Guild Wars 2

Astralporing.1957:

Or they kept using them as they accrued. I know i do.
It’s the same reason why magnetite shards are a poor estimation of raids’ popularity and why LI’s are better

If they played in HoT zones for all those months they’d run out of things to use the Airship Parts on. I know you can spend them but that big ugly zero at Unbound Magic shows something really important. Which has very little to do with Raids but rather the overall game.

LIs alone are a terrible estimation of a raid’s popularity too. They don’t show how much of the player base is still active, and for obvious reasons those with more playtime will tend to get into Raiding more than those with little playtime, the higher the playtime, the higher the likelihood of being properly geared and ready for “end game”. LIs alone don’t take into account playtime, nor the actual active population of the game so anyone who says “only X% has LIs, so Raids aren’t popular at all” is completely wrong.

LIs alone are a terrible estimation of a raid’s popularity too. They don’t show how much of the player base is still active, and for obvious reasons those with more playtime will tend to get into Raiding more than those with little playtime, the higher the playtime, the higher the likelihood of being properly geared and ready for “end game”. LIs alone don’t take into account playtime, nor the actual active population of the game so anyone who says “only X% has LIs, so Raids aren’t popular at all” is completely wrong.

You’re right in that LIs are a poor minimum, someone who has, say, 40 LI, is at least someone who has raided quite a bit at one point, but as you note, they may have quit completely months ago. But LIs are a decent maximum, since if you have zero LIs right now, then you’ve never beaten a single boss. It’s also comparable to the rate of people with zero Magnetite, and if you even attempt raiding, you’re almost certain to walk away with at least a few Magnetite. So the ceiling on raid participation is around 20% of the GW2E players, the floor of active raiders may be lower than that, and we don’t know how accurate GW2E’s rates are to the general population, but chances are they skew more in favor of raiders than away from them.

LIs alone are a horrible estimation of a player’s skill, even worse than AP or mastery lvl or any other limiting factors you’d care to name. It doesn’t say how many X times you’ve run the raid or killed the boss, all it says is how many X total times you’ve raided and got the kill on weekly basis, and yes being thus time-based is also limiting factor by itself.

I haven’t checked, but from last week I had abt 30 LI or so. Yet I join grps with much higher LI reqs, even 100 LI or so and get boss kills on 1st attempt with group. Yesterday our 100 LI group cleared two wings as well as 9man matthias on 1st try with one healer dead since halfway. What does that say that one (possibly more) of its members didn’t meet LI reqs.. oh I know, it mean those ppl are there to get carried thru content they can’t do with normal grp. There are lot other cases where LI act like a placebo effect to actually reinforce their belief that they in good grp that is highly exp and can thus faceroll content.

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@Linkin i have firstly advice for u, pls learn how to quote properly in future. I was drawing a parallel and tho it might been with shaky hand, it still holds water. [Person I respond to] was repeatedly asking devs to give up huge chunk of their time and effort, for smthin that only appease insignificant portion of player base. So likewise in turn I ask him to provide me an arbitrary item, it could been some set amt of milling stones (wiki ) or even an luxury item, but point is it didn’t matter what I ask for he would refuse to give me on basis that he would be force to give somthin up. On this I have prove my point, so my argument did work against him in the end

nagr.1593:

[Person I respond to] was repeatedly asking devs to give up huge chunk of their time and effort, for smthin that only appease insignificant portion of player base.

Like the people that were asking for raids did before they were introduced?

(part of post removed, as it was apparently written in error)

Ohoni.6057:

You’re right in that LIs are a poor minimum, someone who has, say, 40 LI, is at least someone who has raided quite a bit at one point, but as you note, they may have quit completely months ago. But LIs are a decent maximum, since if you have zero LIs right now, then you’ve never beaten a single boss. It’s also comparable to the rate of people with zero Magnetite, and if you even attempt raiding, you’re almost certain to walk away with at least a few Magnetite. So the ceiling on raid participation is around 20% of the GW2E players, the floor of active raiders may be lower than that, and we don’t know how accurate GW2E’s rates are to the general population, but chances are they skew more in favor of raiders than away from them.

There is also the problem of going from 10% to 20% or from 20% to 50% which means the actual result might be number in-between the 2 values and we simply don’t know which one.

As a note to everyone: do not use gw2efficiency to prove a point.

Astralporing.1957:

By the way, last dev AMA has thrown out of the window the previous claim about how few people were working on raids. According to some side comments from it, the fractal team (and not only them) was also working on raids as well up until recently.

You mean this one?

The Raids and Fractals teams are seperate entities, but we both deal with instanced encounter design so we are working at lot closer now than, for instance, a year back.

Yes thrown out of the window indeed.

Or maybe this one?

Spoiler Alert: Nightmare started as a pet project of mine while I was QA Embed for the Raids Team. I took the lessons learned from developing Raids alongside those amazing designers, and focused on creating something that matched that level of quality.

So a person who was in the Raid Team was working as a side project on Nightmare fractal…. he started working on the new fractal while he was a part of the Raid team.

Are you talking about something else maybe that I didn’t see in the AMA?

Astralporing.1957:

nagr.1593:

[Person I respond to] was repeatedly asking devs to give up huge chunk of their time and effort, for smthin that only appease insignificant portion of player base.

Like the people that were asking for raids did before they were introduced?

By the way, last dev AMA has thrown out of the window the previous claim about how few people were working on raids. According to some side comments from it, the fractal team (and not only them) was also working on raids as well up until recently.

You also forget the fact that the teams working sometimes on same project (like nightmare fractal) greatly improve the quality of the fractal (great feedback for this fractal). So raid help to improve the quality of other PvE instances.

Interesting. That’s not what i remember reading from Dulfy’s summary yesterday. Must have been too tired and misread something. I do apologize for the misunderstanding.

maddoctor.2738:

There is also the problem of going from 10% to 20% or from 20% to 50% which means the actual result might be number in-between the 2 values and we simply don’t know which one.

As a note to everyone: do not use gw2efficiency to prove a point.

We did prove that 90% + of efficiency users bought HoT tho. If your main problem is that we don’t know the % of players that has LIs between 20-50 % I’m pretty sure the guy who runs the page have access to that data and you can contact him.

Also I’m pretty sure the majority of people with 1-2 LIs aren’t really intrested in raiding at all, probably they went in to unlock the masteries. Also keep in mind the site can’t tell who acquired their LI’s legitimately from those who just bought a run.

Regarding the argument about reading the active raiding population from that site; I believe there is a solution for that too, though it takes some effort to get decent data. You just need to check the highest percentage of players who gets at least one LI each week. For the sake of argument lets say it’s 10%. I remember someone saying gw2eff has 100k registered accs, that means 10k player. This way you can also determine what percentage of players actually clear all 3 wings .

Now of course this only considers those who have made a gw2eff account, meaning in reality this number is most likely different, therefore it would be wrong to interpolate this data for the whole gw2 population, but I don’t see why it can’t be a decent indicator.

Scipio.3204:

maddoctor.2738:

There is also the problem of going from 10% to 20% or from 20% to 50% which means the actual result might be number in-between the 2 values and we simply don’t know which one.

As a note to everyone: do not use gw2efficiency to prove a point.

We did prove that 90% + of efficiency users bought HoT tho. If your main problem is that we don’t know the % of players that has LIs between 20-50 % I’m pretty sure the guy who runs the page have access to that data and you can contact him.

Also I’m pretty sure the majority of people with 1-2 LIs aren’t really intrested in raiding at all, probably they went in to unlock the masteries. Also keep in mind the site can’t tell who acquired their LI’s legitimately from those who just bought a run.

Regarding the argument about reading the active raiding population from that site; I believe there is a solution for that too, though it takes some effort to get decent data. You just need to check the highest percentage of players who gets at least one LI each week. For the sake of argument lets say it’s 10%. I remember someone saying gw2eff has 100k registered accs, that means 10k player. This way you can also determine what percentage of players actually clear all 3 wings .

Now of course this only considers those who have made a gw2eff account, meaning in reality this number is most likely different, therefore it would be wrong to interpolate this data for the whole gw2 population, but I don’t see why it can’t be a decent indicator.

This whole line of discussion seems pointless. Anet has the data on raids, and they’re happy with it.

Plus, when you compare to the number of players who participated in the pvp league (using pvp tickets) you get similar numbers.

Absurdo.8309:

Scipio.3204:

maddoctor.2738:

There is also the problem of going from 10% to 20% or from 20% to 50% which means the actual result might be number in-between the 2 values and we simply don’t know which one.

As a note to everyone: do not use gw2efficiency to prove a point.

We did prove that 90% + of efficiency users bought HoT tho. If your main problem is that we don’t know the % of players that has LIs between 20-50 % I’m pretty sure the guy who runs the page have access to that data and you can contact him.

Also I’m pretty sure the majority of people with 1-2 LIs aren’t really intrested in raiding at all, probably they went in to unlock the masteries. Also keep in mind the site can’t tell who acquired their LI’s legitimately from those who just bought a run.

Regarding the argument about reading the active raiding population from that site; I believe there is a solution for that too, though it takes some effort to get decent data. You just need to check the highest percentage of players who gets at least one LI each week. For the sake of argument lets say it’s 10%. I remember someone saying gw2eff has 100k registered accs, that means 10k player. This way you can also determine what percentage of players actually clear all 3 wings .

Now of course this only considers those who have made a gw2eff account, meaning in reality this number is most likely different, therefore it would be wrong to interpolate this data for the whole gw2 population, but I don’t see why it can’t be a decent indicator.

This whole line of discussion seems pointless. Anet has the data on raids, and they’re happy with it.

Plus, when you compare to the number of players who participated in the pvp league (using pvp tickets) you get similar numbers.

I’ve yet to see a quote that they are happy with it , all I remember is something along the line " We reached higher participation rates compared to the games we observed", which is meaningless without context.

Also if they were that happy with it they wouldn’t discuss accessibility a lot internally.

Yesterday, multiple groups in my guild did level 25 and level 100-challenge mote versions of the new fractal. The comments coming out of the latter included “that was amazing – it felt like a raid”, “That was frustrating but really fun”, “Oh dang, oh dang, oh dang, the pain, my face, my face, the pain, the pain”, and several others I can’t repeat here.

But more importantly, here is what we learned -

• A tiered system spanning between easy and blistering hard is VERY possible in this game.

• No one doing the level 100- challenge mote thought the experience was less epic or difficult in any way whatsoever because of the existence of the level 25 (a common concern from people in this thread about raids). This proves that the idea that easy mode will somehow diminish the efforts of those doing harder difficulties is completely unfounded.

• I doubt that the developer resources needed to make the different versions was really that significant.

• People doing the lvl 25 (which we took a lot of people in to see) really enjoyed it as well. They found it fun and interesting – and it will likely get many of them actually interested in fractals again. The people doing the lvl 25 didn’t care that they weren’t doing the hardest version. They were just happy to be there

Now, I respect that raids are not fractals – that the underlying system is different, but yesterday proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that they could make and implement such a system for raids in GW2. Anet needs to expend the effort to migrate future raids to a similar platform. It doesn’t need to be 100 levels – it can simply be 2 or 3 tiers instead.

This is needed. It is needed so that Anet can use raids as story telling platforms. It is needed to drive greater interest in raids. It is needed to help alleviate content droughts. It is needed to avoid creating unnecessary rifts and tensions in the community. It is needed to open the fun of raiding to more people. It is needed to accommodate for the SEVERE performance disparity between professions/builds/playstyles. And, yes, it can serve as a training tool.

It is just plain out needed.

Scipio.3204:

We did prove that 90% + of efficiency users bought HoT tho. If your main problem is that we don’t know the % of players that has LIs between 20-50 % I’m pretty sure the guy who runs the page have access to that data and you can contact him.

And how many of that 90% quit before Raids even got released? How many of that 90% stopped playing after entering VB once and never got to move any further?

First raid wing was released in November, second in March and third in June. How many of those that bought quit BEFORE November, or before any of the rest of the Raid releases?

maddoctor.2738:

Scipio.3204:

We did prove that 90% + of efficiency users bought HoT tho. If your main problem is that we don’t know the % of players that has LIs between 20-50 % I’m pretty sure the guy who runs the page have access to that data and you can contact him.

And how many of that 90% quit before Raids even got released? How many of that 90% stopped playing after entering VB once and never got to move any further?

First raid wing was released in November, second in March and third in June. How many of those that bought quit BEFORE November, or before any of the rest of the Raid releases?

I’m not sure what point you are trying to make here.

I did not try to draw a parallel between those two, however if there is one thing I can say is the release of raids did not stop them from leaving. Also if you want to compare the active population to the raiding one, you also need to look at the active raiders as well.

edit: Also I’ve just checked , you can actually check each 0,5 % on the Percentile Graph below the statistics.

Scipio.3204:

I did not try to draw a parallel between those two, however if there is one thing I can say is the release of raids did not stop them from leaving. Also if you want to compare the active population to the raiding one, you also need to look at the active raiders as well.

If you want to count the percentage of people Raiding (as your post about LIs suggest, I could be wrong) you need to count only those eligible to Raid in the first place. Those who stayed in the game for the month after release for at least the first Raid to be released. Otherwise you are using a percentage that is completely biased.

Blaeys.3102:

Yesterday, multiple groups in my guild did level 25 and level 100-challenge mote versions of the new fractal. The comments coming out of the latter included “that was amazing – it felt like a raid”, “That was frustrating but really fun”, “Oh dang, oh dang, oh dang, the pain, my face, my face, the pain, the pain”, and several others I can’t repeat here.

But more importantly, here is what we learned -

• A tiered system spanning between easy and blistering hard is VERY possible in this game.

• No one doing the level 100- challenge mote thought the experience was less epic or difficult in any way whatsoever because of the existence of the level 25 (a common concern from people in this thread about raids). This proves that the idea that easy mode will somehow diminish the efforts of those doing harder difficulties is completely unfounded.

• I doubt that the developer resources needed to make the different versions was really that significant.

• People doing the lvl 25 (which we took a lot of people in to see) really enjoyed it as well. They found it fun and interesting – and it will likely get many of them actually interested in fractals again. The people doing the lvl 25 didn’t care that they weren’t doing the hardest version. They were just happy to be there

Now, I respect that raids are not fractals – that the underlying system is different, but yesterday proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that they could make and implement such a system for raids in GW2. Anet needs to expend the effort to migrate future raids to a similar platform. It doesn’t need to be 100 levels – it can simply be 2 or 3 tiers instead.

This is needed. It is needed so that Anet can use raids as story telling platforms. It is needed to drive greater interest in raids. It is needed to help alleviate content droughts. It is needed to avoid creating unnecessary rifts and tensions in the community. It is needed to open the fun of raiding to more people. It is needed to accommodate for the SEVERE performance disparity between professions/builds/playstyles. And, yes, it can serve as a training tool.

It is just plain out needed.

They have stated several times that the amount of resources is significant. I’m not sure why the easy moders keep claiming this. Raids are not fractals. I think the raid versus fractal output makes this clear.

It’s great that you had groups beat level 25. Will they continue to play at that level, or was it a one-time thing?

Crystal said that they ship easy raids as well as hard ones to get newer players interested. Would you rather have escort and xera or two versions of xera? Because that is the choice you face.

Looks like you have a guild. Why don’t they host training runs? Why don’t they allow off-meta builds? This seems to be a guild problem, not a raid problem.

maddoctor.2738:

If you want to count the percentage of people Raiding (as your post about LIs suggest, I could be wrong) you need to count only those eligible to Raid in the first place. Those who stayed in the game for the month after release for at least the first Raid to be released. Otherwise you are using a percentage that is completely biased.

A handful of my guildies left after few days of raid release after their team became hopeless at beating VG and gave up. Are they not eligible? Then rest of their raiding group left with them. Are they not eligible too?

Rednik.3809:

maddoctor.2738:

If you want to count the percentage of people Raiding (as your post about LIs suggest, I could be wrong) you need to count only those eligible to Raid in the first place. Those who stayed in the game for the month after release for at least the first Raid to be released. Otherwise you are using a percentage that is completely biased.

A handful of my guildies left after few days of raid release after their team became hopeless at beating VG and gave up. Are they not eligible? Then rest of their raiding group left with them. Are they not eligible too?

They are. Do you have data to get the actually eligible players?

I typed this above:

As a note to everyone: do not use gw2efficiency to prove a point.

Meant it for everyone.

maddoctor.2738:

Scipio.3204:

I did not try to draw a parallel between those two, however if there is one thing I can say is the release of raids did not stop them from leaving. Also if you want to compare the active population to the raiding one, you also need to look at the active raiders as well.

If you want to count the percentage of people Raiding (as your post about LIs suggest, I could be wrong) you need to count only those eligible to Raid in the first place. Those who stayed in the game for the month after release for at least the first Raid to be released. Otherwise you are using a percentage that is completely biased.

And like I said, this also doesn’t factor those who bought their runs or that someone with a gw2eff acc is likely more dedicated to the game than an average player and both of these factor turn the numbers in the favor of raiders. These calculations arent meant to be 100% precise for the whole population, but they are still a good estimation.

Furthermore it is still possible to make estimations using monitored data of several weeks to compare how many people get LI compared to Unbound Magic or Fractal relic for example, but most likely those would turn into raid’s favor since most of these can be spent, unlike LI. Maybe the number of deaths on the accounts might be the best way to tell the percentage of activity, since that covers most of the game modes.

First raid wing was released in November, second in March and third in June. How many of those that bought quit BEFORE November, or before any of the rest of the Raid releases?

Impossible to say, but of those, how many would be relevant to anything? Zero, because if you buy an expansion in October and quit before November, then it’s unlikely you’ll stick with raids for any length of time.

Crystal said that they ship easy raids as well as hard ones to get newer players interested. Would you rather have escort and xera or two versions of xera? Because that is the choice you face.

Two versions of Xera, obviously. And of course there would be a third scenario, either a “hard mode” escort that most raiders would not consider “too easy,” or some other boss encounter entirely, which I think would satisfy both hardcore and easy mode players.

Looks like you have a guild. Why don’t they host training runs? Why don’t they allow off-meta builds? This seems to be a guild problem, not a raid problem.

Training runs and off-meta builds for less than expert teams are just “failure runs,” and most players want no part of “failure runs,” they do not want to waste their time on attempts that will not result in a victory. This is why easy mode has a role, it allows people to put together training runs where they will learn while succeeding at the task for that day. You build up your skills by repeatedly winning and doing so more efficiently each time, rather than by failing less spectacularly each attempt.

Ohoni.6057:

Two versions of Xera, obviously. And of course there would be a third scenario, either a “hard mode” escort that most raiders would not consider “too easy,” or some other boss encounter entirely, which I think would satisfy both hardcore and easy mode players.

I like this last one, the idea of making entirely different boss encounters. That’s a good idea.

I like this last one, the idea of making entirely different boss encounters. That’s a good idea.

No, not entirely different, just “easy/hard.” So maybe instead of Escort there would be a hard boss fight, which raiders would find comparable to a Gorseval or Slothazor, but there would be an easy version of it too, whcih would be doable by less focused parties. Or, they could leave Escort in, but also have a harder version of it that again even serious raiders would find challenging, to complement the easy mode versions being added for other encounters. The idea would be that all the hard mode encounters would be hard, and all the easy mode ones would be easy.

Ohoni.6057:

I like this last one, the idea of making entirely different boss encounters. That’s a good idea.

No, not entirely different, just “easy/hard.” So maybe instead of Escort there would be a hard boss fight, which raiders would find comparable to a Gorseval or Slothazor, but there would be an easy version of it too, whcih would be doable by less focused parties. Or, they could leave Escort in, but also have a harder version of it that again even serious raiders would find challenging, to complement the easy mode versions being added for other encounters. The idea would be that all the hard mode encounters would be hard, and all the easy mode ones would be easy.

Yea we need dechallenge motes in raids already, anet have showed they can do the opposite with fractals.

Time to twist it around in raids.

Linken.6345:

Yea we need dechallenge motes in raids already, anet have showed they can do the opposite with fractals.

Time to twist it around in raids.

This would probably be the easiest way to accomplish what we are talking about here – and they did talk about the possibility of adding challenge motes in the recent Reddit AMA. That isn’t a far leap away from a “training” or “story” mote (which would probably do WAY more to get more people into raiding than traditional challenge motes).

As far as actual functionality, it could be as simple as lowering health/damage output, tempering/removing mechanics or something like what maddoctor recommends in another thread – https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/A-Plea-for-a-Raid-Story-Mode/first#post6406465.

As far as the developer resource issue, if the resources exist to create challenge motes as described in the reddit response – given the outcry for some kind of tiered difficulty, the implementation of de-challenge motes (or whatever they want to call them) seems like a more logical use of their time (and, of course, ideally, both dechallenge and challenge motes would find a place in raids).

Blaeys.3102:

Linken.6345:

Yea we need dechallenge motes in raids already, anet have showed they can do the opposite with fractals.

Time to twist it around in raids.

This would probably be the easiest way to accomplish what we are talking about here – and they did talk about the possibility of adding challenge motes in the recent Reddit AMA. That isn’t a far leap away from a “training” or “story” mote (which would probably do WAY more to get more people into raiding than traditional challenge motes).

As far as actual functionality, it could be as simple as lowering health/damage output, tempering/removing mechanics or something like what maddoctor recommends in another thread – https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/A-Plea-for-a-Raid-Story-Mode/first#post6406465.

As far as the developer resource issue, if the resources exist to create challenge motes as described in the reddit response – given the outcry for some kind of tiered difficulty, the implementation of de-challenge motes (or whatever they want to call them) seems like a more logical use of their time (and, of course, ideally, both dechallenge and challenge motes would find a place in raids).

Again, the raid developers said raids are not set up to handle multiple difficulty modes, like fractals. It’s not just tweaking numbers, despite how easy you claim it is.

And, I would not be content if raids had the same release schedule as fractals. Two versus nine encounters per year.

Again, would you rather have escort and xera, or two versions of xera? The raid developers have adopted the former (and in my opinion better) philosophy.

Ohoni.6057:

Crystal said that they ship easy raids as well as hard ones to get newer players interested. Would you rather have escort and xera or two versions of xera? Because that is the choice you face.

Two versions of Xera, obviously. And of course there would be a third scenario, either a “hard mode” escort that most raiders would not consider “too easy,” or some other boss encounter entirely, which I think would satisfy both hardcore and easy mode players.

Even considering that escort is the worst raid encounter by a large margin I don’t think that many players would agree with your opinion. If you do consider it and change the question to “would you rather have VG and Gorseval or 2x VG” I think that virtually no one would take the latter option.

Ohoni.6057:

Looks like you have a guild. Why don’t they host training runs? Why don’t they allow off-meta builds? This seems to be a guild problem, not a raid problem.

Training runs and off-meta builds for less than expert teams are just “failure runs,” and most players want no part of “failure runs,” they do not want to waste their time on attempts that will not result in a victory. This is why easy mode has a role, it allows people to put together training runs where they will learn while succeeding at the task for that day. You build up your skills by repeatedly winning and doing so more efficiently each time, rather than by failing less spectacularly each attempt.

I have been leading training runs for months – since before wing 2 was even released – and in my experience the exact opposite of this is true. If players are able to play poorly and succeed then they will continue to play poorly because there is no incentive to improve.

Furthermore, getting a boss kill isn’t the only measure of success for a training run. I have had matthias training runs where we could barely make it to fire phase at first, and after 90 minutes were consistently making it to ~20% before wiping. That’s pretty good for a group with mostly new players. The point of a training run is to learn, practice, and get better. If someone doesn’t want to put in that kind of time already they aren’t going to suddenly feel up to it just because they are now able to kill the easy boss with easy mechanics that drops no rewards.

Absurdo.8309

Again, the raid developers said raids are not set up to handle multiple difficulty modes, like fractals. It’s not just tweaking numbers, despite how easy you claim it is.

And, I would not be content if raids had the same release schedule as fractals. Two versus nine encounters per year.

Again, would you rather have escort and xera, or two versions of xera? The raid developers have adopted the former (and in my opinion better) philosophy.

Which is why I listed tweaking numbers as only one option. It might have been better if I hadn’t added any examples, as I’m sure the developers would come up with a better method than I ever could.

And the developers themselves were just yesterday on Reddit talking about the possibility of adding in challenge motes – which are basically the same as tiered difficulties. Logic dictates that the process could be used to develop a story or training experience using that same methodology.

And to your question – of course it makes more sense to offer multiple versions of Xera. I don’t know why anyone would think otherwise. The idea is to open the entire experience to more people. The half and half approach only serves to give everyone less compelling content.

As an example, using motes, they could go back and make escort more difficult with a challenge mote (possibly adding jade construct minibosses on the turret platforms and giving the boss at the end proper raid hardcore mechanics, as an example) while simultaneously making Xera more accessible via a training mote.

That just makes sense.

Also – Ive been trying to work on cutting back on the back and forth with other players, and to avoid any questions directed at specific people rather than discussing the issue – which is why I tend to not respond to you replies. You and I have a tendency to get trapped in continuous circles of response, counter, response, etc. to the point it drowns out other people. I think that is something we can all work on a little to keep the conversation less cluttered and moving in a productive direction.

Blaeys.3102:

Absurdo.8309

Again, the raid developers said raids are not set up to handle multiple difficulty modes, like fractals. It’s not just tweaking numbers, despite how easy you claim it is.

And, I would not be content if raids had the same release schedule as fractals. Two versus nine encounters per year.

Again, would you rather have escort and xera, or two versions of xera? The raid developers have adopted the former (and in my opinion better) philosophy.

Which is why I listed tweaking numbers as only one option. It might have been better if I hadn’t added any examples, as I’m sure the developers would come up with a better method than I ever could.

And the developers themselves were just yesterday on Reddit talking about the possibility of adding in challenge motes – which are basically the same as tiered difficulties. Logic dictates that the process could be used to develop a story or training experience using that same methodology.

And to your question – of course it makes more sense to offer multiple versions of Xera. I don’t know why anyone would think otherwise. The idea is to open the entire experience to more people. The half and half approach only serves to give everyone less compelling content.

As an example, using motes, they could go back and make escort more difficult with a challenge mote (possibly adding jade construct minibosses on the turret platforms and giving the boss at the end proper raid hardcore mechanics, as an example) while simultaneously making Xera more accessible via a training mote.

That just makes sense.

Also – Ive been trying to work on cutting back on the back and forth with other players, and to avoid any questions directed at specific people rather than discussing the issue – which is why I tend to not respond to you replies. You and I have a tendency to get trapped in continuous circles of response, counter, response, etc. to the point it drowns out other people. I think that is something we can all work on a little to keep the conversation less cluttered and moving in a productive direction.

Ok — if you think the 2x Xera answer is better (or as another poster put it better, 2x VG versus VG and Gor), then we’ll never agree. And, to be clear, the raid devs think having intro raids, like trio and escort (and to an extent VG), is the best answer.

Going more into opinion zone, I’m not sure how anyone can think less content is better, especially after the content drought that plagued the first six months of HOT. Raids got a lot of hate back then because it was the only new content.

And variation had largely been the modus operandi of guild wars 2. Maps range from queensdale to ruins of orr. Dungeons from COF to Arah. Jumping puzzles from the easy ones to not so secret and the new volcano one. HOT maps from verdant brink to dragon stand. Fractals from duo to nightmare. And raids from trio to matthias.

Variation is more content for everyone.

Absurdo.8309:

And variation had largely been the modus operandi of guild wars 2. Maps range from queensdale to ruins of orr. Dungeons from COF to Arah. Jumping puzzles from the easy ones to not so secret and the new volcano one. HOT maps from verdant brink to dragon stand. Fractals from duo to nightmare. And raids from trio to matthias.

Variation is more content for everyone.

Using the logic you do (comparing fractals to fractals, JPs to JPs, etc), they would need to make an entire raid that is easy mode – to offset those that are harder – which would double the time between challenging raids.

I do not think that is a good solution.

The challenge mote/training mote concept allows for difficulty variation with (imo) minimal effort (definitely less effort than designing entire raids for one group or the other) while keeping the spirit of the originally designed encounter intact.

They have already expressed a willingness to consider challenge motes. Extending that process to create greater accessibility through story motes (or whatever you wanted to call them) seems like a very valid option – and a good way to put this issue to rest.

Blaeys.3102:

Absurdo.8309:

And variation had largely been the modus operandi of guild wars 2. Maps range from queensdale to ruins of orr. Dungeons from COF to Arah. Jumping puzzles from the easy ones to not so secret and the new volcano one. HOT maps from verdant brink to dragon stand. Fractals from duo to nightmare. And raids from trio to matthias.

Variation is more content for everyone.

Using the logic you do (comparing fractals to fractals, JPs to JPs, etc), they would need to make an entire raid that is easy mode – to offset those that are harder – which would double the time between challenging raids.

I do not think that is a good solution.

The challenge mote/training mote concept allows for difficulty variation with (imo) minimal effort (definitely less effort than designing entire raids for one group or the other) while keeping the spirit of the originally designed encounter intact.

They have already expressed a willingness to consider challenge motes. Extending that process to create greater accessibility through story motes (or whatever you wanted to call them) seems like a very valid option – and a good way to put this issue to rest.

Escort and trio are much easier compared to the other encounters.

We already have double the time between the harder raids. Under both scenarios (Escort and Xera versus 2x Xera), there’s the same amount of time between the harder raids. The third (imo non optimal) option is to just forgo all easy raids and only release encounters like Xera and Matthias.

Finally, the devs expressed interest in challenge motes that change the dynamic of the encounter (like needing to keep karde alive in sabetha). No challenge mote is just a straight increase (or decrease) in health / damage.

Two versions of Xera, obviously. And of course there would be a third scenario, either a “hard mode” escort that most raiders would not consider “too easy,” or some other boss encounter entirely, which I think would satisfy both hardcore and easy mode players.

Don’t talk about hardcore players, they obviously prefer the dev way, as this way don’t delay other raid wind. Your solution is just a waste of dev ressources.

Training runs and off-meta builds for less than expert teams are just “failure runs,” and most players want no part of “failure runs,” they do not want to waste their time on attempts that will not result in a victory. This is why easy mode has a role, it allows people to put together training runs where they will learn while succeeding at the task for that day. You build up your skills by repeatedly winning and doing so more efficiently each time, rather than by failing less spectacularly each attempt.

Interesting seing you again talking about how these training runs are a failure… again, i always forget you’re an expert on the subject and that the people talking here on the forum about how training runs are working right now are just liars…
Each week, there are people actually training and progressing in normal raid, through training raids. That just prooves that training is possible and working, and that easier mode for training purpose is not needed. And stop talking about “most” people, when you have no data at all. Whereas right now, there are training runs each week (you can find post here on the official forum or on reddit). Maybe the format is not for you, ok, but that don’t mean “most” of the people are like you (far from it).
Plus, let’s not forget that your main purpose (as everyone reading you know it) is to have an easier access to raid rewards, and to the legendary armors, and not to train.

Hypairion.9210:

Your solution is just a waste of dev ressources.

To you, perhaps, but then raids at the current difficulty level are likewise a waste of dev resources to me.

Hypairion.9210:

Plus, let’s not forget that your main purpose (as everyone reading you know it) is to have an easier access to raid rewards, and to the legendary armors, and not to train.

Nah, that’s me. He is raiding, and from his earlier suggestions, unlike me, he’d rather have easy mode raids with lesser rewards than no easy mode with other way to get leg armor.

Astralporing.1957:

Hypairion.9210:

Your solution is just a waste of dev ressources.

To you, perhaps, but then raids at the current difficulty level are likewise a waste of dev resources to me.

Hypairion.9210:

Plus, let’s not forget that your main purpose (as everyone reading you know it) is to have an easier access to raid rewards, and to the legendary armors, and not to train.

Nah, that’s me. He is raiding, and from his earlier suggestions, unlike me, he’d rather have easy mode raids with lesser rewards than no easy mode with other way to get leg armor.

Please correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think Ohoni raids, at least anytime recently. And I think he wants full access to rewards in an easy mode, just at a slower pace.

Absurdo.8309:

Astralporing.1957:

Hypairion.9210:

Your solution is just a waste of dev ressources.

To you, perhaps, but then raids at the current difficulty level are likewise a waste of dev resources to me.

Hypairion.9210:

Plus, let’s not forget that your main purpose (as everyone reading you know it) is to have an easier access to raid rewards, and to the legendary armors, and not to train.

Nah, that’s me. He is raiding, and from his earlier suggestions, unlike me, he’d rather have easy mode raids with lesser rewards than no easy mode with other way to get leg armor.

Please correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think Ohoni raids, at least anytime recently. And I think he wants full access to rewards in an easy mode, just at a slower pace.

Iirc Ohoni says he/she/it buys boss kills…

Again, would you rather have escort and xera, or two versions of xera? The raid developers have adopted the former (and in my opinion better) philosophy.

Again, two versions of Xera. Better that most players get at least one thing for them, than for a small number of players to get two things for them.

Even considering that escort is the worst raid encounter by a large margin I don’t think that many players would agree with your opinion. If you do consider it and change the question to “would you rather have VG and Gorseval or 2x VG” I think that virtually no one would take the latter option.

I think you’d be wrong. Certainly players that can beat both of them would no appreciate having two VGs instead, but for the many more players who haven’t beaten either, having one VG that they can have fun with would be better than having two bosses that are essentially worthless to them.

I have been leading training runs for months – since before wing 2 was even released – and in my experience the exact opposite of this is true. If players are able to play poorly and succeed then they will continue to play poorly because there is no incentive to improve.

It’s sad that someone who carries such a view purports to lead training runs.

Furthermore, getting a boss kill isn’t the only measure of success for a training run.

Yes, it is, and the sooner you guys understand that, the sooner this discussion can move forward. Most players have zero interest in spending hours at something only to not get a prize, which is the entire reason that raids are a niche activity.

If someone doesn’t want to put in that kind of time already they aren’t going to suddenly feel up to it just because they are now able to kill the easy boss with easy mechanics that drops no rewards.

Certainly, but if they kill the easy boss with reduced penalties and get a reasonable reward for the time and effort they put in, then they will be satisfied with their efforts, and when they manage to do relatively impressive things, like correctly avoiding the enemy’s attacks, then they will remember that a a more positive memory than if they tripped and caused the entire party to wipe.

And the developers themselves were just yesterday on Reddit talking about the possibility of adding in challenge motes – which are basically the same as tiered difficulties. Logic dictates that the process could be used to develop a story or training experience using that same methodology.

Yes. It is easier to build a balanced encounter and then make it easier to complete, than it is to make an easier encounter and then add a harder mode. The harder you make something, the more precise the tolerances need to be. Making an easier mode is just loosening a few screws.

Ok — if you think the 2x Xera answer is better (or as another poster put it better, 2x VG versus VG and Gor), then we’ll never agree. And, to be clear, the raid devs think having intro raids, like trio and escort (and to an extent VG), is the best answer.

But they are wrong, because they are looking at the problem as raiders who like raids and believe that everyone thinks like they do, rather than looking at it from the perspective of people who don’t like the current raids, and thinking about what they actually want. It’s basically like a bunch of vegetarians sitting around and trying to brainstorm how to prepare meals for non-vegetarians that they will enjoy, but that don’t include any meat. “Well maybe if instead of burgers, we made some burgers out of tofu! That’s basically the same thing!”

Going more into opinion zone, I’m not sure how anyone can think less content is better,

You can’t have less content than zero. If the content they do make is unplayably difficult, then from that player’s perspective, zero content has been made. An easy version and a hard version of the same fight is at least one version from their perspective, while just the harder version would be zero.

And remember that it’s NEVER “two versions of the same thing or two completely different encounters.” Yes, there is some trade-off, but not nearly that much. There is no rational argument that it would take the same amount of time to design an easier version of a fight as it would to design a completely different encounter from the ground up. It’s impossible to judge exactly how much time an easy mode would take, except that it would be less than a totally new encounter of equivalent complexity.

So, the more rational discussion would be “would you rather have nine completely unique encounters, two of them being easier than the others, OR six unique encounters, each with both an easy and a hard mode.” And of course the people that already clear all nine encounters would favor the nine encounters version, more content for them is always better for them, but for all the players that feel left out by the existing system, having six playable encounters (and twelve total if they ever get good enough to take on the hard mode versions) would always be better than just two.

And that’s just the worst case scenario. We don’t know for certain that adding an easy mode would result in less raid encounters overall, because they could just support that element using other staffers, rather than splitting the time of the existing staff, so there’s no reason to assume that they couldn’t just release nine hard encounters and nine easy ones, which is just more content overall.

Please correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think Ohoni raids, at least anytime recently. And I think he wants full access to rewards in an easy mode, just at a slower pace.

I haven’t set foot in one lately, but I did spend about 6+ hours attempting both VG and Gorseval on several occasions, and neither was a satisfying use of my time. I never claimed to be an experienced raider, but I am an experienced Guild Wars 2 player, I know what I want from the game, and I know that the existing raids are failing to meet that standard, and always will until systems change.

Iirc Ohoni says he/she/it buys boss kills…

Never. That is the one thing I would never do. I never buy kills, never buy portals, and avoid buying high value items whenever there is a reasonable alternative. I want to work for whatever I get, I just want a path available that is fun and not meaningless grind.

Ohoni.6057:

There is no rational argument that it would take the same amount of time to design an easier version of a fight as it would to design a completely different encounter from the ground up. It’s impossible to judge exactly how much time an easy mode would take, except that it would be less than a totally new encounter of equivalent complexity.

Ohoni, you’re entitled to your opinion, but you need to stop spreading misinformation, especially with regards to something you were explicitly advised about. (Link)

Gaile Gray

At this point, I need to interject. I am familiar with the process of changing to a multi-modality system of game presentation, having written about it long ago, when I was a journalist writing about another company and another game. For that game, too, players said “No big deal.” And they were absolutely wrong. They said, “Just tweak a few stats, lower a few spawns, and voila, you’ve got it!” No, that’s not how it worked. And that’s not how I think it would work for Guild Wars 2.

Again, two versions of Xera. Better that most players get at least one thing for them, than for a small number of players to get two things for them.

Don’t forget with 2 loot tables (easier xera would loot almost nothing after all)

It’s sad that someone who carries such a view purports to lead training runs.

He leads and is successfully, don’t forget that. It’s sad that you are so narrow minded that you can’t see when you’re wrong. You’ve raided 6 hours and you prétend to know better than exp raid training leaders what is working and what is not working in raid…

Yes, it is, and the sooner you guys understand that, the sooner this discussion can move forward. Most players have zero interest in spending hours at something only to not get a prize, which is the entire reason that raids are a niche activity.

Again, you’re wrong…look at the success of each training initiative here or on reddit. People are different than you, you want only the kill because you only want the loot and the progression toward legendary armor. Many other understand that training is about progression with a fight, until the boss is beaten.

But they are wrong, because they are looking at the problem as raiders who like raids and believe that everyone thinks like they do, rather than looking at it from the perspective of people who don’t like the current raids, and thinking about what they actually want. It’s basically like a bunch of vegetarians sitting around and trying to brainstorm how to prepare meals for non-vegetarians that they will enjoy, but that don’t include any meat. “Well maybe if instead of burgers, we made some burgers out of tofu! That’s basically the same thing!”

You mean “they don’t think about people wanting legendary armor for free”.
Btw, they are right, you’re wrong ( because they’re thinking for the game and you only for yourself)

Ohoni, you’re entitled to your opinion, but you need to stop spreading misinformation, especially with regards to something you were explicitly advised about. (Link)

“It’s impossible to judge exactly how much time an easy mode would take, except that it would be less than a totally new encounter of equivalent complexity.”

It is impossible for that statement to be anything less than 100% accurate.

Don’t forget with 2 loot tables (easier xera would loot almost nothing after all)

Sure, but what benefit is more loot tables? Better to keep everything concentrated. Now if you mean that hardcore raiders could get in less total successful runs in a week, that’s true enough, but they already have nine raid wings to run, while more casual players have zero.

Look, the goal is not to produce something that would cost current raiders nothing, or that current raiders would agree is a great idea. That’s impossible. The goal is to produce the best possible solution for BOTH current raiders AND more casual players that find the existing raids impenetrable. It will by its vary nature be a compromise, which means that it WILL be worse for hardcore raiders than the current path, but ideally it will be worse in the least intrusive method possible while still accomplishing the goal of adding an alternative for the other players.

I’m sorry but “as someone who already raids a lot, I would not like this as much” is not a compelling reason to reject a proposal, when the goal is to expand the total audience to larger than the existing base.

He leads and is successfully, don’t forget that. It’s sad that you are so narrow minded that you can’t see when you’re wrong. You’ve raided 6 hours and you prétend to know better than exp raid training leaders what is working and what is not working in raid…

He knows what works for him, he knows what works for people who are like him, for people who like raids the way they are. Those players have already been taken care of, they are not a factor in this discussion. This discussion is about accounting for the players who are NOT covered by the existing options, and for whom the existing methods of “try until you make it” are not good enough. Thousands of hours of experience as a hardcore raider or training other raiders to be better at raiding is meaningless when you aren’t talking about hardcore raiders at all.

Many other understand that training is about progression with a fight, until the boss is beaten.

and they are already covered, which is why they are irrelevant to this discussion. This discussion is about everyone else.

@Ohoni, you’re not clear enough about whom you think you’re talking about. The people wanting easier raid so that they can’t expérience the story at an easier pace, the people wanting to train for normal raids, or the people wanting easier raid rewards because they don’t want to Put the same effort as others ?

Because, for 1, there is almost no story in raid ( even if I could understand that for lore lover, they still want to know it by themselves…)

2: people wanting to train for normal raid are already doing it, and plenty of initiatives are taken by exp raiders to help them

3: Sorry, can’t do nothing for this kind of selfish player, but I’m sure there are only few of them

Sure, but what benefit is more loot tables? Better to keep everything concentrated. Now if you mean that hardcore raiders could get in less total successful runs in a week, that’s true enough, but they already have nine raid wings to run, while more casual players have zero.

Just hypocrite argument, for the loot you want it concentrated, but you want to split the encounter between easy and hard. Just so not logical…

Look, the goal is not to produce something that would cost current raiders nothing, or that current raiders would agree is a great idea. That’s impossible. The goal is to produce the best possible solution for BOTH current raiders AND more casual players that find the existing raids impenetrable. It will by its vary nature be a compromise, which means that it WILL be worse for hardcore raiders than the current path, but ideally it will be worse in the least intrusive method possible while still accomplishing the goal of adding an alternative for the other players.

your solution would have nothing good for actual raiders, the current path is good for many people. I guess only you and people like yourself don’t like the dev way, because you don’t want to put effort in progression, even for a goal you’re wanting to obtain.

I’m sorry but “as someone who already raids a lot, I would not like this as much” is not a compelling reason to reject a proposal, when the goal is to expand the total audience to larger than the existing base.

I’m sorry, but the argument “i want raid loot without raiding” is not an argument. The goal is not the expand the total audience, you’re goal is to provide you a way to obtain easily raid rewards.

He knows what works for him, he knows what works for people who are like him, for people who like raids the way they are. Those players have already been taken care of, they are not a factor in this discussion. This discussion is about accounting for the players who are NOT covered by the existing options, and for whom the existing methods of “try until you make it” are not good enough. Thousands of hours of experience as a hardcore raider or training other raiders to be better at raiding is meaningless when you aren’t talking about hardcore raiders at all.

and they are already covered, which is why they are irrelevant to this discussion. This discussion is about everyone else.

the discussion is about raids, and this topic provided you the thinking of the dev on the topic. Or maybe the raid devs are not relevant to this discussion, and that just only people like you are relevant?

Ohoni.6057:

But they are wrong, because they are looking at the problem as raiders who like raids and believe that everyone thinks like they do, rather than looking at it from the perspective of people who don’t like the current raids, and thinking about what they actually want. It’s basically like a bunch of vegetarians sitting around and trying to brainstorm how to prepare meals for non-vegetarians that they will enjoy, but that don’t include any meat. “Well maybe if instead of burgers, we made some burgers out of tofu! That’s basically the same thing!”

Completely wrong. The raid team is aware that not everyone likes raids and that they are producing niche content. They develop the content for the target audience, not for everyone.

“It’s impossible to judge exactly how much time an easy mode would take, except that it would be less than a totally new encounter of equivalent complexity.”

It is impossible for that statement to be anything less than 100% accurate.

But it is wrong. You need to change the loot table, new items for your partial rewards, rebalacing the numbers, changes to the mechanics, bug fixes. Thats an amount of work that reaches easily the ressources for a new encounter.

Sure, but what benefit is more loot tables? Better to keep everything concentrated. Now if you mean that hardcore raiders could get in less total successful runs in a week, that’s true enough, but they already have nine raid wings to run, while more casual players have zero.

How do I access the other 6 wings I’m not aware off?

The casual players have the same 3 wings than the other players. Casual doesn’t mean bad.
You don’t need to clear all wings every week. You can only clear one wing and another one the next week. They are small.

Look, the goal is not to produce something that would cost current raiders nothing, or that current raiders would agree is a great idea. That’s impossible. The goal is to produce the best possible solution for BOTH current raiders AND more casual players that find the existing raids impenetrable. It will by its vary nature be a compromise, which means that it WILL be worse for hardcore raiders than the current path, but ideally it will be worse in the least intrusive method possible while still accomplishing the goal of adding an alternative for the other players.

I’m sorry but “as someone who already raids a lot, I would not like this as much” is not a compelling reason to reject a proposal, when the goal is to expand the total audience to larger than the existing base.

There is no ‘least intrusive’ way. Everything that delays future raid wings to cater to people that are not even the target audience is unacceptable. The devs are aware that they are developing niche content.

The variant with starter bosses/events like Wing 3 is much better. People can see the raid and can try to improve to beat the other bosses.

He knows what works for him, he knows what works for people who are like him, for people who like raids the way they are. Those players have already been taken care of, they are not a factor in this discussion. This discussion is about accounting for the players who are NOT covered by the existing options, and for whom the existing methods of “try until you make it” are not good enough. Thousands of hours of experience as a hardcore raider or training other raiders to be better at raiding is meaningless when you aren’t talking about hardcore raiders at all.

and they are already covered, which is why they are irrelevant to this discussion. This discussion is about everyone else.

Wrong, he knows what works for people actually interested in raids.

And the discussion is about you and your opinion, not everyone else. You can’t speak for the rest as you don’t know them.

@Ohoni, you’re not clear enough about whom you think you’re talking about. The people wanting easier raid so that they can’t expérience the story at an easier pace, the people wanting to train for normal raids, or the people wanting easier raid rewards because they don’t want to Put the same effort as others ?

There are a lot of people who would benefit to varying degrees.

People wanting a story mode to experience the story at an easier pace would get what they want.

People wanting to train for normal raids would benefit. Yes, some of those people are already being served via “training runs” on the existing raids, and that’s great, they’re covered, but others just cannot abide the “you’ll fail tonight after three hours of work, but after a few more nights of this, maybe you’ll get something for your trouble!” philosophy. Some players have trouble focusing and learning new things when their adrenaline is spiked by a high cost of failure.

For players like this, the easy mode, properly implemented, would provide an alternative training method, one that they would find helpful in overcoming their difficulties in the raid, even if you would find this worthless to you. Again, you are not the target audience for this feature, so your own experiences are of limited value.

For people who want “easier rewards,” as you put it, it’s not about effort, they will be putting in just as much effort as anyone, but it would be in a version that they can enjoy, one with less OHKOs, less stress, over a longer period of time and number of iterations. Again, it has nothing to do with “less effort,” that won’t be on the table, but it would provide them a way that they could apply their effort in a way that is less painful or inconvenient to them.

Because, for 1, there is almost no story in raid ( even if I could understand that for lore lover, they still want to know it by themselves…)

Your opinion, not relevant.

2: people wanting to train for normal raid are already doing it, and plenty of initiatives are taken by exp raiders to help them

Some are, many aren’t.

3: Sorry, can’t do nothing for this kind of selfish player, but I’m sure there are only few of them

Doubtful.

Ohoni.6057:

“It’s impossible to judge exactly how much time an easy mode would take, except that it would be less than a totally new encounter of equivalent complexity.”

It is impossible for that statement to be anything less than 100% accurate.

Now it’s accurate. The quote I gave was about this same topic. They aren’t my words; they’re ArenaNet’s. In case you misread, I’ll bold the important parts for you:

Gaile Gray

At this point, I need to interject. I am familiar with the process of changing to a multi-modality system of game presentation, having written about it long ago, when I was a journalist writing about another company and another game. For that game, too, players said “No big deal.” And they were absolutely wrong. They said, “Just tweak a few stats, lower a few spawns, and voila, you’ve got it!” No, that’s not how it worked. And that’s not how I think it would work for Guild Wars 2.

Completely wrong. The raid team is aware that not everyone likes raids and that they are producing niche content. They develop the content for the target audience, not for everyone.

But int the quote on page one they were suggesting offering more “easier encounters” at the beginning of a raid, to “ease people into them,” which indicates that they do at least understand a need to make raids more accessible in some way. They seem to want to be better. My point was, the method they determined to accomplish that goal is not the best possible path to actually accomplishing it, because they are still targeting more or less at the people who already like the raids as they are, rather than looking at it from the perspective of the customers still on the sidelines who will never enjoy the current type of raid but could very much enjoy a more compromise option.

But it is wrong. You need to change the loot table, new items for your partial rewards, rebalacing the numbers, changes to the mechanics, bug fixes. Thats an amount of work that reaches easily the ressources for a new encounter.

It may approach the resources for a new encounter, but would never come close to reaching it. Whatever resources it would take to fully implement an easy mode version of an existing encounter, a completely unique easy mode encounter would require every single one of those resources, PLUS new modeling, new encounter mechanics, a new setting, and possible things like audio, dialog, lore hooks, etc. Again: “It’s impossible to judge exactly how much time an easy mode would take, except that it would be less than a totally new encounter of equivalent complexity.”

How do I access the other 6 wings I’m not aware off?

Sorry, misspoke, I was referring to the 9 total raid encounters available.

The casual players have the same 3 wings than the other players. Casual doesn’t mean bad.
You don’t need to clear all wings every week. You can only clear one wing and another one the next week. They are small.

Point successfully missed.

There is no ‘least intrusive’ way. Everything that delays future raid wings to cater to people that are not even the target audience is unacceptable.

And you wonder why I don’t put much effort into compromise? “Anything that would cost me even a half second would be unacceptable.” No, I’m sorry, that’s just wrong. This is a game in which the vast majority do not raid on a regular basis, by any reasonable evidence. There is a vast population of players who ARE valid customers of this game, yet who are left out by the existing raiding systems. It is in ANet’s best interests to appeal to those customers, even if it means some minor inconvenience to the current raiding population, and I’m sorry if you cannot accept that.

They should not completely ruin raids for the existing populations, or bring progress to a crashing halt, but I believe that they can balance the two in a way that raiders shouldn’t mind too much, while providing the non-raiders with a better overall experience.

The variant with starter bosses/events like Wing 3 is much better. People can see the raid and can try to improve to beat the other bosses.

Being able to only do the first bit is pointless when you can’t do the rest. That’s like the argument that Dungeons are a suitable alternative to doing the raids for people who feel left out by the raids. Players need to be able to clear the raid, start to finish, and without the sort of failure-grind that hardcore raiders lionize.

Ohoni.6057

Your opinion, not relevant.

good summarize for all your posts

there are many people loving raids as they are, without tiered difficulties.

maybe you should accept that you’re not the only person on this planet and that not everyone has to like what you like.

you claim “everything for everyone” which is wrong on so many levels.
you know, different people like different things. so there are many different parts in this game.
you can’t create “everything for everyone”, as you can simply see since here are responses (and not too few) that do NOT like what you like, so your idea would NOT BE FOR EVERYONE.
your idea is entirely egoistic.

but who am i writing to… someone that posts 24/7 instead of playing the game.
i guess you found your endgamecontent

Ohoni.6057:

But int the quote on page one they were suggesting offering more “easier encounters” at the beginning of a raid, to “ease people into them,” which indicates that they do at least understand a need to make raids more accessible in some way. They seem to want to be better. My point was, the method they determined to accomplish that goal is not the best possible path to actually accomplishing it, because they are still targeting more or less at the people who already like the raids as they are, rather than looking at it from the perspective of the customers still on the sidelines who will never enjoy the current type of raid but could very much enjoy a more compromise option.

They try to follow community suggestions without breaking their core concept, they are not trying to get everyone into raids at all costs, like you are suggesting.
Of course they don’t shift the target audience. They just want an easier start for people who want to try it.

And you wonder why I don’t put much effort into compromise? “Anything that would cost me even a half second would be unacceptable.” No, I’m sorry, that’s just wrong. This is a game in which the vast majority do not raid on a regular basis, by any reasonable evidence. There is a vast population of players who ARE valid customers of this game, yet who are left out by the existing raiding systems. It is in ANet’s best interests to appeal to those customers, even if it means some minor inconvenience to the current raiding population, and I’m sorry if you cannot accept that.

They should not completely ruin raids for the existing populations, or bring progress to a crashing halt, but I believe that they can balance the two in a way that raiders shouldn’t mind too much, while providing the non-raiders with a better overall experience.

The majority doesn’t even care about raids.
And they won’t raid even if you add an easy mode at the difficulty like CoF Path 1 or play it once to see it. Thats a waste of ressources.
You still have no data about your onmious majority that feels left out and are interested in raids. You only speak for yourself.
The best experience for both parties is content diversity and not the same thing in 4 difficulties. If you add difficulties to everything, everything takes longer and in the end everyone is displeased.

Being able to only do the first bit is pointless when you can’t do the rest. That’s like the argument that Dungeons are a suitable alternative to doing the raids for people who feel left out by the raids. Players need to be able to clear the raid, start to finish, and without the sort of failure-grind that hardcore raiders lionize.

No, players don’t need to clear all content if they have no interest in it or don’t want to improve.
Funny how you aren’t complaining about the new fractal. Players playing the challenge mode get to see other content than lvl 25 players.
There is always the option to improve your gameplay to beat the other encounters. GW2 doesn’t have a gear treatmill, they want player skill progression instead.

good summarize for all your posts

there are many people loving raids as they are, without tiered difficulties.

I’m aware, and they’re just fine. This isn’t about them, this is about the other people. That’s why those players don’t need to approve of this, this is not about them, they’re fine with what they already have.

maybe you should accept that you’re not the only person on this planet and that not everyone has to like what you like.

That’s actually my point here, but at least you’re on the right track.

you claim “everything for everyone” which is wrong on so many levels.
you know, different people like different things. so there are many different parts in this game.

Again, that’s 100% my point. The raids in their current form aren’t for everyone, never will be, and never should be. But an easier option will widen the total audience of raids considerably. Those who don’t need it, don’t see the point, never have to touch it.

The majority doesn’t even care about raids.

The majority doesn’t care about raids in their current form because they understand going in that they will never enjoy the core elements that you enjoy, like extreme difficulty and “wipe until you make it” progression. But if you make the raid content balanced against the other content in the game, more along the lines of what players experience elsewhere, the audience grows considerably.

The best experience for both parties is content diversity and not the same thing in 4 difficulties.

Again, “content diversity” only helps those that can enjoy all of it. If you have two completely different encounters, one easy, one hard, then most players can only ever enjoy the easier one, if that. On the other hand, if you have two different encounters, both hard, but both with an easier version available, then the hard players get two unique encounters AND the easy players get two unique encounters, and some players might even enjoy all four.

If you add difficulties to everything, everything takes longer and in the end everyone is displeased.

Again, “everything takes longer” is just a meaningless blanket statement. We have no idea how much time it would add, or what ways around that they might have. We can agree that if it causes new raid production to halt entirely for months and months, that it isn’t worth pursuing, but if your insistence is that ANY delay is unacceptable, then I’m sorry, you’re wrong, because this would be of benefit to the game, and so long as the delays added are reasonable, it would be well worth the cost to more players than would be bothered by it. A hundred players who could enjoy the new version would trump fifty players who enjoyed the old version and wouldn’t want to wait a few extra weeks to satisfy the rest.

Funny how you aren’t complaining about the new fractal. Players playing the challenge mode get to see other content than lvl 25 players.

People keep bringing this up, “why aren’t you complaining about this entirely different thing?” That’s a pointless argument. I complain about the stuff I feel motivated to complain about, you don’t need to complain about everything to be able to complain about things that matter to you. Raids matter to me, Fractals less so. I’m not entirely satisfied with how Fractals are working at the moment, but I don’t owe it to anyone to spend my time addressing that topic unless I feel like doing so, and I do not. I’m addressing this topic, so if you want to participate in this thread, you do so as well.

There is always the option to improve your gameplay to beat the other encounters. GW2 doesn’t have a gear treatmill, they want player skill progression instead.

By and large, the players don’t agree. They just want “no progression.” They want new content to be available when they get tired of existing options, but they want it to be all comfortably within their reach. That is the community this game supports, whether you appreciate that or not.

By and large, the players don’t agree. They just want “no progression.” They want new content to be available when they get tired of existing options, but they want it to be all comfortably within their reach. That is the community this game supports, whether you appreciate that or not.

The voice of the community is speaking again I see. You do know that there is new content coming for those who want it and get tired of other options. The point where the game got the most revenue in its history was when they released content for a vast variety of players, not catering to this bogus “majority”. Content for everyone doesn’t mean content for the majority.

The voice of the community is speaking again I see. You do know that there is new content coming for those who want it and get tired of other options.

Sure, and there’s more content coming for those who like hard mode raiding too. That’s a different topic entirely. Here we’re talking about how to make raids accessible to a larger audience.

People keep bringing this up, “why aren’t you complaining about this entirely different thing?” That’s a pointless argument. I complain about the stuff I feel motivated to complain about, you don’t need to complain about everything to be able to complain about things that matter to you. Raids matter to me, Fractals less so. I’m not entirely satisfied with how Fractals are working at the moment, but I don’t owe it to anyone to spend my time addressing that topic unless I feel like doing so, and I do not. I’m addressing this topic, so if you want to participate in this thread, you do so as well.

Many things to tell, but this part is one of the best. It’s just show that you’re only complaining when there is loot you want. You don’t care about content accessibility as long as there is nothing you want behind. You’re just motivated by loot désire, and so your opinion about raid accessibility is not relevant.

By and large, the players don’t agree. They just want “no progression.” They want new content to be available when they get tired of existing options, but they want it to be all comfortably within their reach. That is the community this game supports, whether you appreciate that or not.

I guess you don’t see all the nice feedback about the last fractal and the challenge that show that you’re wrong on this topic.

Ohoni.6057:

The majority doesn’t even care about raids.

The majority doesn’t care about raids in their current form because they understand going in that they will never enjoy the core elements that you enjoy, like extreme difficulty and “wipe until you make it” progression. But if you make the raid content balanced against the other content in the game, more along the lines of what players experience elsewhere, the audience grows considerably.

No it won’t. The majority doesn’t care at all. This has been proven multiple times in other games.

The best experience for both parties is content diversity and not the same thing in 4 difficulties.

Again, “content diversity” only helps those that can enjoy all of it. If you have two completely different encounters, one easy, one hard, then most players can only ever enjoy the easier one, if that. On the other hand, if you have two different encounters, both hard, but both with an easier version available, then the hard players get two unique encounters AND the easy players get two unique encounters, and some players might even enjoy all four.

It helps both parties. Everyone gets their content at the desired difficulty at a resonable pace.
People are already complaining that LS episodes are taking too long.

What if I want a hard mode because I find the LS easy? Do I get it? And people won’t complain that their content takes longer to produce even if they are vocal right now that it takes too long?

If you add difficulties to everything, everything takes longer and in the end everyone is displeased.

Again, “everything takes longer” is just a meaningless blanket statement. We have no idea how much time it would add, or what ways around that they might have. We can agree that if it causes new raid production to halt entirely for months and months, that it isn’t worth pursuing, but if your insistence is that ANY delay is unacceptable, then I’m sorry, you’re wrong, because this would be of benefit to the game, and so long as the delays added are reasonable, it would be well worth the cost to more players than would be bothered by it. A hundred players who could enjoy the new version would trump fifty players who enjoyed the old version and wouldn’t want to wait a few extra weeks to satisfy the rest.

The raids don’t support multiple difficulties right now. They would have to rewrite the complete raid structure. That is not a reasonable effort to delay content for people who are not the target audience.
Thanks for ending the discussion right here.

Funny how you aren’t complaining about the new fractal. Players playing the challenge mode get to see other content than lvl 25 players.

People keep bringing this up, “why aren’t you complaining about this entirely different thing?” That’s a pointless argument. I complain about the stuff I feel motivated to complain about, you don’t need to complain about everything to be able to complain about things that matter to you. Raids matter to me, Fractals less so. I’m not entirely satisfied with how Fractals are working at the moment, but I don’t owe it to anyone to spend my time addressing that topic unless I feel like doing so, and I do not. I’m addressing this topic, so if you want to participate in this thread, you do so as well.

So you don’t like the only content in the game that offers multiple difficulties and want to change other content to offer multiple difficulties? Yeah that sounds resonable.

You only complain about things that offer rewards that you like. It is always the same with rampant easy mode raiders. Rewards. Thats why you don’t accept an easy mode without the raid specific rewards.
You could play your easy mode to experience the story and the encounters and the normal mode for the rewards. So either you are a greedy selfish player or you want primary the rewards.
As you also complained about the PvP Backpiece (but not about the fractal backpiece, even if you don’t like fractals either, didn’t you like the appeareance?) we can guess safely what the real reason behind this is…

There is always the option to improve your gameplay to beat the other encounters. GW2 doesn’t have a gear treatmill, they want player skill progression instead.

By and large, the players don’t agree. They just want “no progression.” They want new content to be available when they get tired of existing options, but they want it to be all comfortably within their reach. That is the community this game supports, whether you appreciate that or not.

No, you don’t agree. You are not the players. Stop speaking for the community.