Guild Wars 2

Blaeys.3102:

I agree this isn’t why the content was originally developed. However,I believe that, based on player feedback and perceptions the past 2 years, it is time to extend that experience. I believe this is needed not only for accessibility – but to allow them to really let go when it comes to developing true hardcore raid content as well.

Why do you believe increased accessibility is needed?

While I can understand that you want Raid resources increased, and getting them to do tiered difficulty is one way to do it.

I disagree with you, I do not want more difficulty levels for Raids nor do I want expanded resources for them, and I do not think it is needed, regardless of perception.

The reason I can say I do not believe it is needed, is because there isn’t a need for Anet to do it. You’ve said yourself in previous posts that you do not think that it will hurt their bottom line much down the road. If it isn’t going to hurt their bottom line or kill the game, it isn’t needed. Especially when they do not want a raid-centric game, or the GW2 story in raids. They have been developing open world as their primary end game, for better or worse, and it is the right direction to continue going, imo.

Blaeys.3102:

The real question becomes the exact question you ask – how much effort it would take to do so. I agrue the existence of challenge motes in the last wing indicates it wouldnt take any more than they exhibited in making that wing.

I would argue that the inclusion of the Challenge Motes hurt the original content that they were trying to create, and should have just stuck to making the whole thing better, with just one mode.

Granted, I think that the Challenge Motes would have been more universally praised by raiders, instead of scorned, had there been increased rewards for killing the boss or whole wing, like repeating the achievement, just not as much in the way of rewards. Think like Nightmare Challenge, it is loved by many, because it is harder than normal, and there is a reason to run it. Something that the Raid Challenge Motes failed to deliver on, repeatable content. The way it was done, there wasn’t much reason to do it again once you did it.

It’s also entirely possible that the inclusion of those challenge motes, is what caused the 9-month delay until Raid 2 was shipped. Where without them, we could have had it in 6-7 months (we don’t know, just throwing out numbers).

I don’t know about you, but I’m not willing to wait more time between raids, for them to be able to include more motes for different levels of challenges, nor am I willing to sacrifice anything from any other part of the game.

TexZero.7910:

Astralporing.1957:

zealex.9410:

The concept of fun doesnt strike you huh?

It does, but it’s in no way impacted by existence of different level of difficulty modes. Or rewards being available by other means.
So, my point still stands. If it’s really about that, why such a strong opposition to other mode suggestions? Are some players’ fun really going to be so much negatively impacted if other players will be able to have fun as well?

Yes, yes it will.

Multi-modual design is a nightmare for balance that leads to easy modes being so trivial as to not be fun.

For people running normal mode. And it would not be a problem for those players, because they would not be running them.

Astralporing.1957:

TexZero.7910:

Astralporing.1957:

zealex.9410:

The concept of fun doesnt strike you huh?

It does, but it’s in no way impacted by existence of different level of difficulty modes. Or rewards being available by other means.
So, my point still stands. If it’s really about that, why such a strong opposition to other mode suggestions? Are some players’ fun really going to be so much negatively impacted if other players will be able to have fun as well?

Yes, yes it will.

Multi-modual design is a nightmare for balance that leads to easy modes being so trivial as to not be fun.

For people running normal mode. And it would not be a problem for those players, because they would not be running them.

You conveniently cut-off where he was saying why it would be a problem for people running normal modes.

Here, I’ll help you out by providing it to you:

TexZero.7910:

It also leads to even less build diversity at the higher tiers of content as it has to be tunned so aggressively. Additionally it restricts combat design as you cannot have a complex easy mode raid meaning certain mechanics that could be feasible in a single mode raid would never see the light of day as it would mean completely rebuilding the raid encounter.

So to answer your question it absolutely can hurt others.

While yes, normal raid runners won’t run easy modes, just having easy modes can have an impact other areas of raid design, and he and myself, do not want that.

Are you suggesting that you don’t care if raid design is impacted and the overall quality diminished, just to add multiple levels of difficulty?

Astralporing.1957:

zealex.9410:

The concept of fun doesnt strike you huh?

It does, but it’s in no way impacted by existence of different level of difficulty modes. Or rewards being available by other means.
So, my point still stands. If it’s really about that, why such a strong opposition to other mode suggestions? Are some players’ fun really going to be so much negatively impacted if other players will be able to have fun as well?

It’s not that simple.

Legendary armor was meant to be an incentive for players to try and stick with raids. Getting it is the pinnacle of a long and hard effort. Adding an alternative method of obtaining it will devalue it and will make the players that put that effort feel cheated. It will essentially be robbing them of a sense of achievement. Which is part of why raiding is fun. The content doesn’t just have to be difficult, it has to feel rewarding as well.

That’s why I think we’re not going to see an alternative method of obtaining it, just like we’ll never see a PvE-obtainable Ascension or a non-fractal Ad Infinitum.

Fatalyz.7168:

While yes, normal raid runners won’t run easy modes, just having easy modes can have an impact other areas of raid design, and he and myself, do not want that.

Are you suggesting that you don’t care if raid design is impacted and the overall quality diminished, just to add multiple levels of difficulty?

The biggest and only real impact I could see them having on other areas of raid design would be freeing up the raid team to make the difficult levels of raiding much more difficult. They wouldn’t have to worry about having to water them down at all to ease people in or encourage them to start raiding.

You do want actually hard fights in your raids, right?

The only other real argument I could see would be that it would consume resources, but I think (please dont make me explain that “I think” means opinion again) that point is negated by the inclusion of challenge motes in the last wing. Again, simply transition those resources to the development of story motes or raid versions.

Feanor.2358:

The content doesn’t just have to be difficult, it has to feel rewarding as well.

That’s why I think we’re not going to see an alternative method of obtaining it, just like we’ll never see a PvE-obtainable Ascension or a non-fractal Ad Infinitum.

I care little about reward (and would rather see this conversation in another thread), but I thought it was worth pointing out the flaw in your logic. As long as any legendary armor set offered through WvW or other game mode had a different skin, the one offered through raids would remain a “unique” reward – and would be a symbol of your effort. Again, functionality and power levels are meant to be equalized in this game. It is the aesthetics that differentiate rewards.

(and again, I would rather see this in another thread – and before anyone brings it up, yes, of course, the raid legendary armor should only be available through a harder version of the raid – any story mode should offer a signficantly lesser reward).

Blaeys.3102:

The biggest and only real impact I could see them having on other areas of raid design would be freeing up the raid team to make the difficult levels of raiding much more difficult. They wouldn’t have to worry about having to water them down at all to ease people in or encourage them to start raiding.

You do want actually hard fights in your raids, right?

The only other real argument I could see would be that it would consume resources, but I think (please dont make me explain that “I think” means opinion again) that point is negated by the inclusion of challenge motes in the last wing. Again, simply transition those resources to the development of story motes or raid versions.

As the person that we were responding to mentioned, it could have an impact on the type of mechanics that are introduced. I don’t think any of know if this would really happen or not, but it is a concern.

I’m not really looking for harder fights. Honestly if I wanted “hard” raid fights, I would go to a game that caters to raiding. The fights that currently exist in game are challenging enough for a casual game. They aren’t hard, but they are challenging so that you can’t just snooze through them.

While yes, they could transition those resources over to creating the story mode, I don’t think it would be a good idea. I don’t think it would be a good idea, because it is entirely possible that making those challenge motes was the reason we had to wait 9 months between the release of Stronghold of the Faithful and Bastion of the Penitent. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to have to wait 9 months between raid releases, and think that the resources would be better spent refining the fights for each new release.

I think it is important to keep in mind that raids in this game are meant to provide a challenge, not primary story content. I would also rather not start seeing GW2 primary story content in raids.

Edit: I also don’t think that they were trying to water down bosses to help ease people into Raids, nor do I think they are too concerned about easing more people in, that is what they have said Fractals is for. I think that the skill level of GW2 players had increased significantly by the time BoP came out.

Fatalyz.7168:

As the person that we were responding to mentioned, it could have an impact on the type of mechanics that are introduced. I don’t think any of know if this would really happen or not, but it is a concern.

I think this would only be a factor if differentiation between the two modes was simple number scaling. I think it would be more likely that any story mote would involve peeling away the harder fight mechanics (just as challenge motes often add mechanics).

And to your points about the most recent wing and difficulty. If you look through many of these threads, you will find a lot of people talking about how easy the fights in that wing are compared to the first three. Some harder core raiders even claim those fights are already easy mode (a point I would argue is probably true for the top tier raiders – they aren’t hard enough for them). This, imo, is a result of Anet, rightfully so, trying to cater to a wider range of players with that wing (even though I feel they failed in that goal).

They are trying to please too many people with the single mode they are developing – and the result is they aren’t really offering anyone the experience they want. I think the only solution is tiered raiding. It lets developers focus the experience to the audience – including actual hardcore raiding for hardcore raiders.

flog.3485:

Astralporing.1957:

zealex.9410:

The concept of fun doesnt strike you huh?

It does, but it’s in no way impacted by existence of different level of difficulty modes. Or rewards being available by other means.
So, my point still stands. If it’s really about that, why such a strong opposition to other mode suggestions? Are some players’ fun really going to be so much negatively impacted if other players will be able to have fun as well?

Except that you seem to forget one very important thing: the game has never been a raid centric game. Never ever. If that happens, that is when the shift of identity of the game will happen. Mo, after suspending the legendaries said he wanted to focus on creating a living world. I don’t want them to divert resources to the point it will impede the development of this living world nor do I think creating this modes will benefit the already created raiding community.

Exaclty raids were a niche request from a niche part of the game that wanted such content. Asking for that to translate to the bigger part of the population would mean much more resources which would be take either from the actual mode’s difficulty (which no thank you i like my mode polished) or from other parts of the game (no thank you i like my quality in living world and especially in fractals)

Blaeys.3102:

Fatalyz.7168:

As the person that we were responding to mentioned, it could have an impact on the type of mechanics that are introduced. I don’t think any of know if this would really happen or not, but it is a concern.

I think this would only be a factor if differentiation between the two modes was simple number scaling. I think it would be more likely that any story mote would involve peeling away the harder fight mechanics (just as challenge motes often add mechanics).

And to your points about the most recent wing and difficulty. If you look through many of these threads, you will find a lot of people talking about how easy the fights in that wing are compared to the first three. Some harder core raiders even claim those fights are already easy mode (a point I would argue is probably true for the top tier raiders – they aren’t hard enough for them). This, imo, is a result of Anet, rightfully so, trying to cater to a wider range of players with that wing (even though I feel they failed in that goal).

They are trying to please too many people with the single mode they are developing – and the result is they aren’t really offering anyone the experience they want. I think the only solution is tiered raiding. It lets developers focus the experience to the audience – including actual hardcore raiding for hardcore raiders.

Peeling away harder raid mechanics? I’m not under the impression that any of the mechanics were hard or difficult, it was just a matter of learning them.

I don’t think it was so much of trying to cater to a wider audience, I think it was to provide something else to do. I feel that if it was meant to try to cater to a wider audience, the rewards for repeating the challenge motes would be better or at least repeatable, not a one and done.

As general player skill increases, it’s only natural for them to stop finding the same challenge that they had before. That doesn’t mean that Anet should keep increasing the difficulty level. That is why Raids are not modular in design like fractals, nor should they be. In their current design, they do exactly as promised, provide challenging group content.

The raid developers are already focusing the experience on the audience – those that want Challenging Group Content, and the most challenging content in the game.

I also think that you are mistaken in saying that they are trying to please too many people. They specifically have said that it is niche content for a niche group of people (people who wanted Challenging Group Content, not people who wanted additional story content, albeit people that wanted Challenging Group Content received additional story content, just not GW2 main story content. Example – BoP has no bearing on the GW2 story arc, it’s just a nice side story that wraps up a loose end from the first game). That doesn’t sound like trying to please too many people, rather trying to please a specific subset of people.

Now, if they aren’t pleasing their target audience, they most definitely they should look at increasing their audience. But the thing is, neither of us has any factual data that shows whether they are reaching their target audience or not, so it’s really hard to continue the discussion past this point, because neither of us can definitively prove the success or failure of raids. Which is also the point that all of these discussions break down, because opinions get brought in, and opinions are going to change most people’s minds, facts do.

Personally, I’m of the opinion that they have been overwhelmingly successful within the target audience, and because of that I don’t see a reason to change it. Also because I don’t want more in-game resources spent in raids. Any new resources should be going to other areas of the game, WvW, sPvP, LS, artist teams for new armor and skins, etc. Raids should be the last thing to receive any new or additional resources.

It’s not very accurate but raid lfg is the most populated channel after fractals and the only time it’s empty is when people stop to go for reset fractals.
Another thing to mention is that u don’t really see raiders complaining about it. True some arguments were raised about how ez w4 is but no1 filled the forums with complain threads either here or on reddit. It is a suprising contrast with whats happening on other mode threads which reflects their appeal to the target-playerbase and how good the raid development team is performing.

Blaeys.3102:

Feanor.2358:

The content doesn’t just have to be difficult, it has to feel rewarding as well.

That’s why I think we’re not going to see an alternative method of obtaining it, just like we’ll never see a PvE-obtainable Ascension or a non-fractal Ad Infinitum.

I care little about reward (and would rather see this conversation in another thread), but I thought it was worth pointing out the flaw in your logic. As long as any legendary armor set offered through WvW or other game mode had a different skin, the one offered through raids would remain a “unique” reward – and would be a symbol of your effort. Again, functionality and power levels are meant to be equalized in this game. It is the aesthetics that differentiate rewards.

Oh, I agree completely. Perhaps I didn’t phrase myself well. I meant I don’t think we’ll see an alternative way of obtaining this particular skin, not the functionality associated with it. I’m all for WvW getting their own set.

zoomborg.9462:

It’s not very accurate but raid lfg is the most populated channel after fractals and the only time it’s empty is when people stop to go for reset fractals.
Another thing to mention is that u don’t really see raiders complaining about it. True some arguments were raised about how ez w4 is but no1 filled the forums with complain threads either here or on reddit. It is a suprising contrast with whats happening on other mode threads which reflects their appeal to the target-playerbase and how good the raid development team is performing.

You’re making an assumption here – one I suspect is probably incorrect (but again, were basing both our opinions on anecdotal and very unscientific observations). There are almost always at least 3-4 listings, even in off hours, across the open world map lfgs (Dragon Stand, Auric, etc).

As a quick test – this morning, I went and looked – 8 postings across open world listings, 4 across fractals, one in living story and one in raid lfg (a tempest looking for a group to do escort), and no listings in the section for raid groups looking for more (and were talking about an early raid reset day the day before leg armor comes out). Again, that is anecdotal and unscientific though – just did it to show that you cannot assume one is more popular than the other.

And I agree that the raid development team has done a good job on them. That was never in question. I just see a portion of the playerbase who would enjoy the raids at a lower difficulty level – and would definitely appreciate being able to experience (not just read about or watch a video) things like the Saul D’alesio storyline.