Guild Wars 2

Jaken.6801:

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

i was thinking of something similar, i like the idea

Blaeys.3102:

You may not have intended it, but your post comes across a little insulting.

Especially stuff like this:

“We do all these things in organized dungeon groups already. You should try it.”

You need to tone it down and respect other people’s right to their opinions a little more.

This needs to be a balanced discussion where we have civil conversations about topics. Insults and talking down to people works counter to that idea.

How about to defend your points instead of being offensive towards him? He actually pointed out issues in your proposal.

Dalanor.5387:

Blaeys.3102:

You may not have intended it, but your post comes across a little insulting.

Especially stuff like this:

“We do all these things in organized dungeon groups already. You should try it.”

You need to tone it down and respect other people’s right to their opinions a little more.

This needs to be a balanced discussion where we have civil conversations about topics. Insults and talking down to people works counter to that idea.

How about to defend your points instead of being offensive towards him? He actually pointed out issues in your proposal.

I have no problem defending my points and will happily do so, but I will defend myself when I feel attacked.

All I meant to do was point out that he needs to tone down his offensive tone. Im not sure how I could have done that other than the way I did – and didnt mean to be offensive myself. I apologize if that is the case.

There are a lot of opinions in this thread. They are all valid. Talking down to and insulting people isnt going to further the thread in any way. We need to respect one another and realize we all bring different perspectives to this issue. None of them are wrong. Its about having a discussion.

Killthehealersffs.8940:

spoj.9672:

So they are happy to take a underleveled and undergeared character to get carried through the instance. Which is completely against the philosophies of a raid. Which is working together effectively to complete challenging content. Each individual should matter. People not pulling their weight should make things considerably harder. So please dont give players the incentive to negatively effect each other in this manner.

Based on your sig , it seems you have expirianced with instances .
Atm , when you do the speedruns dungeons , do you inv low lvl characters ?
When they implant raids , will you inv lower lvl characters to your party ?

Other guild will inv lower lvl characters , and they will fail , while your group that consist of 15 × 85 lvl characters and succed .
What is again is the problem ?

I personally have no problem dragging a few low levels along in dungeons. Because i can solo them. When this happens its because i dont care that they arent pulling their weight and im enjoying the increased challenge. But this is supposed to be challenging endgame content we are talking about. We shouldnt be encouraging players to jump in with undergeared underleveled characters and limited experience as it will only negatively effect those players. Players in good dungeon guilds wont have a problem, casual players will.

But if you allow for level scaling etc then you are essentially balancing around the expectation of low level characters. So this will either result in toxicity in the community when forming groups or it will result in a loss of difficulty due to balance. This hurts both types of players. So i dont see any arguement for it being a good idea to allow for low level characters. Im not saying add a requirement of 80 to enter. Im just saying that raids should be designed for lvl 80 (like arah). You can enter at lvl 75 at your own risk but that would be a bad idea because you will be at a disadvantage.

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

Crystal Reid.2481:

I bolded a section of this that I wanted to inquire about. Do you think the fact the game has been live for over 2 years now change your thoughts on this? This is definitely a common occurrence with new MMO’s that launch with raiding, but what about a game that didn’t launch with raiding? Is there still an issue of players “rushing to 80” when a large percentage of the player base already has at least one 80? Thoughts?

I think it’s important to note that a lot of players like playing with their alts. Even though they might have 7 lv.80, they might want to play with their lv.53 elementalist. It’s a chore to level the 8th character to max. level when the only thing you want to do with him is raid.

Why not take the sPvP approach? Normalize the gear and level and you have everyone on the same level to beat a well balanced challenge.

There level 53 elementalist might not have all their utilities and traits unlocked… yes he could get up leveled to 80, but would be missing some major piece of a proper character setup to be beneficial for the team

Conski Deshan.2057:

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

I can’t watch the videos (not loading in my Chrome browser), but that’s ok. I mainly wanted to comment on your player suggestions. I disagree that every raid should be this difficult. I think there should be certain raids that are a bit on the “easy” side (relatively speaking, not easy like a brand new zero-trait 80 can do it) all the way up to some raids that are practically impossible. How are players going to want to learn to raid if they can only enter a raid and then expect it to fail because they have a “subpar” member? And many guilds won’t want to teach a player new to raids because of the guaranteed failure aspect.

Crystal Reid.2481:

cesmode.4257:

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

I bolded a section of this that I wanted to inquire about. Do you think the fact the game has been live for over 2 years now change your thoughts on this? This is definitely a common occurrence with new MMO’s that launch with raiding, but what about a game that didn’t launch with raiding? Is there still an issue of players “rushing to 80” when a large percentage of the player base already has at least one 80? Thoughts?

I think that it doesn’t matter if the game has been live for two years or not. If it did, then why the smurf have you guys been making changes for NEW PLAYERS? The fact is that not everyone playing this game has been playing it for two years. And not all characters are two years old, even on a two year old account. I jumped in shortly after release, and I’ve added several character slots to my account. I have some level 80s, but I have even more that are not level 80 and can’t do level 80 content. It stinks to have to choose between doing the content that I want and playing the character that I want.

This should not be level 80 only. I’ll add more to my thoughts on that in an upcoming post.

Blaeys.3102:

Dalanor.5387:

Blaeys.3102:

You may not have intended it, but your post comes across a little insulting.

Especially stuff like this:

“We do all these things in organized dungeon groups already. You should try it.”

You need to tone it down and respect other people’s right to their opinions a little more.

This needs to be a balanced discussion where we have civil conversations about topics. Insults and talking down to people works counter to that idea.

How about to defend your points instead of being offensive towards him? He actually pointed out issues in your proposal.

I have no problem defending my points and will happily do so, but I will defend myself when I feel attacked.

All I meant to do was point out that he needs to tone down his offensive tone. Im not sure how I could have done that other than the way I did – and didnt mean to be offensive myself. I apologize if that is the case.

There are a lot of opinions in this thread. They are all valid. Talking down to and insulting people isnt going to further the thread in any way. We need to respect one another and realize we all bring different perspectives to this issue. None of them are wrong. Its about having a discussion.

Forgive me for my “tone.” The point I was making with the line you took offense to is you suggested that the things you want people in an organized raid to do are things that people already do in organized dungeon and fractal groups. Since you suggested it I reckoned that you didn’t have experience in those kinds of groups. I also figure that if you tried it you might understand another level of complexity to the game that already exists.

Perhaps I expressed my exasperation too strongly, but you must understand when someone suggests mechanics that are already highly utilized in the game already it is redundant. It would be like being on a baseball rules update committee and someone suggests “we should make it so that if you get three strikes you’re out.” It makes it seem like that person doesn’t understand the subject he is talking about. So again, forgive me for using a tone you didn’t like, and I’ll forgive you for not being aware how important CC is in organized groups already.

hybrid.5027:

Blaeys.3102:

• It should be impossible to avoid all damage and bosses should liberally apply conditions such as immobilize, weakness, vulnerability, blind, chill and cripple. Players should have to feel like they need to save dodges for the big crushing attacks. Regen, healing, aegis, etc. (as well as condi removal) should be required to stay alive between dodges.

This isn’t self-evidentally good, you have to explain why this is something we should want, not just declare you want it. I’m not against the concept of bosses that do condition overload, but you should be a bit more honest that what you’re trying to do is encourage use of tanky gear for survival.

You are right. This could use more description.

The point wouldnt be to encourage the use of tanky gear (or any gear really), but rather to encourage cooperative and coordinated gameplay through group healing (blasting water fields, new healing traits, etc) and condition removal – adding a deeper level of necessary support to the game. I realize groups do this now to a point, but that isnt the point. The point is to make it borderline mandatory in order to move away from simple churn and burn raid boss strategies.

I dont believe in forcing gear choices on any player. The goal is to reward groups that are good at (and punish groups that arent good at) keeping each other alive (working together).

I realize groups do many of the other things I list in my post. The point of the post was to list my opinion (of course, that should be implied) regarding the elements core to a raid encounter in GW2. The question was asked regarding which current game elements lend themselves to raid design. I was partially following that lead.

I respect that you disagree with my opinions regarding how raiding should manifest in GW2. That’s fine (its even healthy). Obviously, I dont agree with everything you’ve proposed either (although some sounds really good to me). All I ask is that we express mutual respect (even when being disagreeable) so that we can have a real discussion and, hopefully, end up with something we all enjoy if/when raiding makes its way into the game.

Your baseball analogy is a little off the mark. Of course many of those things are already important in dungeons. It isnt about adding something new, but rather about emphasizing certain elements to the point they are closer to being mandatory. The advantage of raiding over dungeons is that you have more people and you should have access to more support and control tools. The encounter should designed around that assumption, in my opinion.

And of course I understand the importance of CC in organized groups. I only run in organized groups (not a fan of pugging). Again, be careful making those assumptions and try to avoid talking down to people a little. Just because I like the way the three toed tootsie mechanic works doesnt mean I had huge issues with the standard defiance system.

Mutual respect is important if were going to have an actual conversation.

Crystal Reid.2481:

I bolded a section of this that I wanted to inquire about. Do you think the fact the game has been live for over 2 years now change your thoughts on this? This is definitely a common occurrence with new MMO’s that launch with raiding, but what about a game that didn’t launch with raiding? Is there still an issue of players “rushing to 80” when a large percentage of the player base already has at least one 80? Thoughts?

Background: Long-time player in another MMO (the game-whose-name-cannot-be-said), with three fully-decked-out characters from top-level raids, raided 4-5 nights a week, was a raider from their original base game thru the expansion prior to “pandas.” I quit that game when “pandas” came out, a large part because of raiding.

Essentially, that game’s raids served to keep players playing with a gear treadmill. That is incompatible with a core GW2 philosophy.

If GW2 raids are a “must”, as in gear treadmill, I will leave the game and so will many people in my guild. Simple fact, not a threat, we just don’t want the “required” treadmill.

Now, if raids are parallel content to fractals, 5-man dungeons, and WvW, that’s great.

Just don’t make them mandatory for an even playing field with other parts of the game. Some unique raid-focused progression track is fine, like agony resistance for fractals.

Dungeons could give very unique visual rewards, too.

All classes must be usable in raids. No more developer-created elitism like in 5-man dungeons or “that other game’s” raids. Do not make certain classes “must have”. If anything, that’s where ANet fails on GW2 — poor balancing. I want to play the class I enjoy without gimping the party.

Raiding can be great fun; some of my fondest social gaming memories are from raids.

Don’t design a social activity around anti-social concepts.

Palador.2170:

Crystal Reid.2481:

cesmode.4257:

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

I bolded a section of this that I wanted to inquire about. Do you think the fact the game has been live for over 2 years now change your thoughts on this? This is definitely a common occurrence with new MMO’s that launch with raiding, but what about a game that didn’t launch with raiding? Is there still an issue of players “rushing to 80” when a large percentage of the player base already has at least one 80? Thoughts?

I think that it doesn’t matter if the game has been live for two years or not. If it did, then why the smurf have you guys been making changes for NEW PLAYERS? The fact is that not everyone playing this game has been playing it for two years. And not all characters are two years old, even on a two year old account. I jumped in shortly after release, and I’ve added several character slots to my account. I have some level 80s, but I have even more that are not level 80 and can’t do level 80 content. It stinks to have to choose between doing the content that I want and playing the character that I want.

This should not be level 80 only. I’ll add more to my thoughts on that in an upcoming post.

it should be level 80 only, especially now. you cannot design a challenging encounter without assuming something about who can play it. right now a level 40 is substantially weaker and less utile than a level 80. they dont even have master traits unlocked. While it would be nice if the game had a more shallow level differential, it doesnt any more.

The only way i could see them making it available for low levels is if it worked like pvp and gave you max stats and allocations, or possibly premade level 80s.

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

@Galen Grey
@cesmode

about normalized raid gear

WoW currently does this with challenge mode dungeons. In this game all gear above item level 463 will get scaled down. (more about it from the wiki: Gear will retain all hit and expertise, so players can remain capped. Stats that will be scaled down are secondary ones.)

Why not make the GW2 version of it, with a much more broader approach? No need for a new kind of gear, Galen already had an (imho) good idea: use the sPvP-armor build. Everyone – from the get go – has the same stats available in his build-library. You retain the skins from your PvE gear.

I love this suggestion because it solves many problems. Players would always be on the same power level so no place for gear discrimination. As only lv.80 players can enter the raid, there can be no level-discrimination as well. Balancing would be a dream come true for the devs, so the encounters could be finetuned perfectly.

How about taking it a step further and taking the full PvP build idea for raids?

Everyone is auto-set to level 80, with all normal traits unlocked, just like in PvP. Gear works the same as well. Thus, anyone can quickly whip up a character and throw them into raids, or set up a character with a raid build and gear that doesn’t match their PvE build/gear.

Of course, this has problems, but we can solve that too. In fact, we can solve two problems at the same time. Problem one is people that don’t know what they’re doing getting into raids. Problem two is that the devs are going to face a period of learning as they implement raids. So, we make the first three or so raids a learning experience for both the players and devs. The devs get to try a few things and see how they work before cranking them up to 11 for later raids, which will be harder. The players gain items that must be thrown into the Mystic Forge to create a “key” of sorts that they need to have on them to get into the later raids. (I’d suggest the key be Accountbound, but arguments can be made for Soulbound.)

I would also like to say that I really like the idea of non-equipment keys of some sort needed to progress through a series of raids. This creates some of the benefits of a gear treadmill without most of the downsides of it.

Palador.2170:

I think that it doesn’t matter if the game has been live for two years or not. If it did, then why the smurf have you guys been making changes for NEW PLAYERS? The fact is that not everyone playing this game has been playing it for two years. And not all characters are two years old, even on a two year old account. I jumped in shortly after release, and I’ve added several character slots to my account. I have some level 80s, but I have even more that are not level 80 and can’t do level 80 content. It stinks to have to choose between doing the content that I want and playing the character that I want.

I am in complete agreement with the above.

I know people who’ve played casually since launch, and have one (or zero!) level 80s, but many characters at lower levels.

The less artificial elitism — be it about level or gear — the greater an audience that can enjoy your hard work.

phys.7689:

The only way i could see them making it available for low levels is if it worked like pvp and gave you max stats and allocations, or possibly premade level 80s.

Oddly enough, I was working on just such a suggestion while you posted this.

Palador.2170:

I would also like to say that I really like the idea of non-equipment keys of some sort needed to progress through a series of raids. This creates some of the benefits of a gear treadmill without most of the downsides of it.

Keys lock-out really qualified and talented players who didn’t want to do last-year’s raid. Often, the keys were unavailable to new players, because they couldn’t find enough people to do “old” raids.

The raid keys become another form of elitism in my experience.

spoj.9672:

Players in good dungeon guilds wont have a problem, casual players will.

But if you allow for level scaling etc then you are essentially balancing around the expectation of low level characters. So this will either result in toxicity in the community when forming groups or it will result in a loss of difficulty due to balance.

But if they create a 80 end-game , then there wil be 2 ’’backfire’’ :
a) They wont be able to ’’expirement’’ with new bosses mechanic .
Lets say that the GW2 PvE population consist of 70% meele players and the newer bosses crushes meeles
> then the players will moan at the forums that ‘’they wasted too much money to gear up + lvl up their character and the useless company dont have a clue how to create a PvE boss’’ (they wont quit the game) .
And from now on they must create Bosses that caters to that demografic ’ .

b) In any MMO history , there are a huge amount of bosses that is more easier to stacks ‘’certain classes’’ in order to be beaten .
So players ‘’MUST HAVE’’ 8 max lvl charactered + geared up in order to get the ‘’1st World Kill’’ (its a nice idea for goldsinks) , but the rst of the community will demend that boss to be reworked and those ‘’stack classes’’ to be nerfed .

Personaly i want them to get back in the ’’original’’ plan from the alpha where there wasnt level in the game (in this case in raids , everythings is balanced like pvp) , but there a HUMOGOUS CHANCE like in first days in the PvP section that will backfire , where ppl didnt feel ‘’attached to their character’’ and it was like playing 2 different games .

Blaeys.3102:

hybrid.5027:

Blaeys.3102:

• It should be impossible to avoid all damage and bosses should liberally apply conditions such as immobilize, weakness, vulnerability, blind, chill and cripple. Players should have to feel like they need to save dodges for the big crushing attacks. Regen, healing, aegis, etc. (as well as condi removal) should be required to stay alive between dodges.

This isn’t self-evidentally good, you have to explain why this is something we should want, not just declare you want it. I’m not against the concept of bosses that do condition overload, but you should be a bit more honest that what you’re trying to do is encourage use of tanky gear for survival.

You are right. This could use more description.

The point wouldnt be to encourage the use of tanky gear (or any gear really), but rather to encourage cooperative and coordinated gameplay through group healing (blasting water fields, new healing traits, etc) and condition removal – adding a deeper level of necessary support to the game. I realize groups do this now to a point, but that isnt the point. The point is to make it borderline mandatory in order to move away from simple churn and burn raid boss strategies.

I dont believe in forcing gear choices on any player. The goal is to reward groups that are good at (and punish groups that arent good at) keeping each other alive (working together).

I realize groups do many of the other things I list in my post. The point of the post was to list my opinion (of course, that should be implied) regarding the elements core to a raid encounter in GW2. The question was asked regarding which current game elements lend themselves to raid design. I was partially following that lead.

I respect that you disagree with my opinions regarding how raiding should manifest in GW2. That’s fine (its even healthy). Obviously, I dont agree with everything you’ve proposed either (although some sounds really good to me). All I ask is that we express mutual respect (even when being disagreeable) so that we can have a real discussion and, hopefully, end up with something we all enjoy if/when raiding makes its way into the game.

Your baseball analogy is a little off the mark. Of course many of those things are already important in dungeons. It isnt about adding something new, but rather about emphasizing certain elements to the point they are closer to being mandatory. The advantage of raiding over dungeons is that you have more people and you should have access to more support and control tools. The encounter should designed around that assumption, in my opinion.

And of course I understand the importance of CC in organized groups. I only run in organized groups (not a fan of pugging). Again, be careful making those assumptions and try to avoid talking down to people a little. Just because I like the way the three toed tootsie mechanic works doesnt mean I had huge issues with the standard defiance system.

Mutual respect is important if were going to have an actual conversation.

you cant have it both ways though, either you are trying to create almost mandatory support roles, or you are not.
I believe making support via healing mandatory isnt a good rule of thumb, there can be advantages to healing through some dmg, but it shouldnt be mandatory.

I would suggest, design it so that damage can be avoided, or absorbed. Give some advantage for absorbing the dmg. Such as superior positioning for longer (lets say avoiding it requires everyone to move out of range) Or the enemy takes extra dmg while you soak dmg, however this is not mandatory, there will be a playstyle where you can absorb it (for a short time) and benefit, and a playstyle where you avoid, and get back in there and go to town.

Regardless, i think its a bad idea to make any one role semi mandatory with the current system. Yes it will require more complex designs, but overall i think it will make a stronger system.
Also remember healing is only one type of support.

I think they should focus gameplay/roles on support dps and control. Support would be buffs at key times, heals weakness/blind. Control would i agree need a rework of defiance. other games control is generally more powerful when it lands, and more limited. i dont think control can really be a prime tenant and role in battle if the system negates 9/10 control effects off the bat

phys.7689:

you cant have it both ways though, either you are trying to create almost mandatory support roles, or you are not.
I believe making support via healing mandatory isnt a good rule of thumb, there can be advantages to healing through some dmg, but it shouldnt be mandatory.

I would suggest, design it so that damage can be avoided, or absorbed. Give some advantage for absorbing the dmg. Such as superior positioning for longer (lets say avoiding it requires everyone to move out of range) Or the enemy takes extra dmg while you soak dmg, however this is not mandatory, there will be a playstyle where you can absorb it (for a short time) and benefit, and a playstyle where you avoid, and get back in there and go to town.

Regardless, i think its a bad idea to make any one role semi mandatory with the current system. Yes it will require more complex designs, but overall i think it will make a stronger system.
Also remember healing is only one type of support.

I think they should focus gameplay/roles on support dps and control. Support would be buffs at key times, heals weakness/blind. Control would i agree need a rework of defiance. other games control is generally more powerful when it lands, and more limited. i dont think control can really be a prime tenant and role in battle if the system negates 9/10 control effects off the bat

This is fair criticism and a good extension of the discussion.

You are absolutely right that it shouldnt just be about heals – and semi-mandatory may have been the wrong word. Blocks, Aegis, deathshroud, life drains, etc should be just as viable – the point is dodges shouldnt be for avoiding small damage – but rather our go to for the big stuff.

Like yourself, I still believe control could be integrated into the game better than it is now. The Three Toed Tootsie method, while not perfect, seems like a step in that direction. It takes that 9 of 10 negations out of the equation and gives them another tool for this.

Another direction I think they could take, that would probably require a technical rework, would be to swap how defiance works and make it individual to the player rather than stacked on the boss. Instead of burning five stacks off as a group, each player would be responsible for burning personal stacks off and then holding the next interrupt ability. This would add another possible aspect to the fight – where a boss could deliver 3-5 fast devastating attacks in a row that would require yet more group coordination (rotating interrupts during that attack phase). Again, that might be something their system cannot do, but it is a thought. Just as importantly, it would allow the players greater control over how/when interrupts are applied without breaking fight design.

Anyway, thanks for adding to the discussion. This is how ideas can come out of a CDI.

Sytherek.7689:

Palador.2170:

I think that it doesn’t matter if the game has been live for two years or not. If it did, then why the smurf have you guys been making changes for NEW PLAYERS? The fact is that not everyone playing this game has been playing it for two years. And not all characters are two years old, even on a two year old account. I jumped in shortly after release, and I’ve added several character slots to my account. I have some level 80s, but I have even more that are not level 80 and can’t do level 80 content. It stinks to have to choose between doing the content that I want and playing the character that I want.

I am in complete agreement with the above.

I know people who’ve played casually since launch, and have one (or zero!) level 80s, but many characters at lower levels.

The less artificial elitism — be it about level or gear — the greater an audience that can enjoy your hard work.

its not artificial elitism, you are objectively weaker, and to be perfectly honest, if you had only reached level 25 (which is like the new level 45 mechanics wise) there are certain things you simply could not have done/ be familiar with.

• for mesmer, clone on roll totally changes the flow of shattering and your ability to effect the enemy.
• clones bleed on critical, adds new build possibilities for a condi focused player
• signet use gives distortion as an extra defense combined with distortion reflects (not sure if this actually works, may be a different distortion)
• 3 mantras per charge changes the flow of mantra fighting/support capabilities
• gain boons on shatter/ bountiful iunteruption > reflect boons to party
• focus skills reflect projectiles
• healing mantrkitten
• tered strength reflect combo
• shatter on self, gives you a shatter any time capability, useful for interupts and distortion on the fly

point is, the game is extremely shallow in the maximum use of its mechanics, and right now, a level sub 60 player who hasnt played pvp doesnt have access to any of the abilities, and probably has never used them and see how it alters their playstyles. If raids are going to hope to raise the bar, and require people to actually make good use of their full potential, or gain mastery, there is no way it can do that with people who are missing and unfamiliar with their potential.

This brings up another point, where under the current trait system, its a pretty good chance a player will not have experienced any of this, but to be honest the trait system needs to change regardless to raids, so hopefully that will be a non issue.

also, while not every level 30 cant adapt or understand, if the game has been working properly, the level 80 player should have a greater chance of knowing what he is doing. ( i agree this is not always the case, now more than ever) Lets say everyone gets auto leveled, or access to an spvp like build, What would you specifically use for players to be able to tell, for themselves and others if they are ready to for whatever challenges are expected of them?

phys.7689:

Regardless, i think its a bad idea to make any one role semi mandatory with the current system. Yes it will require more complex designs, but overall i think it will make a stronger system.
Also remember healing is only one type of support.

I think they should focus gameplay/roles on support dps and control. Support would be buffs at key times, heals weakness/blind. Control would i agree need a rework of defiance. other games control is generally more powerful when it lands, and more limited. i dont think control can really be a prime tenant and role in battle if the system negates 9/10 control effects off the bat

Well there are 2 different roles already in Triple trouble that emphasis different classes. The Condi team and the reflect team. What makes both interesting is they emphasis different classes, the reflect team favors Guardians, mesmers and elementalists but it can also be done by thieves, engineers and rangers while the Condi team favors necromancers, engineers, mesmers, and thieves, though anyone with a decent condition build can fulfill the role (so anyone but Guardians :P).

If developers are dreaming up roles I think they should use the reflect team and the condi team as a model. They both force people into a unique role and both modify player’s builds but also have a wide array of classes that can fulfill that role and maybe have role emphasis “opposite classes”. It worked out well that while Guardian can’t be in a condi team, they’re one of the best reflectors and while necromancers have no reflects, they’re probably the best condi team member.

As for cc, sure it’s currently used and is quite effective when the group is coordinating (or knows not to randomly use cc when the defiance is gone). It’s just not as obvious as something like tootsie, which makes clear when you need the cc. Perhaps the problems stems from relatively short cc. It’s not like we have polymorph or banish or long term cc. It’s more along the lines of subject 6 or the eastern battery at tequatl, where you’re just trying to slow something down/keep it away from something/or keep something in an area (mai trin). I do think cc should play a more obvious role in some fights, but I don’t think it’s so easy given the current system. I sort of like how it’s handled on the ice fellow in coe path 1, where he has no defiance after running into a pillar. There the cc serves largely as a means to slow down his boon refresh, but I like the idea of having moments where cc is uninhibited, but really helpful. Then again, I also like the idea of having a boss perform some attack that simply must be interrupted. In that case, the function of cc is less about what the cc does (save for the cc that lands once defiance is gone,) and more about stripping defiance so that the attack will be interrupted.

Oh and if for some reason they really want a healer for a fight, there can just be a buff that increases outgoing healing by X%. I wouldn’t start making it a main role, not now.

Sytherek.7689:

Palador.2170:

I would also like to say that I really like the idea of non-equipment keys of some sort needed to progress through a series of raids. This creates some of the benefits of a gear treadmill without most of the downsides of it.

Keys lock-out really qualified and talented players who didn’t want to do last-year’s raid. Often, the keys were unavailable to new players, because they couldn’t find enough people to do “old” raids.

The raid keys become another form of elitism in my experience.

In a system where there isnt a gear treadmill, and as long as there is something valuable to be gained, people will still do all raids, in other systems, the old raids are inferior, and give less useful items, they exist only as a stepping stone. This need not be the case here. Think of a system where it was more like, you have to pass through some areas to get to other areas, but that doesnt mean there is no reason/benefit to be in the middle area.

party size/party mechanics

Like I’ve said in my previous post Page 9. I agree with a party constaint of 15 players. Too few players and we have a large dungeon. Too Many players and we have instanced world bosses

I think having a party of fifteen where the players will have to work together, possibly being split up at times in to three groups or something along those lines, would make the players individual contribution feel more rewarding. If you go fight the shatterer, for example, your contribution feels negligible when you have such a large amount fighting against the same boss.

I’d prefer raiding be level 80. As the content would be challenging, but I understand you can’t easily gate content from players based off level, so at the very least I’d like to see all players scaled to 80

raid mechanics

Raids should be challenging content. Built firmly around challenging memechanics. Where knowledge of the fight mechanics will be far more important then any other aspect of combat. Challenging mechanics that require group coordination and understanding will make for a higher replay ability raid then if the challenge came from higher hp pools or unblockable / undodgable aoe attacks. Good examples of what I’m taking about , the 5 different core mechanics for the 5 lanes of the marionette event. … the ooze kiting fight in the TA aetherblade path. The spinning laser room from the mai trin dungeon ( not fun anymore because people just stack it now…., but the concept is fun all the same)

raiding as a guild activity

As the title of this post makes it seem, raids will be a guild activity? I hope this is not the case. Raids should not require guild research and influence/ merits. Raids should be open to all players regardless of guild size/active players/ research level/ so on so forth. To quote someone before me. Should raiding guilds be an option – yes. Should they be mandatory- no.

Palador.2170:

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

@Galen Grey
@cesmode

about normalized raid gear

Why not make the GW2 version of it, with a much more broader approach? No need for a new kind of gear, Galen already had an (imho) good idea: use the sPvP-armor build. Everyone – from the get go – has the same stats available in his build-library. You retain the skins from your PvE gear.

How about taking it a step further and taking the full PvP build idea for raids?

Everyone is auto-set to level 80, with all normal traits unlocked, just like in PvP. Gear works the same as well. Thus, anyone can quickly whip up a character and throw them into raids, or set up a character with a raid build and gear that doesn’t match their PvE build/gear.

well this was what I was talking about all along, normalizing.

I wasn’t talking about scaling characters (at least I didn’t mean to), I was talking about putting everyone on the same level.

@Malchior

You were talking about problems with buffs and scaling. My suggestion was that no scaling is happening but everyone has the same stats, no buffs allowed in raids, just as in sPvP.

Everyone has the sPvP build UI which would work for raids as well. You choose some trinkets to change your stat-distribution and that’s it. No lv.24—>lv.80 – everyone is equal. All traits unlocked as well.

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

Palador.2170:

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

@Galen Grey
@cesmode

about normalized raid gear

Why not make the GW2 version of it, with a much more broader approach? No need for a new kind of gear, Galen already had an (imho) good idea: use the sPvP-armor build. Everyone – from the get go – has the same stats available in his build-library. You retain the skins from your PvE gear.

How about taking it a step further and taking the full PvP build idea for raids?

Everyone is auto-set to level 80, with all normal traits unlocked, just like in PvP. Gear works the same as well. Thus, anyone can quickly whip up a character and throw them into raids, or set up a character with a raid build and gear that doesn’t match their PvE build/gear.

well this was what I was talking about all along, normalizing.

I wasn’t talking about scaling characters (at least I didn’t mean to), I was talking about putting everyone on the same level.

@Malchior

You were talking about problems with buffs and scaling. My suggestion was that no scaling is happening but everyone has the same stats, no buffs allowed in raids, just as in sPvP.

Everyone has the sPvP build UI which would work for raids as well. You choose some trinkets to change your stat-distribution and that’s it. No lv.24—>lv.80 – everyone is equal. All traits unlocked as well.

while i dont really oppose this idea in principle, though its probably a bit harder to implement than it seems, i ask you, as i asked someone else.

How does one differentiate if they themselves or other players have enough experience to handle the raid? Assume that this will be the most challenging content to date on an individual play level, and that a deep understanding of your class mechanics will be expected as the norm.

Crystal Reid.2481:

cesmode.4257:

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

I bolded a section of this that I wanted to inquire about. Do you think the fact the game has been live for over 2 years now change your thoughts on this? This is definitely a common occurrence with new MMO’s that launch with raiding, but what about a game that didn’t launch with raiding? Is there still an issue of players “rushing to 80” when a large percentage of the player base already has at least one 80? Thoughts?

I definitely thought about this as I wrote that. Honestly, Im not sure. Logic says that most of your playerbase is max level already, so who cares right? However, what about people that like to casually level up alts. Will they feel rushed to get that character to max level so they can raid with it? What about the new players that you guys are trying to attract (since there seems to be a focus lately around the new player experience). Do I think it will be as bad as a new game or an expansion of an existing game? No but I do think the problem will still exist.

Question to you: Does GW2 plan to stay at level 80 forever? Because this definitely will be a more interesting conversation if you start throwing in raids and then increase the level cap with some large patch in 6months-year or something. At that point, yes the level rush is on!

Kaz.5430:

I appreciate that we’ve been asked to consider a ‘Raid Group’ to be up to 15 players, but I wanted to make some suggestions and pointers regarding this aspect.

I think that designing a raid based on group size, is going to be a limiting factor in what can be created as a raid. It would be better IMO, to not have a specific group size that is always the same for every raid. Instead you set the group size later in the process, based on the specifics of what the raid requires.

Take the Marionette for example, there is no real way that fight would work in a group of 15 people, but it’s probably the content that would be voted the best boss fight that’s been developed so far.

After a bit of practice this fight was generally done with 15-20 people per lane, and I think given more time for us to master it, it would have been doable with as little as 10 per lane (I suspect it probably ‘was’ done with 10 per lane at one point). You could bring this fight back as a 50 player raid (10 per lane), you might even be able to bring it back as a super hard 25 man raid (5 per lane), but not as a 15 player raid, 3 players per lane is just unrealistically small to be completed.

Therefore limiting raids to a very specific player size is also limiting the creative scope of the development team. I Marionette was being designed now, with the intent of being a raid, it just never would have happened.

From a technical point of view, I am guessing that the reason for a 15 man limit is based on the theoretical maximum size for a party. Any more than 15 players would – I assume – mean that there is not enough screen space to include the health bar of all party members.

Could there not instead be a way of connecting two parties together into ‘companies’ (squad is already in use)? The primary purpose would be to allow groups to ensure that they end up in the raid with others that they want to play with, and not randomly get grouped with another party that happened to start at the same time.

The parties might not be able to see the health bars of the players outside of their own party, but they could chat with each other using /team and the system would essentially enable you to design any raid you want.

Do you see the flaw in what you’ve brought up though? The “best boss fight to date” was the one where they broke the group up into as many smaller groups as they could. The implication here being that you can’t have good gameplay in huge groups.

You have to realize that the Marionette fight’s mechanics were a solution to the problem that you cant (or at the very least it’s incredibly difficult to) make encounters with good gameplay with large groups. You have to split the group into smaller groups if you want fulfilling gameplay.

The biggest flaw with this whole “big group broken into smaller groups” idea is that you stop playing together with the other groups and start literally playing beside each other.
The individual groups are basically playing alone, but with a random chance to fail based on people who are essentially playing separately from them.
So be careful with this idea. Realize that the Marionette was fun because we were split into small groups, and realize that that was fun because the only time we get fulfilling gameplay is when we are in reasonably sized groups.
This idea is essentially proposing that we create a design problem just so that we can fix it. It strikes me as being a much better idea to simply not make problematic designs in the first place.

Question: Why not make fractals flex in terms of group size, up to a maximum of 15 players(or whatever is determined…I chose 15 because Chris Whiteside mentioned it). Content scales.

Is there a need to create a new set of content? Recycle what you have and add to it, improve it. I already think those encounters were some of the best I’ve experienced in an MMO.

Thoughts?

Add in a fractal leaderboard(I can’t remember if this is in already) where a guild or group name of a pug is entered for that week to see whats the highest level achieved that week.

There you have it. Recycled content = less dev time = cost savings = shareholders happy.
No new tiers or systems to entice people out of their comfort zones if they don’t want to be.
Leaderboard to add a bit of competitive flavor.

Appeases most groups, yes?

Just an observation, dungeon style I won’t take part open world I will take part. Way I am built.

Yargesh.4965:

Just an observation, dungeon style I won’t take part open world I will take part. Way I am built.

I want to say I agree that the spirit of GW2 is completing events in open world, not really instanced. Which is why there are so many world bosses.

But at the same time, theres a reason some of these fights are so simplistic. Designing encounters for an unknown number of players at any given time of unknown gear composition and unknown skill level is daunting. So they are watered down.

Crystal Reid.2481:

I’m not the one who makes decisions on gear tiers, but it’s very unlikely raids will have a new gear tier with new stats. We would attempt to find other avenues to reward players, and create a sense of progression within the raids instead.

You mention a “raid-focused progression track”. What do you think that might look like?

Look to Fractals!
Agony effectively bound players to progression within a closed system, without affecting gear requirements outside of that system.
You essentially want to keep the current gear system you have: the power plateau is set in stone, but players might still change gear in order to min-max their build.

Taking this idea into raids:
Instead of enemies getting stronger and requiring higher stats to defeat, upon entering a new dungeon/raid tier’s content you would get a debuff that reduces your effective power in some way (lower damage mitigation, lower damage, lower healing output, etc). Bosses will drop infusions which, when applied to your character, will reduce the effectiveness of the debuff.
The infusion could be put into a new infusion slot on gear, or you could simply add a new character gear slot altogether that is intended for equiping raid infusions.
This way, you’re not making people replace gear, and you’re not faced with the power-creep that comes with new gear tiers, but you enforce a form of stat-related progression in your raids.
Each new raid could require a new type of infusion that is specific to it, OR, you could make harsher debuffs with each new tier that require higher values of infusion.
A player gaining incredibly high values of infusion would have no ill effect on this system, because once the debuff is negated, a higher infusion value is useless for that raid.

cesmode.4257:

Yargesh.4965:

Just an observation, dungeon style I won’t take part open world I will take part. Way I am built.

I want to say I agree that the spirit of GW2 is completing events in open world, not really instanced. Which is why there are so many world bosses.

But at the same time, theres a reason some of these fights are so simplistic. Designing encounters for an unknown number of players at any given time of unknown gear composition and unknown skill level is daunting. So they are watered down.

I understand that. Just for whatever reason the concept of dungeon holds my attention once that is all. Open world like teq and wurm I can and have done hundreds of times.

phys.7689:

How does one differentiate if they themselves or other players have enough experience to handle the raid? Assume that this will be the most challenging content to date on an individual play level, and that a deep understanding of your class mechanics will be expected as the norm.

It’s a good question. We have nothing like this for dungeons, but I can think of something. Showing understanding of a specific profession could be done with profession-specific achievements.

Not only PvP achievements (we already have profession specific ones) but also for PvE content. Having survived x minutes without death with profession xy. Having done a number of combos with profession xy. Or dailies done with that profession… , dungeons done,… etc.

Someone who started his/her 2nd Mesmer and already has the achievements could instantly jump into the dungeon at lv.1 since gear/level/traits/skills are normalized.

Crystal Reid.2481:

Sytherek.7689:

Background: Long-time player in another MMO (the game-whose-name-cannot-be-said), with three fully-decked-out characters from top-level raids, raided 4-5 nights a week, was a raider from their original base game thru the expansion prior to “pandas.” I quit that game when “pandas” came out, a large part because of raiding.

Essentially, that game’s raids served to keep players playing with a gear treadmill. That is incompatible with a core GW2 philosophy.

If GW2 raids are a “must”, as in gear treadmill, I will leave the game and so will many people in my guild. Simple fact, not a threat, we just don’t want the “required” treadmill.

Now, if raids are parallel content to fractals, 5-man dungeons, and WvW, that’s great.

Just don’t make them mandatory for an even playing field with other parts of the game. Some unique raid-focused progression track is fine, like agony resistance for fractals.

Dungeons could give very unique visual rewards, too.

All classes must be usable in raids. No more developer-created elitism like in 5-man dungeons or “that other game’s” raids. Do not make certain classes “must have”. If anything, that’s where ANet fails on GW2 — poor balancing. I want to play the class I enjoy without gimping the party.

Raiding can be great fun; some of my fondest social gaming memories are from raids.

Don’t design a social activity around anti-social concepts.

I’m not the one who makes decisions on gear tiers, but it’s very unlikely raids will have a new gear tier with new stats. We would attempt to find other avenues to reward players, and create a sense of progression within the raids instead.

You mention a “raid-focused progression track”. What do you think that might look like?

A couple ideas…

1) The usual cosmetic rewards could have a “raid twist”, such as special optical effects only available from raids. Current 5-man dungeon rewards are… well, boring as compared to gemstore and “regular” gear.

2) GEMS as a reward for beating raid segments.

3) Unique dungeon-only skills.

4) Ranks as a “raider.” Perhaps akin to agony resist in fractals. This would have a benefit in making raider difficulty progressive, so the raids don’t become boring and forgotten.

5) Guild “leader boards” to show whose beaten which raid how fast.

6) Competitive raids that reset, letting guilds or groups face off against each other. Maybe even monthly raid “tournaments”?

On another note: Not all raids need to be holes in the ground or one-entrance buildings. Think about GW1’s Urgoz’s Warren or The Deep. Loved playing those.

Crystal Reid.2481:

Sytherek.7689:

Crystal Reid.2481:

I bolded a section of this that I wanted to inquire about. Do you think the fact the game has been live for over 2 years now change your thoughts on this? This is definitely a common occurrence with new MMO’s that launch with raiding, but what about a game that didn’t launch with raiding? Is there still an issue of players “rushing to 80” when a large percentage of the player base already has at least one 80? Thoughts?

Background: Long-time player in another MMO (the game-whose-name-cannot-be-said), with three fully-decked-out characters from top-level raids, raided 4-5 nights a week, was a raider from their original base game thru the expansion prior to “pandas.” I quit that game when “pandas” came out, a large part because of raiding.

Essentially, that game’s raids served to keep players playing with a gear treadmill. That is incompatible with a core GW2 philosophy.

If GW2 raids are a “must”, as in gear treadmill, I will leave the game and so will many people in my guild. Simple fact, not a threat, we just don’t want the “required” treadmill.

Now, if raids are parallel content to fractals, 5-man dungeons, and WvW, that’s great.

Just don’t make them mandatory for an even playing field with other parts of the game. Some unique raid-focused progression track is fine, like agony resistance for fractals.

Dungeons could give very unique visual rewards, too.

All classes must be usable in raids. No more developer-created elitism like in 5-man dungeons or “that other game’s” raids. Do not make certain classes “must have”. If anything, that’s where ANet fails on GW2 — poor balancing. I want to play the class I enjoy without gimping the party.

Raiding can be great fun; some of my fondest social gaming memories are from raids.

Don’t design a social activity around anti-social concepts.

I’m not the one who makes decisions on gear tiers, but it’s very unlikely raids will have a new gear tier with new stats. We would attempt to find other avenues to reward players, and create a sense of progression within the raids instead.

You mention a “raid-focused progression track”. What do you think that might look like?

agony resistance is a bit boring. I would go for something more over the top interesting. That plays into the idea of group dynamics.
Say when certain conditions are met in the raid area, you get specific advantages if you have some experience within the dungeon. For example enhanced boon strength, or DPS, small short hitstun added to attack (not interupt/hard CC stuns) or perhaps enhanced or extra effects for combo field use. Things that can make the encounters more entertaining

probably should not make it item based, because the investment in ascended is too high for you to require people to get all new ones.
That leaves something where you progress based on possibly beating certain raids, or how many times you beat certain raids, or possibly completing certain bonus/side objectives in raids.

So if its not items, it can be special traits, skills, or overall buffs. If it had to be tied to equipment, it would probably need a new slot, or maybe be ring based, since thats probably the easiest to replace.

if it needed to progress, you could make these special abilities scale similar to guild wars 1, where they get stronger the higher your “raid level” might be.

Palador.2170:

How about taking it a step further and taking the full PvP build idea for raids?

Everyone is auto-set to level 80, with all normal traits unlocked, just like in PvP. Gear works the same as well. Thus, anyone can quickly whip up a character and throw them into raids, or set up a character with a raid build and gear that doesn’t match their PvE build/gear.

Of course, this has problems, but we can solve that too. In fact, we can solve two problems at the same time. Problem one is people that don’t know what they’re doing getting into raids. Problem two is that the devs are going to face a period of learning as they implement raids. So, we make the first three or so raids a learning experience for both the players and devs. The devs get to try a few things and see how they work before cranking them up to 11 for later raids, which will be harder. The players gain items that must be thrown into the Mystic Forge to create a “key” of sorts that they need to have on them to get into the later raids. (I’d suggest the key be Accountbound, but arguments can be made for Soulbound.)

I would also like to say that I really like the idea of non-equipment keys of some sort needed to progress through a series of raids. This creates some of the benefits of a gear treadmill without most of the downsides of it.

That would remove the option of quick weapon swapping out of combat. I dislike to remove mechanics so nope.
A simple stat boost wouldn’t be enough upon entering the instance? Similarly how the upscaling works in WvW and LS instances.

Dalanor.5387:

Palador.2170:

How about taking it a step further and taking the full PvP build idea for raids?

Everyone is auto-set to level 80, with all normal traits unlocked, just like in PvP. Gear works the same as well. Thus, anyone can quickly whip up a character and throw them into raids, or set up a character with a raid build and gear that doesn’t match their PvE build/gear.

Of course, this has problems, but we can solve that too. In fact, we can solve two problems at the same time. Problem one is people that don’t know what they’re doing getting into raids. Problem two is that the devs are going to face a period of learning as they implement raids. So, we make the first three or so raids a learning experience for both the players and devs. The devs get to try a few things and see how they work before cranking them up to 11 for later raids, which will be harder. The players gain items that must be thrown into the Mystic Forge to create a “key” of sorts that they need to have on them to get into the later raids. (I’d suggest the key be Accountbound, but arguments can be made for Soulbound.)

I would also like to say that I really like the idea of non-equipment keys of some sort needed to progress through a series of raids. This creates some of the benefits of a gear treadmill without most of the downsides of it.

That would remove the option of quick weapon swapping out of combat. I dislike to remove mechanics so nope.
A simple stat boost wouldn’t be enough upon entering the instance? Similarly how the upscaling works in WvW and LS instances.

the quick weapon swapping was something they specifically added for pvp, im pretty sure they can turn it on or off. It didnt used to be in spvp.

Stat boosts can only take care of shallow changes, and work in odd ways (like how two stat or single stat gear is handled.
the lack of access to traits, and skills is a pretty big difference in what you are capable of.

runeblade.7514:

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

I think stacking should be removed for a variety of reasons, but chiefly because it just looks silly.

My suggestion for removing stacking? AoE multipliers that also stack:

Boss drops an AoE with 0 cast time, but minimal damage. That AoE would normally hit for ~0-10% of a player’s max health (per second) – no big deal, just dodge out. But if a second player is in the AoE field, the AoE’s multiplier bumps up by 2x so now it hits for 20% of a player’s max health. 3 players would be 40%, 4 players would be 80% and 5 would be 100% – an instant wipe.

Poof. You’ve just eliminated stacking by making it too risky to stay stacked.

The trick is to deal with stacking directly. If you try to just make “unstackable” bosses, players will still find a way. Powerful attacks will just be dodged and then players will re-stack, you have to make the stack itself the source of the wipe…

I don’t think anyone’s suprised to see me back for this discussion.
So, let’s get right to it.

Proposal Overview

I propose the idea of a multi-tiered raiding system, customizable by the players to some degree, as well as reiterating how important it is to uphold the paradigms of inclusion and playstyle diversity.

Goal of Proposal

To help form players an idea of what raiding could be in GW2, versus what they know it is in other games.
To find a middle ground between the needs of the various types of players.

Proposal Functionality

Let’s be frank for a moment and throw out something crazy: The game is easy.
And that is not a bad thing.
With raids though, most are thinking of challenging, difficult content, as the posts before this one show in great detail. However, just making a challenging 10-, 15-, 20-, 40-, or even 120-person instanced or non-instanced encounter will not be the greatest challenge. It is getting as many people as possible involved in them.

People running dungeons often (or even leisurely) know of the zerker/efficiency-everything else/playhowyouwant drama still permeating throughout the game, causing no small amount of ill will between sides. This is still happening on a daily basis.
(I’ll go into greater detail on stats and raiding in a later post, I promise.)
No one is wrong per se in that debate either.

So, after 2 years, we still get the question what gear set to bring to various events (including Tequatl and Evolved Jungle Wurm), dungeons, fractals, WvW, etc, on a daily basis.
Raiding is going to be no different.

To get as many people as possible to experience a raid encounter, I propose raids should have a moderate difficulty suited for the average player skill level. That is to say, it should challenge the average player to want to become better, to learn, to explore, to experiment, and to experience the power of teamwork.
Hence raiding should not be confined to guilds. Searching for a raid party on LFG should be viable.

However, these raids should have a level option akin to fractals, so a group could attempt to take the raid on at a higher difficulty for better (or faster) rewards.

The latter option would be more like the ‘traditional’ raid as we know them from other games: Hard content a group of players throw themselves at time and time again until they finally overcome that wall.
We’ve seen a lot of great ideas for those already.

Okay, let’s take a quick look at what makes raids so obtuse in other games:
Large organised groups required.
Heavy gear requirements.
Heavy role requirements.
Tactics.
Voice communication requirements.

So let’s say the moderate raid, the story version, is kind of the ‘raid experience with training wheels’. A raid can then tie in with the living world, and the difficulty shouldn’t be a problem for most players in the game.
In the story raid, brief cutscenes explain tactics (skippable?) for each section, perhaps even in a very generic manner. NPC’s can come along for the ride and aid the players by calling out vital information as the raid leader would through voice communications.
That way, a large complex fight can be made accessible to a great many players, and once the story has been completed, the explorable version of the raid opens up where bosses have more varied attacks, tactics are improved and harder versions of before with little to no explanation given, and there is more room for imposing requirements and penalties on the raiding team.
The GW2 engine is capable of doing more than just setting a boss’ stats higher, so even in a level system like fractals raid groups could opt for harder and higher challenges for even greater rewards. Perhaps even a gambit system like for the Queen’s Gauntlet could be used where the raid leader can opt for a small wager to get the raiders guaranteed loot.
A ‘Defeated Primordus while on fire’ achievement seems appropriate.

Associated Risks

The risks are overdoing it, especially at the start. If the first raiding experiences for the average player are death after death after death, then many will sign off right there. If I’ve learned anything from Dark Souls’ design, it’s that a death should be because the player did something wrong, most of the time in a painfully obvious manner.
What I mean is, if a player dies they should instantly and clearly know why that happened.
Don’t stand in the big orange circle.
Dragon eating your head = not good.
Firing ULTRA DOOM LASER OF KITTENING DOOM IN 5, 4,…

Extra risk for encounter design in general: The fact the dodge button works as a get out of trouble free card in all of the above situations may indicate a problem.

I had a thought for rewards. You could add infusions to the boss loot tables. These would be tradeable and would range between the regular +4 stat infusions you get from laurel vendors to the highly expensive crafted versatile +5 X stat with +5 agony resist. You could also add new infusions which give a +5 stat bonus and/or a cosmetic glow.

So for example there could be a rare chance for purple infusions to drop. These could have a number of different stats but the key feature would be that they add a purple hue aura to the equipment they are slotted onto. You could have a number of different colours and stat choices.

This would be fitting for endgame rewards as it is both cosmetic and just an alternative method of obtaining your infusions for your ascended gear. And making them tradeable would make them highly expensive rewards. Id expect them to be very rare though and only dropped from the most difficult raids/bosses or obtained from a raid reward track (completing 50 full raid clears etc).

Or you could simply add colour infusions which dont have any stat bonus. These could be a lesser reward and a more common drop.

One thing I’d really like to see for both Raids and the game as a whole would be the addition of a “gearset” UI for players to quickly/easily swap gear sets and trait specs (skillbar sets would be nice too)

Raids seems like they will necessitate more defined “roles” for players – not necessarily healer/tank/DPS in the strictest sense, but I’d hate to see raids degenerate into nothing more than 15 zerkers all bum-rushing the bosses.

I have a set of Cleric Exotics + Hammer that I use on my Warrior during Tequatl fights, it helps me keep other players in the fight and the hammer keeps mobs back/stunned when I’m reviving someone. I call it my “Combat Medic” build. I’m not a healer – I’m still swinging away at Teq in between revives, but when I see players go down I rush over and get them back up in 1/2 the time it normally takes me.

I would really love a way to extend this sort of “flexibility” to raids. Lots of Eles/Guards? I’ll go full zerk and pile on the dps. Tons of heavy hitters but not a lot of heals? Swap to my Cleric build and get players back on their feet ASAP.

Blaeys.3102:

Astralporing.1957:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

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

Chris

If that’s all what it means, it’s not that big of a problem (depending on how strict the level requirement is – fractals for example are level 80 content as well, but you can still run early ones with level 70-s and hope to succeed). If raids were to be designed around level 80s with perfect BiS (ascended) gear however…
Also, there’s a question whether they are meant to be one of many endgame activities, or the endgame. Again, lot of the voices in this thread seems to show desire for the latter (which would be a massive change to the game principles). That’s especially visible where rewards are mentioned.

Erichermit.6018:

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.)

I disagree. The game should not drive players towards “challenging and difficult” or “rewarding” system. If it even has to drive players anywhere, it is towards fun content. Something they would like to play. And since no two people like the same things, the game should not attempt to drive them anywhere, but rather open up multiple options.

Basically, if someone decides to play the game for rewards, no single content should leap immediately to their mind, Of course, consequently, no content should also be visibly last in that category.

If people are going to play raids primarily for rewards, then they have failed as a design, and the game would be better without them being introduced at all. If GW2 is going to have Raids as only one important PvE endgame option, then again, it would be better without them being introduced at all.

I think this post brings up some very important points and I agree with every one. The content should be enough to draw players to a particular aspect of the game.

Rewards (in GW2) shouldnt drive gameplay decisions. Let us play the content we find the most fun without having to worry about missing out on the special shinies. That is what can lead to a single mode or aspect taking over the game, which would not be good for this game.

Raiding should be about the experience more than it is about the reward (which should be true of every aspect of the game, imo).

I completely agree with this, personally. However, this is not the case here. The majority of people appear to want ‘commensurate’ rewards for the time a raid would take. ‘Commensurate’ takes on a meaning of ‘best’ gear in reward for ‘hardest’ content. A visual way to show they have more leet skills than those that can’t, won’t, or are unable to play the same content. This game has tried the route of ‘harder’ content with similar rewards, with horrible success, with many ‘hard core’ players refusing to do the content because it took to long for the resulting rewards.

This is why I keep steering this conversation back to the reward system that is going to be put in place. If it is done incorrectly, it will literally destroy the game. Arenanet is laying out a promise to those that are clamoring for this content. We hear you, we are listening, and we will deliver a gameplay experience BASED upon the ideas we are discussing.

Content design aside, unfullfilling rewards, or rewards locked behind time, RNG, or some other gating function, will lead to levels of rage that will make our previous community problems appear to be tempests in a teapot. Until we get a handle on what will be acceptable rewards, everything else is moot. People do not play these games any more for fun, apparently, they play them for the rewards.

I’ve seen some discussion on this with varying amounts of expectability vs. randomization, but I’m also interested in what defines a ‘good reward’…subjective artistic skins, in game coin, BiS gear, shareable toys offering the overarching playerbase some fun options? Is it better to have this delivered to the player through RNG? Why or why not? Is it better to receive tokens and turn them in? Why or why not?

Again, design is important, but for the majority that play this type of content, 1 guaranteed yellow drop, a handful of blues and greens, and extreme RNG drops for uber items off the main boss, will not provide a reward system worthy of their time.

rewards wise for the raid as long as the rewards arent sellable im okay with that. the rewards if say skins should not be sellable as they were not earned by the person potentially selling it and we need things in this game where you look at people and go ‘ohh look at that —-—— its awesome’ and imo rng should be used in the raid just carefully.

Crystal Reid.2481:

I’m not the one who makes decisions on gear tiers, but it’s very unlikely raids will have a new gear tier with new stats. We would attempt to find other avenues to reward players, and create a sense of progression within the raids instead.

You mention a “raid-focused progression track”. What do you think that might look like?

i had an idea like raids should be planned
first of all i think have 2 mode of the same raid will make everyone happy, a normal mode and an hardcore mode, difference between this 2 mode should be (ofc) the difficulty and the rewards
rewards should be composed by a raid token like normal dungeons plus golds and gems, ofc in hardcore mode rewad should be scaled by difficulty, and for avoid the “farming mode” if u get reward from one mode u cant take it from the other one. i’d also like to add a “special presence token” will allow you to unlock next tier of raid wich will consist in a different raid with a little better reward, and then u can do this tier and the “lowest”….

with this kind of system devs can plan how many times player will unlock tiers and how can be able to gain, because weekly reward cap, and can plan different content during the months

with “normal tokens” i think you should be able to buy armor and weapon skins, special dye and “auras” will surround the pg like some pieces already have
and ofc should be nice have an achievement for raid as title, and a combo with this achievement and a gift (bought with tokens) will give you a more important title

Illuminerdi.9153:

One thing I’d really like to see for both Raids and the game as a whole would be the addition of a “gearset” UI for players to quickly/easily swap gear sets and trait specs (skillbar sets would be nice too)

Raids seems like they will necessitate more defined “roles” for players – not necessarily healer/tank/DPS in the strictest sense, but I’d hate to see raids degenerate into nothing more than 15 zerkers all bum-rushing the bosses.

I have a set of Cleric Exotics + Hammer that I use on my Warrior during Tequatl fights, it helps me keep other players in the fight and the hammer keeps mobs back/stunned when I’m reviving someone. I call it my “Combat Medic” build. I’m not a healer – I’m still swinging away at Teq in between revives, but when I see players go down I rush over and get them back up in 1/2 the time it normally takes me.

I would really love a way to extend this sort of “flexibility” to raids. Lots of Eles/Guards? I’ll go full zerk and pile on the dps. Tons of heavy hitters but not a lot of heals? Swap to my Cleric build and get players back on their feet ASAP.

i agree with you, raids should be the right time to make gw2 complete and go through the full zerk, and make this game more than an hack and slash, i’d like to use all potential of my characters, i have 6 lvl 80 and 5 of them is full zerk and the other one i will play just with relaxed party for make something different…. we can create raids, living story etc etc, but if the only purpose i have will be just to do max dps and forget all the other possibility will be boring really fast

Crystal Reid.2481:

Is there still an issue of players “rushing to 80” when a large percentage of the player base already has at least one 80?

Yes and no. I am convinced the inclusiveness of GW2 is a unique property that this game needs to be preserved. There are enough “1337 only” MMOs out there, and I would really rather like to see GW2 explore new ways of inclusive gameplay then to repeat the same old exclusive gameplay that drove me away from other games.

Having said that, I’d say if you roll out raid content as “requires level 80” content then I think most people are fine with such a requirement. After all, getting to level 80 in a non-rushed way somewhat equals the time a new player needs to learn to play the game, anyways.

However, if you are not careful with the content you design, and an intended “requires level 80” slowly morphs into a “requires level 80 with fully ascended gear, hyper-expensive runes, and other knick-knack can only be obtained after a lifetime of farming” then I’d say we have a problem. The challenge of a good raid should be organization and active gameplay, not gearing up.

And when organization is a key element of a raid event anyways, why not have a number of roles that are doable by level 80s and non-80s alike?

My 2 copper.

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

A player has to have at least one lv.80 to unlock raids accountwide. Normalize gear and level for raids so that player “newthiefy” (lv.23) can play a raid with his lv.80 friends while he is on the same power-level as they are.

Nice idea.

And while we are at it and normalization is a thing: Anet could even reconsider the old “sidekick” concept in it’s original design: Each level 80 character might “sidekick” a non-level-80 character up to level 80. This would lower the level barrier to enter a raid if it would require level 80 stats.

~MRA

Stats & Roles

One of the things in GW2 PvE bothering many is the zerker VS play how you want discussion.
For those not in the loop: The basic premise is that berzerker stats (power, precision, ferocity) are the only stats you need, since the other stats do not increase your efficiency as a character. This is to great ire of everyone who wants to play anything other than a direct damage build.

*Why not condition damage?
Conditions have stack limits. Bleed stacks up to 25, for example. In large groups, this becomes problematic as while 1 condition build will increase DPS, a second character with such a build will deal much less DPS.

*What’s wrong with Toughness and Vitality? Dead people don’t deal damage, right?
Technically true, but there’s the dodge mechanic.
Look at the dodge button like this: It is a 2x total invulnerability for 1 second button on a low cooldown.
Add to this the fact that most PvE enemies in the game have few, well-telegraphed, hard-hitting attacks, and suddenly that dodge button gives you the ability to emerge unscathed from virtually any battle.
In short: toughness and vitality do not make you live longer if you dodge everything anyway, but they will take the spot of a stat that does make you deal more damage.

*Healing power?
In very specific builds, for few classes, this will make your character a decent healer.
However, everyone has a heal button on a low cooldown as well as the dodge button, hence there should never be the need to heal others in the first place.

*Boon duration, condition duration?
In theory, they could be great stats.
The fact they are easily capped without any gear commitment make them not that good in practice. Then there’s also the problems with the CC skills vs defiant, and boon-favouring classes.

The actual underlying problem is this:
DPS:
Power, Precision, Ferocity, Condition Damage, Condition Duration

Control:
Condition Duration, vitality, Toughness

Support:
Healing Power, Boon Duration.

The problem should be obvious. The game is DPS oriented because DPS stats make up for half of the available stats.
It could even be argued Toughness and Vitality have no real place anywhere in terms of role.

Solutions:
A) Reduce the number of stats on gear.
B) Reduce the number of DPS stats.
C) Add more stats to balance these out amongst roles.

However, this is essentially a different discussion as the raiding one. It’s going to be in people’s minds during this CDI, but it really shouldn’t be. This is a separate problem, and should be addressed with everyone’s full attention, not as a sub-part of raiding.

Lian Olsam.9541:

Illuminerdi.9153:

One thing I’d really like to see for both Raids and the game as a whole would be the addition of a “gearset” UI for players to quickly/easily swap gear sets and trait specs (skillbar sets would be nice too)

Raids seems like they will necessitate more defined “roles” for players – not necessarily healer/tank/DPS in the strictest sense, but I’d hate to see raids degenerate into nothing more than 15 zerkers all bum-rushing the bosses.

I have a set of Cleric Exotics + Hammer that I use on my Warrior during Tequatl fights, it helps me keep other players in the fight and the hammer keeps mobs back/stunned when I’m reviving someone. I call it my “Combat Medic” build. I’m not a healer – I’m still swinging away at Teq in between revives, but when I see players go down I rush over and get them back up in 1/2 the time it normally takes me.

I would really love a way to extend this sort of “flexibility” to raids. Lots of Eles/Guards? I’ll go full zerk and pile on the dps. Tons of heavy hitters but not a lot of heals? Swap to my Cleric build and get players back on their feet ASAP.

i agree with you, raids should be the right time to make gw2 complete and go through the full zerk, and make this game more than an hack and slash, i’d like to use all potential of my characters, i have 6 lvl 80 and 5 of them is full zerk and the other one i will play just with relaxed party for make something different…. we can create raids, living story etc etc, but if the only purpose i have will be just to do max dps and forget all the other possibility will be boring really fast

and here we go.
what you guys have to understand is support, control etc doesnt come from the stats of your gear in gw2. it comes from weapons, traits and utlity skills.

if you believe optimised berserker PvE builds are just dps and nothing else, what about if you pay a little bit more attention to see nearly every build sacrifices dps for more support?
just dps just dps just dps, we read it every single day from people who do not understand the combat system in gw2. it is not true.

you can have someone in your party with healing gear, or you can have 5 berserker people who know what they are doing and blast water fields. in the end, option 2 is more difficult to do and comes with the reward that you can deal more dps at the same time.

good play should be rewarded, not punished.

and other than that there is also more teamplay and coordination involved without set roles.

Naetell.3815:

*
*What’s wrong with Toughness and Vitality? Dead people don’t deal damage, right?
Technically true, but there’s the dodge mechanic.
Look at the dodge button like this: It is a 2x total invulnerability for 1 second button on a low cooldown.
Add to this the fact that most PvE enemies in the game have few, well-telegraphed, hard-hitting attacks, and suddenly that dodge button gives you the ability to emerge unscathed from virtually any battle.
In short: toughness and vitality do not make you live longer if you dodge everything anyway, but they will take the spot of a stat that does make you deal more damage.

tl:dr

punish good players who know when to dodge, when to use aegis, when to use other active defense and reward players who need defensive gear to survive because whatever the reason is.

Naetell.3815:

Support:
Healing Power, Boon Duration.

again people forget that the following things are “support” but not bound to stats:
aegis, wall of reflection, combo fields, feedback, blast finisher, vulnerability, protection, warrior banners, spotter frostspirit, CC skills, might, fury, blinds, quickness, swiftness and so on.

gw2 has a unique combat system that requires the player to be skilled (with the right content). dont take it away.

using the right skill at the right time is more difficult to do than using stats to give you a bigger error tolerance.

Roybe.5896:

Again, design is important, but for the majority that play this type of content, 1 guaranteed yellow drop, a handful of blues and greens, and extreme RNG drops for uber items off the main boss, will not provide a reward system worthy of their time.

Also agreed – raids are going to need guaranteed methods of acquiring rewards that cannot be gotten elsewhere, or they will go unplayed because even if the RNG rewards are “larger” they will not be as fast a dungeon farming is.

Personally, I think that tiered raid gear is not a bad thing; as for how to do this without upsetting the existing stat balance is pretty simple, just make raid gear get special/bonus stats only when players are inside a raid, and when outside a raid it just acts like exotic or ascended gear in terms of stats.

Additionally, how about adding Legendary armor to the game obtainable through raids somehow (precursor armor drops from raid bosses? If so, please make drop rates higher than existing precursor drops….)

The “raid tier sets” become to short term/incremental rewards that players earn points for every raid, and the legendary precursor drops become the long term goal for raids…

But regardless of what you do, more RNG boxes will kill raids dead in seconds. The RNG lottery just creates too long of a gap between “Ascended” and “Legendary”, I think the best solution is to add incremental steps between, so that the guaranteed rewards keep players feeling like they’re progressing forward, rather than just hoping today’s the day they hit the jackpot.