fueled by resentment and completely disregarding sense should be filtered.

I really hope Crystal and Chris and other devs see through the lines and just dodges these issues to not confront with players to keep the discussion alive.
But yeah, all this melee punishing ideas are worrying a bit.

Palador.2170:

It might be better to go back to the very basics. What do people enjoy about raids? What do you want from them? What parts are fun? Once we know that, we might be able to find a way to deliver that without raids. If we’re going to see GW2 put their own spin on this, then we need to question everything instead of assuming that old answers are the right answers.

For me it’s teamwork, camaraderie, figuring out puzzles, and seeing interesting settings. Also variety of activity within the course of the run. Getting cool looking gear and titles is a plus as well, along with the triumph of mastering a challenge.

That last is so subjective, however. Everyone has a different point at which challenge becomes agonizing frustration that makes them quit rather than keep going.

CMM.6712:

The Great Al.2546:

CMM.6712:

The Great Al.2546:

As a longtime player but by no means ‘hardcore’, I would hope that any instanced raiding implementation would also have a ‘normal’ mode. Otherwise, you guys will be putting out new instances/areas/mechanics/etc that only the top 10% (for example) will ever be able to experience. This would also help any raid-related releases generate excitement for all players, because even if you don’t have hours at a time to spend raiding, you could still somehow enjoy the content in a more relaxed way. (with obviously significantly reduced rewards).

Or potentially if some large scale events happened in the open world at a ‘decently hard’ difficulty, with the potential for guilds to create instanced ‘hard’ versions of those events.

No. Too much is already catered to casuals and new players. We want this to be confusing and difficult.

Yes, and you will get the confusing and difficult. I am asking for a separate version that is catered to the casual player that will have absolutely no negative impact on the real raiders. Think about regular vs hard mode in GW1. You can play hard mode and not even know that regular mode exists. Why would you be against everyone else being able to play a toned down (in terms of difficultly and reward) version?

The only reason I would be against it is more work for the team. Other than that, I don’t have a problem with it. Seems like double the work to me though, just saying.

I’m also a less than hardcore player, but I feel like I’d have to agree. I mean, sure, you could have an easy mode with lower rewards, but at that point it is of no benefit to anyone beyond just seeing what it’s like. I mean, if you do something that’s much more work than a dungeon, gets roughly the same amount of reward as a dungeon, and leaves you with a stigma from playing “easy mode” and not working towards the real rewards you can get, then is that really something you want to do over and over?

If it’s going to be a trivial matter to implement, then sure, make it scale difficulty and rewards! But if it’s going to be something that requires sacrifice in other aspects, definitely just make the hard mode and wait for the players to adjust.

Proposal Overview
Bring back Fissure of Woe or Underworld, but run the maps like Drytop. All players working together for some larger reward, in the case a large boss battle.
Goal of Proposal
Encourage high levels of cooperation.
Proposal Functionality
Mechanics are Drytop are already exist.
Underworld is already mentioned with the existence of Shadow Behemoth
If made a general map, you wouldn’t need to increase party sizes, but could cap the map so the X number of people that make it in do have work together.
Use mega-server tech to prioritize putting parties and guilds in the map
Associated Risks
“Imperfect groupings”
maps without enough people to achieve the goal
Probably not a raid as some people would view it

As we talked about “Dodge” and how we could change it, some thoughts came to my mind (look at each one as a seperate one):

• aoe damage can’t be avoided
• only dodging in the “right” direction avoids all damage. Dodging into an attack would even hurt you. This would make it possible to create attacks that hit you from the left/right. Current attacks come from the front, so dodging into these attacks hurts you.
• dodge into an enemy let’s you crash into him and, depending on the size, let’s you/him tumble (example: if 10 players dodge into a big enemy at the same time, the boss tumbles. If you dodge alone into a troll, you tumble.
• do not make the character invulnerable when dodging but scale the damage you get with your toughness.
• there could also be new stats on our gear: aoe-dodge avoid, single-target dodge value, dodge range, dodge energy, etc. but this is quite complicated and probably a nightmare to balance

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Hi Conncept,

Thanks for posting.

Your comments highlight what we are actually trying to achieve with this Raiding CDI.

We should not be designing a system that is the same as other games, we should instead be playing to the strengths of our own game where for example raid encounters can be designed around how our own combat system works which will create forcing functions that diversify player activities and encounters.

Let’s start with the core of control and combat of our game and build on that foundation rather than trying to take existing systems from elsewhere and retrofit them.

Chris

I don’t see how…. you got any of that from my post.

I’m not taking mechanics from anywhere or attempting to make GW2 like any other game, that I know of at least. If you know of a game or source that I clearly appear to be drawing from I’d like to know what it is. I’ve never even maxed a character in another MMO, and I’ve played dozens, this is literally the very first I’ve liked, and I like it… a lot. But in spite of what I like about it I would like to see it improve over the barebones mechanics it launched with.

For example, I don’t know of any MMO (made prior to GW2 at least) that even has a dodge system, let alone one with the suggestions I’ve made. But, what I do know is that the current dodge system is unfulfilling for most players, it isn’t designed to a certain aesthetic differing from other games, it is mechanically flawed, placed alongside other game systems with almost no interaction between them to encourage diversity of play or interesting and engaging player choices in the majority of the games content. You choose dodge over any other form of defense unless you wish to be (or just don’t care if you are) less effective.

Similarly, I don’t know any game that has handled conditions as ANet has handled them, or critical how I suggested. And I suggested such because they create a dichotomy of dependency that is discouraging interesting player choice. Power, critical chance, and critical damage are a triumvirate of stats that, between the three of them, bring one thing and one thing only to the table. There is no reason to take critical damage and power, or critical chance and power, or just critical chance and critical damage. This basically creates a sub-damage type, that isn’t truly sub damage at all but an appendage damage type, and therefore there is no reason for it to exist, you could increase base power damage and remove critical chance and critical damage and the game would be mechanically unaffected. As it currently works, the only reason it even exists is to fill out the triumvirate of stats as they appear on gear. However were critical damage to stand on its own, it would be a compelling choice rather than mere mechanical filler. Condition damage and duration for example stand on their own and create much more fulfilling play, but only situationally so, because of technical difficulties which I certainly can’t address, but which anyone can still see plain as day need addressing.

As for the AI, I don’t see how that is ripped from anywhere. But it is admittedly not necessary in the current game, because there is no reason to have a diversity of enemy mechanics without a similar diversity of player mechanics. But were we actually to gain functional and fulfilling play and build diversity, playing through the games current enemy mechanics would be akin to holding an olympic swimming meet in a ten meter pool. Players would just wonder why they have so many methods of play with nowhere and nothing to use them on.

Donari.5237:

Palador.2170:

It might be better to go back to the very basics. What do people enjoy about raids? What do you want from them? What parts are fun? Once we know that, we might be able to find a way to deliver that without raids. If we’re going to see GW2 put their own spin on this, then we need to question everything instead of assuming that old answers are the right answers.

For me it’s teamwork, camaraderie, figuring out puzzles, and seeing interesting settings. Also variety of activity within the course of the run. Getting cool looking gear and titles is a plus as well, along with the triumph of mastering a challenge.

That last is so subjective, however. Everyone has a different point at which challenge becomes agonizing frustration that makes them quit rather than keep going.

I notice that you didn’t mention a huge battle at the end. Come to think of it, people keep asking for challenging fights, but not actually for big ones.

How would this strike you? A dungeon where three teams take three different paths through it as the same time, with each team doing things to help the others. Team A takes over a guardhouse, and they raise a gate for Team B. Stuff like that, so that all three teams need to progress together. Then, at the end team B confronts the big bad guy, but Teams A and C need to defend altars that the boss’s minions will use to place protective spells around him. This way you can have 15 (or so) people working towards the one goal, but none of the actual fights need to be made for 15 people. I’m pretty sure it’s easier to make a challenging fight for 5 people than it is for 15.

Me personally , id like to see the raids like marionette , teq , jungle wurm but on a smaller scale , also make conditions more useful , e.g condition party for controlling husks giving roles in raids , makes them more fun than a zerg fest

@Palador: Yes, that sort of thing was what I was getting at in my longer post above in my section on Splitting Teams.

Which isn’t to say I don’t like a big boss fight that contains the elements I mentioned, but I can have just as much fun on interesting “trash” as on a big bad if it promotes the things I enjoy.

In fact I don’t like the idea of trash as such. Why should there be any part of the experience that is considered a boring stumbling block? Why not build in interesting mechanics to every part of the dungeon? Of course we need lesser enemies to populate the place, preferably making sense for their location (Caudecus Manor does this superbly) but they should involve intriguing mechanics of their own where the answer is not just “dps the heck outta them and move along.”

I’m about to face plant but here’s a random example: The team enters a library. A certain pattern of books must be removed to open the secret passage to the next section. However the librarians keep putting the books back as well as getting violent (think the bandits and powder kegs in CM) and thus must be rooted or knocked back by some of the team while others yank out the books. Maybe even add in a “noise” bar similar to that blind dragon in WoW that will summon something nastier if the team gets too loud, which can be a fun fight in itself but slow down overall progress and possibly throw off timing such that not all teams get to the death trap shark pool in time to disable it …

Goal of Proposal

Ensure that rewards properly drive players to engage in challenging and difficult content instead of choosing the easier content because it is more profitable (not simply because it is easier.)

What problem are you trying to solve with your proposal

GW2 has a wonderful combat system that is well utilized in many encounters. Unfortunately, the most easily completed content is often also the most profitable. This provides little drive to the challenging content.

Proposal Functionality

I am sure that this is not intentional. It is unlikely that Anet devs decided “Hey, lets make sure that the hardest game content isn’t as rewarding as easier content.” Instead, I know this is a matter of it being difficult to accurately judge what a proper reward is. After all, players are constantly surprising, and giving a place improper rewards can have disastrous effects on other content.

It’s important to give difficult content unique and tradeable rewards. Prestige items like the fractal weapons are great, and their lack of tradeability causes them to be a testament to one’s devotion. The Twilight Aether weapons are an example of a good reward, though valuable skins unfortunately must be rare enough to maintain value that they often fail as a compelling reward system.

Instead, I propose that you ensure that difficult content provides a frequently liquid item that other players will want, but that many will be unwilling to earn due to the difficulty of the content. If the new content has an item awarded similar to how Fractal Relics are (something which scales with the content) but is desired by the playerbase in a way such as foxfire clusters are (used in large quantities to make an item that most players, specifically those even those who won’t be running the content as well, will want) then balancing the rewards will be much easier as the players themselves will determine as a group what the value of running this content is.

Associated Risks

Many players dislike having to purchase items to create something that they want or feel they “need”. (For example, people who farm for materials to use instead of farm for gold to buy the materials) These players might feel that they are being “forced” to play content they’d rather not do. However, much of the economy of an MMO is entirely based around the idea of paying money to people who perform an action you don’t want to do (for example, farming materials) using gold you earned from actions you do want to do; so I don’t think these complaints are worthy of great concern. As long as they can be earned with gold, everyone should (hypothetically) be pleased.

2 more cents: really really like the idea of The Underworld being implemented somehow and working together to do it, that was a blast in speed clears. Known mechanics, idea of loot, unforgiving, if all wipe you are done.

I was thinking about the marionette fight and how i would design/change this fight to make it an interesting introduction boss in the raid. So here is my encounter idea.

I am assuming a raid party size of 15 players.

Remove the lane phase.

At the beginning of the fight there will be 3 platforms. You will send 5 players to each platform. To start the fight you will push a button on each platform.
On the platforms players will face 3 different mini bosses.
The mini bosses want to destroy something like a power cable to keep the platforms from raising and you have to do 3 different things to keep them from destroying it.

Platform A mini boss: you have to kill this boss in a set amount of time or he will explode and destroy X objective.

Platform B mini boss: this guy has to kill every player first before he can go to the objective and destroy it. Players cannot deal damage to him. The goal here is to stay alive. This can be done via defensive boons, buffs, banners, blasting waterfields, defensive gear, whatever.

Platform C mini boss: this mini boss will destroy X objective if you do not permanently CC him. Could work like removing one defiance stack. But in this case removing 1 defiance stack will stun the mini boss for X seconds.
You cannot deal damage to him and he cannot deal damage to you.

If one platform fails → wipe.

This phase will be divided into 2 phases.
In phase 1 the platform will raise from ground level to 50% height, in phase 2 from 50% to 100%.

Once the group on platform A defeated the mini boss phase 1 will end and players will be teleported down to the ground.

Here the players will have to fulfill a special task.
The marionette has 15 defiance stacks. you have to take down all of the defiance stacks in a set amount of time, lets say 20 seconds and then CC the marionette again to achieve a MoO (Moment of Oppoturnity) for 10 seconds.
Each time 2 defiance stacks are taken away, every player will take damage.
If you use more than 2 CC skills at the same time → wipe.
So players will use 2 CC skills, heal each other, 2 CC skills, heal each other…….
If the players are successful, they will be able to deal lots of damage to the marionette during the 10 seconds MoO.
(Basically you are doing your platform job, but coordinated with 15 players now)
Then the players will be teleported back to the platforms and phase 2 begins.
If the players fail to take down the 20 defiance stacks and CC the marionette … → wipe.

During the MoO after phase 1 and 2 you cannot deal more damage than 25% hp to the marionette.

Fast forward to right after phase 2 and the second MoO ends, the real fight will beginn.
Players will fight the marionette.
Add AoE attacks that players have to dodge. Add projectile attacks that have to be reflected or absorbed. Add a slow “kick” autoattack that works more like an AoE and hits across the area. The time window between the AoE, projectile and kick attack should be rather large.
Add a special attack called “healing bots”. The marionette will send 3 healing bots into different directions and players have to interrupt and kill the healing bots before they can reach objectives around the area. If players fail to do so, the healing bots will heal the marionette for X amount of hp.

Easy stuff, but it needs coordination, will teach players basics and i think something like this would be pretty cool.

I had a sketchy idea earlier this month about a potential “three group raid” and hearing “15 people” made me dig it out again. Take something like an entire instanced zone becoming a raid objective. Taking for inspiration, the current situation with Mordremoth’s influence allowed to move anywhere almost unchecked.

A zone is marked as “under Mordremoth’s attack” and players zoning in are shunted into the zone as normal but with an NPC near the portals/waypoints who auto-addresses them with a prompt to join the fight on one of three fronts if they have a group ready, otherwise they will just suggest they gather a group.

Now spin an instance off of the zone as being attacked by the tendrils and minions of Mordremoth, with three distinct targets. Each target uses different mechanics, different advantages for the players, and different attack patterns. Say one of them for a zone may use underwater mechanics (killing Mordrem pods underwater while hassled by minions), another requires climbing on sturdy vines to attack the target, another is using Pact weaponry (a la Claw of Jormag) to break through and deal damage. Take inspirations from already-existing dynamic World Events which most people do regularly – after all, we’re building on what’s existing to make it easier for people to know what to do.

When those targets are taken, they can share a bonus to others still fighting, but there is only a window of opportunity. If all three targets are taken down within the window, then the main target pops. Say one path which used Pact weapons is now free to redeploy them to assist other paths. Or the high ground means mortars can be set up to drop healing wells or other traplike effects on the enemies. Or the underwater means now stealthed Whisper Agents can help rally players who aren’t actively being attacked.

But the big showdown – The Shadow of the Dragon comes to fight, and is almost as mobile and good at harassing as it was at the Pale Tree – it lands and dishes out attacks, but at set health intervals it will trigger different phases of the fight. (Rather than give it Defiant/Unshakable, another option – if CCd for more than a set amount of time, instead of getting locked that way it moves to the next phase early.) I did that fight and it seemed there was a lot of need to pay attention or get knocked around and beaten up quickly. Along with quite a serious amount of coverage in the area, which suggests this could be perfect as a raid boss if it was able to be mobile and not “stand in one spot and face one direction” like Tequatl, the Shatterer . . . and to a lesser extent, Jormag.

A successful run means the player cannot try again for that attack, a failure means they can try again as soon as they are ready. The zone will lose the attack status after one hour.

Rewards? First time clearing this battle, an achievement with a chest which can give any of the exclusive rewards for the raid. The chest may drop normally at the normal “scarce” RNG rate. And not “Carved Bone Spoon” scarce . . . Make it special weapon models, armor skins, a Mini, or for those who really just want them? Foxfire Clusters or other rare crafting materials from a random bag.

Wow, so many pages already!

Types of Raiding
There are many types of raiding, which one are we discussing specifically?

This has probably come up already in the 9 previous pages, but what do people think about the gear required to do the raids? Most if not all PVE game play has boiled down to Berserker gear being the desired gear. I personally would like to see other varying builds being all required or at least more beneficial than just everyone going DPS.

Here’s my take on how I think the design and difficulty of raiding should be.

Design
Progression towards raiding should be divided in levels and this should be open to everyone, casuals / pros alike. What will set them apart is the progression and you’ll be able to find players at your ‘raiding skill level’.
So for example, to be able to reach level 2 raiding, everyone in the party has to have finished the level 1 raiding or won’t be able to join. The purpose of this proposal, is to avoid confusion amongst players and elitism behavior towards those that are less skilled. As players will only be able to group with players in their skill level.

Difficulty
There are two types on difficulties based on experience. The frustrating type which is just so hard that makes you feel, well, frustrated. This could be a path that for example the boss is super hard for all the wrong reasons and when you die, you’re set right back to the start.
Then we have the ‘just one more try difficulty’, which I personally love. This is difficult, but every time you face this encounter, it feels like you could actually make it if you would do this or that different. Encouraging communication amongst the players on how to tackle the encounter the best. The lower levels of raiding which are easier, will require decent player skill and maybe some tweak on your personal skills. While the harder raiding levels, will require not only the player to change, but for the whole party to change to accommodate to the situation.

This simply means that you will be molding the players for the raiding as experience is gained gradually on each level on what needs to be done.
But as mentioned before, raiding should be open to everyone, casuals and whatnot. Only being limited by the progression of the player.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

cesmode.4257:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Neon.5976:

Crystal Reid.2481:

So having said that where do you feel raiding falls (end game VS horizontal)?

I’d want to see Raids as end game content. Others are right in stating that other games have raids as end game content – it’s what they are normally categorised as. However I’m not sure I follow the logic where that therefore means they shouldn’t be end game content in GW2. It’s not like end game raids make a game worse or less appealing and I don’t want to be forced to go play a different game to play the type of content I like. It’s important to avoid getting hung up on whether GW2 should or shouldn’t be taking cues from other games and to focus on making raids they best they can be, regardless of where the ideas come from.

I’d like to see raids as end game content as challenging PVE content is something that is currently missing from the game and raids could the thing that fills the hole. It’s not as if end game raids make all other content redundant. In fact if they weren’t end game you could argue they could be so similar to other content such as dungeons or world bosses depending on their final form that they would start making other content redundant.

I suppose ultimately people want raids to be accessible. However if they are too easy they make the game as a whole less accessible. Those who want easier content, who already have a very diverse selection to choose from will get more, which is great for them. But those who want the challenging endgame PVE content that is currently lacking would be left out. In that sense by making raids more accessible, GW2 could potentially miss an opportunity to appeal to a wider audience.

Personally I would also want to see raids as end game content and by that I mean level 80 only.

Chris

Hi, I mentioned this in my first post a few moments ago. I could be out of date as well as this mind set that we were given early on…but isn’t the entire game ‘endgame’ ? Hop in, do whatever you want to do. No pressure, nada. Take your time, the whole thing is your oyster. When you start creating level 80 content only, ala raids, you segregate the playerbase much like other games where its then a rush to max level to do the raids. All of the gorgeous 1-80 content you have in this game becomes completely trivial and a stepping stone to the real game. You might as well just allow people to boost to 80 via potions or something and skip leveling all together because it becomes absolutely meaningless. A meaningless time sink. I didnt need 80 levels to learn my class. Maybe less than two dozen and I had it down. The rest was just enjoyment because the 1-80 content was nice. I leveled through it without any pressure. Put max level content in the game, and we will feel rushed to get to the real stuff. Its human nature.

For this reason, I do not think raids belong in GW2. But if they are to be implemented, I do have suggestions which I have shared

Yep this is an astute point. Let’s not worry about levels in this discussion then. However we should focus on the foundation of this content being challenging, requiring skill and strategic co-operation whilst being build around the core combat, movement and accessibility of GW2.

Chris

cesmode makes a most valid point. Something I worry about a lot with introducing raiding in Gw2 is that a lot of stuff that were previously optional now stop being optional. Dont want to go after a full set of ascended gear.. no problem, there is no content tuned to the point of requiring ascended gear. Exotic is all you need. Yet with raiding this will become a problem. If the raid itself is tuned for exotics rather then ascended then it will not provide the full challenge for raid teams in full ascended etc..

What if raiding worked a bit like sPvP and you are lvl80 with a set stats. I think that would address both cesmode and my concerns.

Sorry for focusing on levels right in the post you said not too.. Its just I feel this is a big issue worth pointing out.

Sadly, i really think the idea of instanced large scale raids in this game is probably a waste of resources. That especially if the core focus is on guilds. While numbers might show that guilds or clans are more likely to do raids, the attitude that you have to be an active member in a guild to participate in content would still remain. I’d venture a guess that most people just PUG most of the time, since it has become such a popular term.

I know the development idea that GW2 needs to be the swiss army knife of MMOs is prevalent, so you either stay with that focus and build this type of stuff to cater to a lower number of players or build content that makes sense to a wider audience. That may seem contradictory, but when you try to cater to a smaller group of players with raids, i just don’t see how that’s an efficient use of time.

I’m at the point of truly believing the direction of this game is far to scattered, first it wants to “dumb down” the game with the NPE and now we are discussing more challenging content with raids? The people that want such a challenge would hardly want to level a toon to get to it. I mean lets face facts here, megaserver basically turned pve into a spam 1 fest. Basically, this game already has raids, minus the fact that they are only 5 man, with dungeons.

What i gather from being an avid reader on the forums is people are really interested in more content, with less bugs and stuff that feels more rewarding.

Gene Archer.8560:

Retro.6831:

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

All of this post. Every ounce of it.

Thia.4891:

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

This as well.

Conski Deshan.2057:

This is not about excluding people,

I disagree, it is absolutely about excluding people.

This is the very reason I disagree with raids existing in this game at all. Players claim they want challenging content, but they don’t. They want -exclusive- content with -exclusive- rewards.

I have to agree fully with Gene and Retro here. GW did pretty good with challenge versus reward, green farming was a big thing, same with ecto farming and i will say it was some of the most fun i’ve had in a game. As it is, the game basically hands you just about everything. While there are some exclusive skins to be chased after, they are so heavily handed with RNG, it makes people just not want to bother doing the same thing over and over on easy mode. Any of the challenging stuff, doesn’t really offer all that great loot to make it worth doing.

Chris, you asked about “what we can do inside our game mechanics to create interesting, new and challenging fights” or something like this, so I suppose we should look at what kitten nal do every player have.
1. We have obvoius things like movement (running, walking, jumping dodging) these give us opportunity to express how important in GW2’s combat positioning (most of the time) is (or should be). Puzzles that require chasing something, running away from something, jumping over something we pretty much hve a lot of these already in game (SE p1 boss have these cool rings that dmg everyone inside, they are created around players, teq have waves, CoF p1 have braziers, CoF p2 have bombs part, vulcno fractal have fireballs and so on).
2. Combat related abilities. Here it gets more complicated, we have ton of awesome features of combat in GW2 and with current possibility to swap traits on fly, most proffesions have at least minimal possibility t acces most of these. Stuns, heals, conditions, immobilise, aggro management are all part of this category.
- Maybe we could see bosses that can be damaged only in certain spots (so they have to bo dragged and held there? They might want to get away from these places, so only immobilise, stuns would prevent them from doing so.
- Maybe we can see boss spawning mobs similar to husks from wurms? heavily armored but vulnerable to conditions to create roles for greater variety of builds.
- Maybe lets make some of the bosses managable aggro? Like ooze from new TA path. This mechanics can create niche for tanky builds, maybe aggro can be drawn if character have shield equipped? This way it can be relatively easily swapped between people who discusss strategy before fight.
3. Non movement, non fight related challages. These are difficult to pull off as most of the time they are puzzles, and they present designed challange only 1st time they are encountered (riddle like skill points, most of the jumping puzzles). There are also coordination oriented challanges (tons of these in CoE and in Guild Jumpig Puzzles).

Chris Whiteside.6102:

How about we focus on progression later and start brainstorming the core activities and encounters.

Don’t have alot of time (it took a while to catch up), but here are a few thoughts on what I would like to see in the encounters in a raid:

• A rework of Defiance:
  • Maybe the boss just has a fixed numbers of stacks. This way the “controllers” always know how many interrupts are needed to interrupt something.
  • Perhaps the stacks refresh if left untouched for a few seconds (5-10?), thus requiring that all necessary interrupts happen in short succession.
  • Let other control effects (immobilize, chill, cripple and blind) have more effect than they currently have. Make them viable.

• A need for movement:
  • Environmental effects (AoE etc.) appear in cycles (or randomly) – the party cannot remain in the same spot for more than a few seconds (whatever seems a fair amount of time).
  • Maybe some environmental effects can be negated with specific fields (waterfields on fire etc.).
  • Maybe some effects can only be removed with certain skill effects (burning removing vines etc.)
  • Some effects could require parts of the party to “leave” the fight to control/negate the effect through environmental means (levers, bundles etc.)

• A more visual aggro/threat system:
  • Not asking for threat generating abilities.
  • But a system to indicate which player is being targeted by the boss.
    • This could be a threat table, or it could be a sound or visual cue when the boss targets someone.

• Bosses and other encounters:
  • “Boss”-encounters doesn’t necessarily have to be a boss (or 2).
  • Could be gauntlet-like events, defense events etc.

Just a few thoughts before I go back to studying.

While you are considering about doing any Raid mode in gw2 I would recommend you to watch a speed clear video of dungeons.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0zSEYyoj7M&feature=youtu.be
It would not be very nice if Raids could have speed clear.
So just dont make any boss dumb like dungeon bosses.
Raid is not fun when you can kill the boss in 37 seconds. or in 15 seconds.

Make a fight. Ask your self how come we made a boss who has mechanics but he cant use them because he dies in few seconds?
If you find the answer to that feel free to fix all the other bosses in gw2.

Mobility is not the answer if boss can die in few seconds.
You added more HP but even that was not the answer, they were killed in few seconds more….

Think about terrain, about the map, dont allow people to push the boss in the corner and destroy him, or create a jumping puzzle to avoid the boss fight and continue to the second boss. If you want to create a boss, give him some reward, otherwise he will be ignored because he is the waste of time.

And remember RNG is bad, and rare chance of 0.001% is bad.

I think a really good punishment for death would be to spawn a champ with the exact skill set of the killed player. That player then becomes a ghost that can watch but not interact with that phase of the content. When phase changes they can re- join the group.
wipe just means they need to respawn entire raid, reward only on completion.

Reward & difficulty perfect scenario
Tokens and daily/weekly caps to obtain them.

Let’s say first boss in a raid drop 10 tokens (first boss should be easy).
A puzzle, trash mobs, whatever…
Second boss fight! he drops 20 tokens (a little bit harder).
More stuff…
Third boss! he drops 30 tokens (this should be hard).

The raid tokens should be only obtainable daily per account (or weekly if the raid is long enough and takes 7-8 hours to complete, which would be awesome).
Now let’s say the… [insert desired item from raid vendor NPC] costs 60 tokens.

If you are an skilled player and got an skilled group of players, you can clear the entire raid in 1 day and get the 60 tokens, getting your reward without RNG. If you, however, are not good enough to beat the last boss but you can at least kill the first boss, you can just keep coming week after week getting 10 tokens each time until you get 60 for your item. A hardcore group would get the item in 1 week, the bad group would get it in 6 weeks.

With this system, hardcore groups are rewarded, but not-as-hardcore groups can also get the desired reward (and encouraged to improve, which is always good). This system is in my opinnion the best rewarding system for raiding.

Sidenote: You can as well place a random miniature that only drop from final boss in an RNG based move to improve replayability. That way, when someone gets all the items from the npc, he will still have a reason to go raiding.

Kellth.2146:

cesmode.4257:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Neon.5976:

Crystal Reid.2481:

So having said that where do you feel raiding falls (end game VS horizontal)?

I’d want to see Raids as end game content. Others are right in stating that other games have raids as end game content – it’s what they are normally categorised as. However I’m not sure I follow the logic where that therefore means they shouldn’t be end game content in GW2. It’s not like end game raids make a game worse or less appealing and I don’t want to be forced to go play a different game to play the type of content I like. It’s important to avoid getting hung up on whether GW2 should or shouldn’t be taking cues from other games and to focus on making raids they best they can be, regardless of where the ideas come from.

I’d like to see raids as end game content as challenging PVE content is something that is currently missing from the game and raids could the thing that fills the hole. It’s not as if end game raids make all other content redundant. In fact if they weren’t end game you could argue they could be so similar to other content such as dungeons or world bosses depending on their final form that they would start making other content redundant.

I suppose ultimately people want raids to be accessible. However if they are too easy they make the game as a whole less accessible. Those who want easier content, who already have a very diverse selection to choose from will get more, which is great for them. But those who want the challenging endgame PVE content that is currently lacking would be left out. In that sense by making raids more accessible, GW2 could potentially miss an opportunity to appeal to a wider audience.

Personally I would also want to see raids as end game content and by that I mean level 80 only.

Chris

Hi, I mentioned this in my first post a few moments ago. I could be out of date as well as this mind set that we were given early on…but isn’t the entire game ‘endgame’ ? Hop in, do whatever you want to do. No pressure, nada. Take your time, the whole thing is your oyster. When you start creating level 80 content only, ala raids, you segregate the playerbase much like other games where its then a rush to max level to do the raids. All of the gorgeous 1-80 content you have in this game becomes completely trivial and a stepping stone to the real game. You might as well just allow people to boost to 80 via potions or something and skip leveling all together because it becomes absolutely meaningless. A meaningless time sink. I didnt need 80 levels to learn my class. Maybe less than two dozen and I had it down. The rest was just enjoyment because the 1-80 content was nice. I leveled through it without any pressure. Put max level content in the game, and we will feel rushed to get to the real stuff. Its human nature.

For this reason, I do not think raids belong in GW2. But if they are to be implemented, I do have suggestions which I have shared

People won’t rush to level 80 to do end game content. GW2 is known for it’s really solid and fun leveling experience therefore most people will still take their time and they won’t rush it. Also if people were to rush to level 80 it would be a very small amount of people. Therefore we don’t really need to worry about that small minority that wants to rush to level 80. People will rush to whatever level they want regardless of content.

I disagree. In any game that has a traditional end game, the players eat up the leveling content in a blink of an eye. Developers claim they didn’t plan for the speed at which we burn through it and thus are unprepared for the masses. Yes, people will burn through the leveling.

While I think the 1-80 content is the game’s strongpoint as well, I definitely hear people saying that the leveling in GW2 is boring and the DE system is a mask for a traditional quest system. The people that clamored for some sort of vertical progression will be the same people that rush to 80.

I think GW2 should focus on making the entire game end game as marketed, give us incentive to be out in the game in any zone we want. Even though I have provided my suggestions for how raiding should be handled in GW2, I am still not convinced it belongs in the game.

Galen Grey.4709:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

cesmode.4257:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Neon.5976:

Crystal Reid.2481:

So having said that where do you feel raiding falls (end game VS horizontal)?

I’d want to see Raids as end game content. Others are right in stating that other games have raids as end game content – it’s what they are normally categorised as. However I’m not sure I follow the logic where that therefore means they shouldn’t be end game content in GW2. It’s not like end game raids make a game worse or less appealing and I don’t want to be forced to go play a different game to play the type of content I like. It’s important to avoid getting hung up on whether GW2 should or shouldn’t be taking cues from other games and to focus on making raids they best they can be, regardless of where the ideas come from.

I’d like to see raids as end game content as challenging PVE content is something that is currently missing from the game and raids could the thing that fills the hole. It’s not as if end game raids make all other content redundant. In fact if they weren’t end game you could argue they could be so similar to other content such as dungeons or world bosses depending on their final form that they would start making other content redundant.

I suppose ultimately people want raids to be accessible. However if they are too easy they make the game as a whole less accessible. Those who want easier content, who already have a very diverse selection to choose from will get more, which is great for them. But those who want the challenging endgame PVE content that is currently lacking would be left out. In that sense by making raids more accessible, GW2 could potentially miss an opportunity to appeal to a wider audience.

Personally I would also want to see raids as end game content and by that I mean level 80 only.

Chris

Hi, I mentioned this in my first post a few moments ago. I could be out of date as well as this mind set that we were given early on…but isn’t the entire game ‘endgame’ ? Hop in, do whatever you want to do. No pressure, nada. Take your time, the whole thing is your oyster. When you start creating level 80 content only, ala raids, you segregate the playerbase much like other games where its then a rush to max level to do the raids. All of the gorgeous 1-80 content you have in this game becomes completely trivial and a stepping stone to the real game. You might as well just allow people to boost to 80 via potions or something and skip leveling all together because it becomes absolutely meaningless. A meaningless time sink. I didnt need 80 levels to learn my class. Maybe less than two dozen and I had it down. The rest was just enjoyment because the 1-80 content was nice. I leveled through it without any pressure. Put max level content in the game, and we will feel rushed to get to the real stuff. Its human nature.

For this reason, I do not think raids belong in GW2. But if they are to be implemented, I do have suggestions which I have shared

Yep this is an astute point. Let’s not worry about levels in this discussion then. However we should focus on the foundation of this content being challenging, requiring skill and strategic co-operation whilst being build around the core combat, movement and accessibility of GW2.

Chris

cesmode makes a most valid point. Something I worry about a lot with introducing raiding in Gw2 is that a lot of stuff that were previously optional now stop being optional. Dont want to go after a full set of ascended gear.. no problem, there is no content tuned to the point of requiring ascended gear. Exotic is all you need. Yet with raiding this will become a problem. If the raid itself is tuned for exotics rather then ascended then it will not provide the full challenge for raid teams in full ascended etc..

What if raiding worked a bit like sPvP and you are lvl80 with a set stats. I think that would address both cesmode and my concerns.

Sorry for focusing on levels right in the post you said not too.. Its just I feel this is a big issue worth pointing out.

Let this be a day that you and I see eye to eye Galen Grey.

I agree, maybe some sort of new gear that has different stats specifically for raiding. This gear would be much less useful in the open world but be very beneficial in a raid environment. Honestly, Im not a fan of this idea as it is a new set of gear to grind out(and GW2 is known for its immense grind), but it sort of solves the problem of “what stats do we need for raids”.

Conski Deshan.2057:

lunacrous.6751:

Crystal Reid.2481:

Let’s assume that because raiding would be a very new type of content for the game that it’s possible for us to re-write the principles of the game that we have seen so far.

That’s…. a bit scary to hear. I’m sure it’s intended in reference to game mechanics and encounter design, but I can’t help but read it as relating to rewards and the dreaded specter of gear progression. I’d like some reassurances that it doesn’t.

I wouldn’t worry about that happening, A majority of both sides don’t want gear progression long term it hurts both sides.

What I do want rewards wise is a reward that unequivocally states you have made it into the top x% of the playerbase combat wise (where x is the completion rate of the hardest raid). To me thats worth 1000 pretty skins and what I feel raids should be trying to achieve.

Can we talk about this particular idea guys? Art is subjective, what I find an awesome skin, you might hate. That removes the sense of reward for you.

I believe that most Raid folks are mercenary in their reasons for wanting this content rather than altruistic. They want the best looking stuff for accomplishing the content, not a title stating they did. They want ‘proper rewards’ for completion, rather than the sense they did it. Otherwise everyone would be happy with the Aetherblades path, the ability to kill any of the map bosses, Tequatl, and Jungle worm. I find no one is truly happy with these because they lack a sense of reward.

We need to nail down what ‘proper rewards’ are and if they are within the defined reward system of Guild Wars 2. If we do not raids will fail.

To me, personally, a fantastic reward would be some community building toy that you get after completion. A bubble machine that allows for bubbles that pick up players. A flaming bagpipe that is playable. Something that allows you to use it in a way that encourages social play, but everyone knows that you beat the crap out of some hard content. This removes the ’I’m sooper leet’ armor tea bag feeling from those that do not play, cannot play, the content and provides them more fun BECAUSE of your leet abilities!

cesmode.4257:

I think GW2 should focus on making the entire game end game as marketed, give us incentive to be out in the game in any zone we want. Even though I have provided my suggestions for how raiding should be handled in GW2, I am still not convinced it belongs in the game.

Keep in mind that I’ve seen many people rushing to level 80 and acquiring their exotic gear after 2 weeks of (relatively) casual play.
However, after a month and a half, they still don’t have unlocked all their traits because they do not perceive the importance of them.

These players can perform relatively well in low level dungeons and the living story (even though it gets tough for them). However, even stuff like the crucible let alone arah eat them simply because they do not master their characters.

Conclusion : you cannot make all the 1-80 content as end game. Content from level 1 to 80 can be enjoyed thanks the dynamic level system, but that does not make it endgame.

Note : Nobody forces us to divide content between : leveling (i.e boring) and endgame (i.e super challenging). There is a middle ground between the two and this is where GW2 excels imo.

A few statements from topics in this thread that have come up…

Stacking Watch difficult raid boss videos in other games. The mechanics are such that sometimes you MUST stack, sometimes you CANNOT stack. In a legitimately interesting and difficult raid that was well designed, positioning is vitally important and movement is critical. Anyone concerned that raid bosses will be stacked on and burned down easily have no faith in the anet devs to understand how to design a raid boss. This is not an important topic.

Dodging Some players have cited the power of dodging “invalidating” passive defense stats. rightly so! this is called play skill. This is the chief success of GW2 combat design. The better you get at playing the game the less passive defense you need. The less comfortable you are dodging attacks, the more passive defense you need. This is an excellently designed system that rewards skill.

RNG Rewards RNG rewards do have a place, but so do fixed rewards. I think my original rewards concept in my mega post pages ago described a happy balance between RNG rewards and fixed rewards and all maintaining the prestige of raid loot without a vertical gear progression.

Large Guilds I would suggest that large guilds can easily break down into smaller groups for raids than small guilds can coalesce into larger groupings. Combined with the inherent feature that no matter how scaling is implemented, raids get easier the more players are added you have a situation where it makes little sense to allow raids to scale to large numbers. Simply put, 500 man guilds can easily form groups of 15 for raids, so there is no obstacle to prevent large guilds from raiding, but if raids are large scale it is a barrier to small guilds. Since there is a barrier for small guilds if raids are large, but no barrier for large guilds if raids are smaller scale it makes logical sense for raids to be on the smaller end.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Neon.5976:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Personally I would also want to see raids as end game content and by that I mean level 80 only.

Chris

I suppose endgame isn’t the best word in the world to be using so liberally. It does usually mean content to play once at max level but for a lot of players, myself included, it has a lot of other implications as well.

cesmode.4257:

When you start creating level 80 content only, ala raids, you segregate the playerbase much like other games where its then a rush to max level to do the raids. All of the gorgeous 1-80 content you have in this game becomes completely trivial and a stepping stone to the real game. You might as well just allow people to boost to 80 via potions or something and skip leveling all together because it becomes absolutely meaningless.

I remember it being stated how the whole game is end game content. At level 80 you can continue running through the world, exploring, completing dynamic events etc. But that’s not what i’ve been doing since I hit level 80 – I don’t know anybody who spends the majority of their time doing that after they have leveled up.

There are already dungeons and world bosses, sPvP and WvW. The idea that the addition of what would ultimately just be one more instanced type of content would cause the rest of the game to suddenly become devoid of players seems a little baseless. Sure I can imagine if the rewards were far too generous then farmers would flock to it. But can you really see a PvPer giving up on PvP forever just because they could be doing raids instead? What about a WvW player or a world boss enthusiast? If that were the case wouldn’t the explorable modes of Honor of the Waves, Crucible of Eternity and Arah along with Fractals already be doing this?

I was actually going to comment on the term Endgame in my post. My hope is that we can try to approach this discussion from the foundation of GW2 an not from expectations of what ‘Endgame’ means to different people.

What I would like to see is us taking the very best of the core of our game and then re-imagining what co-operative, strategic and challenging instanced content could be rather than retro fitting existing paradigms.

Some folks have been doing this, it would be great if we could all focus on this as the spring board for discussion.

While I am on the subject let’s also frame the discussion around 15 player’s with the ability to do encounters with less.

I don’t want to constrain us to much but I think this will be helpful.

Chris

Hi Chris,
Touching on the item where you mention ‘15 players or less’…

I compare this to the Flex raiding in WoW I suppose even though Ive never experienced it. Good idea, definitely becomes more accessible to smaller groups and smaller guilds. Good approach.

With only 15 people I can only assume that these raids you have in mind will be instanced. Is that the direction you are going? If so, again, I agree that raids need to be instanced if you want to have the most interesting boss mechanics. Your open world bosses, even Tequatl to an extent, are enormously simplistic. HP meatsacks with oneshot mechanics. Boring and lazy. However, I continue to commend your fractal encounters…some of the best mechanics utilizing environment and whatnot that Ive ever seen in an MMO. Well done. Lets scale that to 15 players and keep it interesting.

cesmode.4257:

Galen Grey.4709:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

cesmode.4257:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Neon.5976:

Crystal Reid.2481:

So having said that where do you feel raiding falls (end game VS horizontal)?

I’d want to see Raids as end game content. Others are right in stating that other games have raids as end game content – it’s what they are normally categorised as. However I’m not sure I follow the logic where that therefore means they shouldn’t be end game content in GW2. It’s not like end game raids make a game worse or less appealing and I don’t want to be forced to go play a different game to play the type of content I like. It’s important to avoid getting hung up on whether GW2 should or shouldn’t be taking cues from other games and to focus on making raids they best they can be, regardless of where the ideas come from.

I’d like to see raids as end game content as challenging PVE content is something that is currently missing from the game and raids could the thing that fills the hole. It’s not as if end game raids make all other content redundant. In fact if they weren’t end game you could argue they could be so similar to other content such as dungeons or world bosses depending on their final form that they would start making other content redundant.

I suppose ultimately people want raids to be accessible. However if they are too easy they make the game as a whole less accessible. Those who want easier content, who already have a very diverse selection to choose from will get more, which is great for them. But those who want the challenging endgame PVE content that is currently lacking would be left out. In that sense by making raids more accessible, GW2 could potentially miss an opportunity to appeal to a wider audience.

Personally I would also want to see raids as end game content and by that I mean level 80 only.

Chris

Hi, I mentioned this in my first post a few moments ago. I could be out of date as well as this mind set that we were given early on…but isn’t the entire game ‘endgame’ ? Hop in, do whatever you want to do. No pressure, nada. Take your time, the whole thing is your oyster. When you start creating level 80 content only, ala raids, you segregate the playerbase much like other games where its then a rush to max level to do the raids. All of the gorgeous 1-80 content you have in this game becomes completely trivial and a stepping stone to the real game. You might as well just allow people to boost to 80 via potions or something and skip leveling all together because it becomes absolutely meaningless. A meaningless time sink. I didnt need 80 levels to learn my class. Maybe less than two dozen and I had it down. The rest was just enjoyment because the 1-80 content was nice. I leveled through it without any pressure. Put max level content in the game, and we will feel rushed to get to the real stuff. Its human nature.

For this reason, I do not think raids belong in GW2. But if they are to be implemented, I do have suggestions which I have shared

Yep this is an astute point. Let’s not worry about levels in this discussion then. However we should focus on the foundation of this content being challenging, requiring skill and strategic co-operation whilst being build around the core combat, movement and accessibility of GW2.

Chris

cesmode makes a most valid point. Something I worry about a lot with introducing raiding in Gw2 is that a lot of stuff that were previously optional now stop being optional. Dont want to go after a full set of ascended gear.. no problem, there is no content tuned to the point of requiring ascended gear. Exotic is all you need. Yet with raiding this will become a problem. If the raid itself is tuned for exotics rather then ascended then it will not provide the full challenge for raid teams in full ascended etc..

What if raiding worked a bit like sPvP and you are lvl80 with a set stats. I think that would address both cesmode and my concerns.

Sorry for focusing on levels right in the post you said not too.. Its just I feel this is a big issue worth pointing out.

Let this be a day that you and I see eye to eye Galen Grey.

I agree, maybe some sort of new gear that has different stats specifically for raiding. This gear would be much less useful in the open world but be very beneficial in a raid environment. Honestly, Im not a fan of this idea as it is a new set of gear to grind out(and GW2 is known for its immense grind), but it sort of solves the problem of “what stats do we need for raids”.

You mean like fractal gear?

I would like boss encounters require more of conditions, but they’re so easily spammable… for example, a dodge-oriented NPC who applies constant torment and heavy duration poison, would lose their ability to dodge if one could inflict chill+immobilize. But it’s so easily spammable that one can’t take advantage of them mechanic-wise, unless the raid is split like Marionette (btw, the best approach of raids I’ve seen in GW2 since release).

Im going to make this point again in the hopes that the devs will actually have a conversation about the topic and not just ignore what many of us find to be a very important issue.

I agree that indefinite scaling (10-150 players) would be a very bad idea. Instead raid sizes should scale between 8 and 16 players. That would ensure that, during a guild raid night, everyone would have a spot if they wanted it (assuming you had the minimum number of players).

Anyone who has led raids in more structured raid MMOs knows how painful and demoralizing it can be to form a 10 player raid where 12 people show up and want to go. It can break guilds apart and hurt real friendships in ways that hurt the game.

GW2 has always, before everything else, been a friendlier MMO. Adding in hard cap number raid sizes will change that completely in a single move – by adding the biggest point of contention and hate from other MMOs into this game.

The biggest issue people see with scaling is the impact it would have on raid difficulty. I agree this is a problem to solve, but unlike many, I don’t see it as an insurmountable barrier (and isnt coming up with issues to problems part of what the CDI is about?).

In fact, it is where GW2 can really set itself apart from other raid MMOs. I believe high end difficult content (just as difficult as people are wanting in the 15 player raid ideas they are coming up with) could be added alongside a modified scaling model that allows groups to avoid leaving qualified raiders out of raid nights.

The simplest way to do this would be a tiered system. In the 8-16 model, raids would scale at the three following sizes – 8 person, 12 person and 16 person raids. In that situation, if 17 people showed up, I would only have to find 3 extra people (for one 8 and one 12 person raid) instead of having to find 15 extra people for two 16 player raids. Alternatively, the 9 person group could include the more seasoned raiders and attempt the 12 person raid.

It would alleviate developer concerns because they could focus on the differences between the three instead of worrying about scaling per person.

Yes it would add some to raid development time and may mean a slightly longer development cycle, but wouldn’t it be worth it to have high quality raids with very difficult content without having to worry about the hate and hard feelings that are inherent in other raiding MMOs?

I want to have the mechanics conversation, but I think it is premature – unless the developers are hard set on 15 player raids (or any other set number), which, again, I would find very demoralizing.

munkiman.3068:

You mean like fractal gear?

fractal gear = ascended gear.

But something along those lines… Create new stats(multiple stats) that work only in these raids. For example: your current gear setup might be power precision toughness. The values on those gears would be zeroed out the moment you zone into a raid. Instead you need a new set of raid stats(Stat A, Stat B, Stat C). These stats are only usable in raids and when you exit, they are zeroed out making them useless out of raids.

This way, if you don’t want to participate in raids, you need not worry about having the gear for it. Your current gear is fine, whether you are in rare, exotic, or ascended, and you can continue on playing how you want. Honestly, this is how fractal/ascended gear should have been handled but thats another story.

So a Raid is basically a multi group (or bigger group) dungeon/instance if I am right, which has rewards and designs that do need the amount of people.
It is either damage or mechanics that are in play here.

As my Guild has died due to not enough greater group activities (Guild Missions were not enough) I suggested something like that a while back.

Ironicly with me not having any idea on how raids work (as I never played WoW and I did not experience Alliance Battles in FFXI and do not count Capital City Siege in Warhammer Online as such), this came to mind:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/Suggestion-Multi-Party-Dungeon/first#post3557782

TD;LR
A dungeon which is not entirely depending on an organized party, but benefits from having more people.
More people raise the chances of more loot, but also the chance of harder encounter.
(This is an idea for a different approach to raid-dungeons, which could supplement the ones to come and offer something like an introduction from dungeon to raiding)
Basic Idea
- There are three paths leading to a central chamber.
- Each of the Paths will feature the same amount of events, which allows all of them to get the same amount of rewards.
- It is not required to have all three parties in the dungeon to get to the boss and the final chest
- While each party will not directly interact with each other, their presence influences the other parties process.
- Parties do not have to cooperate till the endboss, making it a little race to the finish if they decide to do so.
- Main goal is the end-chest.
- reward and dificulty at the end is based on the number of participants. Max loot and danger for full paths.
- The chances for single or multiple parties at the end (special loot) are the same

Graphic
(rough sketch)
- Each orange field represents an event zone, with the numbers indicating who is at the event (1.1 = Path 1, Event 1)
- Two numbers represent an event in which both parties can help/hinder the other party by finishing their event first.
- The Boss strenght and the acompanied loot is based on how many parties are in the map. There can be one scaling Boss, or one that changes depending on how many paths are cleared.

Example dungeon run
(szenarios depicted here are just an example. They are no fleshed out design)
- All groups start at the same time
- Group 1 reaches event 1.1 first and engages in a fight with a fire element.
- Group 2 reaches event 2.1 as well, is in a waterfilled glas-tunnel above them.
- Group 2 finishes the the fight first, causing it`s enemy to explode. This causes instabilities in the glass-tunnel and some water leaks down on event 1.1.
- Group 1 has now waterfields to draw the enemy in, cleanse the burning efect it aplies and debuff him. (help szenario)

- Group 3 in the meantime cleared their events 3.1 quickly and entered event 3.2. To proceed they have to choose one of two cages to fall down to create a bridge. Each cage holds an different enemy. They fight their choice and proceed.
- Group 1 just finishes event 1.2 but right as they are able to proceed the cage of 3.2 comes down, forcing them into a bonus event. (hindering event)

- Group 3 reaches event 3.3 first and defeats it. On the sides are cannons which fire on event 2.3. Since they can take the event with 4 people, they decide to give some coverfire to Group 2 who just arrives at event 2.3

- Even though they got held up by the cage, Group 1 reaches event 1.4 first and cleares it before the other two reach their 4th.
- They reach the final chamber and are faced with a decision: deactivating all remaining events so the others can proceed smoothly (loosing maybe a champ bag) or they wait for a bit. (Race insentive)
- Group 1 decides to ask on Mapchat which group wants to skip. Group 2 is allready in fight declines, while group 3 is willing to skip.

- All three groups are now at the final chamber.
- As all paths have been cleared they are faced with the final boss, who is balanced to take on 15 people.
- if only two (or one) groups would have been there, the boss would have been weaker or a completly different.
- After their win, all groups can open the chest and get an extra-reward, based on which version of the final Boss they defeated. Think amount of chains destroyed in the recent twistet marionette LS update

@Jaken: Historically and traditionally raids are similar to 5 man dungeons but designed for larger groups of people(10,20,25,40) people that actually have to have coordination to complete the encounters within. In a game like WoW, it is like memorizing the steps to a dance. @ 75% group up and stack here, at 50% spread out again, at 25% these 10 people go to the left, these 10 to the right…something like that. Or sometimes mechanics in a fight are time based, sometimes completely random but you need to know the steps to the dance. Need to know where to go, where to stand, where not to, when to pour on the heavy heals, when to taunt. This then segues into the holy trinity in which these raids were built around.

Not having this trinity could be interesting in a raid. It might limit some of the things you can do in an encounter. It still just might be a glorified 5 man dungeon with 20 people doing their own thing and avoiding one shot bad-floors.

Also, traditionally, the loot in raids was significantly better than found anywhere else in the game because the content was supposed to be harder. A long time ago(10+ years) when people thought of raids, it was content that only organized and skilled/geared guilds could clear. WoW eventually broke down these barriers during their second expansion. Pickup groups can clear raids as well as ‘queueing’ up for a raid.

Its all a matter where Arenanet wants to go with it. Make it exclusive for the well organized, well geared and well communicated group(i.e. guilds that can hack it) or open to all(pick up groups thus dummying down the content a bit).

Elrey.5472:

Reward & difficulty perfect scenario
Tokens and daily/weekly caps to obtain them.

Let’s say first boss in a raid drop 10 tokens (first boss should be easy).
A puzzle, trash mobs, whatever…
Second boss fight! he drops 20 tokens (a little bit harder).
More stuff…
Third boss! he drops 30 tokens (this should be hard).

The raid tokens should be only obtainable daily per account (or weekly if the raid is long enough and takes 7-8 hours to complete, which would be awesome).
Now let’s say the… [insert desired item from raid vendor NPC] costs 60 tokens.

If you are an skilled player and got an skilled group of players, you can clear the entire raid in 1 day and get the 60 tokens, getting your reward without RNG. If you, however, are not good enough to beat the last boss but you can at least kill the first boss, you can just keep coming week after week getting 10 tokens each time until you get 60 for your item. A hardcore group would get the item in 1 week, the bad group would get it in 6 weeks.

With this system, hardcore groups are rewarded, but not-as-hardcore groups can also get the desired reward (and encouraged to improve, which is always good). This system is in my opinnion the best rewarding system for raiding.

Sidenote: You can as well place a random miniature that only drop from final boss in an RNG based move to improve replayability. That way, when someone gets all the items from the npc, he will still have a reason to go raiding.

I am adamently against a reward cap and token systems for raids.

A reward cap just punishes those who can.

A token system is designed for two reasons 1. A secondary route to an item that is RNG 2. To allow a less competent player access to a reward.

The first can be removed by not having RNG rewards for the primary set in the first place. The second is not in play here, raids will ideally be very heard this is not content where you go “ok how do we make sure everyone can eventually get the rewards”. Raids should be more a do or die affair with no “Tried”. If I can’t complete the raid after 100 tries I don’t get the end rewards, if I can’t make it past boss three after 100 tries I don’t get boss 4,5,6 rewards.

That is progression, you have advanced beyond those other players and have been rewarded for it. It’s the basis for health competition and improvement “Maybe if I Improve I’ll be good enough” or “I should practice my dodge timing”.

Apologise i know this isn’t the format u asked, but i prepared this before

There is my ideas:

Istanced
should be istanced like dungeons, raid isn’t a zerg and gw2 need something new, other game already have it and alot of player miss it

Weekly
i think raids should be weekly, it will feel raids more special and not just another “daily dungeon”

Party Friendly
usually best things is play with guildies/friends, but is important give a chance to anyone to play it, it will also avoid problem with small guilds, so the LFG tool should help ppl to found other players

Reward
ofc, you need something u can acquire only with this mode, i suggesto to dont use mainly RNG but tokens, with raids you should be able to gain armors and weapons skins, good loot and gold (not like fotm :p ) those skins should be something looking like legendary skins, should be also nice gain some gems

raidS
1) i’d like to have 2 party size raids, one with 8 ppl and another one with more

2)i’d like to see some kind of progression, because gw2 lacks of endgame so raids should be

Make everyone happy
(casual/normal players and hardcore players)
2 mode: Normal and Hardcore, difference will be the difficulty and reward, i’d like to have a token system like dungeon, both mode will gave the same token (or a little more for hardcore) both mode will give golds and gems, but more for hardcore scaled with difficulty, if u get your weekly reward from one of this mode you cannot receive it from the other mode, so u dont make this system grindy
every time u finish a raid you will gain a special presence token and after X token you will able to unlock next “tier” (tier should be just a different raid so u will unlock new content with new reward or token?)

Scenarios
i think scenarios should be different from the rest of the game, should be something special,
a gash through the universe will bring ppl in some fantastic universe

Roles
i know someone will love trinity and for other ppl this is pure evil, but i’d like to use other than berserker gear, i’d like to play different strategy then “corner” and “max dps” content and i’d like to “discover” different profession faces, will be really a waste of time and resource make a new content similar to the older… i mean, if i will play my character with the same mode (ZerkDpsCornerSkip) as the rest of the game will be just another dungeon with more ppl, nothing really new….
moreover have a different roles will help players to feel it different from the rest of the game, will allow players to enjoy this new content and allow devs to write different contents mechanics
i dont think will be a problem because the majority of players have alot of characters, and dungeon tokens unspent, so will be really easy buy other stats gear and play
and if someone wanna play zerker only, dont worry all the other ppl wanna try something different will full your party, and u can keep play zerk when other will support you

Just one small suggestion:

Consider implementing Dessa’s lab.
Not as normal fractals, but like special portals for raids, being that you travel in time for them rather than putting them in the open world.