Guild Wars 2

I made this same post to reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/5e2vxo/a_plea_for_a_raid_story_mode/. This is intended as a response to Crystal Reid’s recent post.

Let me preface this by saying I don’t think that raiding has killed GW2. I don’t think that if ArenaNet releases more raids it will kill GW2. Raiding is a side activity; you can choose to ignore it. As long as there is content other than raids for players to look forward to, I expect the game’s population will remain healthy.

So why haven’t they implemented a story mode yet? Let’s try to understand Crystal Reid’s recent post. So, I agree with as Crystal Reid put it in her post raids ought to be the “most difficult content in the game.” Ultimately, Raids were designed to be one difficulty mode and I really like that they are one difficulty mode. Guild Wars 2’s raids are dissimilar to raids in gear oriented games like World of Warcraft where you progress on an easier difficulty level and then progress on the same bosses on a harder difficulty level. That moment where you have to progress through the same bosses again is a total drag and I’m glad Guild Wars 2’s raiding doesn’t feature that tiered difficulty system.

But just because you don’t have a tiered difficulty system doesn’t mean you can’t have a story mode.

In her post Crystal Reid references Fractals multiple times. However, this makes me think they don’t understand what I think a lot of players are asking for with regard to a story mode. I would never want there to be four tiers of Spirit Vale like there are for the recent Chaos Isles fractal. I just want a way for me to hop in and experience the story of the raid.

In this potential story mode all loot would be turned off. You would receive no achievements for defeating the bosses. I suggest that the developers release the story mode 6-8 weeks after the initial wing is released. Thus, that feeling of progression through the wing that so many raiders thrive on isn’t diminished. And ArenaNet would design the encounters so that a pick up group could easily clear the wing in an hour. The fights would be simpler and easier but still flavorful.

The players moving through this story mode could experience all the great Voice-Over, see all the cool models, and witness the important and dramatic lore moments. The very lorey Matthias fight, the cool ice storm moment in Wing 2, the epic model of Gorseval, Xera’s dramatic speech.

You know ArenaNet put a lot of effort into the story of the first Raid Wing. But I think it was a waste. While some raiders are there to enjoy the story others just play for the encounters. Why not open up the content so all the fans of the story can experience it?

As I see it there are two arguments against a story mode. One, that an easy mode diminishes the feeling of progression for players on the harder difficulty. Two, that developing an easy mode would take up valuable developer time. Ultimately, I think developing this story mode would be worth both these costs because so many players would get to experience the great content.

I was browsing YouTube the other day and randomly watched this bit from Mo our current Game Director: https://youtu.be/9GwKGbNKQHE?t=2m44s

The part that struck me was the bit where he says “we want to be our own audience.”

Are the writers on the Raid Team raiders? How did they catch up on the lore? Look, no player who had no idea what was going on the raid is going to be able to go into a cleared instance of the raid to pick up all the scraps and suddenly be all filled in. The writers on the Raid Team understood the lore of the raid because they wrote it.

I follow Bobby Stein on twitter. He’s a cool guy. He did the great writing on the raids. And let me be clear: it’s really great writing.

And recently he tweeted about how he needed someone to help him clear the raid content as he hadn’t yet. Look, Bobby Stein, you aren’t your own audience if you haven’t played the content you made.

Now, sure the raid content is kind of a side story. It does contain some important lore connections to Season 3 but I genuinely think Season 3 makes total sense without having played through the raid. But ultimately I’m really excited about the lore and story. I don’t care of it’s merely relevant story: you told a great story, Bobby, and I want to play it.

Lemony.9180:

In this potential story mode all loot would be turned off. You would receive no achievements for defeating the bosses.

The problem is this part because not everyone who wants an easier mode wants it for the story alone, they want it for the loot and the achievements. This creates a problem when discussing Raid modes (or tiers in other threads) as different people have different goals for them, often conflicting ones.

Aside from that, will this story mode be for 10 people, or a solo experience? If it requires 10 people then it will be a wasted effort. If finding people to do LS2 achievements or dungeon story modes is hard, imagine how hard it will be to find 9 other people to do something that you can only experience once and get nothing out of replaying it! It will be Arah story mode all over again and they fixed that by making it a solo experience.

Finally, if it’s a solo experience that you do only once and then forget it exists, is it worth re-balancing all the Raid encounters into solo encounters for something like that?

I think you would probably have to balance it around 5 players instead of 10 since as you say, interest might be low in the long term. Redesigning it to be soloed would also probably mess up how the dialogue works as much of it bounces between party members.

I do think it would be worth the effort if only to show off all the VO, animation, art, and writing to everyone.

I don’t think anyone deserves the Raid rewards if they can’t complete the content.

I posted a proposal for a story mode in the very first thread about it on these forums, months ago. The idea is centered around the following:

a) No re-balancing or tweaking of boss mechanics
b) No re-balancing or tweaking of rewards
c) Very little development time required
d) Gives access to the full story experience

How do we all the above? I will explain with examples, because that’s the best way of doing it.

The trash mobs before VG are the same as always, no change here is needed. Then the team starts the fight with VG itself. The fight is the exact same as always, only it terminates after the first split (or before the first split, that’s debatable). Basically you remove the later phases of the fight.
At Gorseval, once again the encounter will terminate after the spirit phase, or before the spirit phase (debatable).
KC will terminate after the first burn phase. Xera will terminate before the gliding platform part.
Slothasor is tricky because it’s the same fight for the entire duration, he gets one new attack at 50% and that’s it. I’m not sure about Sloth.
Sabetha is also tricky, following the other examples terminating at Kernan would make the most sense, but then you’d “miss” two champion bosses with their own dialogue.
I don’t think Escort/Trio need any new termination point, and for Escort specifically it wouldn’t make any sense.

Basically you remove later phases from the fights, in a similar way how games like WoW add extra phases in their higher difficulties. If something like this is implemented they could ADD more phases later on to create a hard mode (in the same manner as the easy mode, add a new phase). There is no extra mechanical balancing needed. If doing only the first phase is way too easy, they could make it so you go through 2 phases instead and ignore the third one.

As for rewards they stay the same as if you wiped at the next phase. If you wipe at Phase 2 of Vale Guardian you get some shards for finishing Phase 1, if you win the story phase then you get the same shards. I mean you can already go farm shards by wiping at phase 2 of VG repeatedly, so it wouldn’t make much of a difference anyway. No other rewards, those that depend on killing the boss will require actually killing them going through all the phases.

PS: I’ve been in training runs, and in some pug runs and I’ve never seen a group wipe at the first phase of VG, even when they were newbies with exotic gear.

I’m just going to ignore that there are a million threads on this topic. And that your reddit thread was poorly received.

There’s nothing stopping you from experiencing the story right now.

1) If you want to see what the fights are like, just fight them. Not sure what story you get through beating them.

2) Go to a completed instance to see what it’s like after the bosses.

3) The npc at the beginning of wing 3 will summarize the story.

If you really care about the story, you would have done any of the above.

maddoctor.2738:

I posted a proposal for a story mode in the very first thread about it on these forums, months ago. The idea is centered around the following:

a) No re-balancing or tweaking of boss mechanics
b) No re-balancing or tweaking of rewards
c) Very little development time required
d) Gives access to the full story experience

How do we all the above? I will explain with examples, because that’s the best way of doing it.

The trash mobs before VG are the same as always, no change here is needed. Then the team starts the fight with VG itself. The fight is the exact same as always, only it terminates after the first split (or before the first split, that’s debatable). Basically you remove the later phases of the fight.
At Gorseval, once again the encounter will terminate after the spirit phase, or before the spirit phase (debatable).
KC will terminate after the first burn phase. Xera will terminate before the gliding platform part.
Slothasor is tricky because it’s the same fight for the entire duration, he gets one new attack at 50% and that’s it. I’m not sure about Sloth.
Sabetha is also tricky, following the other examples terminating at Kernan would make the most sense, but then you’d “miss” two champion bosses with their own dialogue.
I don’t think Escort/Trio need any new termination point, and for Escort specifically it wouldn’t make any sense.

Basically you remove later phases from the fights, in a similar way how games like WoW add extra phases in their higher difficulties. If something like this is implemented they could ADD more phases later on to create a hard mode (in the same manner as the easy mode, add a new phase). There is no extra mechanical balancing needed. If doing only the first phase is way too easy, they could make it so you go through 2 phases instead and ignore the third one.

As for rewards they stay the same as if you wiped at the next phase. If you wipe at Phase 2 of Vale Guardian you get some shards for finishing Phase 1, if you win the story phase then you get the same shards. I mean you can already go farm shards by wiping at phase 2 of VG repeatedly, so it wouldn’t make much of a difference anyway. No other rewards, those that depend on killing the boss will require actually killing them going through all the phases.

PS: I’ve been in training runs, and in some pug runs and I’ve never seen a group wipe at the first phase of VG, even when they were newbies with exotic gear.

This is actually a very good idea – and would solve just about any issue I can think of. For Slotahsor and any future single phase encounters, it might be as simple as cutting his health in half, but still considering as having only finished one “phase” when tabulating reward.

Hate that this recommendation has gotten lost in some of the noise the past few months.

And, if a moderators sees this, this thread should be merged into the preexisting one on this topic.

Blaeys.3102:

maddoctor.2738:

I posted a proposal for a story mode in the very first thread about it on these forums, months ago. The idea is centered around the following:

a) No re-balancing or tweaking of boss mechanics
b) No re-balancing or tweaking of rewards
c) Very little development time required
d) Gives access to the full story experience

How do we all the above? I will explain with examples, because that’s the best way of doing it.

The trash mobs before VG are the same as always, no change here is needed. Then the team starts the fight with VG itself. The fight is the exact same as always, only it terminates after the first split (or before the first split, that’s debatable). Basically you remove the later phases of the fight.
At Gorseval, once again the encounter will terminate after the spirit phase, or before the spirit phase (debatable).
KC will terminate after the first burn phase. Xera will terminate before the gliding platform part.
Slothasor is tricky because it’s the same fight for the entire duration, he gets one new attack at 50% and that’s it. I’m not sure about Sloth.
Sabetha is also tricky, following the other examples terminating at Kernan would make the most sense, but then you’d “miss” two champion bosses with their own dialogue.
I don’t think Escort/Trio need any new termination point, and for Escort specifically it wouldn’t make any sense.

Basically you remove later phases from the fights, in a similar way how games like WoW add extra phases in their higher difficulties. If something like this is implemented they could ADD more phases later on to create a hard mode (in the same manner as the easy mode, add a new phase). There is no extra mechanical balancing needed. If doing only the first phase is way too easy, they could make it so you go through 2 phases instead and ignore the third one.

As for rewards they stay the same as if you wiped at the next phase. If you wipe at Phase 2 of Vale Guardian you get some shards for finishing Phase 1, if you win the story phase then you get the same shards. I mean you can already go farm shards by wiping at phase 2 of VG repeatedly, so it wouldn’t make much of a difference anyway. No other rewards, those that depend on killing the boss will require actually killing them going through all the phases.

PS: I’ve been in training runs, and in some pug runs and I’ve never seen a group wipe at the first phase of VG, even when they were newbies with exotic gear.

This is actually a very good idea – and would solve just about any issue I can think of. For Slotahsor and any future single phase encounters, it might be as simple as cutting his health in half, but still considering as having only finished one “phase” when tabulating reward.

Hate that this recommendation has gotten lost in some of the noise the past few months.

And, if a moderators sees this, this thread should be merged into the preexisting one on this topic.

What’s the difference between this mode and wiping after the first stage? The satisfaction of beating the boss? I’m not sure what lore elements this would add.

Absurdo.8309:

What’s the difference between this mode and wiping after the first stage? The satisfaction of beating the boss? I’m not sure what lore elements this would add.

As far as rewards go it will be the same as wiping. But you will be able to progress further and “wipe” on all bosses and not just the first one. So teams can continue and see the entire story of the Raid (as was what the OP wanted).

Personally the reason I’d love to have a story mode (I don’t want to call it “easy”, rather story) is because I want BIG encounters of the lore/story to appear in Raids. I want to fight the other 4 dragons, Lazarus or even Caudecus in a Raid and not in a Living World instance. But for that to happen there needs to be a framework that provides access to players who do not like Raiding and without it they would be excluded from experiencing the storyline. We don’t want another Arah Story Mode right?

That’s my ultimate goal for a raid story mode. I dread to see the time we fight Lazarus, a super powerful ancient Mursaat that absorbed a Bloodstone, and is weaker than a random White Mantle leader like Xera or Mathias. And in the “story” mode they might be easier, but the “raid version” would change that.

Hate that this recommendation has gotten lost in some of the noise the past few months.

If I recall when I made this suggestion last time it got drowned in posts about “training” sadly. And all threads on Raids have lots of noise!

I always find these “raid story mode request” threads funny because the current only raid mode is story mode. If you’re going to say “story mode” which of course references the only other content in the game which has a story mode – dungeons – then the logical request should be for a more difficult “explorable mode”.

Come on man, you can see like 90% of the raid lore in a cleared instance, and the rest can be easily found on the wiki (fight dialogue) and youtube (cutscenes). WP also has a couple vids which go over at least some of the raid lore in detail. Anyone who cares that much about the lore can easily do those things. I fail to see how the requested “story mode” is any different from a request for easy mode and/or tiered raiding.

I mean I understand that people want to do the fights, but take it from someone who has raiding a whole lot: easy mode/story mode/whatever raids is like 60-90 minutes of content – total, not weekly. If the rewards aren’t there and the fights aren’t challenging, why would anyone do the fights at all after the first time? You don’t see people repeating the difficult LS2 achievements do you? Or doing the HoT achievements at all besides getting the mordrem loop? Those are challenging content for a small number of players which contain lore elements but no one does them because they don’t care about the rewards.

maddoctor.2738:

Absurdo.8309:

What’s the difference between this mode and wiping after the first stage? The satisfaction of beating the boss? I’m not sure what lore elements this would add.

As far as rewards go it will be the same as wiping. But you will be able to progress further and “wipe” on all bosses and not just the first one. So teams can continue and see the entire story of the Raid (as was what the OP wanted).

Personally the reason I’d love to have a story mode (I don’t want to call it “easy”, rather story) is because I want BIG encounters of the lore/story to appear in Raids. I want to fight the other 4 dragons, Lazarus or even Caudecus in a Raid and not in a Living World instance. But for that to happen there needs to be a framework that provides access to players who do not like Raiding and without it they would be excluded from experiencing the storyline. We don’t want another Arah Story Mode right?

That’s my ultimate goal for a raid story mode. I dread to see the time we fight Lazarus, a super powerful ancient Mursaat that absorbed a Bloodstone, and is weaker than a random White Mantle leader like Xera or Mathias. And in the “story” mode they might be easier, but the “raid version” would change that.

Hate that this recommendation has gotten lost in some of the noise the past few months.

If I recall when I made this suggestion last time it got drowned in posts about “training” sadly. And all threads on Raids have lots of noise!

The straightforward method to solve this “problem” is to have selectable bosses (perhaps in a completed instance).

Content with no loot or junk loot does not get repeated. See story mode dungeons. MMO’s rely on players repeating content. Sounds like a waste of dev time.

It IS a waste of dev time.
They have already given you plenty of options:

1. Cleared instance.
2. NPC that catches you up and explains what happened in the raid.

Harper.4173:

It IS a waste of dev time.
They have already given you plenty of options:

1. Cleared instance.
2. NPC that catches you up and explains what happened in the raid.

Neither of those options are interesting or fun in any way. Once again, it is about being able to experience the encounters, not have someone else explain it to you.

I do believe there are ways (potentially like the one Mad talks about above) that seem to be fairly simple solutions that would address the issue.

And if it adds fun to the game for more players, it is most definitely not a waste of time.

maddoctor.2738:

I posted a proposal for a story mode in the very first thread about it on these forums, months ago. The idea is centered around the following:

a) No re-balancing or tweaking of boss mechanics
b) No re-balancing or tweaking of rewards
c) Very little development time required
d) Gives access to the full story experience

How do we all the above? I will explain with examples, because that’s the best way of doing it.

The trash mobs before VG are the same as always, no change here is needed. Then the team starts the fight with VG itself. The fight is the exact same as always, only it terminates after the first split (or before the first split, that’s debatable). Basically you remove the later phases of the fight.
At Gorseval, once again the encounter will terminate after the spirit phase, or before the spirit phase (debatable).
KC will terminate after the first burn phase. Xera will terminate before the gliding platform part.
Slothasor is tricky because it’s the same fight for the entire duration, he gets one new attack at 50% and that’s it. I’m not sure about Sloth.
Sabetha is also tricky, following the other examples terminating at Kernan would make the most sense, but then you’d “miss” two champion bosses with their own dialogue.
I don’t think Escort/Trio need any new termination point, and for Escort specifically it wouldn’t make any sense.

Basically you remove later phases from the fights, in a similar way how games like WoW add extra phases in their higher difficulties. If something like this is implemented they could ADD more phases later on to create a hard mode (in the same manner as the easy mode, add a new phase). There is no extra mechanical balancing needed. If doing only the first phase is way too easy, they could make it so you go through 2 phases instead and ignore the third one.

As for rewards they stay the same as if you wiped at the next phase. If you wipe at Phase 2 of Vale Guardian you get some shards for finishing Phase 1, if you win the story phase then you get the same shards. I mean you can already go farm shards by wiping at phase 2 of VG repeatedly, so it wouldn’t make much of a difference anyway. No other rewards, those that depend on killing the boss will require actually killing them going through all the phases.

PS: I’ve been in training runs, and in some pug runs and I’ve never seen a group wipe at the first phase of VG, even when they were newbies with exotic gear.

This idea of yours sounds good in theory but not in practice. The Devs will have to rebalance the bosses for this to work.

For some bosses it’s very doable. Vg would indeed work well. On other bosses it doesn’t.
Gorse, for instance is a DPS check. You can let it end at the first spirit phase, but your group will need a substantial amount of DPS to push him to that spirit phase. A group of random people who join together in exotic gear and don’t use metabuilds and composition will take hours to get it, if they even get it. If you look at a boss like Matthias. If you’d cut the fight at 40% (you see him go in abomination state and then he goes mental and blows up or whatever). Getting to that 40% for a group is hard as hell work. I’m a Raidleader in an EU raidtraining guild. And i recently took 9 people who hadn’t fought him before but were in full asc gear, full meta builds and had an optimal group composition to fight him. It took us 2 hours to get there. If a random group of players without a leader, without proper gear and setup tries this, it will take them hours and hours. Same with Trio. It isn’t hard, but it isn’t something people randomly walk into and clear either. It does require coördination. People will not be willing to put in this amount of effort for such poor rewards. Honestly, you might aswell do the work of actually killing the bosses in a proper raidgroup.

There is no way a casual group walks into Mathias in exotic gear and without having a clue, and 1h later they have pushed him to abomination phase. No way.

Blaeys.3102:

Harper.4173:

It IS a waste of dev time.
They have already given you plenty of options:

1. Cleared instance.
2. NPC that catches you up and explains what happened in the raid.

Neither of those options are interesting or fun in any way. Once again, it is about being able to experience the encounters, not have someone else explain it to you.

A story mode raid isn’t interesting or fun either after the first time. There is no way it is worth the development time to make an easier version of content that already exists just for the purpose of letting people “experience the story” as OP puts it. Despite the OP talking it up, the raid story is extremely minor and inconsequential compared to what is in LS3. In fact, until bloodstone fen was released the raid story made very little sense, and even then only if you read the journal entries.

Blaeys.3102:

I do believe there are ways (potentially like the one Mad talks about above) that seem to be fairly simple solutions that would address the issue.

And if it adds fun to the game for more players, it is most definitely not a waste of time.

If more fun could be added by doing something else then it is a waste of time.

Maybe they could make a solo story instance. They could add some achis with a skin from the meta reward of it. I am just writing what I think could be OK:

Events happen before raid and you are accompanied by Countess Anise to investigate kidnappings and White Mantle activity in raid area. Anise would be following you from afar invisible while you would be in White Mantle disguise to get information, and in the instance you get to meet with Sabetha, Trio and Matthias and visit or oversee places for non human bosses with White Mantle patrol and help them clear out the remaining Mordrem in the area, stop some Slubling incursions, kill some ghosts etc. By the end you go by Xera to find out whats really going on but she sees through your disguise. Countess appears next to you and is locked in battle with Xera, and you get to kill some boss phantasms of Xera in process. In the end, Countess is overwhelmed and teleports herself and you away in the nick of time.

As for why they would ever make a ‘story mode’, I am not sure. It certainly costs dev resources but so does the raid, and the community it appeals to is a small fraction of players. Story mode might encourage more people to raid.

There is a story mode with the new raids in FFXIV and there is still complains about inaccessible rewards from normal raids.

The problem is not the game it’s the players. You have the tool to see the story such as youtube. You can even do the Escort (easiest raid content, probably easier than some fractals) and speak to glenna to understand everything.

2nd issue is, it’s additional work and I don’t like it. I prefer to see new content than same content over and over.

This is why I disagree with the idea.

The real issue anyway it’s the accessibility of the raids, but it’s already known by the devs, and it’s something built by the players. (exagerated requirements, etc)

There is no need for “story” mode as raids don’t have that much of a story. Everything is pretty much go to next boss, defeat it, go to next one. If you’re really interested in some aspects you can watch youtube videos or read some guides online.

Nafets.1238:

There is no need for “story” mode as raids don’t have that much of a story.

Dinosaurs.8674:

There is no way it is worth the development time to make an easier version of content that already exists just for the purpose of letting people “experience the story” as OP puts it.

Harper.4173:

It IS a waste of dev time.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Content with no loot or junk loot does not get repeated. See story mode dungeons. MMO’s rely on players repeating content. Sounds like a waste of dev time.

To all of the above:
First, in my proposal the dev time/effort needed won’t be as high as other suggestions because it doesn’t involve changing mechanics or re-balancing rewards at all. Sure some bosses might be more difficult to tweak, or even impossible, they can leave those as they are if it’s too much trouble. I didn’t add Mathias in my examples because I have no experience in that fight at all.

It might not be worth to add a story mode for Forsaken Thicket because the story/lore in it isn’t much, so maybe Forsaken Thicket doesn’t need a story mode. But think about the future, do you want Raids to be in their own little world without any effect on the overall story, or do you want to fight a Dragon in a Raid? Do you want to fight Lazarus in a Raid, or in a simple, solo, living world instance?

I want to fight the dragons, Lazarus and any other important story boss, inside a Raid, with hard mechanics for a 10-man group, that need coordination, offer a great challenge and at the same time make the boss feel powerful. A solo instance just isn’t enough to make any kind of impression. No more Zhaitans!

And for that to be possible, a Story Mode for Raids would be required. You cannot prevent those who cannot, or do not want to Raid from experiencing a story. Think of the “Migraine”, a story version and a dungeon 5-man version, only this time the hard version will be a Raid.

BobbyStein.2315:

First off, I want to say thanks for posting your feedback and kind words. Both mean a lot to us.

We’re investigating different methods to make the story more accessible. I can’t share any details at this time, but wanted to let you know we’re exploring a few potential options internally. As with everything in development, this isn’t a guarantee. I want to set expectations accordingly.

infantile/tribulation modes + gear inspect incoming bois

BobbyStein.2315:

First off, I want to say thanks for posting your feedback and kind words. Both mean a lot to us.

We’re investigating different methods to make the story more accessible. I can’t share any details at this time, but wanted to let you know we’re exploring a few potential options internally. As with everything in development, this isn’t a guarantee. I want to set expectations accordingly.

It’s encouraging to know that the discussions are taking place and that ArenaNet is paying attention.

I know this is broken record territory, but please keep in mind that access to story – in video games (which are the pinnacle of interactive storytelling) – means being the hero of the story and not just being read to by an NPC or walked through empty instances after the fact.

I think Maddoctor has a decent recommendation above. In another thread, I brought up the idea of “story motes” that spawned NPCs that helped the group in the fights. I think there are some good ideas out there – and that, if those don’t work, Anet has a history of coming up with good ideas all on their own.

BobbyStein.2315:

First off, I want to say thanks for posting your feedback and kind words. Both mean a lot to us.

We’re investigating different methods to make the story more accessible. I can’t share any details at this time, but wanted to let you know we’re exploring a few potential options internally. As with everything in development, this isn’t a guarantee. I want to set expectations accordingly.

Story should’ve never been locked away of people, it’s a very good thing that there is discussion over this subject and I can’t wait to see the results.

While you are at it, could you do something for those who are locked from leveling because of Raids? I mean not progressing their experience bars and getting spirit shards without killing at least one Raid boss. That’s the second big thing (after the story) about Raids that angers (for a good reason) those who do not want or cannot Raid.

I do understand the need to see all of the content in the game. If you love the lore, you should be able to see it. I just feel that there is a much less developer-time-oriented solution for these types of players.

If only A-Net allowed players to post videos of their play-through(s) for other players to watch on some sort of a well-known and widely-used external site so that they too can experience the story, models, etc..

I hope the story mode crowd gets the youtube video experience they are searching for.

It’s clearly not about playing the mode and the story for them, it always comes back around to rewards. It should not reward jack all if its going to exist.

It would be fine if it rewarded a skin etc exclusive to the story mode upon completion or its achis. As long as everything exclusive to raids are obtained through raids only, I think story mode can have some rewards with flavor.

TexZero.7910:

I hope the story mode crowd gets the youtube video experience they are searching for.

It’s clearly not about playing the mode and the story for them, it always comes back around to rewards. It should not reward jack all if its going to exist.

I know this is true of some, but not all.

Personally, I could care less about rewards. I raid currently but have no interest in legendary armor. More importantly, I know that many of the people in my guild currently turned off by raids would love the experience even without the chance at unique skins or legendaries.

My personal opinion is that they should go one of two ways with story mode raids (or whatever they might end up doing) – either give a minimal reward, such as champion boxes and maybe a gold or two – or (and I think this is probably the best option), use them to help people gear up for “real” raids by rewarding a smaller percentage (maybe 50%) of the magnetite rewards and slightly higher than normal chances at vanilla (not unique skinned) ascended boxes.

I am 100% confident that either would be enough for many people wanting to experience lower threshold raids (I know because I would most likely add a third day to my guild’s raiding schedule and have people from the main raid squads take people in for the experience/training/fun/etc).

Hold on people … don’t get too excited over what Bobby said there. It was a little vague but you can see a big diversion from anything raid-like in that statement.

They are investigating DIFFERENT METHODS to make the story more ACCESSIBLE. That tells me it’s not raid, as we know it in GW2.

BobbyStein.2315:

Obtena.7952:

Hold on people … don’t get too excited over what Bobby said there. It was a little vague but you can see a big diversion from anything raid-like in that statement.

They are investigating DIFFERENT METHODS to make the story more ACCESSIBLE. That tells me it’s not raid, as we know it in GW2.

Yeah, people should hold their panic and speculation. I haven’t said anything other than we’re looking at ways to make the story accessible. That could take any number of forms.

;)

I assume you thought about that, but why not make it a little living story episode? If that’s feasible. Would give players a way to experience the raid story and you can sprinkle some rewards into that, all the while showcasing some of the things that happen in raids. Could also add some small achievements to it.

If that’s something along the lines of being doable with the time/resources you have, I think that’d be a way to please a large amount of players.

TexZero.7910:

I hope the story mode crowd gets the youtube video experience they are searching for.

It’s clearly not about playing the mode and the story for them, it always comes back around to rewards. It should not reward jack all if its going to exist.

I agree. And it eventually damages a game.

Action:
Make harder content for people that like challenge. Create rewards for said content.

Consequence:
People that can’t get it done, demand the same rewards because “I paid for the game too”

Action:
Dumb down content.

Result:
People that actually like to PLAY the game and have challenging content now want harder content.

Action:
Make harder content.

Consequence…

*repeat ad infinitum

BobbyStein.2315:

Obtena.7952:

Hold on people … don’t get too excited over what Bobby said there. It was a little vague but you can see a big diversion from anything raid-like in that statement.

They are investigating DIFFERENT METHODS to make the story more ACCESSIBLE. That tells me it’s not raid, as we know it in GW2.

Yeah, people should hold their panic and speculation. I haven’t said anything other than we’re looking at ways to make the story accessible. That could take any number of forms.

;)

I also thought your reddit comment provided some context:

Correct. Perhaps next time I’ll save people the panic and refrain from saying anything. I want to clarify that the only thing I actually said that we were looking into ways to make the story information accessible, not that we were planning any modes or changes to content.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/5frr5z/story_mode_raid/damqeha/

Phyxius Animus.7356:

Action:
Dumb down content.

Almost no one is asking them to dumb down the content. In fact, almost everyone is making a point to say that anything that is done should be done alongside what currently exists (or something even more challenging).

BobbyStein.2315:

Obtena.7952:

Hold on people … don’t get too excited over what Bobby said there. It was a little vague but you can see a big diversion from anything raid-like in that statement.

They are investigating DIFFERENT METHODS to make the story more ACCESSIBLE. That tells me it’s not raid, as we know it in GW2.

Yeah, people should hold their panic and speculation. I haven’t said anything other than we’re looking at ways to make the story accessible. That could take any number of forms.

;)

And, yes, thank you for clarifying. I think most of us definitely understand that that no decisions have been made or are even in the process of being implemented – just that you are looking at ways to make story accessible. That is exactly why this conversation is important.

The fact that you made a point of letting us know our voices (everyone’s) are at least heard is important and appreciated.

BobbyStein.2315:

I haven’t said anything other than we’re looking at ways to make the story accessible. That could take any number of forms.

;)

For example: the “Scarlet was here” video available in Lion’s Arch is a way to make the LS1 story accessible to newer players. Story mode is another method used in the game. Y’all can probably think of 15 or 20 already in use in GW2.

Just keep in mind that some cinematic or NPC talking about it, will never be as welcomed as actually playable content, even if the NPC is voiced.

It’s a game, after all, and people want to play it. If they wanted to sit and watch, they could just go to twitch or watch some youtube videos.

BobbyStein.2315:

Obtena.7952:

Hold on people … don’t get too excited over what Bobby said there. It was a little vague but you can see a big diversion from anything raid-like in that statement.

They are investigating DIFFERENT METHODS to make the story more ACCESSIBLE. That tells me it’s not raid, as we know it in GW2.

Yeah, people should hold their panic and speculation. I haven’t said anything other than we’re looking at ways to make the story accessible. That could take any number of forms.

;)

Oh Bobby, you know these forums are a powderkeg.

…Speaking of which, will there be explosions in the next wing? We could use more explosions.

This is an important topic, and it’s important to try to cut through a lot of the misunderstandings and confusion about what a story mode would necessarily mean.

1) It would NOT mean taking away the challenging content.

2) It would NOT mean taking away the notoriety or honor involved with completing the “hard mode” raids, or even in one sense the exclusivity of the story itself. I am a veteran of another AAA MMO which always released the raids in three stages: first a standard mode, then later on a story mode and a nightmare mode.

The standard mode took some skill to complete, so only regular raiders could complete it on release. The story mode came out making it accessible to (mostly) everyone, but when the nightmare came out it was well known that only the best of the best could complete it. In fact, it even created more content and more prestige for this top tier of players, who had to work very hard to beat the nightmare mode.

Nobody was under any illusion that those who beat the story mode had accomplished anything of any real value, much less that they’d done anything comparable to the top tier players.

3) It would NOT necessarily mean earning the raid exclusive rewards. This is, I think, the point that has been most concerning to many. Ultimately, a story mode raid need not offer any of the raid specific rewards. Let it be for the STORY and the story alone.

I really can’t conceive of any reason to reject creating a story mode version of the raids if it’s clear that they are just for the story rather than rewards, prestige, etc.

Skolops.2604:

This is an important topic, and it’s important to try to cut through a lot of the misunderstandings and confusion about what a story mode would necessarily mean.

1) It would NOT mean taking away the challenging content.

2) It would NOT mean taking away the notoriety or honor involved with completing the “hard mode” raids, or even in one sense the exclusivity of the story itself. I am a veteran of another AAA MMO which always released the raids in three stages: first a standard mode, then later on a story mode and a nightmare mode.

The standard mode took some skill to complete, so only regular raiders could complete it on release. The story mode came out making it accessible to (mostly) everyone, but when the nightmare came out it was well known that only the best of the best could complete it. In fact, it even created more content and more prestige for this top tier of players, who had to work very hard to beat the nightmare mode.

Nobody was under any illusion that those who beat the story mode had accomplished anything of any real value, much less that they’d done anything comparable to the top tier players.

3) It would NOT necessarily mean earning the raid exclusive rewards. This is, I think, the point that has been most concerning to many. Ultimately, a story mode raid need not offer any of the raid specific rewards. Let it be for the STORY and the story alone.

I really can’t conceive of any reason to reject creating a story mode version of the raids if it’s clear that they are just for the story rather than rewards, prestige, etc.

This is what a lot of us are trying to say.

It isn’t about rewards.

It isn’t about denying or removing challenging content (there needs to be more of that in the game, imo).

It is about offering the experience of raiding and the stories they tell (no matter how minor) to more people.

I respect that the developers originally intended raids to serve one goal and only one goal. I just think that wasn’t the right direction for raids. And there are plenty of people who agree with us on that. I have friends who enjoy playing certain builds/professions, friends who don’t enjoy the minutia of preparing and grinding out raid attempts and friends who may be disabled/older/simply less skilled – all of whom I would really enjoy experiencing this 10-player content with. That is really all I want – to play with all of my friends – not just the small group that is willing to spend the time and attention raids require – all of them. That is what GW2 has always offered the community. I don’t want to see that change.

So, once again and hopefully for the last time – this has NEVER been about removing or hindering challenging content in the game. For me (and many others), it has never been about getting something for little or no effort. It is about wanting to play with friends simply because they are my friends – nothing more.

Couldn’t have put it better my self.

maddoctor.2738:

Lemony.9180:

In this potential story mode all loot would be turned off. You would receive no achievements for defeating the bosses.

The problem is this part because not everyone who wants an easier mode wants it for the story alone, they want it for the loot and the achievements. This creates a problem when discussing Raid modes (or tiers in other threads) as different people have different goals for them, often conflicting ones.

Aside from that, will this story mode be for 10 people, or a solo experience? If it requires 10 people then it will be a wasted effort. If finding people to do LS2 achievements or dungeon story modes is hard, imagine how hard it will be to find 9 other people to do something that you can only experience once and get nothing out of replaying it! It will be Arah story mode all over again and they fixed that by making it a solo experience.

Finally, if it’s a solo experience that you do only once and then forget it exists, is it worth re-balancing all the Raid encounters into solo encounters for something like that?

There should be some loot, on par with loot from Story Mode dungeons.

Phyxius Animus.7356:

I agree. And it eventually damages a game.

So, instead…

Action:
Make harder content for people that like challenge. Create rewards for said content.

Consequence:
People that can’t get it done, demand the another version of it because “I paid for the game too”

Action:
Ignore them.

Result:
People that actually PAYING for the game leaving due to the lack of content. Anet getting worst financial results ever.

And how this is better, eh?

Rednik.3809:

Phyxius Animus.7356:

I agree. And it eventually damages a game.

So, instead…

Action:
Make harder content for people that like challenge. Create rewards for said content.

Consequence:
People that can’t get it done, demand the another version of it because “I paid for the game too”

Action:
Ignore them.

Result:
People that actually PAYING for the game leaving due to the lack of content. Anet getting worst financial results ever.

And how this is better, eh?

Aren’t you the guy who said the paying people already left ?

What good does catering to a non-existent playerbase do for the current one….Especially if raiding drove them away to begin with why on tyria would they return if raids still exist ?

I think that the dev are looking into spreading raid story to a wider audience is not bad. As long as raid rewards stay exclusive to “normal” raids.
@Rednik, you’re again on the line “raids kill GW2” ? Really ? Why are you still there then, if you hate raids that much…

TexZero.7910:

Rednik.3809:

Phyxius Animus.7356:

I agree. And it eventually damages a game.

So, instead…

Action:
Make harder content for people that like challenge. Create rewards for said content.

Consequence:
People that can’t get it done, demand the another version of it because “I paid for the game too”

Action:
Ignore them.

Result:
People that actually PAYING for the game leaving due to the lack of content. Anet getting worst financial results ever.

And how this is better, eh?

Aren’t you the guy who said the paying people already left ?

At this moment we’re still at the “ignore them” stage. Some people left, but they may yet return. Others haven’t left yet, but aren’t paying anymore – and eventually will leave if this continues.

Rednik.3809:

People that actually PAYING for the game leaving due to the lack of content.

If there was lack of content maybe that would be true but since there is lots of content this is false.

Astralporing.1957:

TexZero.7910:

Rednik.3809:

Phyxius Animus.7356:

I agree. And it eventually damages a game.

So, instead…

Action:
Make harder content for people that like challenge. Create rewards for said content.

Consequence:
People that can’t get it done, demand the another version of it because “I paid for the game too”

Action:
Ignore them.

Result:
People that actually PAYING for the game leaving due to the lack of content. Anet getting worst financial results ever.

And how this is better, eh?

Aren’t you the guy who said the paying people already left ?

At this moment we’re still at the “ignore them” stage. Some people left, but they may yet return. Others haven’t left yet, but aren’t paying anymore – and eventually will leave if this continues.

Not according to the guy who quotes every earnings report ever for HoT here and blames the decline on solely on Raids.

But i guess you just want to ignore that part of his history for your own amusement ?

At this moment we’re still at the “ignore them” stage. Some people left, but they may yet return. Others haven’t left yet, but aren’t paying anymore – and eventually will leave if this continues.

I don’t think so. Devs have spoken about raid accessibility and about raid story, which are the 2 main complains about raids. At least, they’re thinking about it. So no, it’s not “ignore them”. But if you’re thinking about something else, feel free to start another thread about what is missing.

Blaeys.3102:

Skolops.2604:

This is an important topic, and it’s important to try to cut through a lot of the misunderstandings and confusion about what a story mode would necessarily mean.

1) It would NOT mean taking away the challenging content.

2) It would NOT mean taking away the notoriety or honor involved with completing the “hard mode” raids, or even in one sense the exclusivity of the story itself. I am a veteran of another AAA MMO which always released the raids in three stages: first a standard mode, then later on a story mode and a nightmare mode.

The standard mode took some skill to complete, so only regular raiders could complete it on release. The story mode came out making it accessible to (mostly) everyone, but when the nightmare came out it was well known that only the best of the best could complete it. In fact, it even created more content and more prestige for this top tier of players, who had to work very hard to beat the nightmare mode.

Nobody was under any illusion that those who beat the story mode had accomplished anything of any real value, much less that they’d done anything comparable to the top tier players.

3) It would NOT necessarily mean earning the raid exclusive rewards. This is, I think, the point that has been most concerning to many. Ultimately, a story mode raid need not offer any of the raid specific rewards. Let it be for the STORY and the story alone.

I really can’t conceive of any reason to reject creating a story mode version of the raids if it’s clear that they are just for the story rather than rewards, prestige, etc.

This is what a lot of us are trying to say.

It isn’t about rewards.

It isn’t about denying or removing challenging content (there needs to be more of that in the game, imo).

It is about offering the experience of raiding and the stories they tell (no matter how minor) to more people.

I respect that the developers originally intended raids to serve one goal and only one goal. I just think that wasn’t the right direction for raids. And there are plenty of people who agree with us on that. I have friends who enjoy playing certain builds/professions, friends who don’t enjoy the minutia of preparing and grinding out raid attempts and friends who may be disabled/older/simply less skilled – all of whom I would really enjoy experiencing this 10-player content with. That is really all I want – to play with all of my friends – not just the small group that is willing to spend the time and attention raids require – all of them. That is what GW2 has always offered the community. I don’t want to see that change.

So, once again and hopefully for the last time – this has NEVER been about removing or hindering challenging content in the game. For me (and many others), it has never been about getting something for little or no effort. It is about wanting to play with friends simply because they are my friends – nothing more.

If we’re just talking about story, then a cinematic would solve these complaints. (Despite that all story elements are in a completed instance). They did the same thing for LS1.

I think you’re mixing your goals here (getting your friends in raids). First, you could just bring them along. Second, this would be a problem for any hard content in the game (like arah/aetherpath). Third, any additional mode does impact raids, because it slows down development of future raids, and requires them to retrofit all the previous ones.

If you could promise that it wouldn’t slow down any raids, no one would care (other than thinking that it would be a failure).

Absurdo.8309:

Blaeys.3102:

Skolops.2604:

This is an important topic, and it’s important to try to cut through a lot of the misunderstandings and confusion about what a story mode would necessarily mean.

1) It would NOT mean taking away the challenging content.

2) It would NOT mean taking away the notoriety or honor involved with completing the “hard mode” raids, or even in one sense the exclusivity of the story itself. I am a veteran of another AAA MMO which always released the raids in three stages: first a standard mode, then later on a story mode and a nightmare mode.

The standard mode took some skill to complete, so only regular raiders could complete it on release. The story mode came out making it accessible to (mostly) everyone, but when the nightmare came out it was well known that only the best of the best could complete it. In fact, it even created more content and more prestige for this top tier of players, who had to work very hard to beat the nightmare mode.

Nobody was under any illusion that those who beat the story mode had accomplished anything of any real value, much less that they’d done anything comparable to the top tier players.

3) It would NOT necessarily mean earning the raid exclusive rewards. This is, I think, the point that has been most concerning to many. Ultimately, a story mode raid need not offer any of the raid specific rewards. Let it be for the STORY and the story alone.

I really can’t conceive of any reason to reject creating a story mode version of the raids if it’s clear that they are just for the story rather than rewards, prestige, etc.

This is what a lot of us are trying to say.

It isn’t about rewards.

It isn’t about denying or removing challenging content (there needs to be more of that in the game, imo).

It is about offering the experience of raiding and the stories they tell (no matter how minor) to more people.

I respect that the developers originally intended raids to serve one goal and only one goal. I just think that wasn’t the right direction for raids. And there are plenty of people who agree with us on that. I have friends who enjoy playing certain builds/professions, friends who don’t enjoy the minutia of preparing and grinding out raid attempts and friends who may be disabled/older/simply less skilled – all of whom I would really enjoy experiencing this 10-player content with. That is really all I want – to play with all of my friends – not just the small group that is willing to spend the time and attention raids require – all of them. That is what GW2 has always offered the community. I don’t want to see that change.

So, once again and hopefully for the last time – this has NEVER been about removing or hindering challenging content in the game. For me (and many others), it has never been about getting something for little or no effort. It is about wanting to play with friends simply because they are my friends – nothing more.

If we’re just talking about story, then a cinematic would solve these complaints. (Despite that all story elements are in a completed instance). They did the same thing for LS1.

I think you’re mixing your goals here (getting your friends in raids). First, you could just bring them along. Second, this would be a problem for any hard content in the game (like arah/aetherpath). Third, any additional mode does impact raids, because it slows down development of future raids, and requires them to retrofit all the previous ones.

If you could promise that it wouldn’t slow down any raids, no one would care (other than thinking that it would be a failure).

How is that a problem for any other hard instanced content then raids?
You can take 4 hours to kill each boss in arah/aetherpath that you used as examples.

If a cinematic is all they plan on implementing how about they link a youtube video that show all the wings instead less work same result.

Linken.6345:

Absurdo.8309:

Blaeys.3102:

Skolops.2604:

This is an important topic, and it’s important to try to cut through a lot of the misunderstandings and confusion about what a story mode would necessarily mean.

1) It would NOT mean taking away the challenging content.

2) It would NOT mean taking away the notoriety or honor involved with completing the “hard mode” raids, or even in one sense the exclusivity of the story itself. I am a veteran of another AAA MMO which always released the raids in three stages: first a standard mode, then later on a story mode and a nightmare mode.

The standard mode took some skill to complete, so only regular raiders could complete it on release. The story mode came out making it accessible to (mostly) everyone, but when the nightmare came out it was well known that only the best of the best could complete it. In fact, it even created more content and more prestige for this top tier of players, who had to work very hard to beat the nightmare mode.

Nobody was under any illusion that those who beat the story mode had accomplished anything of any real value, much less that they’d done anything comparable to the top tier players.

3) It would NOT necessarily mean earning the raid exclusive rewards. This is, I think, the point that has been most concerning to many. Ultimately, a story mode raid need not offer any of the raid specific rewards. Let it be for the STORY and the story alone.

I really can’t conceive of any reason to reject creating a story mode version of the raids if it’s clear that they are just for the story rather than rewards, prestige, etc.

This is what a lot of us are trying to say.

It isn’t about rewards.

It isn’t about denying or removing challenging content (there needs to be more of that in the game, imo).

It is about offering the experience of raiding and the stories they tell (no matter how minor) to more people.

I respect that the developers originally intended raids to serve one goal and only one goal. I just think that wasn’t the right direction for raids. And there are plenty of people who agree with us on that. I have friends who enjoy playing certain builds/professions, friends who don’t enjoy the minutia of preparing and grinding out raid attempts and friends who may be disabled/older/simply less skilled – all of whom I would really enjoy experiencing this 10-player content with. That is really all I want – to play with all of my friends – not just the small group that is willing to spend the time and attention raids require – all of them. That is what GW2 has always offered the community. I don’t want to see that change.

So, once again and hopefully for the last time – this has NEVER been about removing or hindering challenging content in the game. For me (and many others), it has never been about getting something for little or no effort. It is about wanting to play with friends simply because they are my friends – nothing more.

If we’re just talking about story, then a cinematic would solve these complaints. (Despite that all story elements are in a completed instance). They did the same thing for LS1.

I think you’re mixing your goals here (getting your friends in raids). First, you could just bring them along. Second, this would be a problem for any hard content in the game (like arah/aetherpath). Third, any additional mode does impact raids, because it slows down development of future raids, and requires them to retrofit all the previous ones.

If you could promise that it wouldn’t slow down any raids, no one would care (other than thinking that it would be a failure).

How is that a problem for any other hard instanced content then raids?
You can take 4 hours to kill each boss in arah/aetherpath that you used as examples.

If a cinematic is all they plan on implementing how about they link a youtube video that show all the wings instead less work same result.

I agree that youtube + a completed instance should satisfy anyone who cares that much about the story.

You can also take as long as you want in most raids, assuming you can survive. However, I think theory is pointless here — lupi would stymie an unskilled player just as much as vg would.