Guild Wars 2

Crystal Reid.2481:

If we removed Defiance, how would you propose a replacement that makes CC (interrupts, stuns, fears etc) valuable without creating a
situation that allows players to CC a creature to death.

The simplest solution is to just make certain skills that a creature casts interruptable even when it has Defiant. This would makes interrupts valuable in certain circumstances without letting a creature being “stun locked” to death.

I don’t think Defiant is really that bad in concept, it’s just poorly tuned. Defiant increases much too quickly with scaling; half of what it currently is should be better. Furthermore, a creature should be vulnerable to Crowd Control for a period of time instead of a single spell. For instance: When you strip the Defiant of a creature, Crowd Control and interrupts will land for 2 seconds.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Morning,

Ok I have been up all night reading the posts and thinking about this CDI.

To be frank this is not a good CDI, specifically because whilst some folks are trying to be collaborative and have valuable discussion others are just bullying with their different agendas.

I have always said that if a CDI loses its value on both sides that it will be stopped.

So I am at some what of a loss. I can’t tell anymore if it is of value to this group. Whilst it certainly has been valuable for us it has been extremely time consuming to get to the good stuff.

So I will leave it up to you folks. If you feel you can work more collaboratively then by all means let me know that you want to carry on.

If you feel that it is a lost cause then I will ask for everyone’s top three priorities for raiding and call it a day.

I want to say thank you very much to all those who tried to follow the rules of the CDI and who had a healthy discussion. I also wanted to say a big thank you to TTS and DnT. We appreciate your feedback.

Chris

I’m aware I’m likely one of the people being given out to but I think the CDI can still be productive. I’d like if you asked more leading/specific questions as I think that may focus the discussion more than the larger nebulous questions.

1.Not linked to guilds
2. Unique rewards
3. Difficulty in an intelligent and consistent manner that increases the further you progress; don’t rely solely on one mechanic use several in combination.

I think that a broad topic of raiding lends itself to multiple discussions on various points and asking us to stick to two aspects of it is difficult without addressing the other parts.

I want to go on record again and say I don’t think raiding has a place in GW2. Im not sure I necessarily would want it in the game as you start down a slippery slope of max level only content when we have been sold this idea that everything is endgame.

With that being said…

1. - Accessibility. I don’t want to be obligated to join a guild for this. A ‘looking for raid’ system would fit well within the community here.

1. - No gear checks, no gear requirements. I dont want to feel the need to get that extra boost via ascended gear just to be able to clear raid content efficiently. Adding things into the game where ascended gear gives even the slighest boost over rare gear, again, starts you down a slippery slope.

1. - Be transparent with how you are developing this. Don’t go away for 6 months, come out and say BTW we got raiding coming and this is what its going to be like. In the spirit of collaboration and CDI, keep a continuous dialogue open with us. Tell us how you are going to begin development on it, and keep us updated. This way we can give you feedback early on if we will like it or not, rather than after its implemented and now annoyed with a rage storm. Let us build it with you.

cesmode.4257:

1. - Be transparent with how you are developing this. Don’t go away for 6 months, come out and say BTW we got raiding coming and this is what its going to be like. In the spirit of collaboration and CDI, keep a continuous dialogue open with us. Tell us how you are going to begin development on it, and keep us updated. This way we can give you feedback early on if we will like it or not, rather than after its implemented and now annoyed with a rage storm. Let us build it with you.

This, this, and more this.

To add to this, I think it’d even be worthwhile to introduce small prototypes/proofs-of-concept for us to test out and give feedback on — like a new instance in DR/LA/anywhere with a temporary 12 man raid boss. This could be used as a testing ground for anything from new attack animations, new CC/defiance models, or even environmental puzzles. Nothing fancy, just an empty, untextured room with a boss. Don’t worry about the art, just test the mechanics. We could provide feedback (rather than making you guess) and would have a sense of where things are going.

A valid concern is that unpolished content shouldn’t be put into the open world — maybe hide an option in the settings menu to enable/disable a shortcut that would trigger the instance (like how we enter HotM).

ArenaNet has been keeping absolutely everything behind closed doors until last minute, and as they’ve seemed to realize over the last few months, it hasn’t worked out well. Players are suspicious that development on “X” aspect of the game has stopped, new additions are very poorly received (Aetherpath, EotM, etc)…these problems can only be solved by being more transparent.

Lately we’ve started see a lot more red activity on the forum, and that’s great! But it’s typically just a post saying “Keep up the discussion guys, we’re listening!”, and it often feels like lip-service when there’s no meaningful information coming back our way. I know ArenaNet has some draconian policies in place that prevents community liaisons from sharing information. It’s time for this to change.

NoTrigger.8396:

Astralporing.1957:

Around which stat should the raid content (any content) be balanced around? If the baseline will be PVT, then (unless some additional mechanics are introduced) the zerkers will blow through the content with no problem at all. If you balance around the Berserker stat however, then it will become required, because anyone else will need to deal with massively inflated hp pools that would extend fights for hours.

The differences in DPS output of different stat sets are just too huge – while the advantages conferred by non-dps focused stat sets too low in comparison.
There’s just no point in upping your survival-per-time-played rate by 25%, if to do that you sacrifice the opportunity to do 2-3x more damage (and i am being conservative here). If the battles introduce any kinds of oneshots, that disproportion of stat set usefulness only gets more severe.

This is a weakness of the current combat design that can be overlooked for casual content, but will need to be addressed if you plan on creating truly challenging PvE game modes.

if bosses dont have enrage timer, berserker players will kill stuff faster, but berserker wont be a requirement.
players who use other gear will need longer to kill stuff, but will have an easier time to survive. so isnt that a good trade off?

I think that’s part of the issue. The trade off is kind of nonsensical for PvE.
The DPS vs Survivability is a paradigm that makes sense in PvP, and it’s quite likely been designed with sPvP in mind, but in PvE you deal with opponents that are unlike players. Mobs aren’t designed to take advantage of the weaknesses of either extreme, leading to things like the video you’ve linked earlier, as well as the dominance of Berzerker gear in the general PvE game today.
PvE is based on DPS, Control, Support. Survivability is much an afterthought compared to those 3, which is why the comparison doesn’t quite hold up as well as it does in PvP.

phys.7689:

I am not really advocating for either style. But i think the fundamental disconect is having stats primarily be about only those two forces. In gw1, increasing stats was more about increasing the viability of a playstyle.

A million times +1. Stats don’t do that for anything but DPS in the current design, which is weird considering some of the stats you can find on gear.

Nokaru.7831:

Crystal Reid.2481:

If we removed Defiance, how would you propose a replacement that makes CC (interrupts, stuns, fears etc) valuable without creating a
situation that allows players to CC a creature to death.

The simplest solution is to just make certain skills that a creature casts interruptable even when it has Defiant. This would makes interrupts valuable in certain circumstances without letting a creature being “stun locked” to death.

I don’t think Defiant is really that bad in concept, it’s just poorly tuned. Defiant increases much too quickly with scaling; half of what it currently is should be better. Furthermore, a creature should be vulnerable to Crowd Control for a period of time instead of a single spell. For instance: When you strip the Defiant of a creature, Crowd Control and interrupts will land for 2 seconds.

Or simply make certain CC types necessary to interrupt specific kinds of attacks.

For instance:

There are straight CC spells in-game right now that apply a daze or stun. Against those, allow Defiance to continue to work as-is.

But there still remain knock-backs and knock-downs as hard CC, and cripples, fears, chill as soft CC.

What if the only way to interrupt a charge attack (a la Champ Risen Abomination) was to use a knock back? What if the only way to interrupt a stomp attack (a la Champ Troll) was to use a knock down? What if a knock down attack prevented an airborne boss (a la Grawl Shaman) from moving—that it would have to attack from a stationary position for a duration? What if cripple prevented a boss from using a leap attack (HotW Huntsman)?

Additionally, none of these proposed alternatives would have to actually interrupt the boss. They could be pure movement actions. A boss about to use an insta-gib attack could be knocked across the room where he’d complete the attack a safe distance away. Positioning and direction become paramount to move the boss out of range of the party. Downing Grawl Shaman at the right time so everyone can unload their burst would be crucial.

That kinda thing. CC doesn’t have to always be an interrupt.

spoj.9672:

Killthehealersffs.8940:

NoTrigger.8396:

Killthehealersffs.8940:

‘’Enrage Timer’’ ?
What kind of casual things are you spouting ?
So Bersker gear should be a ‘’MUST HAVE 100%’’ to beat the encounter ?
Dont you have a more vivid immagination ?

just for your info johnny, the enrage timer was used as an example (you will even find the sentence “let me give you an example” in my other post) to explain to people that we dont have a trinity, how our combat system works and that you pick gear according to your skill level in PvE. but from your post it seems you are not very experienced when it comes to raiding content so thats totally ok and i will not take your post serious.

i would personally like to see enrage timers because it will actually force people to become better at the game. but on the other hand i know that there are people who simply want to use defensive gear for the sake of using defensive gear. so i am completely fine if we dont get to see any enrage timers and people can play how they want (if they are successful is a different question).

So an enrage timer will make ppl more skilled ?
This is beyong me …. i dont really have words to describe it ….
Or will it make the encounter a DPS RACE like other games ?
Have you played seriously raid in other games ?

5 months now , you always try to shut down ppl opionion that:
‘’istances is not about DPS’’
‘’you are not forced to run only Berseker gear’’
‘’istances are not competive encounters’’

And you are here now …. saying we must implant a a DPS RACE in the game and we should make exactly the same ecnounters like the dungeons that you hate (huge HP + slow telegraphs?) ?

If the game ‘’ johnny’’ will be balanced around pppl will defensiuve gear , the boss will have LESS HP and LESS ENRAGE TIMER to be beat by any1 .
So your super guild and the rest of the planet , wont have to fight a gazilion HP bosses ……
, but instead your Bersker guild will melt down the boss faster than anything …..

Did you understand it ‘’ johnny’’ ?
Or should i make more ‘’ johnnish’’ ?

If you have a time constraint you are forced to work harder. You are encouraged to maximise your groups efficiency. This means taking as much damage as you can while also maintaining your ability to survive etc. Without a time constraint you can simply use fully defensive gear and take it as slow and easy as you like. This dimishes the challenge. And thats the reason that enrage timers exist in raids. They encourage the group to try as hard as they can. The enrage timer can be balanced around moderate dps groups and then it shouldnt be a problem for groups with a mix of gear types. Or the enrage can be prevented by some special condition. Enrage mechanics dont always have to be tied to timers. The clockheart has a simple decent idea for alternative enrage.

That, and, making the DPS feel like they have a goal to work towards other than ‘kill the thing for shinies’. Also, to prevent the trinity from having the option of going 10 tanks, 5 healers in a 15 man raid.

NoTrigger.8396:

XD your post makes me smile.

ok so
1. read spojs post. he explains why enrage timer exist.
2. yes i have played “serious” raid in other games. and especially “serious” raid that wasnt about gear or spreadsheets but therefore about knowledge, teamwork and player skill.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HisRpzL24B8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEmE8i0Lsn8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvA9r9NBdlY
i only recorded these 3 videos but i can record more if you would like to see “serious” raid that actually forces players to be good and overstep their own bounds/limits to beat encounters. in the 3. video you can actually see how enrage timers look like at the end of the video. we just killed the boss right before he would have rekt us.

3. i never tried to “shut down” anyones opinion. i tried to explain facts and basics to the people who dont seem to understand it.

4. you should read carefully.
if you would read carefully, you would have realized that i never said ONCE in this thread “we need enrage timer or dps race”. the enrage timer in my example was just a tool to prove a point.

5. i dont hate huge hp and slow telegraphs. but i would like to see even more “telegraphs” and more action so i have to react and avoid even more -> become better, play better, have more fun. i would like to learn. learning is fun (except in school). as long as you can learn you will have a goal and something to strive for.
and no matter how much kitten you will throw at me, i will always find ways to use the most offensive stuff and become good enough to deal with it without going full tank.
its actually good game design and challenging, when a boss throws alot of kitten at you but you are able to survive because of player skill and not because of gear.

“If the game ‘’ johnny’’ will be balanced around pppl will defensiuve gear , the boss will have LESS HP and LESS ENRAGE TIMER to be beat by any1 .
So your super guild and the rest of the planet , wont have to fight a gazilion HP bosses ……
, but instead your Bersker guild will melt down the boss faster than anything …..”

6. when there are real mechanics involed in the boss fight it doesnt matter how much hp a boss has. and less enrage timer means less challenge, because you can “chill more, drink a beer, make a pizza” and you dont have to be on top of your game.

i am all for options and mechanics so the “play how you want crowd” can do and play whatever they want in the raid.
but there needs to be a clear line between giving players freedom and making content too easy.

What about option 3? Make tanking skill-based and make tanking gear increase skill-based tanking skills rather than passive defenses?

There are 2 failure states to a raid encounter:
1) All players are dead.
2) The boss cannot die by this raiding group.

State 2 is more rare to see because the idea of bosses with heavy regenerative abilities and the like has traditionally inspired ire.

Well as a dps player i dont want my personal challenge to be diminished by having someone take the tank role in a raid. So im against changing the core system to make dedicated tanks. This games combat is involved and fun for whatever role you play. That cant be said for trinity mmo’s.

cesmode.4257:

Dalanor.5387:

Tuomir.1830:

Dalanor.5387:

Tuomir.1830:

I would like to point out, with improved aggro management with some small changes to the aggro mechanics, “tanking” can be a role that’s not passive, and would be supported by defensive stats in the same manner as DPS is supported by offensive stats. Defensive stats would provide passive damage mitigation to some level, for sure, but to hold the aggro would be the part requiring player skill.

Tanking works fine, just not as dumb as in others game with artificial threat mechanics.
Archy and Mossman are great examples how can you make an advantage of the situation when the boss sticks to you. Thats why guardians often use Knights gear there so while they grab the agro and rotating blocks or simply backpedaling while the boss is slowed down, the rest of the party can damage the boss at free will. Of course when the kitten hits the fan and the boss suddenly turns around to rip off that poor ele’s face than you should react and hope the guard dude get the agro back soon.

It just requires more situational awareness. Watch the game, not the UI.

I think you missed my proposed aggro changes from earlier the same page. Situational awareness is exactly what I am driving. With enhanced aggro mechanics, raid encounters can be designed with aggro management role in mind.

I read that. The problem with the idea (more or less with the current one as well) that often the one would get agro who is the least threat for the enemy.
“Hey that dude poke me with 500 damage per hit but let the ele melt my left arm with a gazillion of damage.” You get it.

I wouldn’t be surprised if we would have more area and / or room wide effects to force everyone in the raid to defend itself somehow instad of getting hit one by one. And if you think about it why would it good if 1 player gets the boss attention while 9, 14, 24 or whatever number of other players just slice it into little pieces?

tl;dr: Agro management is currently acceptable in 5 man dungeon content while in raid environment it’s an encounter design issue.

Well, even overall, how on earth can you possibly maintain aggro with GW2 combat system?

First off, theres no trinity. Thus, no need to maintain aggro. Otherwise, if you intend to encourage someone maintaining aggro, why on earth do away with the trinity?

Second, even if you ignored the fact that theres no trinity, what abilities does any class have that will constantly keep aggro on one person for more than a brief second? I cant think of any and if there are some abilities, its very brief and won’t be a reliable “taunt”.

I don’t think aggro management can work in Guild Wars 2 overall, let alone dungeons or raids.

However, if you’re talking about “who has the highest DPS gets the aggro” well then that person likely doesn’t have enough mitigation to withstand the attention of a raid boss.

Again, I don’t think it works.

The trinity is a fairly recent thing. Aggro management was a thing long before the trinity existed.

My top three?

- Don’t lock raids so only guilds can compete. Many people will likely get highly annoyed if it looks like they have to join a “mega-guild” to enjoy this new content. Anyone remember the hoopla around Guild Missions which went on?

- Be mindful if you set a player limit you’re likely to cause players who would like to raid to be unable to raid due to not being able to get groups reliably. Regardless and independent of whether they’re “Zerk or nothing” or “skillful players” you’re still running that risk of leaving them on the sidelines while their friends go raiding without them. This kills the will to participate.

- Multiple methods of receiving the loot off raids, within the framework of the raid. Be it tokens, achievement-based rewards, vendors at the end, some combination of these . . . make sure we don’t solely rely on RNG to get the good stuff.

Naetell.3815:

The trinity is a fairly recent thing. Aggro management was a thing long before the trinity existed.

It used to be broader than a trinity, but it existed for at least 20 years. Longer if you count D&D parties. (“Wizard, Cleric, Fighter, Thief; in a pinch you can ditch the thief and get extra healing potions.”)

EgonVenkman.1907:

Crystal Reid.2481:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

NoTrigger.8396:

Naetell.3815:

In all the content we have in GW2 today, one mistake does not even down a DPS player. A big mistake might, a massive mistake does, but I don’t like defending the oneshot mechanics some bosses have either.

first of all thats a content problem. the pve content we have is not really challenging and difficult to beat, except when you are soloing stuff.

now let me give you one example.
imagine in a 15 man raid a boss has a really tight enrage timer and 15 players are required to use dps gear and optimal rotations to kill the boss before the enrage timer hits.
now in this fight there is healing required, more than just your personal healing skill.
how will players deal with this? they will heal each other with water fields, defensive boons.
so EVERYONE in the raid will be required to provide as much support as possible, teamwork and on top of that dps.
or in other words, everyone has to play well and pull their weight.
and all of that happens while players are dodging dangerous hits and abilities.

now lets say 12 people are required to use optimal rotations and dps gear and you have 3 dedicated healer. will this make the encounter more challenging and fun?
it will actually reduce teamwork, coordination and the requirement that players try to play as good as possible, because focusing on only one thing is much easier to do, and doesnt need as much teamwork.

actually situation 1) is exactly why i love the gw2 combat system.

people always say “just dps, just dps, just dps”. what they dont understand, its exactly the other way around.
its support, support, support with the nice bonus that you can deal alot of dps on top of that at the same time.

how much dps you can deal on top of providing tons of support depends ONLY on how good the player is at the game. a player who doesnt react properly, is inexperienced, and doesnt know when and what to dodge needs defensive gear to survive.
a great player doesnt need defensive gear, because he is learning how to react to X situation faster, how to react proberly etc………

this is actually just amazing. because its entirely based on player skill.

i dont know if you understand what im trying to explain here. but i can recommend every player who thinks “only dps dps dps, no support, no cc” to learn to solo arah paths in berserker gear. once you have done that and reached a certain skill level in gw2, you will look at the game and the combat system from a very different perspective that not alot of players seem to understand even after 2 years of playing the game.

I agree 100%. I now don’t understand why folks are arguing.

Cris

Also going to +1 this post, and agree with Chris. It’s difficult to find the relevant posts through pages of arguing.

This is disappointing that both of you would essentially validate the existing zerker meta. The reason it developed was because defensive gear is detrimental to your survival even if you are just learning. Because of the design of many of the mobs and the focus on active defense, defensive gear provides little benefit. With defensive gear, you may die in 3-4 hits instead of 1-2, the fights take longer, if not more than double the time in zerker gear, leaving you open to be hit that much more. Defensive gear still requires you to know active defense, so you may as well slot the zerker gear.

Defensive gear has uses in WvW and PvP, but in the PvE world, the design of the mobs/ai make it so there is next to no option but to focus on damage over defense.

Which is why I’d propose a rework of defensive gear over a rework of DPS gear tbh. I don’t think vitality and toughness are very interesting from an active gameplay point of view.

Astralporing.1957:

Dalanor.5387:

It’s intended to use berserker gear and ignore passive defensive stats and rely on your skill layout and own personal skill to mitigate damage and of course your team mates.

And you don’t find this problematic? That the game on other hand tells us “those are new stat sets, get them while they’re hot”, but quickly adds “…though you’d have to be dumb to actually use them”.

Basically, if game design is going to trivialize existence of defensive stats, then why do they even exist?

Dalanor.5387:

But on topic. The idea is, everybody wins. Okay. But the question is where we should draw the line?

The general rule would be “at the level where more people like the content than dislike it”. Of course, like and dislike is also dependant on other factors (like rewards, for example), so you should push the difficulty threshold lower anytime you make the desirability of running content go up (besides, of course, the desirability that is derived directly from challenge).

The reason they exist is because DPS vs Survivability does work in PvP.

Haven’t been able to read much of this CDI (skimmed some posts though) so most of my suggestions have probably been posted many times and the discussion has moved on. I guess you can consider these my top 3. I’m going to list more than 3 though.

1. 10-20 man instances. Pick a maximum amount of players and design around it. So no scaling. I think Triple Trouble is a great example of requiring a coordinated zerg to get something accomplished, but I don’t feel like I personally contributed much. I’ll be all for more difficult World Bosses, but I’d like to see Anet work on something that’s for groups larger than a party, but smaller than a zerg.

2. Difficulty levels. It can be like fractals. Maybe not 50 levels though. Difficulty levels will allow everyone to enjoy the content. Veterans looking for a challenge will tackle the raid at a higher level while those who want to take it easy won’t be left out.

3. Guaranteed rewards. Please no insane RNG lol. Perhaps completing the raid will reward tokens like in dungeons. Maybe doing the raid at a higher level (if my above suggestion is implemented) will reward more tokens. Weapon/armor skins should be exclusive to the raid. I do not agree with the decision to have dungeon reward tracks in pvp btw. There should have been more pvp exclusive skins instead like the Glorious armor.

4. Not exclusive to guilds. It should be like how dungeons are now. Guilds already have an advantage in that they have better coordination than pug groups. No reason to make it exclusive. I would be fine with more Guild Missions, but raids shouldn’t be a part of that.

guardian.6489:

Reward Tiers

Proposal Overview
Different reward tiers with different requirements per Raid. Each tier is increasingly hard to complete.

Goal of Proposal
To create multiple difficultly levels without changing a raid

Proposal Functionality
Basically each Raid would have a base reward, which is rewarded regardless of how well you do however each Raid would also have “bonus” loot based how well you do. These would be separated into 4 tiers, Bronze, Siliver, Gold and Platinum. These requirements for how well you do could vary Raid to Raid, it could be how quickly you complete the Raid, how well you complete bonus objectives or how soundly you beat the various Bosses. As an example here’s what they could be for various Raids:

Battle of LA/ Battle on the Breachmaker:
Mechanism: Time based
Bronze: Whatever time
Silver: If you wipe 1 or 2 times you still may get this tier if your quick
Gold: Your not likely to get this tier if you wipe even once
Platinum: No wipes, you must have an optimized group and go through the entire Raid almost perfectly, melting bosses and going from step to step as fast as you can.

The Marionette:
Mechanism: The Aetherblade Cannon chrage
Bronze: You didn’t fail
Silver: 50% or less of a charge
Gold: No Marionette chain break attempts failed or equilvient amount of champs got through
Platinum: No champs got through, no chain attempts failed. 0% Charge

Tower of Nightmares:
Mechanism: There are people trapped in the tower you need to rescue, they die after a period of time.
Bronze: We had to save people?
Silver: 25% saved
Gold: 75% saved
Platinum: Nobody left behind.

As you can see Platinum requirements would be tuned to be absolutely insane, something so that “world’s first” would be something worth bragging about. This could have an additional one-time reward tied to it which could include an achievement with a title and good reward like an ascended item or something similar in value (something you could add to your ascended armor to add a new selectable stat would be nice). This would mean each base Raid would be completable but there would be something insane to go for the most hardcore amongst us.

Associated Risks
-Rage if a certain base reward tier isn’t met
-A time based requirement could strengthen the berserker meta more
-Harder class requirements for Platinum rewards
-Veterans could be less accepting of newbies for fear of losing out a reward tier.

I’m basing this on the fact that in TTS I’ve noticed over time there are the glory hunters who joined us for the Triple Trouble first kill but played less once we achieved the first kill, the farmers who just want their loot, and the explorers who just want to experience everything the game has to offer. I noticed in the beginning the glory hunters joined us for the glory of getting the first kill then over time they got their kill and moved on then the farmers who wanted the Wurm’s unique loot settled in once our strategies settled down and they’re still with us almost every day. The explorers come and go every once and a while and join in for a couple kills then move on.

Platinum is for the glory hunters, that’s why the main reward is one-time, once you get the epic achievement, to them repeatable rewards are kinda meh. Bronze through Gold is more for the farmers, multiple tiers will keep them entertained and keep the Raid tense even after the 100 times. The reason I didn’t want too many more repeatable rewards at Platinum is so there’s less conflict between explorers who won’t be knowledgable about the fight and Farmers who just want the best reward.

Keep in mind all 3 of these types of players (and any I missed) will all be in the same Raid together, their needs affect each other.

As guild leader of DV, I can echo these observations and fully support this post.

dlonie.6547:

cesmode.4257:

1. - Be transparent with how you are developing this. Don’t go away for 6 months, come out and say BTW we got raiding coming and this is what its going to be like. In the spirit of collaboration and CDI, keep a continuous dialogue open with us. Tell us how you are going to begin development on it, and keep us updated. This way we can give you feedback early on if we will like it or not, rather than after its implemented and now annoyed with a rage storm. Let us build it with you.

This, this, and more this.

To add to this, I think it’d even be worthwhile to introduce small prototypes/proofs-of-concept for us to test out and give feedback on — like a new instance in DR/LA/anywhere with a temporary 12 man raid boss. This could be used as a testing ground for anything from new attack animations, new CC/defiance models, or even environmental puzzles. Nothing fancy, just an empty, untextured room with a boss. Don’t worry about the art, just test the mechanics. We could provide feedback (rather than making you guess) and would have a sense of where things are going.

A valid concern is that unpolished content shouldn’t be put into the open world — maybe hide an option in the settings menu to enable/disable a shortcut that would trigger the instance (like how we enter HotM).

ArenaNet has been keeping absolutely everything behind closed doors until last minute, and as they’ve seemed to realize over the last few months, it hasn’t worked out well. Players are suspicious that development on “X” aspect of the game has stopped, new additions are very poorly received (Aetherpath, EotM, etc)…these problems can only be solved by being more transparent.

Lately we’ve started see a lot more red activity on the forum, and that’s great! But it’s typically just a post saying “Keep up the discussion guys, we’re listening!”, and it often feels like lip-service when there’s no meaningful information coming back our way. I know ArenaNet has some draconian policies in place that prevents community liaisons from sharing information. It’s time for this to change.

I know we’ve had threads about this already, but I’d like if we could dive into this as a topic. I feel like we could nail down an imperfect compromise that would ensure good relations for a long time (by which I mean 2 months).

Killthehealersffs.8940:

So an enrage timer will make ppl more skilled ?
This is beyong me …. i dont really have words to describe it ….
Or will it make the encounter a DPS RACE like other games ?

As much as I hate going off-topic, I am going to reply to this: An enrage timer does not necessarily mean it’s a “DPS Race.” It’s sometimes there just to make sure people are doing the mechanics properly.

For example: Tequatl has an “enrage timer”, but it’s actually pretty generous. This was criticized heavily when it was first released, but on average groups kill him with lots of time to spare now. The players that win are also not perfectly optimized. Most of the time “enrage timers” only exist to make sure the fight does not persist longer than it should (on average) if the group is doing everything right.

For example:

• If a fight required the group to frequently interrupt a spell the boss casts or otherwise it will gain a buff making it immune to all damage, the groups that hit the enrage timer will always be those that simply fail at interrupting.

spoj.9672:

Well as a dps player i dont want my personal challenge to be diminished by having someone take the tank role in a raid. So im against changing the core system to make dedicated tanks. This games combat is involved and fun for whatever role you play. That cant be said for trinity mmo’s.

A raid is a combined challenge. There’s no need to change the core system when that system has pretty much everything that makes tanking happen anyway.
The DPS role gets all the good stuff already, no one’s going to take that away from you.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Naetell.3815:

The trinity is a fairly recent thing. Aggro management was a thing long before the trinity existed.

It used to be broader than a trinity, but it existed for at least 20 years. Longer if you count D&D parties. (“Wizard, Cleric, Fighter, Thief; in a pinch you can ditch the thief and get extra healing potions.”)

Not a trinity means just that. It was never labeled a DPS only game or anything.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Morning,

Ok I have been up all night reading the posts and thinking about this CDI.

To be frank this is not a good CDI, specifically because whilst some folks are trying to be collaborative and have valuable discussion others are just bullying with their different agendas.

I have always said that if a CDI loses its value on both sides that it will be stopped.

So I am at some what of a loss. I can’t tell anymore if it is of value to this group. Whilst it certainly has been valuable for us it has been extremely time consuming to get to the good stuff.

So I will leave it up to you folks. If you feel you can work more collaboratively then by all means let me know that you want to carry on.

If you feel that it is a lost cause then I will ask for everyone’s top three priorities for raiding and call it a day.

I want to say thank you very much to all those who tried to follow the rules of the CDI and who had a healthy discussion. I also wanted to say a big thank you to TTS and DnT. We appreciate your feedback.

Chris

Thank you for being honest.

If the thread is no longer of value to you, then by all means, it should be closed. Keeping it open for the sake of keeping it open will serve no one.

I fully support:

1: Knowledge
2: Skill
3: Raid Group Setup.

1: Knowledge
2: Skill
3: Unique and/or good rewards

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Hi All,

Please list your top three priorities for raiding (Challenging, Instanced, Cooperative, Content)

Mine are:

1: Knowledge>
2: Skill>
3: Raid Group Setup

I will leave the thread open until folks have had a chance to put there top three forward and then I will put forward a proposal on behalf of the CDI group to the team.

Thanks,

Chris

Not doing the “one word summary” thing but I posted a concise bit here . . . or as concise as I could while being clear.

1. Cooperation
2. Coordination
3. Challenge

Yes, alliterative appeal is nice.

My top 3.

Well it’s not really a top 3 I find them all of equal importance. In addition I have one other parallel priority that is more about the rewarding in the raid content then about the raid content itself.
Because I do feel the rewarding is at least as important as the content itself I will put that in here as number 4.

1. Raid content should be for groups of 10 to 25 people but for every group there should be different content. Don’t use scaling (for example to make one raid content that is ment for different group sizes).

2. Use roles. The raid content should make good use of different roles. Think about invisibility role, pets role, portal role but also water is strong against fire and so on. Roles will make that everybody is and feels like being needed and so prevent a ‘DPS is better then everything else’, what many people already complain about.

Edit added based on Chris his top 3.
(So yes to some extent I do think the group setup is important. Not as in you need two necro’s, two rangers, one warrior and so on. But more in the line of you need at least one of role x and at least two of role y and so on. Else you will likely get the same problem many people complain about in dungeons (learn the trick and then dps dps dps). And with raids (more people) that problem would become even bigger creating possible new zerg-content that becomes pretty brainless (Because Knowledge can and likely will become a trick!). That is what history did learn us.. Based on that Skill > Raid Group Setup > Knowledge)

3. Raid content does not have to be long (if you make multiple like I suggested in priority 1 some can be long and some can be short) but should be hard. However hard does not mean much damage and HP for bosses. It means good mechanics. Like using those roles from priority 2 but also think about things like using multiple groups to move a robot (everybody using another part) that is used to attack the boss. And so on, be creative. Good interesting fun hard mechanics.

4. Interesting reward. Don’t make it about any type of currency but about items. Allow for unlocking rewards (like with an achievement for killing a boss). That is a 100% reward but will only be interesting for once so for re-playability add a few very interesting RNG rewards. For example an awesome weapon skin, an awesome hat skin an awesome mini skin and a great blue-print for in the guild-hall (if that ever comes), think about the mini and backpack skin in the MF dungeon. In most games I would say don’t make them account bound but because in GW2 is everything so much currency-focused here I would say make these rewards account bound so they hold there true value linked to the content.
Optional you can have a token system much like dungeons for a set that go’s with the content but that should not be meant as the main thing, more a nice addition you earn along the way.

Naetell.3815:

spoj.9672:

Well as a dps player i dont want my personal challenge to be diminished by having someone take the tank role in a raid. So im against changing the core system to make dedicated tanks. This games combat is involved and fun for whatever role you play. That cant be said for trinity mmo’s.

A raid is a combined challenge. There’s no need to change the core system when that system has pretty much everything that makes tanking happen anyway.
The DPS role gets all the good stuff already, no one’s going to take that away from you.

My concern was more in the line of if a single player is able to hold aggro for the group. Then i no longer have to worry about dodging or avoiding most attacks. So in that regard it would diminish my fun a DPS player because my job becomes considerably easier.

Naetell.3815:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Naetell.3815:

The trinity is a fairly recent thing. Aggro management was a thing long before the trinity existed.

It used to be broader than a trinity, but it existed for at least 20 years. Longer if you count D&D parties. (“Wizard, Cleric, Fighter, Thief; in a pinch you can ditch the thief and get extra healing potions.”)

Not a trinity means just that. It was never labeled a DPS only game or anything.

Has been my argument forever; people came from other games feeling “liberated” from needing tanks and healers, and came to the conclusion that since there is no trinity, only their DPS mattered. However, not only it’s just a popular myth, but not even the developers have ever-that I know of-stated such a thing (further evidence in the gear they use, as well as in the continuous development of “high end” gear with so-called “tanky” stats.) The system provides ample opportunities for any playstyle, not just DPS (even if the latter completes content faster with organized groups.)

The argument they have is that “tanky” stats are for PvP use, yet this is only a popular concept, rather than factual. Devs use non-“zerk” gear for PvE as well, and are not necessarily “baddies” or “carebears”.

Berserker’s can be more efficient, but it doesn’t mean that without the trinity GW2 PvE is only about DPS roles; skill has nothing to do with gear, as even Mr. Whiteside admitted to using “tanky” gear in this very thread.

No offense intended, and much respect to all of those who use efficient gear but refuse to insult the intelligence of those who do not.

1: Knowledge. No matter how good you are, if you don’t understand the fight you should not suceed.
2: Skill. Totally needed, of course.
3: Rewards. A raid won’t matter at all if nobody wants to go there because the rewards are not rewarding enough. Would be a wasteland, a waste of dev efforts, a wasted chance to teach players how to improve…. etc

My top 3 priorities for an effective raid:

1) Challenge/Skill : I feel a lot of people in this thread are still in the “traditional raid” mind set. As you’ve stated before Chris, this is a chance to completely overhaul the raid system and come up with a raid system unique to GW2. As mentioned in my earlier post, GW2 strength in raids will be that any skilled player can contribute to a raid with no hard roles set forcing meta builds. The challenge comes with coordination and Triple Trouble is a perfect example of this. At it’s core, the mechanics and concepts are extremely simple to understand, the challenge comes with execution and coordination.

Further to previous points, as a CC example, rather than trying to hard CC the boss, a mechanic could be where you need to hard CC multiple adds at the same time. Again, simple to understand (interrupt x mob) but difficult to execute and coordinate (organise cc groups and simultaneous interrupts)

TL;DR : Challenge of raids should be about simple to understand but difficult to execute mechanics.

2) Availability: It makes sense for this to sit in guilds as per point 1, most of the time, high level coordination only exists within guilds. That said, it shouldn’t just be locked to guild members but the guild should still have control over the players they allow in and out of the instance.

TL;DR: Allow control of players able to participate in the raid by the raid lead/commander

3) Raid Setup: There should be specialised skills required for specific fights but that aren’t restricted to a small subset of classes, e.g. condi and reflect in Wurm is a good example of specialised groups without ostracising the majority of classes

TL;DR: Require specialists roles that aren’t completely restricted by class selection

Here you go:

• Accessibilility: The barrier to completing a raid should be the challenge of that raid, not logistics. It should be easy for groups to ensure everyone gets a chance to raid when guilds (or groups of friends) get together. If that means scaling, so be it – even though I think you can do better than that (either through multiple tiers or through smart fight design that isnt reliant upon numbers).

• Challenging Content: You have proven (just yesterday actually) that you can develop challenging content. I would love to see how you would extend that to larger groups.

• Designed for Every Raider: We’ve talked alot about what a raid is, but we havent really looked at what makes a player a potential raider in GW2. I think alot of people just assume that this group would be made up of people who enjoyed raiding in other games. Please dont limit yourself to that population subset if/when you begin developing this content. Raiding should be something that every player – if they decide its of interest to them – should find fun and accessible.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Hi All,

Please list your top three priorities for raiding (Challenging, Instanced, Cooperative, Content)

Mine are:

1: Knowledge>
2: Skill>
3: Raid Group Setup

I will leave the thread open until folks have had a chance to put there top three forward and then I will put forward a proposal on behalf of the CDI group to the team.

Thanks,

Chris

I’m a bit confused about the question. Do you want our top three priorities for how raids are designed? Because by the example priorities you gave, it looks like you mean just the top three priorities for a team to be able to beat a raid…

Otherwise wouldn’t “Knowledge>Skill>Group Setup” just be one design priority? :P

Crystal Reid.2481:

moiraine.2753:

Chris,

I want to ask you something.Will Defiance be redesigned?Is there any plan for it at all?Because right now it is removing the need of any CC in the fights.If raids come will interrupts,stuns,fear become an actual mechanic?Will they be more useful from now?

All I can say on this is we have been talking about it internally and trying to come up with different solutions that make CC valuable without allowing players to “stun lock” creatures (which would be a very real problem if we did not have Defiance). I can’t say any more on that at this time, so here’s a better question for you:

If we removed Defiance, how would you propose a replacement that makes CC (interrupts, stuns, fears etc) valuable without creating a situation that allows players to CC a creature to death.

Aside from diminishing returns on CC, you can use more creatures in an encounter, all of which should be targetted with appropriate CC skills. It’s very difficult to stunlock everything with a player-creature ratio around 1:1.

Supposing, on a 5v5 encounter, a group of creatures had a build synergy where one or two provide stability, you would have to strip that boon before you could interrupt casts on any of them. Like player parties, they’d need their support/DPS/CC spread out among them so you can’t just use a few boon strips while you nail the healer to the ground.
But the focus for any group would be on interrupting the unavoidable offensive skills and denying heal/defense abilities on monsters, while dodging/blocking offensive abilities where possible. There’s only so much CC you can get out of a 5-man group.

In a raid, of course, players have access to far more. Aside from making it a 15v15 (which would be fun in my view but we’ll see) you can still keep a small group of monsters, but increase their synergistic abilities beyond what a normal player group could counter. For example, a single raid encounter could:

• Require constant boon strip – finally a chance to get more people familiar with Illusionary Disenchanter?
• Require certain heal skills to be consistently interrupted, or the enemy group reaches full HP again very fast
• Require a powerful, fast melee mob to be constantly blocked behind Guardian walls / Necro fear walls, or immobilised
• Require a high-damage condition applier and its condition-spreading and duration-boosting ally to be addressed, either through interrupting key skills, spreading out and using single-target cleanses, or by sending them back to the source using Plague Signet etc.
• And of course, require enough DPS to kill them.

The bonus of having more things to target is that you’re only locking down a fraction of the group’s abilities at a time. In the above group, you could stun-lock any one of them easily, but there’d be a different effect for every one you stun-lock. If you just hit the condition-dealer, you’re going to be carved up by the berserker and all your damage will be negated by the healer. So you have to CC all of them in some appropriate way. Fortunately, with GW2’s weapons, basically every class has something to contribute to that encounter.

It is a bit of a back-to-GW1 concept, but with a twist – because raid sizes are bigger, the targetted CC requirements can be less forgiving. Not to forget the support element – a single Save Yourselves! + Contemplation of Purity will eliminate all degen on 5 players for a time, but needs to be used sparingly because of the cooldown.

However, there are ways to break it that would need to be addressed. In GW1 , something like Panic could be used to stun-lock the whole group simultaneously. GW2 has hammer trains – if you could stack them all in a corner, you could just keep all 5 enemies knocked down permanently. It would need a mechanics solution, e.g. only one knockdown at a time – or an AI solution, e.g. soft constraint on distance between each other.

Apologies for length – seems way too easy to make a wall of text with short column width.

1. Accessibility. No (or easy to achieve) entry barriers, be it guild membership, level, stats used. No person wanting to participate should be blocked from trying (success, of course, is not guaranteed ;P).

2. Challenge progression. Low entry level, high ceiling. That means either easier difficulty versions, or lower level, easier separate raids, or both (current dungeon model is a good example, with story/explorable mode and difficulty progression from AC to Arah). Challenge doesn’t mean the same for everyone, and if it is a desired goal, it should be available also for those who (for many reasons) do not measure to the more stringer standarts.

3. Optional content. Whoever wants to try, should be welcome, but people should not be driven to participate. That means either no unique rewards, or rewards achievable (more slowly) through easier versions. That means rewards that are good enough to find a run satisfying, but not good enough to make it more desirable than participating in other gameplay modes. That, of course, means also no better gear tiers (or any other form of gear progression).
(unique titles and achievements seem reasonable to me, though).

Star Ace.5207:

Naetell.3815:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Naetell.3815:

The trinity is a fairly recent thing. Aggro management was a thing long before the trinity existed.

It used to be broader than a trinity, but it existed for at least 20 years. Longer if you count D&D parties. (“Wizard, Cleric, Fighter, Thief; in a pinch you can ditch the thief and get extra healing potions.”)

Not a trinity means just that. It was never labeled a DPS only game or anything.

Has been my argument forever; people came from other games feeling “liberated” from needing tanks and healers, and came to the conclusion that since there is no trinity, only their DPS mattered. However, not only it’s just a popular myth, but not even the developers have ever-that I know of-stated such a thing (further evidence in the gear they use, as well as in the continuous development of “high end” gear with so-called “tanky” stats.) The system provides ample opportunities for any playstyle, not just DPS (even if the latter completes content faster with organized groups.)

The argument they have is that “tanky” stats are for PvP use, yet this is only a popular concept, rather than factual. Devs use non-“zerk” gear for PvE as well, and are not necessarily “baddies” or “carebears”.

Berserker’s can be more efficient, but it doesn’t mean that without the trinity GW2 PvE is only about DPS roles; skill has nothing to do with gear, as even Mr. Whiteside admitted to using “tanky” gear in this very thread.

No offense intended, and much respect to all of those who use efficient gear but refuse to insult the intelligence of those who do not.

There’s a lot more in the game than most people realise. But the DPS thing really is something that came from other games already. It’s been a popular notion amongst pure DPS players for a long time that tanks and healers aren’t as skilled or needed as they are.

I’ve been staying out of these discussions because I’m not exactly sure what I’d like to see. It’s difficult to just come up with a detailed plan forward, listing out all the bits that would or would not work, and frankly, others have put much more thought and have much more experience in this area.

While not about the actual raid content, my Big Three concern the development of the content:

1) Prototyping.
2) Iteration.
3) Follow through.

Prototyping to avoid putting out another unpopular Aetherpath. Let players test the elements of the raid as they’re coming together to determine what works and what doesn’t. See my earlier post — this could just be a zone that we can opt into entering that has stripped down versions of some of the encounters. Find out if the encounters are enjoyable before putting weeks/months of effort into polishing them.

Iteration to improve on the weaknesses discovered by testing the prototypes and respond to feedback from the community. Let the raids evolve, rather than just strictly following a predetermined design plan. Strengthen and reuse the bits that work, and scrap the ones that don’t. Don’t just assume that you’ll hit the bullseye because an encounter sounds good on paper.

Follow through to continue improving the content after its release. If it flops on release (hopefully iteration and prototyping will prevent this…), don’t just let it flounder. Find out why it’s not popular and fix it. For example, the popularity of the Aetherpath would have been much, much higher if the rewards/time were proportional to the other dungeon paths, but no (visible) effort has been made to correct this. A simple gold adjustment would make an enormous difference, but instead the company seems content to just let the path fail.

Ultimately, it is the players who will make or break the content. Don’t cut us out of the loop after the CDI ends.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Hi All,

Please list your top three priorities for raiding (Challenging, Instanced, Cooperative, Content)

Mine are:

1: Knowledge>
2: Skill>
3: Raid Group Setup

I will leave the thread open until folks have had a chance to put there top three forward and then I will put forward a proposal on behalf of the CDI group to the team.

Thanks,

Chris

1. Every player’s role is vital
2. Two forms of raids – instanced and open-world – for organised and casual players respectively
3. Promote diverse use of mechanics for each encounter

Elrey.5472:

1: Knowledge. No matter how good you are, if you don’t understand the fight you should not suceed.
2: Skill. Totally needed, of course.
3: Rewards. A raid won’t matter at all if nobody wants to go there because the rewards are not rewarding enough. Would be a wasteland, a waste of dev efforts, a wasted chance to teach players how to improve…. etc

However knowledge will eventually mean ‘did you read / learn or did somebody tell you the mechanics / trick’ while skill means ‘how good are you’?

If I would apply that to a JP. If the blocks you jump on are all moving but always at the same speed you will learn the trick (have that knowledge), you know when you need to jump and so it becomes easy. Skill would be if the blocks all would move random all the time and you would still be able to do it. You are simply skilled in jumping vs you did learn the trick / mechanics.

If you think learning that trick is more important that is fine but I say this because I wonder how you would define knowledge and skill?

And there may also be specific encounters mechanics aimed at promoting the ability to efficiently switch between melee and ranged combat by making one of the ranges temporarily unavailable (read too hostile to survive in).

That’s very difficult to balance out though, because if you have a mechanic that denies players the ability to melee, then melee weapon using characters are kittened, while if you have a mechanic that denies players the ability to fight from a distance, ranged players can still fight perfectly well at point blank range. The only builds even a little harmed by being forced to melee are Ranger LB and Mesmer GS, and those only very slightly.

One thing I would say, is that it’d be nice if they gave a better indication of the nature of an attack based on the indicator for it, that you could tell by the telegraph somehow whether an attack would be a single massive blow, or a persistent field. As it stands, all you know is that you should probably get out of it, but in some cases it’s ok to just ride it out, rather than blow a dodge trying to avoid it, and some moves are the sort where you can dodge while staying inside it while others you do need to clear them completely, and there’s no way to tell which is which from the telegraphs alone.

Please list your top three priorities for raiding (Challenging, Instanced, Cooperative, Content)

Mine are:

1: Knowledge>
2: Skill>
3: Raid Group Setup

1. Casual accessibility: The ability for a random player to just sign up to do a raid, and in less than ten minutes end up with a group of people who are capable of achieving the raid content, similar to the dungeon LFG function.

2. Engaging Content: The content should be varied and mechanically complex, but should be focused on rewarding success rather than punishing failure, with failure causing the raid to take longer to complete, rather than failing entirely and forcing a restart of some kind.

3. Non-Exclusive Rewards: The rewards for raiding should be worth the time and effort it takes to complete a raid, but none of them, no matter how “frivolous” or “cosmetic,” should be entirely exclusive to the raiding track. There should be fair alternate means of acquiring anything that can be earned via raiding, and the reward for raiding should be valued in terms of quantity, not quality.

I’d love to see raiding in Guild Wars 2, but only if it’s done right. World of Warcraft raiding is leagues ahead of everything else in that arena, even if it is a ten year old game.

1. Unique roles during encounter.
Encounters need to allow for different responsibilities for some or all of the players in the group. I haven’t seen Guild Wars 2 do much of this, but it’s core to raiding gameplay in all other games.

2. Emphasize mastery.
Too much of group combat in Guild Wars is spammy AOE cleave and offers little or not opportunity for skilled play. Look at games like World of Warcraft or the Dark Souls series for encounters that promote learning mechanics and reward mastery.

3. Rewards need to be exciting.
Currencies and loot bags are never exciting. Raiding isn’t about grinding, it’s about overcoming a massive challenge as a group and being rewarded with powerful loot.

Chris — Does the team plan on redesigning combat to support group PvE content?

Right now the meta is narrow (glass cannon) and everyone just piles up and cleaves everything down making for a pretty one-note experience. Depending on how aggressively tuned the content is, the meta for raiding could even become more narrow than it is now.

fall.4027:

Chris — Does the team plan on redesigning combat to support group PvE content?

Right now the meta is narrow (glass cannon) and everyone just piles up and cleaves everything down making for a pretty one-note experience. Depending on how aggressively tuned the content is, the meta for raiding could even become more narrow than it is now.

I believe that would be a CDI in and by itself if that were on the table.

Smart bosses/encounters – if we are facing just one guy, it shouldnt be just tank and spank. Throw mini events, mobs, other things to make the raiders think on their feet.

learning curve – easy to learn, hard to master. Make earning a gold medal for killing a boss be worth it, judging the players for their knowledge and skill. After a few tries someone new may down it, but those who go for excellence should be rewarded better.

Uniqueness – allow only certain armor and weapons from this instanced, either in the form of a pattern (so perhaps craftering can have some way to make gold), or in form of drops. If a legendary is involved, make it a quest chain with some gathering, but mostly killing another boss or event with the player performing some specific task.

Sad to see this ending already, I had further ideas I just didn’t get to. But not all CDIs can be perfect.

Engaging: I want encounters that entertain me and engage me. Even though the Prime Hologram open-world boss was not that difficult, I felt engaged by it by its various mechanics.

Knowledge: If you do not do the mechanics properly, you can and should fail.

Skill: This will determine the “balance” of the fight, assuming that the group has the knowledge needed to win. I hope that there is a place for people desiring challenge and perhaps a more casual experience as well.

Accessibility- referring to time spent doing it. Not everyone has 6 hours of free time.
Skill
Reward- It obviously shouldn’t be a 30 minute mission either, but make it worth my time. Give me something other than champ boxes. I would love unique skin drops.

1. Accessibility: I don’t think there should be any kind of prerequisites to enter a raid. The raids should be accessible to those that do not have a guild, full pugs should be able to attempt the content.

2. Difficulty: I want the content to have enough difficulty that even the most competitive guilds will be working on it for weeks or months before completing parts of the raid. I would like to see PvE completion be very competitive among the best players in the game. Revised leaderboards could really shine here. There should be a mix of content that is so difficult that only the best can complete and there should be content that nearly everyone can complete. Have a variety of difficulty to cater to the good and the not so good.

3. Rewards: The content should have unique rewards only earned through raiding. This would include weapon and armor skins, titles and miniatures. Unique rewards earned through raiding should be soul bound on acquire or account bound only. I don’t have a strong opinion on raising gear level. It would be okay as long as the rest of the game is tuned for exotics/ascended.

I also think fun, engaging, cooperation and coordination would be in the top spots, but those are kind of a given and not necessary to write here. Those are the very basics of what I would expect to be in a raid.

1)Knowledge
2)Group setup
3)Non-linear/multiple simultaneous objectives (like UW/FoW/DoA)