Guild Wars 2

No it’s then useless for training.

Again, nonsense. If it’s useless for training for you then that’s fine, I can’t speak for you, but it’s useful for training for a lot of people who aren’t you, and you’re just going to have to accept that as a fact whether it applies to you or not.

It’s just simple logic, why do you have the training version again?

For people who are not you and think differently than you do.

There are. Different dungeons have completely different difficulty levels.

And different raid encounters have entirely different difficulty levels, that’s entirely beside the point. The point is that there are not “CoF Path 1 easy,” there are not several difficulty levels of the exact same content, which is what we’re discussing here.

How is the arah thing a strawman when it’s literally the same thing, aka someone not willing to put in effort and time to learn something?

Because there isn’t a serious complaint about Arah explorable. Arah is easy, and getting into a successful Arah run is way more simple (when it’s a daily at least), than a successful raid run. The only real difficulty with Arah is that it’s old content and most people don’t care to bother with it anymore. I mean I got most of the Arah tokens I needed for Bifrost by doing the PvP track (and there is not currently an equivalent Raid PvP track).

In all those months where you desperately tried to get an easy mode raid (it’s been almost a year, shouldn’t it be time to realize something?) you could have learned raids and be really close to your legendary armor; yet, you decide to furiously type away.

Could have, but I wouldn’t have enjoyed that, and since this is a game, that seems like a stupid waste of my time, so I didn’t. Instead I’m pushing for a version where I would enjoy the experience.

Imagine there’s a machine with two colors. Each color corresponds to a danger level based on its hue. The higher the saturation, the more dangerous the machine is.

A colorblind person comes to operate the machine. He’s red-blue colorblind, not green-yellow. He pushes an azure button, thinking that it’s sapphire. He doesn’t learn anything, because he didn’t pull the levers.

This is why we only need one difficulty.

This post is satire, and intended to demonstrate how metaphors rarely contribute to the discussion.

This didn’t make any sense.

Ohoni.6057:

In all those months where you desperately tried to get an easy mode raid (it’s been almost a year, shouldn’t it be time to realize something?) you could have learned raids and be really close to your legendary armor; yet, you decide to furiously type away.

Could have, but I wouldn’t have enjoyed that, and since this is a game, that seems like a stupid waste of my time, so I didn’t. Instead I’m pushing for a version where I would enjoy the experience.

I like that you dropped my last sentence, most likely fully realizing I’m right.
Let me just make this clear again: You are the one coming here, demanding devs to spend a huge amount of time in order to add a difficulty you can clear (lets remember that Gaile Gray herself openly warned you in the forums to not assume it’s “an easy thing to add a difficulty” and corrected you) for a type of content that was never meant to be easily cleared by everyone or done without putting the effort in. You are basically demanding that the world revolves around you, ignoring what this might mean for others. “But others want the same” doesn’t count, you’re merely using this to not feel as selfish about your demands.

Oh and while it is indeed easier to finish arah, if you are unwilling to put the time into it, you still won’t be able to. Also, if I have to remind you, back then Arah was considered extremely difficult for most of the community with p4 runs taking up to 6h+ and many groups having to drop out at Simin because it was too much for them. Time made it easier, same thing applies to raids.

Imagine there’s a machine with two colors. Each color corresponds to a danger level based on its hue. The higher the saturation, the more dangerous the machine is.

A colorblind person comes to operate the machine. He’s red-blue colorblind, not green-yellow. He pushes an azure button, thinking that it’s sapphire. He doesn’t learn anything, because he didn’t pull the levers.

This is why we only need one difficulty.

This post is satire, and intended to demonstrate how metaphors rarely contribute to the discussion.

This didn’t make any sense.

That is the point, or so I’d assume.

Ohoni.6057:

Again, nonsense. If it’s useless for training for you then that’s fine, I can’t speak for you, but it’s useless for training for a lot of people who aren’t you, and you’re just going to have to accept that as a fact whether it applies to you or not.

You are saying you will do something that is completely different but play pretend that is like the real thing for “training” purposes. And again, that’s nonsense. There is no training value in doing something that’s completely different to the real thing and pretend that it’s not. Your argument of that’s how others think is irrelevant.

And different raid encounters have entirely different difficulty levels, that’s entirely beside the point. The point is that there are not “CoF Path 1 easy,” there are not several difficulty levels of the exact same content, which is what we’re discussing here.

It’s exactly the point, there are multiple different levels in content in the game which you need to accept. So which difficulty is this magical raid difficulty going to be? It’s not rocket science a very simple question.

I like that you dropped my last sentence, most likely fully realizing I’m right.

No, I dropped it because it was a childish ad hominem, and we’re better than that.

Let me just make this clear again: You are the one coming here, demanding devs to spend a huge amount of time in order to add a difficulty you can clear (lets remember that Gaile Gray herself openly warned you in the forums to not assume it’s “an easy thing to add a difficulty” and corrected you) for a type of content that was never meant to be easily cleared by everyone or done without putting the effort in.

I didn’t start this thread, nor any of the 2-4 other ones currently floating around with a similar premise.

Oh and while it is indeed easier to finish arah, if you are unwilling to put the time into it, you still won’t be able to.

As true as it is irrelevant. The point is the difficulty, that the existing raids are pegged at a level significantly above the comfort zone of this game’s population. Offer a version more in line with the average player, and it would be good enough.

Time made it easier, same thing applies to raids.

Power creep made it easier, and I suspect we’ll see less power creep in the future. Elite specs are stronger than vanilla specs, and they should be, given how they’re placed, but I don’t expect xpac 2 elite specs to be that much stronger than the HoT ones, nor will they add gear higher than Ascended (which Dungeons were not balanced around), so I don’t see remotely as much power creep over the next three years as over the past three.

You are saying you will do something that is completely different but play pretend that is like the real thing for “training” purposes.

Yeeeeeeeeesssssssssss.

This is how ALL training has ever worked in the entire history of the world!

Otherwise we would have had medieval battlefields littered with amputees because they’d been training since childhood using live steel, and modern soldiers dying in the thousands in basic training because it would be nothing but live fire exercises with opposing forces determined to kill them if at all possible.

Training is all about presenting the circumstances of the real thing as best as possible, minus the consequences of failure, so that players can mess up without failing completely.

It’s exactly the point, there are multiple different levels in content in the game which you need to accept. So which difficulty is this magical raid difficulty going to be? It’s not rocket science a very simple question.

It’s a very simple question with a very complex answer, since there’s no objective measure of “difficulty.” Let’s give it a shot though. Let’s say that faceroll bosses are a “1” on the scale of difficulty, like EB Sloth. Let’s say that the toughest raid encounter is a 10, with the lesser ones being in the 9 camp. Let’s say Arah Explorable is maybe a 6, CoF Path 1 is like a 3-4, world bosses that can pose a challenge would be like a 2-3^^.

So on that scale, I would aim for an easy mode of existing raids that would be more in the 5-7 range. Some encounters would be slightly harder than Arah, most about even, the easier ones would be slightly easier than Arah. Maybe that wouldn’t be easy enough, but it’s a decent ballpark to start with. The thing is, they wouldn’t have to nail it on the first try, they could continue to tweak the difficulty if it turns out to still be too hard, but there’d be no need for an entirely separate version on top of that, one easy mode would be plenty, they’d just have to get that one right. It would be hard enough to present an engaging experience, but not so hard that a decent party couldn’t carry along a few newbs without it being a burden.

^^keeping in mind that almost no world boss actually fails, and they rarely scale up to massive zergs, there are plenty that pose significant risk of downing and killing players individually, especially with small turn-out)

There is no way they can make an easy mode to satisfy everyone, because everyone wants something different out of it.

Whether it’s rewards, training, lore, or just easier content to do.

Also, your difficulty ratings are hilarious. The easiest raids (escort, trio) are like dungeons. The medium tier (vg, gor, sab, sloth, kc) are like arah. The hard tier (matt, xera) are a bit harder.

And this is all relative, of course, because pug groups can and do beat all of these every week. Even those with no insight requirements. (I can attest to that, having been in with requirements and without).

And your metaphor is hilarious — I’ll have to refrain from responding because the urge to troll would be too great.

Edit: for posterity

Otherwise we would have had medieval battlefields littered with amputees because they’d been training since childhood using live steel, and modern soldiers dying in the thousands in basic training because it would be nothing but live fire exercises with opposing forces determined to kill them if at all possible.

You are saying you will do something that is completely different but play pretend that is like the real thing for “training” purposes.

This is how ALL training has ever worked in the entire history of the world!

Remember that you are training for is how to do THIS particular content, not how to play your class or how to work with others or anything else. That’s knowledge you should already have before stepping in Raids, by doing other content. In a modern army you are training how to shoot a gun yes, but in GW2 that’s what open PVE is for. In most games that’s what the tutorial is for, teaching you the basics.

When soldiers go to war they don’t ask their opponents to play pretend and not kill each other so they both train before the actual battle. And this is what you are asking, for soldiers to go out and ask their real opponents to use fake bullets to play pretend. That’s not how it works. That’s not training. You can train to break breakbars, to damage fast, to use projectile reflects, to stack might, that’s TRAINING and that’s what actual exercises train you to do. That’s what dungeons and fractals and the open world can teach you, there is no need to get that knowledge in Raids.

Maybe what’s missing is 10-man instanced content that is easy to teach people how to work with each other and make good compositions. But that’s irrelevant to Raids.

Some encounters would be slightly harder than Arah, most about even, the easier ones would be slightly easier than Arah. Maybe that wouldn’t be easy enough, but it’s a decent ballpark to start with.

And this is why any such idea can’t be taken seriously. Arah is balanced around core specs and non-HoT power creep. It’s not even balanced with Ascended gear in mind. It’s a real joke now btw if you run a semi-decent team with proper elite specializations.

Ohoni.6057:

Yes, because this forum wants the raids all to themselves, but this forum is not what matters. This is between ANet and the players, and what I propose is the easier option for ANet, and the better option for the players, whether the raiders like that or not.

I’m sorry are the people on these forums not players? I thought I was a player. You seem pretty convinced that you speak for the people, when all these other people are here speaking for themselves.

There is no way they can make an easy mode to satisfy everyone, because everyone wants something different out of it.

As true as it is irrelevant. They can make an easy mode that satisfied MOST of the players. That should always be the goal. The goal with the current raid was to satisfy a small niche of players, and a lot of that niche seems to like it, some say even the current version is too easy, or would want this or that small change made to it, that’s inevitable. You can’t please everyone, but that’s no excuse for not making the effort to please as many people as possible. They can and should make an easy mode that would please MOST of the players.

Also, your difficulty ratings are hilarious. The easiest raids (escort, trio) are like dungeons. The medium tier (vg, gor, sab, sloth, kc) are like arah. The hard tier (matt, xera) are a bit harder.

Nope.

When soldiers go to war they don’t ask their opponents to play pretend and not kill each other so they both train before the actual battle.

No, but they DO train against opposing sides BEFORE going to war. For example, when the seals took out Bin Laden, did they just jump out there and yolo it, expecting to keep trying until they got it right? No. They built scale mock-ups of the compound to the best of their ability, and then ran through it numerous times against people pretending to be enemy soldiers and armed with fake weapons. To you, this would apparently be “completely pointless” because the red team was not using live ammo with the intent to kill the training soldiers. The point of training is, if you get hit with a paint round, you know “if that had been a live round, I would be dead, I should do better next time,” without the actual penalty of “that was a live round, now I’m dead, bummer.”

Maybe what’s missing is 10-man instanced content that is easy to teach people how to work with each other and make good compositions. But that’s irrelevant to Raids.

And irrelevant to what’s being asked for here. I’m asking for an easier version of THESE raids. Not something “similar but completely different,” these bosses, these mechanics, everything identical EXCEPT that the numbers are tuned down a bit. I have been VERY clear about that, so I don’t know why people keep talking around that with stuff like “alternate raids” or “raid fractals” or other such nonsense that would take MORE time to implement and still not solve the problems presented.

And this is why any such idea can’t be taken seriously. Arah is balanced around core specs and non-HoT power creep. It’s not even balanced with Ascended gear in mind. It’s a real joke now btw if you run a semi-decent team with proper elite specializations.

Yes, that would be the intended balance point, easier than the existing raids.

I’m sorry are the people on these forums not players? I thought I was a player. You seem pretty convinced that you speak for the people, when all these other people are here speaking for themselves.

You are players, but you are not all of the players, and your voices do not represent the players.

Ohoni.6057:

I’m sorry are the people on these forums not players? I thought I was a player. You seem pretty convinced that you speak for the people, when all these other people are here speaking for themselves.

You are players, but you are not all of the players, and your voices do not represent the players.

Neither does yours, just saying. You simply want content that was never made or intended for you to waste Developer time to cater to you because of a shiny that is it simply stated. You are the voice of Ohoni only looking out for Ohoni.

It has been proven time and again that pugs can reliably clear Raids, that you don’t need to run the Meta to clear raids and that anyone can practice on clearing raids, and the core raiding community has provided the information for such on a silver platter time and again to make it easier for everyone to get into raiding easier and with less of a headache than they had.

Ohoni.6057:

I’m sorry are the people on these forums not players? I thought I was a player. You seem pretty convinced that you speak for the people, when all these other people are here speaking for themselves.

You are players, but you are not all of the players, and your voices do not represent the players.

You have absolutely no clue about what the players want, the only one that desires what you have spoken for, is yourself.

Nothing you have said has any selfless intentions, you are not acting as a spokesperson of the general GW2 populace. Please stop pretending you are.

Neither does yours, just saying. You simply want content that was never made or intended for you to waste Developer time to cater to you because of a shiny that is it simply stated. You are the voice of Ohoni only looking out for Ohoni.

As I have to find myself repeating over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over because for some reason you guys refuse to take it in, if it comes down to “this is only something Ohoni wants,” then I do not want them to do it. It would not be worth their time or energy to do something like this for any one player, and I would rather they spend their energy on something else.

But I don’t believe that’s true for a second.

And neither do you.

If any of you believed I was actually wrong, that this was something that players didn’t want, that the devs did not, on some level, know that, then you wouldn’t wast so much time and effort trying to shout me down.

But you know players want it, you know ANet does have an interest in making something along these lines happen, maybe not exactly what I’m asking for, but something, and you’re just doing the best you can to cover your eyes and hope it all goes away, because you want your special little “no newbs aloud” clubhouse.

Good luck with that.

In the meantime, I’m going to continue to try and workshop the best possible implementation of this sort of system, if they decide to do something.

It has been proven time and again that pugs can reliably clear Raids, that you don’t need to run the Meta to clear raids and that anyone can practice on clearing raids, and the core raiding community has provided the information for such on a silver platter time and again to make it easier for everyone to get into raiding easier and with less of a headache than they had.

And yet, no matter how many times you “prove” that all to your own satisfaction, there are still players who find the current experience less than they want it to be. And they are pushing for some alternative. One that so far you have not offered.

This is actually hilarious.

“Anet does have an interest in making something like this happen” says you, when after almost a year there is still no sign of an easy mode raid and the devs themselves went as far as saying that adding a new difficulty is a huge amount of effort. Iirc they even said they have no plans, intention or interest in adding multiple difficulties to raids. If you can find me a post where they state they’re potentially interested in adding multiple raid difficulties (as in, easier ones) please feel free to link it.

Also, you are calling me out on an ad hominem, saying that me calling you selfish is childish, but then you go on and call us out on being selfish for “wanting to keep raids to ourselves” when there’s plenty of raiders who teach and help those willing? Way to go.

There is no need for an easy mode raid as raids as a whole, including their rewards, have never been intended to be cleared and gained by everyone. It really is that simple.

Ohoni.6057:

They can make an easy mode that satisfied MOST of the players.
That should always be the goal.

They could, but I strongly disagree that it should always be the goal. The point of niche content is to appeal to a fraction of the community, not the majority.

You can wish that ANet never decided to add niche content, but then we wouldn’t have adventures, JPs, SAB, or tier 4 fractals. Raids are just the niche designed for the harder core among us.

Ohoni.6057:

The goal with the current raid was to satisfy a small niche of players, and a lot of that niche seems to like it

In other words, Raids are successful.

Ohoni.6057:

You can’t please everyone, but that’s no excuse for not making the effort to please as many people as possible.

They aren’t making excuses — they have a design goal which doesn’t match your hopes for the game. They aren’t trying to please everyone — they are trying to please a minority (and hope that some other people are tempted over to raids, too).

Ohoni.6057:

They can and should make an easy mode that would please MOST of the players.

That’s your opinion (and to be fair, an opinion that is shared by more than a few players). However, it was never the goal of raids to eventually expand to appeal to everyone. Part of what makes raids so much cheaper to develop than other parts of the game is that it’s not intended to please most players.

I can agree that there’s something annoying about ANet deciding to gate the only legendary armor in the game behind raids and I’m definitely not happy with their inability to maintain steady progress in adding other content. However, I cannot agree that ANet should consider the possibility of expanding Raids to appeal to the masses — I think that would be an incredible mistake, a textbook case of “killing the goose that made the golden eggs.” And I’m not even part of the target audience.

Ohoni.6057:

Neither does yours, just saying. You simply want content that was never made or intended for you to waste Developer time to cater to you because of a shiny that is it simply stated. You are the voice of Ohoni only looking out for Ohoni.

As I have to find myself repeating over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over because for some reason you guys refuse to take it in, if it comes down to “this is only something Ohoni wants,” then I do not want them to do it. It would not be worth their time or energy to do something like this for any one player, and I would rather they spend their energy on something else.

Case closed! We’re done here! Finally some headway on probably a year or so of discussion with you specifically! I’m so thrilled that you have reached a reasonable conclusion…

Ohoni.6057:

But I don’t believe that’s true for a second.

….But of course, things are never easy. Ugh, we aren’t arguing that there isn’t some set of players who think very similarly like you do. We have just been arguing that the set of players you believe are on your side, isn’t as big as you think it is. You aren’t arguing for any normal player. Your ’any content for any reward* propositions are absolutely not even registered on a scale, because the number is so small.

Your propositions have never argued for the normal populace, ever.

Ohoni.6057:

And neither do you.

And how dare you assume you know what other players believe?

Ohoni.6057:

If any of you believed I was actually wrong, that this was something that players didn’t want, that the devs did not, on some level, know that, then you wouldn’t wast so much time and effort trying to shout me down.

We waste so much time for many reasons. Arenanet has listened to their playerbase on multiple occasions before, and you have been spamming at this point, the same foolish ridiculous ideas since day one. We are the reason to your madness.

Others probably seek to…bring you back to normalcy. Certainly, I know I have tried, but after that deleted post where you compared raiding to hazing that I, for a lack of a better word, got absolutely frustrated with and responded with emotion…

You simply do not care. You just want to continue this foolhardy crusade.

Ohoni.6057:

But you know players want it, you know ANet does have an interest in making something along these lines happen, maybe not exactly what I’m asking for, but something, and you’re just doing the best you can to cover your eyes and hope it all goes away, because you want your special little “no newbs aloud” clubhouse.

You don’t know a kitten thing, and that is what is so sad. In your delusions you have become out of touch with what the community wants. You likely play this game day after day, feeling ‘righteous’ whenever someone who goes into raids for the first time comes to the forums to complain about why Arenanet implemented some challenge. You actually believe that because there are complaints from those people, who clearly the content was not made for, that it somehow justifies you and convinces you of a problem that does not exist.

Ohoni.6057:

Good luck with that.

In the meantime, I’m going to continue to try and workshop the best possible implementation of this sort of system, if they decide to do something.

Good luck with that, ol Sisyphus.

Ohoni.6057:

Neither does yours, just saying. You simply want content that was never made or intended for you to waste Developer time to cater to you because of a shiny that is it simply stated. You are the voice of Ohoni only looking out for Ohoni.

As I have to find myself repeating over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over because for some reason you guys refuse to take it in, if it comes down to “this is only something Ohoni wants,” then I do not want them to do it. It would not be worth their time or energy to do something like this for any one player, and I would rather they spend their energy on something else.

But I don’t believe that’s true for a second.

And neither do you.

If any of you believed I was actually wrong, that this was something that players didn’t want, that the devs did not, on some level, know that, then you wouldn’t wast so much time and effort trying to shout me down.

But you know players want it, you know ANet does have an interest in making something along these lines happen, maybe not exactly what I’m asking for, but something, and you’re just doing the best you can to cover your eyes and hope it all goes away, because you want your special little “no newbs aloud” clubhouse.

Good luck with that.

In the meantime, I’m going to continue to try and workshop the best possible implementation of this sort of system, if they decide to do something.

It has been proven time and again that pugs can reliably clear Raids, that you don’t need to run the Meta to clear raids and that anyone can practice on clearing raids, and the core raiding community has provided the information for such on a silver platter time and again to make it easier for everyone to get into raiding easier and with less of a headache than they had.

And yet, no matter how many times you “prove” that all to your own satisfaction, there are still players who find the current experience less than they want it to be. And they are pushing for some alternative. One that so far you have not offered.

Nice trying to assume what I believe, what I believe is that you only want the Legenday armor and want Anet to lower it and couldn’t care less about anyone else. And yes people have provided proof time and again about how helpful and easy the raids really are, and how you don’t even need an optimized comp to beat them, you have yet to provide proof of any kind and all you have are your feelings and opinions.

“Anet does have an interest in making something like this happen” says you, when after almost a year there is still no sign of an easy mode raid and the devs themselves went as far as saying that adding a new difficulty is a huge amount of effort.

“They’ve taken a year or more to do it” is nowhere near a reason to believe they aren’t working on it. Anet can take 2-3 years to fix a glitchy texture.

There is no need for an easy mode raid as raids as a whole, including their rewards, have never been intended to be cleared and gained by everyone. It really is that simple.

And again, regardless of what they intended, what matters is what would make the players most happy, and on numerous occasions we’ve found that what the developers intended turned out to not be what the players wanted.

They could, but I strongly disagree that it should always be the goal. The point of niche content is to appeal to a fraction of the community, not the majority.

Sure, but if you can expand it to include the majority, then that’s even better. If a niche community can only be happy by excluding others, then it has no right to exist.

That’s your opinion (and to be fair, an opinion that is shared by more than a few players). However, it was never the goal of raids to eventually expand to appeal to everyone.

Again, what was their goal is irrelevant. What matters is what is best for the game’s future.

Part of what makes raids so much cheaper to develop than other parts of the game is that it’s not intended to please most players.

That’s not true at all. Pound for pound raids are one of the most expensive content they’ve added to the game. I mean, the open world maps are bigger, but they satisfy a lot more players for the effort. Whatever resources they’d spend making the raids more accessible would be a drop in the bucket compared to building them in the first place.

Case closed! We’re done here! Finally some headway on probably a year or so of discussion with you specifically! I’m so thrilled that you have reached a reasonable conclusion…

If that’s all it took for you, then where were you the last dozen times I said exactly that?

….But of course, things are never easy. Ugh, we aren’t arguing that there isn’t some set of players who think very similarly like you do. We have just been arguing that the set of players you believe are on your side, isn’t as big as you think it is. You aren’t arguing for any normal player. Your ’any content for any reward* propositions are absolutely not even registered on a scale, because the number is so small.

And again, if you actually believed that then you wouldn’t have to spend such effort arguing about it. If that were actually the case then there’s no chance of ANet doing anything about it, so why worry? But you spend sooooooooooo much time arguing about it, so that means you must be worried that they’ll try to do something.

Others probably seek to…bring you back to normalcy.

You must understand by now that This will never happen, not by your standards, at least. If not, I assure you, swear to you that there is zero chance that I’ll ever be convinced to change my mind on this topic. So if any of you are laboring under the delusion that you can convince me to your side of this, then I free you from that burden. It will not happen. And don’t worry that I share that delusion any of you can be convinced to my side. We have our sides, we just fight for them the best we can. ANet are the ones who decide what to do. All I’m trying to do is make a compelling argument for those neutral on the outcome, and to help shape the form of any action taken if any.

You simply do not care. You just want to continue this foolhardy crusade.

I care about reaching what I believe is the best possible outcome for the future of the game, even if many of you do not believe that outcome would be the one that you would want.

Ohoni.6057:

You can join a guild
Use LFG to join a Group
Use LFG to create a Group
Use your FL to pull together 10 people who are likeminded

And again, those options might resolve any problems you may have in forming a successful raid party, but they are insufficient for others. You experiences with the raid systems in no way negate theirs. You’re free to say “the system works for me.” You have no right to say “the system works for you.”

You don’t want to join a guild to raid. You don’t want to make your own teams to raid. Sounds to me like you aren’t willing to do quite a bit and somehow, that’s everyone else’s problem. I mean … what do you think you would be willing to do to join a successful raid if you don’t want to do those things? Do you seriously expect just to log in, join a queue and run a successful raid? I mean, a serious question … how unreasonable do you think you are being right now?

Frankly, accessibility to the raid isn’t the problem. It’s acceptance to raid groups you’re looking for … and with how little you seem willing to do to gain it, you can’t realistically expect people to go out of their way to accommodate you given the intended difficulty of the content, including Anet.

You don’t want to join a guild to raid. You don’t want to make your own teams to raid. Sounds to me like you aren’t willing to do quite a bit and somehow, that’s everyone else’s problem.

If that’s how you’d like to frame it. go right ahead, it doesn’t make it any less valid criticism. I think it’s very clear that I don’t want to play the way you want to play, the thing that confuses me is that you somehow believe there’s something wrong with that.

Do you seriously expect just to log in, join a queue and run a successful raid?

Yes. I want the odds of being able to log in, check LFG, grab a pug, hop into a raid, and complete at least one boss within an hour, to be just as good as my odds were of clearing a dungeon path within 30-60 minutes during the peak of dungeon running. I want it to be a casual, convenient, and fun experience, not a series of endless frustration because someone missed a tell.

I mean, a serious question … how unreasonable do you think you are being right now?

Given the overall nature of this game? Not even a little bit unreasonable. Now if we were playing Wildstar or something, maybe a bit unreasonable, but look how they turned out.

Frankly, accessibility to the raid isn’t the problem. It’s acceptance to raid groups you’re looking for … and with how little you seem willing to do to gain it, you can’t realistically expect people to go out of their way to accommodate you given the intended difficulty of the content, including Anet.

But that’s just the thing. Yes, with the way raids are currently implemented, I can’t expect it to be as easy as I’d like, because that would mean placing way too much of a burden on other players. But if they had an easier mode that more players could enjoy and complete with less difficulty, then it’s no longer placing an unreasonable burden on anyone, it’s everyone pulling their own weight and still managing to get through, even if some are less stilled than other. That’s why a positive outcome would require ANet to change something about the core mechanics of the raids, either providing an easier mode, or just nerfing the existing raids significantly. Whichever they prefer would work out fine.

There ya have it.

Thought I would try again, out of some silly notion but this is no longer a discussion. A discussion would entail both parties entertaining the other and being open to having their opinions adjusted based upon how the discourse transpired.

Ohoni desires none of this. It’s not even being stubborn at this point, it’s legitimately ignoring all other counterarguments of which there have been many, and simply stating that no one else can possibly be correct.

Give it up folks, and just ignore him. Ohoni is no longer contributing any sort of constructive or productive statements about raiding in general if he rejects any and all other criticism. It’s not even up for discussion at this point, he’s made that very clear.

It’s a kitten pity really.

Thought I would try again, out of some silly notion but this is no longer a discussion. A discussion would entail both parties entertaining the other and being open to having their opinions adjusted based upon how the discourse transpired.

Ok, let’s be fair, what would I have to do to get you in this car today? What argument do you believe I could make that would convince you that adding an easy mode raid would be the right course of action? I mean, you were expecting that perhaps I could be convinced over to your side, so that would indicate that you are open to the idea of easy mode raids, open to having your mind changed, so what is the gap that prevents you from crossing over? What element is keeping you on the “opposed” side of it?

Ohoni desires none of this. It’s not even being stubborn at this point, it’s legitimately ignoring all other counterarguments of which there have been many, and simply stating that no one else can possibly be correct.

I ignore none of it. I read it all, take it all in, give it all due consideration, and if my response is that I still don’t agree, it’s because I genuinely do not believe that your counterarguments address the concerns that are being raised. A lot of people default into one of four positions that I just cannot accept:

1. If you are unwilling to play how the raids currently operate, then you never deserve to complete the raids, and never deserve to have any rewards arbitrarily attached to the raids.

2. That raids are fine and anyone can do them, so long as they play exactly how I enjoy playing.

3. If you’re unwilling or unable to play exactly how I wish to play, then it’s ok for you to never participate in the raids, and never receive the rewards that you may want.

4. Raids are objectively “better” content than other content, more deserving of nice rewards. People who complete raids are more deserving of nice things than people who don’t.

I’m sorry, I just cannot agree to the virtues of any of those positions. I believe that when an element of a large scale game is disagreeable to a portion of the playerbase, they have a right to make clear their disagreement, and if the game developer can figure out a way to alter the game to make those players happy, while making fewer players sad, then they should do so. The greatest happiness for the greatest number.

Raids ARE fine for people who enjoy them now, but that does not mean that they cannot be made better for those that do not currently enjoy them. Some people genuinely seem to believe that the way they play is somehow the objectively best way to play, that players who claim to not enjoy their way are simply misguided and can be taught to enjoy it just as much as they do. This is, of course, nonsense. Different people have different tastes, and just because some people enjoy things you do not, does not mean that are wrong, or that it’s possible for them to ever enjoy that thing as much as you do.

And nobody should be left out when there are opportunities to include them. Players who are unwilling or unable to play raids the way they’re currently structured should be able to enjoy the content if there’s any way to provide it in a more convenient form. They should still have a path to acquire the rewards they want.

And no, raids are not “better” than other content, they are just another activity in the game, and no more deserving of rewards than moa farming in Queensdale. Just because ANet chooses to attach a certain reward to a certain activity doesn’t mean that they can’t just as easily choose to attach it to another activity as well. If ANet chooses to attach a given reward to your favorite content, you are not entitled to exclusive access to that reward, you are not “owed” that they never offer it elsewhere. The bigger the reward, the more true this is. This is a game, the goal is for the largest number to have the most fun possible.

I can’t accept any of those four positions as being true, and any argument based on any of them will fall flat to me.

When soldiers go to war they don’t ask their opponents to play pretend and not kill each other so they both train before the actual battle.

No, but they DO train against opposing sides BEFORE going to war.

Yes and that training has very little in common with the mechanics of the actual encounter. To put it simply, it’s not the same enemies, with the same weapons, ok maybe same weapons, in the same terrain. Real soldiers are trained to be prepared, they train to be better at their job, just like all other kinds of training in human history are supposed to do. And that kind of training is what dungeons and fractals do in this particular game (and tutorials before that). Learn how training works because this is getting hilarious.

And irrelevant to what’s being asked for here. I’m asking for an easier version of THESE raids. Not something “similar but completely different,” these bosses, these mechanics, everything identical EXCEPT that the numbers are tuned down a bit. I have been VERY clear about that, so I don’t know why people keep talking around that with stuff like “alternate raids” or “raid fractals” or other such nonsense that would take MORE time to implement and still not solve the problems presented.

The problems presented can easily be solved by different, easier, 10-man content. It would teach people proper composition, planning, builds, synergies and other intricacies that only appear with 10 people instead of 5.
It doesn’t have to have similar mechanics if it does its job as training. Taking more time to implement is irrelevant, if it’s time and effort well spent. Band aids are never a good thing. Time and effort not by the Raid team though.
Also it’s really funny how you are asking for THESE mechanics yet you want them to be completely different.

Yes, that would be the intended balance point, easier than the existing raids.

You want the Raids to disregard ascended and elite specializations and be balanced by how the game was at release? And here I thought you wanted them to “train” people too. Such a low difficulty raid will serve nothing for training, unless you are in your fantasy universe where people play pretend.

Yes and that training has very little in common with the mechanics of the actual encounter. To put it simply, it’s not the same enemies, with the same weapons, ok maybe same weapons, in the same terrain.

No, but it’s usually the closest approximation humanly possible. I mean you’re setting an unreasonable benchmark for this analogy if you won’t accept the point I’m making unless they literally ship in ISIS soldiers, hand them live weapons and say “go to town on us.” I think my point is clear, they attempt to fight in the same setting, against opponents who are attempting to mimic the enemy tactics, using weapons that approximate the real thing in as many aspects as possible other than lethality, and this gives them as close to an approximation of the actual encounters they are likely to face as possible without undue risk to their persons.

I’m asking for a similar thing here, a version of the raid that is as close as possible to the actual thing, only less lethal. You can choose to ignore certain threats, but you can also choose not to, and that is what would allow it to function as a training environment for people interested in using it for that purpose.

I understand that this is not identical conditions to the current raid, that’s the entire point of having it, but I believe that done right, the conditions will help some people, perhaps not you, perhaps not any of the people here who raid regularly, but would help some people who do not benefit from training in the current raid environment. You don’t have to empathize with these people, you don’t have to understand how they could possibly be different than you are, just accept that they exist and move on, because I’m really tired of your incredulity.

The problems presented can easily be solved by different, easier, 10-man content.

Which would inevitably take longer to produce than easy mode raids. That is an indisputable fact. Anything new that is like a raid, but not a raid would take more developer time and effort than just making an easy mode raid, so do not bring the argument that this is what they should be doing, while at the same time arguing that easy mode raids would be too much work to justify. And the easy mode raids would not have to come from the raid team either, if that is what’s most efficient for ANet. All it would be is some numbers tweaks.

And maybe alternate “raid training” content would be what would work for you, but I can tell you as a fact that it would not work as well for me as an easy mode raid. I have had plenty of experience with similar difficulty splits in other games, and I know for a fact that the way I learn new things, while “Easy content A” might help prepare me for “Hard content B,” I learn MUCH faster and more completely playing “Easy content A” in preparation for “Hard content A.”

I wouldn’t be nearly as capable as I am in raids today if not for running tons of story missions, dungeons, fractals, events, etc. up to this point, but I would be far better at raids today if I’d run a lower-stress version of them a dozen times first. I learn by succeeding at things repeatedly, not by failing things repeatedly. You may learn differently, but the way you learn does not help me in any way.

Also it’s really funny how you are asking for THESE mechanics yet you want them to be completely different.

I’ve been quite clear about the ways I would like them to be the same and the ways I would like them to be different, there is nothing funny about it.

You want the Raids to disregard ascended and elite specializations and be balanced by how the game was at release? And here I thought you wanted them to “train” people too. Such a low difficulty raid will serve nothing for training, unless you are in your fantasy universe where people play pretend.

Let people play how they want. It may not be how you want them to play, but that’s none of your business.

I mean you’re setting an unreasonable benchmark for this analogy if you won’t accept the point I’m making unless they literally ship in ISIS soldiers, hand them live weapons and say “go to town on us.”

There is no way to train for the actual mechanics unless you do exactly that. Hence why I said you want soldiers to go out and play pretend before their actual engagement. And since we both know that’s silly, your idea is also silly. The other training you need happens in the other content of the game, just like a real soldier’s training is different than an actual encounter. See in-game example below.

I’m asking for a similar thing here, a version of the raid that is as close as possible to the actual thing, only less lethal. You can choose to ignore certain threats, but you can also choose not to, and that is what would allow it to function as a training environment for people interested in using it for that purpose.

Those who want to train, will train in the actual version if the easy version is being beaten by completely different strats and methods. There is no fantasy land where people will play pretend and use this less lethal version as training. See in-game example below.

I’ve been quite clear about the ways I would like them to be the same and the ways I would like them to be different, there is nothing funny about it.

You want an entire different mechanic that will be played in a completely different manner, yet people will for some reason play pretend and act as if it’s the real thing and train on it. Also, see in-game example below.

And to return to the original comments because this is getting out of hand.
This whole thing started with this:

You may not need an easy mode, and may not respect it, but I just feel that if an easy mode existed, then a lot more players could enjoy raiding, and eventually a lot more of them would be able to help you complete raids, once they got a little practice in.

Yet a way to an easy mode that we’ve seen posted is by changing completely how mechanics work (notably 1-shot kills) which means their value as training would be effectively zero. If the easier raid difficulties are beaten by completely different compositions, completely different skill usage then what’s the point of having an easy mode for training purposes?

Which led to a very very specific example:

If it doesn’t kill you then you won’t avoid it but take it face value. As an example the green circles of VG are rarely, if ever, used in low-man clears because with a low amount of players you can ignore their damage with skills or healing after they hit.
For instance, if they do the same with Gorseval’s World Eater attack then the players won’t avoid the attack by running to the Wall and using the updraft. Instead they will take the damage then heal it, or use invulnerability to ignore the damage completely, or dodge it, or do anything the easier mode will allow you to do, other than how the normal version works.

Now let’s say that someone is playing the easy version of Gorseval and they don’t manage to break the wall to use the updraft, nor they do enough DPS to phase Gorseval so the World Eater attack damage them (in the actual fight they wipe). In your “pretend” universe there will be some people who will say “Hey in the real thing we would’ve died now, so let’s all type /gg and start over”. And this is what I call a fantasy that will never happen.

There is no way to train for the actual mechanics unless you do exactly that.

Then almost all training that has taken place in human history was for nothing. Geeze Doc, you could have saved the world innumerable hours if you’d just chiseled that nugget into stone a few millennia ago.

Those who want to train, will train in the actual version if the easy version is being beaten by completely different strats and methods.

Again, no. Just no. Stop arguing this one, it’s nonsense. Some players like to practice things by fighting “full scale” and losing constantly until they get it. Other people like to practice by fighting “small scale” as if it were full scale, and winning repeatedly until, they feel comfortable enough with the content that they feel ready for full scale. Now you are obviously not in that latter group, but please stop pretending that this group does not exist.

You want an entire different mechanic that will be played in a completely different manner, yet people will for some reason play pretend and act as if it’s the real thing and train on it. Also, see in-game example below.

Again, every tell would be identical. Every boss AI movement would be identical. If you played the easy mode using the same tactics as a hard mode team, and nailed every one of them, the you could do just the same on hard mode. If you (with ANet’s permission as an experiment), had a double-box-single controls rig for every member of your team, and you had one playing on easy mode and one on hard, and the easy mode team was slightly weaker geared, and the enemy AI was set so that it made the same RNG choices in both encounters, then you could control both teams at once and if you did perfectly you would complete both.

Playing the easy mode as if it were the hard mode and doing it well would result in an IDENTICAL outcome to hard mode. The only differences is, if you do screw up, if a player trips, gets downed, messes up a phase, whatever, the result is far easier to recover from and continue to complete the encounter than on the hard mode, there are far fewer cases that would result in a “wipe, reset.”

And obviously I fully expect that not all players will play it as if it’s hard mode, plenty of players will take the path of least resistance and speed clear it using entirely different tactics. But players that want to train for hard mode will know what the right tactics are for hard mode from videos and guides, and they will go in attempting their best to treat every element with respect, to avoid OHKO attacks even if they won’t kill them, to catch falling orbs or stay off “deadly” floors even if the damage of each is lessened. I really shouldn’t have to explain this so often, it’s really common sense, you just seem to have a blind spot that makes it impossible for you to accept that the things I’m saying actually apply to people. I’m actually starting to get a little worried, if we’re being totally honest, because this does not seem to be healthy.

[quote][quote][quote][quote]

This thread has become a pointless back-and-forth:

- Pages of exposition only to say “I want easy mode”
- Dismissing arguments with “Nope”
- Asinine metaphors

It took me five minutes to remember the last constructive suggestion. I think it was a boss week/end where damage was increased by 10%, and perhaps the rewards were doubled.

Then almost all training that has taken place in human history was for nothing.

You do understand that Fractals, Dungeons and even open world gameplay is the training you are looking for… The first phase of VG, or even the trash mobs of VG, are excellent training for VG. That’s what training is all about… As I said already, you want soldiers to do play make believe with their enemies before an actual battle, THAT’s what you are asking for, THAT’s the equivalent to your training mode.

Again, no. Just no. Stop arguing this one, it’s nonsense. Some players like to practice things by fighting “full scale” and losing constantly until they get it. Other people like to practice by fighting “small scale” as if it were full scale, and winning repeatedly until, they feel comfortable enough with the content that they feel ready for full scale. Now you are obviously not in that latter group, but please stop pretending that this group does not exist.

They can fight small scale and win repeatedly in dungeons and fractals until they get good enough and start beating the Raid, or they can try the earlier phases of a Raid boss which are much more forgiving than the later ones. Now stop pretending that this imaginary group that will use the easy mode for training exist. THIS is the group that doesn’t exist and will never exist, stop trying to twist things around.

Playing the easy mode as if it were the hard mode and doing it well would result in an IDENTICAL outcome to hard mode.

That’s not true. If you reduce the damage, the speed, and how deadly the mechanics are then what you are saying is NOT POSSIBLE. Different amounts of healing will be needed, more careful balancing of rotations will be needed and in general playing perfectly in this easy mode of yours wouldn’t mean a kill in the actual version.

No, I don’t expect anyone would do that. That would be silly. The reaction I do expect would be that they all go “well, we screwed that up. That’s not how it was meant to go, and we’ll have to do it faster next time.”

And next time they won’t be the same people. Next time will be in at the very least one week. Next time will be completely different composition. You see how this training as you describe it is meaningless? “We’ll have to do it faster next time”, isn’t exactly training.

The crux of this issue is really balance among the challenge level of instanced content.

Pre-HoT it was much friendlier. There was instanced content for all and sundry – Fractals were fairly easy to get into until at least the 20s, and most dungeons were accessible and readily pugged while Arah and a handful of individual paths offered more challenge. People rarely, if ever, asked for nerfs to Arah because it was completely negligible. You could spend hours running the other dungeons every day, never set foot in that place and not feel like you missed out on anything.

Now it’s changed a bit. Dungeons have been neglected to an extent that they’re not even relevant to anyone besides the f2p crowd and newbies, fractals are still roughly half and half while raids are consistently beyond many (most) players’ capacity (there’s two easy-ish encounters but the organizational requirements are still above average, and Bandit Trio is locked behind Sloth).

So we have an entire raid made up of 9 brand new encounters, but a single fractal added for the ‘pick up and play’ crowd. If they’d maintained something closer to the original balance far fewer people would have taken issue with raids.

I’m also not sure what the intention was here. Maybe Anet (1) genuinely believes the player base can and should ‘git gud’, (2) thinks old instanced content and the open world is enough to satisfy less skilled and casual types or (3) messed up somewhere along the line and is struggling to produce content.

Looking at the game as a whole, I’m leaning towards (3) as the most likely.

Jahroots.6791:

So we have an entire raid made up of 9 brand new encounters, but a single fractal added for the ‘pick up and play’ crowd. If they’d maintained something closer to the original balance far fewer people would have taken issue with raids.

In 3 years since release but before HoT we got 4 new fractals which were retells of older living world dungeons (in a sense 2 dungeons turned into 4 fractals) and only 1 completely unique fractal (Thaumanova). Outside the 2 limited dungeons we got a single new dungeon path (which also replaced an older path)
1 dungeon and 1 fractal in 3 years but let’s blame Raids for that too right?

Raids aren’t the culprit, they didn’t even exist back then, the total focus on the Open World is. If we didn’t get so many open world releases maybe we’d have more dungeons and fractals by now. And now they got a brand new team for Raids, which means the culprit for not having dungeons/fractal is AGAIN the Open World focus.

From your 3 choices I guess (2) is the most probable answer.

Absurdo.8309:

Also, your difficulty ratings are hilarious. The easiest raids (escort, trio) are like dungeons. The medium tier (vg, gor, sab, sloth, kc) are like arah. The hard tier (matt, xera) are a bit harder.

These difficulty ratings don’t make any sense, I mean like in escort i sometimes try to headbutt some guy and end up insta-dying to a bomb that appears underneath my feet, and entire raid grp has to finish the rest of it without me. I’m basically dead at the start and I’ve accomplished nothing, but been carried through the easiest raid so how humiliating is that

Ok I don’t wanna seem like I’m trolling so ill move on here. Suppose in arah u are willing to spend countless hours practicing to solo it, like 20+ hours until ur able to and then lifes good. This same thing doesn’t apply to raids bc it’s meaningless here

most notably,

• you can’t solo practice any raid encounter, period. I’m don’t even know that u can duo them either
• all boss are scaled to 10man effort by default, which when even 5man content was soloable once, 10man is not duoable or at least scaled down to 5man content and thus soloable
• most boss have mechanics that are impossible to ignore, and insurmountable when solo, ex. green circles at vg, gors split phase, sab whole encounter, etc.

So it leave you feeling that group skill and exp is 100x more important than ur own skill and exp, which in pugs is something u have no control over (aside from insane reqs like tons of LI and gear check, which both of which can be faked rather easily imo). In pugs you have no control over what build other players are running or even they know how to play their class at all, thus multiple wipes. So you post for exp, doubtful that ppl who join are exp. If after multiple wipes group is on edge and looking for someone to scapegoat, one messup despite its severity of importance will cause all blame to fall on u. In end, u can try find multiple exp groups for a boss on lfg but doesn’t mean u get anywhere. It’s not comparable to something like arah, where less emphasis on group and more on ur own skill

So how it’s possible to shine in raids for ur own skill or something, unless u have the best or most pro guild or u have friends in all the right places? If you don’t have pro players as friends or guildies then ur basically a no-one and back at square one yeah

The bomb didn’t appear below you. You walked into a red circle. It’s fairly uniform across every mmo that red circles are not to be stood in. Would suggest that you fractal and dungeon more then once you’ve gotten the bad aoe circle mechance down you will be significantly more useful to your squad and will not need to be carried.

NikeEU.7690:

The bomb didn’t appear below you. You walked into a red circle. It’s fairly uniform across every mmo that red circles are not to be stood in. Would suggest that you fractal and dungeon more then once you’ve gotten the bad aoe circle mechance down you will be significantly more useful to your squad and will not need to be carried.

I was kidna trolling and mayb expected a response like this so thanks..

Neither I nor anyone else who read your post thought you were trolling especially considering your post history where you brag about not knowing other mechanics.

Jahroots.6791:

Pre-HoT it was much friendlier. There was instanced content for all and sundry – Fractals were fairly easy to get into until at least the 20s, and most dungeons were accessible and readily pugged while Arah and a handful of individual paths offered more challenge.

Pre-HoT there hasn’t been any challenging content at all! Arah could and can be soloed and high fractals until lvl 50 were harder than T4 now but no real challenge at all. We have been missing content like raids for years and it’s been asked for by a decent part of the community. Challenging content was reduced to speedclear things and take over someone’s records.
In addition, the fact you can low-man raid bosses and I myself have been participating in groups where we carried 1-3 inexperienced players with and without speedclear runners is clearly indicating that there is no real challenge at all if you get used to the mechanics after practicing. It also indicates that some people moaning about raids being hard have definitely suspect intentions: the loot behind it.

Jahroots.6791:

I’m also not sure what the intention was here. Maybe Anet (1) genuinely believes the player base can and should ‘git gud’, (2) thinks old instanced content and the open world is enough to satisfy less skilled and casual types or (3) messed up somewhere along the line and is struggling to produce content.

Looking at the game as a whole, I’m leaning towards (3) as the most likely.

I would rather go with (2) like maddoctor. It’s way more logical and plausible.

NikeEU.7690:

Neither I nor anyone else who read your post thought you were trolling especially considering your post history where you brag about not knowing other mechanics.

I even implied in the same post i was trolling right after i said that.. cmon man try to read btween the lines like every1 even noobs know that escort is easy, i wasn’t rly being serious wen i said that

i mean ill be honest i been a fan of ur videos where u explain about whats meta and stuff, i was even runnin the wrong build for fractals for a long time until i realized how important stuns are since they added defiance bar and stuff (i took a break for few months).

and its not that i don’t know mechanics most of the time its just that pugs frustrate me, if u ever pugged without any LI being required u would know what i mean. I was even with pug for vg with Brazil (yes everyone knows who he is) but we still wiped a couple times and he yes he stayed in grp, but he was powerless to do anything to change the outcome and i know how that feels better than most here do.

I mean yesterday i joined an exp pug for sab, despite voice chat we wiped a couple times and they scapegoated me and kicked me bc someone asked if big bombs were the problem for wipes, when i knew for a fact they were not (it was my responsibility and i took it srsly). So i don’t whine about that, that group let me try but tbh they were just awful, most of them.

So today i figured i’ll be completely dishonest about my li and joined a sab group that asked for 100+ LI. guess what we got it after 2nd try no big deal, and i got green bomb THREE times that entire fight and i threw it all successfully on 1st try despite us not using voice chat at all (I’m not even lying here). the 1st try was bc someone got kicked mid-fight for dying when they were not supposed to, so we decide to /gg and start over. The second run was flawless, no one had any problem with me. I was responsible for big bombs and grn bombs were unavoidable as well, i did my job. the entire thing took about 15min, and that’s my point like 8/10 times it doest matter whether u know the mechanics or not, its ur group and whether they are able to perform as u would expect or like them to.

I don’t like being dishonest either, don’t think that it makes me feel better abt myself either. My entire point is that i shouldn’t be forced into this and then feeling guilty over doing so, and if there was a better and more honest option that resulted in the same outcome then yeah i would not hesitate to take it

Vinceman.4572:

Pre-HoT there hasn’t been any challenging content at all! Arah could and can be soloed and high fractals until lvl 50 were harder than T4 now but no real challenge at all. We have been missing content like raids for years and it’s been asked for by a decent part of the community. Challenging content was reduced to speedclear things and take over someone’s records.

I won’t get pedantic about this, but I use the term ‘challenging’ in a highly subjective way, i.e. relative to other PvE content and average player skill. I can respect your position though.

Vinceman.4572:

In addition, the fact you can low-man raid bosses and I myself have been participating in groups where we carried 1-3 inexperienced players with and without speedclear runners is clearly indicating that there is no real challenge at all if you get used to the mechanics after practicing. It also indicates that some people moaning about raids being hard have definitely suspect intentions: the loot behind it.

Y’know, I have an issue with this. Fundamentally, I see no real difference between the vast majority of you hardcore raiders and regular guys like me and Ohoni. We all want the same thing : interesting encounters to beat and sweet, sweet loot to collect afterwards. You guys just seem to want mechanics that take a while to learn and eventually overcome so that it feels like you’ve done something amazing, while the rest of us are happy with things we can pick up on the fly.

Very, very few people actually want legitimate, consistent challenge. Every group I have run with – training guild, experienced guild, and both exp and newbie pugs – all wanted the same thing. Some were obviously more patient than others, but there was a very tacit sense of ’Let’s get this done ASAP’. I see no reason to look down on others who want to reach the same goal you do, but easier.

Ohoni.6057

Yes. I want the odds of being able to log in, check LFG, grab a pug, hop into a raid, and complete at least one boss within an hour, to be just as good as my odds were of clearing a dungeon path within 30-60 minutes during the peak of dungeon running. I want it to be a casual, convenient, and fun experience, not a series of endless frustration because someone missed a tell.

Except that’s not a realistic expectation. It goes with the territory of what ‘being hard’ entails. So I guess you are SOL … or you can change your attitude and put some effort into suffering those frustrations, like everyone else does, and be a winner that completes raids.

You do understand that Fractals, Dungeons and even open world gameplay is the training you are looking for…

I’ve done all that for the past four years, including several hours at VG and Gorseval, and still wasn’t able to beat either. Training outside the raids is not the issue. And again, I’ll repeat to you and HOPE it finally sinks in, but I learn better by doing the SPECIFIC mechanics of a fight in a lower stress situation, than I do by spending ten times as long engaging completely different content, or engaging that content in a high stress situation.

Again, an easy mode raid may not be useful to you, but I am presenting as an absolute and incontrovertible FACT that it would be highly useful to me, and I have no reason to believe that it would not be useful to many other players.

They can fight small scale and win repeatedly in dungeons and fractals until they get good enough and start beating the Raid,

http://cdn.head-fi.org/d/d4/350x232px-LL-d4837514_Point_over_your_head.jpeg

You know, I’m just tired of trying to explain this to you. It’s like trying to explain snow to someone in the Amazon, apparently. Let’s just agree that you’re wrong and move on.

And next time they won’t be the same people. Next time will be in at the very least one week. Next time will be completely different composition. You see how this training as you describe it is meaningless? “We’ll have to do it faster next time”, isn’t exactly training.

and the same would be true of any pug situation, the point of training is to build your individual skills so that you do better the next time, regardless of your group’s comp.

We have been missing content like raids for years and it’s been asked for by a decent part of the community.

And a much larger portion of the community spent that time playing the game and loving it because it lacked that sort of content. It was a haven from all those hardcore raid-centric games, and now GW2 is more of the same, just another raid-core game with the best loot tied behind an activity that most GW2 players have no interest in. That’s why we’re so upset about it.

Except that’s not a realistic expectation. It goes with the territory of what ‘being hard’ entails.

I know it’s not a realistic expectation for the current content, which is why I want more content options available that would make it a realistic expectation. It’s a realistic expectation for 99% of the content in the game, it’s the FUNDAMENTAL element of what makes this game better than any other on the market, so why not also this 1%?

I’ve done all that for the past four years, including several hours at VG and Gorseval, and still wasn’t able to beat either. Training outside the raids is not the issue.

If you are experienced with other types of content then it means that either your groups are bad, lacking the same experience as you, or your teamwork is at fault or your composition is wrong. Maybe you could tell us which part of VG you find the the most difficulty at. Everything can be solved.

Again, an easy mode raid may not be useful to you, but I am presenting as an absolute and incontrovertible FACT that it would be highly useful to me, and I have no reason to believe that it would not be useful to many other players.

Stop arguing that and stop generalizing like a broken jukebox. I even provided an EXAMPLE of how the EASY MODE AS YOU EXPECT IT WON’T BE USED FOR TRAINING. Notice the AS YOU EXPECT IT part. Notice the SPECIFIC EXAMPLE I GAVE. I’m not saying that an EASIER mode for Raids cannot be used for training. I’m saying that changing how the most important mechanic based abilities of bosses work will make it USELESS for training. And I even GAVE AN EXAMPLE about it. Want to lower the boss HP? Want to lower their attack damage? The number of adds? The damage they deal? Their hit points? Lower the enrage timer? FINE. Want to change how fundamentally a skill works then it’s not FINE. It’s not the same encounter anymore, it has zero value for any kind of training outside your let’s “play pretend make-believe”.

Because this is getting tiresome with how stubborn you are and how you generalize EVERYTHING. “Some people will find it useful”, “I will find it useful.” Stop generalizing. Here I used caps so you don’t miss it again. And seriously stop generalizing it’s a terrible way of providing an argument.

Is that understood know or do I need to paint it?

Ohoni.6057:

I know it’s not a realistic expectation for the current content, which is why I want more content options available that would make it a realistic expectation. It’s a realistic expectation for 99% of the content in the game, it’s the FUNDAMENTAL element of what makes this game better than any other on the market, so why not also this 1%?

Because that’s not the goal of this content.

You keep trying to insist that ANet design the game to accommodate everyone. They have never done that: dungeons weren’t originally accessible to the masses (I had to drag people into them), JPs still aren’t for a lot of folks, SAB only appeals to a core minority, some folks feel locked out of T4 fractals for various reasons, and adventures definitely split the population (even today, there’s a post asking for a nerf).

In this particular case, ANet decided that they wanted one thing in the game that appeals to a particular sort of hardcore gamer. And they’ve designed the content exactly for that… and nothing else. And even you admit that they succeeded.

One reason for the success, speed, and small team is that Raids are designed for the tiny fraction, not for the masses. To redesign them means giving up that advantage. It would be a huge mistake for ANet to change that now.

I’d be okay with ANet devoting more time to adding other content, but even though I am not a raider, I hope they stay the course and keep raids as elite content for those willing to commit to learning the mechanics.

Ohoni.6057:

I know it’s not a realistic expectation for the current content, which is why I want more content options available that would make it a realistic expectation. It’s a realistic expectation for 99% of the content in the game, it’s the FUNDAMENTAL element of what makes this game better than any other on the market, so why not also this 1%?

Because just like every other discussion you’ve had here, you don’t recognize this is a business and that it’s not worth their time to appeal to some insignificant amount of content or appeal to every player. That’s not their goal and as a business, it’s unrealistic to think like that. As normal, if you aren’t going to view this as a business that appeals to a segment of the market, then it’s no wonder your views on the game make little sense.

Besides … you want content that allows you to do what you said you can do for dungeons/fractals … Gee, sounds like you already have it. It’s called dungeons and fractals. let’s not beat around the bush, you could care less about what the content is; you simply want easy access to the rewards.

If you are experienced with other types of content then it means that either your groups are bad, lacking the same experience as you, or your teamwork is at fault or your composition is wrong. Maybe you could tell us which part of VG you find the the most difficulty at.

The part where people die and the group wipes. I got tired of that bit.

Stop arguing that and stop generalizing like a broken jukebox. I even provided an EXAMPLE of how the EASY MODE AS YOU EXPECT IT WON’T BE USED FOR TRAINING.

And I disagreed with your example.

Want to lower the boss HP? Want to lower their attack damage? The number of adds? The damage they deal? Their hit points? Lower the enrage timer? FINE. Want to change how fundamentally a skill works then it’s not FINE.

Again though, I’m not talking about changing how the skill works, just the impact it has. Like take Sabetha’s flame whirl, current version, she spins once in a circle, if it touches you, you die, decent chance the group wipes if you were at all important. Easier version, the flame hits you, you take significant damage, maybe go down, but it’s still recoverable. Now if you have no intention of improving your skills, maybe you could just go “yolo,” take the hit, and keep DPSing or whatever, and I’m sure speedclear strategies would develop to take full advantage of whatever new options open up. But if you intended to train for the hard mode version, then you would still want to stay ahead of the flames, still not want to get hit, move exactly like you would normally have to move, it’s just that if you screw up, you still get to continue on to the next phase, knowing that you screwed up and need to improve.

And yes, in some cases you’d need to gauge your own success. If for example a normal encounter would give you ten seconds to deal a combined 10,000 damage, and the easier version would allow you ten seconds to deal only 5,000 damage (or whatever is decided), then that would obviously be easier and a hard-ready party could probably clear it in only 5 seconds or less. Players would understand that, so they would know that if they were practicing for hard mode, and they took 7 seconds but still completed it, they would know that they need to do better still if they want to do hard mode.

But even so, it’s about practicing the skills, the timing, getting comfortable with how the boss behaves, and the boss’s reactions would be identical to hard mode.

Because that’s not the goal of this content.

But it could be.

They have never done that: dungeons weren’t originally accessible to the masses (I had to drag people into them), JPs still aren’t for a lot of folks, SAB only appeals to a core minority, some folks feel locked out of T4 fractals for various reasons, and adventures definitely split the population (even today, there’s a post asking for a nerf).

People not wanting to do certain content doesn’t mean that they can’t. And while not everyone is terribly good at JPs, the ONLY ones that are actually even difficult to complete are the two holiday ones. All the others require is a friendly Mesmer or two that is better at jumping, and these are easier to find than a raid party in most cases. Plus, most JPs there’s no compelling reason to complete them more than once unless you really enjoy them, while Raids are something where you have to farm them dozens of times if you want the primary rewards.

T4 Fractals have their issues, but the thing with Fractals is that you don’t have to play the highest tier, all the content is available at lower tiers too. Fractals already have exactly the same easy mode I’m advocating. And Adventures are mostly lame, aside from On Golden Wings and Leyline, and many should be nerfed. ANet makes mistakes, that’s only really an issue when they take too long correcting them. Saying “see, but this content is also broken” does not in any way support that raiding should remain as it is.

One reason for the success, speed, and small team is that Raids are designed for the tiny fraction, not for the masses.

Nonsense. The size of the target audience has NOTHING to do with the costs of production. I mean, if you wanted to make a Legendary sword, it wouldn’t matter whether that sword was intended as something that only the single best player in the game could earn, or whether it got mailed out to everyone, the costs of building it would be identical.

The costs of making a raid, whatever they were, is the costs of building a space the size of a small open world map, designing, animating, and balancing seven bosses and two boss-like encounters, adding in the lore elements and set dressing, designing the reward systems, etc. All of these take exactly the same amount of time whether the devs were designing it for a million players or a hundred. I’m saying they should be designing it for the million.

Because just like every other discussion you’ve had here, you don’t recognize this is a business and that it’s not worth their time to appeal to some insignificant amount of content or appeal to every player.

That would be my point about raids in general, thank you.

Besides … you want content that allows you to do what you said you can do for dungeons/fractals … Gee, sounds like you already have it. It’s called dungeons and fractals.

We’ve been over this, there are no Forsaken Thicket Fractals and none of them advance the path to Envoy armor. Dungeons/Fractals are entirely irrelevant to this discussion.

Ohoni.6057:

If you are experienced with other types of content then it means that either your groups are bad, lacking the same experience as you, or your teamwork is at fault or your composition is wrong. Maybe you could tell us which part of VG you find the the most difficulty at.

The part where people die and the group wipes. I got tired of that bit.

Ok and why do People die?

Ok and why do People die?

Because attacks do more damage than they can survive and they don’t manage to avoid them, usually. It’s hard to tell.

I ignore none of it. I read it all, take it all in, give it all due consideration, and if my response is that I still don’t agree, it’s because I genuinely do not believe that your counterarguments address the concerns that are being raised. A lot of people default into one of four positions that I just cannot accept:

This is different, so I’ll respond.

1. If you are unwilling to play how the raids currently operate, then you never deserve to complete the raids, and never deserve to have any rewards arbitrarily attached to the raids.

The issue with this stance here is that you absolutely need to apply this to every other content in the game. Every piece of content in this game has a set of rules of which dictate success or failure. PvP, WvW, PvE, Metas, Jumping Puzzles, Adventures, anything you can think of.

I already know you have had the stance of just making all the rewards everywhere, available anywhere but we’ve discussed how impractical and toxic that would be to GW2 implementing it now, and in the future. You are specifically picking on Raids as an easy target for your ire.

2. That raids are fine and anyone can do them, so long as they play exactly how I enjoy playing.

Raids are specifically mentioned and defined around teamwork and coordination. Each encounter, rather any section of a raid wing has specific requirements before considering success. Not having these requirements covered is already setting yourself and your comrades for failure.

The requirements are not just things like build or skill either, you need to have the right mentality to work with others as well. Players who brashly rush into raids, forcing their way into groups running something that is not meshing with the team composition, or worse not paying attention or listening for call-outs and just being overall uncooperative this content was never intended to appease.

3. If you’re unwilling or unable to play exactly how I wish to play, then it’s ok for you to never participate in the raids, and never receive the rewards that you may want.

This is similar to the previous point, but the kicker is that the content itself with its current requirements don’t specifically state that said person couldn’t raid. In fact the content has been proven that it can be undermanned, meaning that in a way anyone could technically run through the content.

But the biggest mandatory requirement here is that you will still need to work with others, or have others carry you in this instance. I don’t think even you can disagree with group content that makes it mandatory to have a group with you, is not so much of a request from this hypothetical ‘New guy who runs anything he wants, ignores all commands from his allies’.

4. Raids are objectively “better” content than other content, more deserving of nice rewards. People who complete raids are more deserving of nice things than people who don’t.

It has been said on numerous occasions that the quality of equipment in the raid shouldn’t be restricted to just raids. I am of the group that sincerely wants Legendary Armor available outside of raids. Raid content isn’t better than other content, but there is certainly higher requirements and teamwork you need to achieve compared to a lot of other content.

Having a proportional amount of compensation for what is likely days/weeks of effort is not unfair to the other players. You try harder, you get more, this isn’t a complicated process. “But what about SPvP and WvW? Those aren’t like fighting AI you fight players, those are harder than PvE-”

That’s an entirely different discussion that I just simply won’t get into.

Now allow me to grant you some of the positions I find I need to consistently respond to:

1) That GW2 is a casual MMO, it should never challenge the playerbase. Instead Arenanet should come up with interesting content that still retain the same easier difficulty I know since launch!

2) That because for years GW2 has been casual, it makes no sense to attempt to steadily increase the difficulty and change how players go into each area. I should never, EVER need to change any of my skills or traits around.

3) I prefer this content, it’s fairly mindless but I don’t mind, it is what I like to do and it gets me a lot of money for almost everything. But I want more, and I am not going to leave this comfort zone of content because this is just a game, and I paid just like anyone else. In fact, if I don’t get what I want I’ll leave the game, Arenanet will lose a very good customer.

Ohoni.6057:

Ok and why do People die?

Because attacks do more damage than they can survive and they don’t manage to avoid them, usually. It’s hard to tell.

1. tell the people to always stand behind vg and not infront…thats where the tank has to stay and they will never get hit (vg is basically a staffguardian who does 1111 except he does some dmg with it)

2. tell people to sidestep / dodge blue circles…you can easily predict when they come since the boss turns arround first (clear to see through the indicator on the bottom).
they detonate after 2 seconds…means u have at least 3 seconds reaction time.
have the sounds on, you can also clearly hear them when they spawn.

3. if your group is really this bad, play with 2 magi druids who also have stone spirit in. forever protection and way too much healing.
let them do the knocking of the seekers with the knockbackglyph in chain.

4. with the mirrorcomp and 2 chronos you have even more invuln, they should use it in hard situations.

5. do not stand in seekers, if one is one the green wait till the last second, get heals ready, dodge in, heal and dodge out in case you got no cc for it.
if there is blue on the green run out and dodge back in.

6. concentrate on your kitten and shift your concentration always on what comes next at your job.

7. if your group can’t learn and do this, don’t complain and play openworld. accept that you have natural resistance to learning

uninstalling is also a option.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6t2HnKiSfo

now tell me: why should gamecontent thats meant to be a bit harder dumbed down so you can do it with only pressing 1 like in the open world?
why should anet ever release other specs, classes, skills etc. if everyone wants to beat the content just with 1?
how exactly do you get “trained” in easymodes if you never get challenged…training is for overcoming hardships, but in easymodes there are none.

at the moment players which wish for easymodes in raids are just unable to overcome their own mistakes due to having horse blinders on.

you are not in raids to do record runs. play it safe. have a tank that can take a beating and knows his blocks & dodge button. if you can’t dps @vg because rotations are too hard, get a dagger dagger thief and press 11111 and sometimes 5. get 2 magi druids with stone spirit. don’t be a movement cripple. get a easy to play condi class like necros. maybe have one condi ps warrior or whatever.

dumb everything down in your own group…just don’t overlook boss mechanics and get them nailed.

boom, kill. no good time, but a kill neverless.

Ohoni.6057:

Because just like every other discussion you’ve had here, you don’t recognize this is a business and that it’s not worth their time to appeal to some insignificant amount of content or appeal to every player.

That would be my point about raids in general, thank you.

Besides … you want content that allows you to do what you said you can do for dungeons/fractals … Gee, sounds like you already have it. It’s called dungeons and fractals.

We’ve been over this, there are no Forsaken Thicket Fractals and none of them advance the path to Envoy armor. Dungeons/Fractals are entirely irrelevant to this discussion.

The difference is that your points about raids in general is irrelevant because raids exist as they are for a specific reason … whatever you are thinking of doesn’t. It’s a double standard? For sure, but it’s reality.

Dungeons and Fractals aren’t irrelevant; they are exactly the content you claim to be after, except you’re not telling us what you are really after here, which is just an easy path to raid loot in a Dungeon/Fractal-like setting and access level. That’s simply ridiculous because fundamentally (I seem to have to explain lots of these fundamentals to you), there is a correlation between difficulty and loot value. You can invent all kinds of things you can imagine could be done, but Anet isn’t going to stupidly cheapen their difficult content just to appease the likes of players that raids don’t work for so they can get equivalent loot. That’s just a clueless stance to have.

Because that’s not the goal of this content.

Ohoni.6057:

But it could be.

Of course it could be, as I said earlier. But it is not the goal of the content. I’m not sure why you aren’t willing to accept that.

They have never done that: dungeons weren’t originally accessible to the masses (I had to drag people into them),

Ohoni.6057:

People not wanting to do certain content doesn’t mean that they can’t.

I can’t imagine you played at the start of the game and thought that people did not want to do dungeons — they did. They just couldn’t do it without training and a lot of help. The same conversations about elitism and build discrimination took place. People thought dungeons were inaccessible and top players thought they didn’t have time or room in their party for newbies.

Ohoni.6057:

And while not everyone is terribly good at JPs, the ONLY ones that are actually even difficult to complete are the two holiday ones.

That isn’t an accurate portrayal of people’s skills. I guarantee you that I couldn’t do even the easiest JPs at launch; I had to learn them. And I have friends who won’t do them now — that’s an entire set of content designed for someone else.

It’s interesting that you can describe JPs as “not even difficult” and yet misunderstand that this is how experienced raiders see raids — they think it’s not that difficult, once you learn how to do it… just as you think JPs are not that difficult (again, only after you learn how it’s done).

Ohoni.6057:

T4 Fractals have their issues, but the thing with Fractals is that you don’t have to play the highest tier, all the content is available at lower tiers too.

And again, you think that everyone is able to do Tier 1 — that’s just not so.

Besides that, no, not all of the content is available at the lower tiers. Ascended armor and weapons doesn’t drop with any reliable frequency until T4. The legendary pack is only possible via T4 and various extra-challenges along the way. Obviously, it’s not as challenging as Raids, but it’s definitely not “accessible” to everyone.

Ohoni.6057:

And Adventures are mostly lame, aside from On Golden Wings and Leyline, and many should be nerfed. ANet makes mistakes, that’s only really an issue when they take too long correcting them. Saying “see, but this content is also broken” does not in any way support that raiding should remain as it is.

I’m not saying the content is broken, I’m saying it is something I am not skilled enough to do. And what possible difference does it make that you think they are lame?

My point, which you missed entirely, is that adventures are designed for a niche. Rewards are locked behind them, there’s no mesmer to help you complete them.

The game already includes niche content, but for some reason you only want to pin that label on raids.

One reason for the success, speed, and small team is that Raids are designed for the tiny fraction, not for the masses.

Ohoni.6057:

Nonsense. The size of the target audience has NOTHING to do with the costs of production.

It’s not the size of the audience, it’s the homogeneity. Targeting content towards one type of player is far, far easier than targeting towards every type of player. If you don’t see that, then you have a wildly optimistic idea of how difficult it is to design content… although that would explain a lot of your posts.

ANet has always made choices about the lowest bar and the highest bar, and despite your protestations, they have always designed content designed to appeal to niches.

The fact that you don’t like ANet’s choices doesn’t, by itself, create a reason ANet should change their game plan.

Of course, none of this matters in the least.

The real issue that you (and some others have) is that you want legendary armor and maybe the mastery unlocks… but you don’t want to do raids as they have been designed.

There’s an interesting argument about whether ANet should have locked an entire tier of armor behind raids, whether general rewards and lore should be gated by raids… but the topic of the thread is about accessibility, not about what they gate.

I am a returning player, and I actually hope to do raids myself. But accessibility is definitely a concern. For one, even Dungeons were not very accessible at all when I quit. Don’t get me wrong, I was running multiple paths every day for gold and tokens. But getting to that point was a frustrating experience. You really had to bang your head against the wall and then lie about your experience when you wanted to dive in with the Zerker groups. And to be honest, I never totally mastered dodge/defensive abilities. It just looks like a bunch of craziness all over the screen. How are you supposed
To learn anything when failure SEEMS random and unpredictable?

Guild Wars 2 changed a lot about MMOs. But the dungeons don’t offer a good, fun, satisfying way to improve gradually and comfortably. Are raids the same? I suppose
Someone may counter that you can PuG with other inexperienced players to learn. But that method sucks, and it has always sucked. This is a problem games like Vanilla WoW did not have to anything like the same degree. you only hit a brick wall there when you reached content that required you show up for the raid on time and devote 7-8 hours. That is also a huge accessibility issue- scheduling. If we are even using that word, then accessibility is worth talking about. I think the issue arises from the meta the game mechanics encourage and they have just never found a way around it.