Guild Wars 2

Anet, I’m not sure if you have been paying attention to the LFG, but as it stands getting into a raid group is virtually impossible from the LFG panel for newer players, or players who had not done any of the raids from Day 1 of HoT. They are just stuck in a Catch 22 and SOLed.

I sincerely suggest coming up with a way to fix this before the new raid content is released. Mostly by offering a bonus incentive or buff for allowing new raiders into the group.

First of all, I did Escort yesterday on my 2nd account with around 1,5k AP and nothing else. No title, no LI, no kp and I didn’t mention anything about my experience. We did it the first try with nobody dying. And to state a fact: There were several similar LFGs like that – for different bosses.
So, from this point you’re horribly wrong.

Keep in mind that raids are NOT meant to be pugged via LFG. It is possible, yes, which shows that raids are not as hard as they were expected to be but they were meant for organized groups.
The most helpful advice is to join a raid training guild or something comparable to this. You find them via “Looking for” in the forums or reddit. There’s also a lot of guild promotions in chat ingame – everywhere and every day.

Also, since you know about the Samarog part with thief skipping it you are not as unexperienced or new as you want us make believe. It seems that you have at least some LIs + KPs so you should be able to join groups here and there to gather more and more experience. Or you could just open your own group, your experience should be enough to lead some bosses – you don’t have to be a supreme commander for the easier ones!
Another hint: write less – play more. Although I like people debating over the game in the forums you have a high amount of long posts over the last days. It could help to spend more time actually playing the game than writing about it.

- Build up/ join a raiding guild designed for newer players to learn raid content
- be willing to learn and adapt
- be willing to spend gold on meta builds
- get disocrd
- practice on specific days with your guild

- ALTERNATIVE: join training group in LFG, no LI requirements and you can learn mechanics

- if you fail mechanics, analyze the situation and try to improve
- change your keybinding to more comfortable ones (special action key and dodge ability should be on keys that only need 1 button press to activate tbh)

example: dodge on one of the mouse-sidekeys

Leo Schrodingers Cat.2497:

I sincerely suggest coming up with a way to fix this before the new raid content is released. Mostly by offering a bonus incentive or buff for allowing new raiders into the group.

Join a training run, a training guild, or go with your own guild/friends. The LFG is doing its job well, it’s there to let players find the players THEY want to play with to do content THEY want to do, in a the way that THEY want to. Other players are not your tutorial, your teachers nor your friends.

It is certainly possible for a developer to implement a blind match for LFG. Rift did it for dungeons. The only criteria was whether the player’s gear score met criteria that the devs put into the workings of their LFG system. Rift also selected for tank, healer and DPS roles.

ANet’s way allows players to customize their playing experience as the mad doctor says. Also, GW2 lends itself less to criteria like gear score than a more static game like Rift. I suppose ANet could use full exotic stats as a filter, but that would not allow players to select for desirable builds like the more open system does.

The ANet LFG system places more responsibility for their own experience into the hands of players looking to join groups. They might need to do something other than attempt to join a group that happens to be forming when they want to play. That some players cannot always just log in, LFG and join may be inconvenient and frustrating. However, the assumption seems to be that that is exactly what players should be able to do.

Placing the shoe on the other foot, other players would no doubt find it frustrating to be unable to customize their own experience by selecting who they want to play with.
No system is without flaws. The question is whether ANet could come up with a way for players to group which would both accommodate those who feel entitled to get into groups on demand and those who want to be selective about who they play with.

Raids have needed difficulty modes since before their release so that the hardcore players will be have their challenging content, casual players will be able to see/complete content and both could pursue rewards from it. There’s PvP ranks/mmr for a reason right? You don’t start your first fractal at 100 yea? Raids missed out on that and it shows by the toxicity players face.

This mentality has been going on since Teq Rising. While I’d agree the LFG system in its current state is not overly intuitive, when you pidgeonhole content you put out to a very small portion of your player base the game suffers. Content should reach out and pull people in, not alienate them.

Squee Squashington.5189:

Raids have needed difficulty modes since before their release so that the hardcore players will be have their challenging content, casual players will be able to see/complete content and both could pursue rewards from it.

The entire point of raids is that they are intended to be hardcore content. A big reason why the raid team is so efficiency and producing them with high quality is that they only have to design for those interested in that challenge.

If I’m not ready for that, there’s the entire rest of the game for me to play.

So no, raids don’t need difficulty modes; there are players who want them, which is not the same thing.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

The entire point of raids is that they are intended to be hardcore content. A big reason why the raid team is so efficiency and producing them with high quality is that they only have to design for those interested in that challenge.

If I’m not ready for that, there’s the entire rest of the game for me to play.

So no, raids don’t need difficulty modes; there are players who want them, which is not the same thing.

If we took that logic and said “PoF is going to be a hardcore expansion, intended for the best of the best. If the casuals don’t like it don’t worry there’s tons of other content already in game for them to play!”

Now your expansion fails, people start leaving save the ~5% of “the elite”, profits go down and there’s less resources for you to support new content.

Alarmist? Maybe, but that’s where that train of thought leads. Should someone buy PoF knowing that the raids will be catered to only hardcore players, or will they go to a different MMO where they might be able to raid without as much frustration?

Regardless of whatever opinion you might have, it’s good design and good business to make your content appealing to all members of your player base.

Squee Squashington.5189:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

The entire point of raids is that they are intended to be hardcore content. A big reason why the raid team is so efficiency and producing them with high quality is that they only have to design for those interested in that challenge.

If I’m not ready for that, there’s the entire rest of the game for me to play.

So no, raids don’t need difficulty modes; there are players who want them, which is not the same thing.

If we took that logic and said “PoF is going to be a hardcore expansion, intended for the best of the best. If the casuals don’t like it don’t worry there’s tons of other content already in game for them to play!”

Now your expansion fails, people start leaving save the ~5% of “the elite”, profits go down and there’s less resources for you to support new content.

Alarmist? Maybe, but that’s where that train of thought leads. Should someone buy PoF knowing that the raids will be catered to only hardcore players, or will they go to a different MMO where they might be able to raid without as much frustration?

Regardless of whatever opinion you might have, it’s good design and good business to make your content appealing to all members of your player base.

It’s better design and better business to ensure that some content is very appealing to some people, that some content appeals somewhat to everyone, and that everyone likely to buy the game can find something appealing. One size doesn’t fit all; it’s really not possible to design a game to appeal equally in all ways to all people, especially with a player base that’s as diverse as this one.

And of course, no one one would consider extending the logic to apply to an entire expansion. The raid team is tiny compared to the rest of the dev teams; the existence of raids that I might not enjoy isn’t preventing me from finding content I like a lot.

There’s a difference between creating content that may or may not be enjoyable for part of your player base and creating content that deters and alienates part of your player base.

Squee Squashington.5189:

There’s a difference between creating content that may or may not be enjoyable for part of your player base and creating content that deters and alienates part of your player base.

What part of the content deters and alienates part of the player base?

Is it the difficulty of the content, the difficulty of getting into a group (as suggested by the OP), or something else entirely?

maddoctor.2738:

Leo Schrodingers Cat.2497:

I sincerely suggest coming up with a way to fix this before the new raid content is released. Mostly by offering a bonus incentive or buff for allowing new raiders into the group.

Join a training run, a training guild, or go with your own guild/friends. The LFG is doing its job well, it’s there to let players find the players THEY want to play with to do content THEY want to do, in a the way that THEY want to. Other players are not your tutorial, your teachers nor your friends.

Other players are your tutorial, your teachers and your friends if they want to be.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Squee Squashington.5189:

Raids have needed difficulty modes since before their release so that the hardcore players will be have their challenging content, casual players will be able to see/complete content and both could pursue rewards from it.

The entire point of raids is that they are intended to be hardcore content. A big reason why the raid team is so efficiency and producing them with high quality is that they only have to design for those interested in that challenge.

If I’m not ready for that, there’s the entire rest of the game for me to play.

So no, raids don’t need difficulty modes; there are players who want them, which is not the same thing.

I would say that raid easy mode (for story experience mostly) is as much needed as putting in living world season 1, which probably has more reason to be put in because it encompasses more story obviously. Speaking about the amount of necessity, btw. Ignoring the whole currently unavailable vs, available but not playable for everyone part of it, of course.

Squee Squashington.5189:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

The entire point of raids is that they are intended to be hardcore content. A big reason why the raid team is so efficiency and producing them with high quality is that they only have to design for those interested in that challenge.

If I’m not ready for that, there’s the entire rest of the game for me to play.

So no, raids don’t need difficulty modes; there are players who want them, which is not the same thing.

If we took that logic and said “PoF is going to be a hardcore expansion, intended for the best of the best. If the casuals don’t like it don’t worry there’s tons of other content already in game for them to play!”

Now your expansion fails, people start leaving save the ~5% of “the elite”, profits go down and there’s less resources for you to support new content.

Alarmist? Maybe, but that’s where that train of thought leads. Should someone buy PoF knowing that the raids will be catered to only hardcore players, or will they go to a different MMO where they might be able to raid without as much frustration?

Regardless of whatever opinion you might have, it’s good design and good business to make your content appealing to all members of your player base.

With your suggested business model, all content would need difficulty modes, not just raids. WvW would need to be revamped. Raids would need tiers. Open world PvE would need difficulty tiers.

Regardless of what you might believe, it’s not good business for a developer to bite off more than it can chew. Nor is it good business for a developer to decide that while all players are equal, some players (in the model you propose, those who favor easier tiers) are more equal than others. The above is why developers generally try to put enough of something into their games to interest diverse groups.

How does WoW get away with it? Well, raiding is the endgame in WoW. They only introduce new open world PvE or new PvP maps with expansions. ANet cannot do that, or they lose a lot of market share as seen during 2016’s content drought.

So why doesn’t ANet emulate Blizzard and make their endgame totally about raids? There are a lot of players who came to GW2 because they didn’t want to raid. Removing Living Story updates in favor of tiered raids could (probably would) cost ANet their patronage. I believe that group is a lot larger than the group that wants to raid but feels barred from the mode because they don’t want to be a leader.

IndigoSundown.5419:

So why doesn’t ANet emulate Blizzard and make their endgame totally about raids? There are a lot of players who came to GW2 because they didn’t want to raid. Removing Living Story updates in favor of tiered raids could (probably would) cost ANet their patronage. I believe that group is a lot larger than the group that wants to raid but feels barred from the mode because they don’t want to be a leader.

I think that people just want the experience of the raid and being able to understand some of the new enemies if not just seeing them. It’s not so much about “doing raids” as much as it is about experiencing their content to a degree they can handle. I would say it would only make sense as an extension of the living world episode maps, and making the raid instances into more open world raids. Which ofcourse, also takes alot of resources to create.

I find it very comparable where people do infantile mode of SAB where I’m thinking, my god are you that handicapped that you can’t do a few jumps. But it is there so people can sightsee the stuff that is in there. Including the bosses. I mean an empty raid instance is like an empty zoo. Or pictures of footprints of some of the encounters. It doesn’t do it justice.

FrizzFreston.5290:

IndigoSundown.5419:

So why doesn’t ANet emulate Blizzard and make their endgame totally about raids? There are a lot of players who came to GW2 because they didn’t want to raid. Removing Living Story updates in favor of tiered raids could (probably would) cost ANet their patronage. I believe that group is a lot larger than the group that wants to raid but feels barred from the mode because they don’t want to be a leader.

I think that people just want the experience of the raid and being able to understand some of the new enemies if not just seeing them. It’s not so much about “doing raids” as much as it is about experiencing their content to a degree they can handle. I would say it would only make sense as an extension of the living world episode maps, and making the raid instances into more open world raids. Which ofcourse, also takes alot of resources to create.

I find it very comparable where people do infantile mode of SAB where I’m thinking, my god are you that handicapped that you can’t do a few jumps. But it is there so people can sightsee the stuff that is in there. Including the bosses. I mean an empty raid instance is like an empty zoo. Or pictures of footprints of some of the encounters. It doesn’t do it justice.

And there lies the issue. Raids are NOT a sight seeing venture. And until these players realize that, they will never be satisfied. Or more accurate, they would never be satisfied then. Because they will still complain about the harder modes being too hard.

Some complaints should simply be ignored. I don’t see anyone but the same cry babies asking for this. The rest of the player base is actually out there raiding.

FrizzFreston.5290:

Other players are your tutorial, your teachers and your friends if they want to be.

The key word is IF, you can’t force them to be.

FrostDraco.8306:

FrizzFreston.5290:

IndigoSundown.5419:

So why doesn’t ANet emulate Blizzard and make their endgame totally about raids? There are a lot of players who came to GW2 because they didn’t want to raid. Removing Living Story updates in favor of tiered raids could (probably would) cost ANet their patronage. I believe that group is a lot larger than the group that wants to raid but feels barred from the mode because they don’t want to be a leader.

I think that people just want the experience of the raid and being able to understand some of the new enemies if not just seeing them. It’s not so much about “doing raids” as much as it is about experiencing their content to a degree they can handle. I would say it would only make sense as an extension of the living world episode maps, and making the raid instances into more open world raids. Which ofcourse, also takes alot of resources to create.

I find it very comparable where people do infantile mode of SAB where I’m thinking, my god are you that handicapped that you can’t do a few jumps. But it is there so people can sightsee the stuff that is in there. Including the bosses. I mean an empty raid instance is like an empty zoo. Or pictures of footprints of some of the encounters. It doesn’t do it justice.

And there lies the issue. Raids are NOT a sight seeing venture. And until these players realize that, they will never be satisfied. Or more accurate, they would never be satisfied then. Because they will still complain about the harder modes being too hard.

Some complaints should simply be ignored. I don’t see anyone but the same cry babies asking for this. The rest of the player base is actually out there raiding.

Well, thats the point exactly, Some players want that and dont want to raid. So yes raids are about the challenge and some people do not want to raid but do want to see it.

Will players complain even then? Guaranteed. People will complain about everything regardless.

maddoctor.2738:

FrizzFreston.5290:

Other players are your tutorial, your teachers and your friends if they want to be.

The key word is IF, you can’t force them to be.

Obviously.

Leo Schrodingers Cat.2497:

Mostly by offering a bonus incentive or buff for allowing new raiders into the group.

Here we go again. All though, I have to admit that this is the first time I that I remember seeing a proposal which might please both sides of the argument. Coming from someone asking for an easier way to get into raids or for an easy mode to be implemented no less. Of course, it still has to be stated like a demand.

Anything along the lines of allowing those who already cleared the instance to gain some extra kills if they bring multiple newbies along would be nice. Basically, giving us a reason to do reruns other than just being nice to people.
I fully aware of how people might “abuse” such a system by running multiple new accounts or anything similar to that. Still, could be worth it. Those guys already clear the raids multiple times on multiple accounts in any case. It might still help some of those new raiders who refuse to use any tools provided and constantly mentioned by us.

FrizzFreston.5290:

maddoctor.2738:

FrizzFreston.5290:

Other players are your tutorial, your teachers and your friends if they want to be.

The key word is IF, you can’t force them to be.

Obviously.

If it is so obvious then what’s the point of complaining that new players can’t find raid groups? It’s every player’s personal choice who to take in their runs and it’s perfectly understandable to take only players with experience. Therefore arguments like this don’t have a purpose.

Henry.5713:

Anything along the lines of allowing those who already cleared the instance to gain some extra kills if they bring multiple newbies along would be nice.

How do you define a “newbie”?

maddoctor.2738:

FrizzFreston.5290:

maddoctor.2738:

FrizzFreston.5290:

Other players are your tutorial, your teachers and your friends if they want to be.

The key word is IF, you can’t force them to be.

Obviously.

If it is so obvious then what’s the point of complaining that new players can’t find raid groups? It’s every player’s personal choice who to take in their runs and it’s perfectly understandable to take only players with experience. Therefore arguments like this don’t have a purpose.

Henry.5713:

Anything along the lines of allowing those who already cleared the instance to gain some extra kills if they bring multiple newbies along would be nice.

How do you define a “newbie”?

Someone new to the raids would be my definition of a newbie. Should have said “raid newbie” to make it clear, I suppose. Anyone missing a certain amount of boss kills.

maddoctor.2738:

FrizzFreston.5290:

maddoctor.2738:

FrizzFreston.5290:

Other players are your tutorial, your teachers and your friends if they want to be.

The key word is IF, you can’t force them to be.

Obviously.

If it is so obvious then what’s the point of complaining that new players can’t find raid groups? It’s every player’s personal choice who to take in their runs and it’s perfectly understandable to take only players with experience. Therefore arguments like this don’t have a purpose.

I just said obviously because I was in agreement. It just felt lacking in the last sentence of your original message. It sounded like no one will be your tutorial no one will teach you and no one will be your friend. Which sounded a bit discouraging to me. That was really all.

Actually Anet has already implemented a neat little trick to fix this problem.

If you, like so many forum warriors, are having trouble weaseling your way into a group… Unable to battle through that barbarous LFG and it’s horde of toxic elitists with their hot, foamy hatred that jets forth from their meanspirited keystrokes? Then just follow Anet’s neat little guide.

Step 1, Click the Party Menu button at the top of your screen (Or use default hotkey ‘P,’ less APM = pro)
Step 2, Click create Squad.
Step 3, Click Make Squad 10 man (raid).
Step 4, List your group in LFG.

Now you too can raid, even if you weren’t an original HoT Beta Tester…!

Leo Schrodingers Cat.2497:

Mostly by offering a bonus incentive or buff for allowing new raiders into the group.

I see what you want to achieve, but this is the wrong way. I don’t want to get carried through a raid. This is humiliating and not fun.

I want to enable myself or be enabled by the game to be the equal of my party members. Neither is possible at this time.
Enabling myself means research and study of guides and videos, which is not fun, because it is not playing Guild Wars 2. Find training groups and practicing with them is also not fun, because it mostly consists of waiting for the group filling up and see the loading screen after a futile attempt. This has zero entertainment value.
Being enabled by the game is completely nonexistant.

Silmar Alech.4305:

Leo Schrodingers Cat.2497:

Mostly by offering a bonus incentive or buff for allowing new raiders into the group.

I see what you want to achieve, but this is the wrong way. I don’t want to get carried through a raid. This is humiliating and not fun.

I want to enable myself or be enabled by the game to be the equal of my party members. Neither is possible at this time.
Enabling myself means research and study of guides and videos, which is not fun, because it is not playing Guild Wars 2. Find training groups and practicing with them is also not fun, because it mostly consists of waiting for the group filling up and see the loading screen after a futile attempt. This has zero entertainment value.
Being enabled by the game is completely nonexistant.

So you, as a new raider, want to be able to complete raids but you don’t want to get carried by veterans because you want to play in groups that are equal to your level, but you don’t want to research info on the boss or play in groups with other new raiders. Euhm? How can this ever work?

You’re asking to play with players of your quality without wanting to do the work that comes with raiding at your quality. You want to play in killruns, but not get carried or do research on the boss. Yeah….. this isn’t possible.

You’re asking to win the Champions League because you don’t want to lose, not with Real Madrid, but whilst playing with other amateur players, without doing any training in Football.

Silmar Alech.4305:

I see what you want to achieve, but this is the wrong way. I don’t want to get carried through a raid. This is humiliating and not fun.

I want to enable myself or be enabled by the game to be the equal of my party members. Neither is possible at this time.
Enabling myself means research and study of guides and videos, which is not fun, because it is not playing Guild Wars 2. Find training groups and practicing with them is also not fun, because it mostly consists of waiting for the group filling up and see the loading screen after a futile attempt. This has zero entertainment value.
Being enabled by the game is completely nonexistant.

There’s tons of single player games out there where you don’t have to worry about the humiliation of playing with other people…

Silmar Alech.4305:

Leo Schrodingers Cat.2497:

Mostly by offering a bonus incentive or buff for allowing new raiders into the group.

I see what you want to achieve, but this is the wrong way. I don’t want to get carried through a raid. This is humiliating and not fun.

I want to enable myself or be enabled by the game to be the equal of my party members. Neither is possible at this time.
Enabling myself means research and study of guides and videos, which is not fun, because it is not playing Guild Wars 2. Find training groups and practicing with them is also not fun, because it mostly consists of waiting for the group filling up and see the loading screen after a futile attempt. This has zero entertainment value.
Being enabled by the game is completely nonexistant.

So basically you want zero effort gameplay. Gotcha.

Silmar Alech.4305:

Leo Schrodingers Cat.2497:

Mostly by offering a bonus incentive or buff for allowing new raiders into the group.

I see what you want to achieve, but this is the wrong way. I don’t want to get carried through a raid. This is humiliating and not fun.

I want to enable myself or be enabled by the game to be the equal of my party members. Neither is possible at this time.
Enabling myself means research and study of guides and videos, which is not fun, because it is not playing Guild Wars 2. Find training groups and practicing with them is also not fun, because it mostly consists of waiting for the group filling up and see the loading screen after a futile attempt. This has zero entertainment value.
Being enabled by the game is completely nonexistant.

You want to be equal to the task of raiding by simply playing the game and without the need to study anything outside of the game but you also refuse to play the game if that would require you to practice anything in the game.
So are you asking for raids to be made so easy that you can do them first try without any effort by anyone in the group?

People are free to have their own opinions but this sounds the most boring of all of the options to me.

With this kind of attitude against prospective raid players, you will not get any.

It’s the raid mechanics that is at fault here. With the current mechanics, there is no enabling possible that happens within the game and provides fun. I acknowledge that for some players it is fun to fail one or two dozen times before finally killing a boss one time, failing again the next dozen tries. And repeat that for every raid boss. The players that have fun with that are probably already into the raids and tell everyone “l2p”.

But I am not one of these players who see fun in failed attempts. I want to succeed something, not fail something. Because of that, I stopped trying to get into raids. I succeeded with vg, gorse and escort so far, resulting in 46 LI, so don’t say I didn’t try. I didn’t complain at length, I simply took action and stopped it weeks ago.

You also fail to see that for the current state of the raids, you must have 10 players for trainings, and that you must spend about half of your time waiting for the group to fill or get ready. For every 10 minutes of boss fight, you wait 10 minutes for the group to fill and get ready. Not counting the time required being part of organized training runs with a fixed team. This is not efficient use of my precious play time. It’s a waste of my free time.

Silmar Alech.4305:

With this kind of attitude against prospective raid players, you will not get any.

It’s the raid mechanics that is at fault here. With the current mechanics, there is no enabling possible that happens within the game and provides fun. I acknowledge that for some players it is fun to fail one or two dozen times before finally killing a boss one time, failing again the next dozen tries. And repeat that for every raid boss. The players that have fun with that are probably already into the raids and tell everyone “l2p”.

But I am not one of these players who see fun in failed attempts. I want to succeed something, not fail something. Because of that, I stopped trying to get into raids. I succeeded with vg, gorse and escort so far, resulting in 46 LI, so don’t say I didn’t try. I didn’t complain at length, I simply took action and stopped it weeks ago.

You also fail to see that for the current state of the raids, you must have 10 players for trainings, and that you must spend about half of your time waiting for the group to fill or get ready. For every 10 minutes of boss fight, you wait 10 minutes for the group to fill and get ready. Not counting the time required being part of organized training runs with a fixed team. This is not efficient use of my precious play time. It’s a waste of my free time.

You are playing the wrong game if you are looking for an automated LFR tool that will give you full teams instantly and encounters so easy that first timers can clear them without ever needing to communicate or be part of the raiding community. Those who want to do group content without having to do group content.

Such a system is not needed in this game. The game does not require you to clear raids as the only or even best way to gear up. Far from it. They are simply a small addition to a huge and content heavy game.
Raids require some effort on your part. They were designed for those who give a kitten about challenging group content and playing as a team. Those who have been asking challenging group content for a long time.

And besides, neither ArenaNet looking for player interest nor the community looking for potential new blood seem to have any trouble with it.

Silmar Alech.4305:

With this kind of attitude against prospective raid players, you will not get any.

It’s the raid mechanics that is at fault here. With the current mechanics, there is no enabling possible that happens within the game and provides fun. I acknowledge that for some players it is fun to fail one or two dozen times before finally killing a boss one time, failing again the next dozen tries. And repeat that for every raid boss. The players that have fun with that are probably already into the raids and tell everyone “l2p”.

But I am not one of these players who see fun in failed attempts. I want to succeed something, not fail something. Because of that, I stopped trying to get into raids. I succeeded with vg, gorse and escort so far, resulting in 46 LI, so don’t say I didn’t try. I didn’t complain at length, I simply took action and stopped it weeks ago.

You also fail to see that for the current state of the raids, you must have 10 players for trainings, and that you must spend about half of your time waiting for the group to fill or get ready. For every 10 minutes of boss fight, you wait 10 minutes for the group to fill and get ready. Not counting the time required being part of organized training runs with a fixed team. This is not efficient use of my precious play time. It’s a waste of my free time.

I don’t think anyone—including yourself—understands what you want from these posts. They’re confusing and contradictory, rivaling the levels of even the most basement dwelling of 4chan trolls…

You want enabling mechanics? So that you don’t have to read a guide to do a boss fight? Ummm, they have them… Big orange circle = don’t stand in it, cut and print. Big green circle, go stand there or die. Huge red arrows pointing at a leyline = go glide there. That’s literally 99% of it in every fight. You want competent groups, but don’t want to wait to find the right people? An insta-fill raid finder like other games have would find you even LESS competent people. You don’t want to have to deal with unknown people leaving your group after a failed attempt? But then you say it isn’t worth your time to find fixed-people to play with and spend that downtime getting to know them so you can keep playing with them.

So to summarize what I THINK you are trying to say across these posts is… The big orange/green raid indicators aren’t intuitive enough for you to know what to do in a fight. Despite that, you don’t want to seek additional help to understand what to do in said fight. You don’t want to raid with good players cuz it makes you realize how bad you are, but you don’t want to raid with other bad people either because you don’t like to fail. And finally, you don’t want to take the time to find groups and interact with other people because it’s a waste of your free time.

Yeah man, I don’t want to really turn people off of the raid scene, but maybe it’s just not for you.

It’s actually very hard to get into a GW2 raid compared to WoW/FF, which have over 100 listings at any given time. GW2 has like 3-4.

And the kicker is, those 2 games have much harder raids yet are pugged much more frequently.

Substatic.6958:

It’s actually very hard to get into a GW2 raid compared to WoW/FF, which have over 100 listings at any given time. GW2 has like 3-4.

And the kicker is, those 2 games have much harder raids yet are pugged much more frequently.

You know that raiding is the endgame content and the main focus in WoW, right? GW2 is a totally different game with raids as a niche/side content. So, it’s more than obvious that you have many raiders in WoW while the majority of GW2 players are not raid focused.

Substatic.6958:

It’s actually very hard to get into a GW2 raid compared to WoW/FF, which have over 100 listings at any given time. GW2 has like 3-4.

I see 24 listings at the time of this post and it’s not even prime time.
I wonder how many of those WoW F listings are for the actual Raids and how many for the joke LFR, if you got some actual numbers it would help. I also wonder which game has more players playing in total, WoW or GW2. I mean if a game of 10 million players has 100 listings and GW2 has 24 listings, then for them to be in any way “equal” GW2 must have at least 2.4 mil active players. Does GW2 have 2.4 mil players?
So your entire post has no value.

Substatic.6958:

It’s actually very hard to get into a GW2 raid compared to WoW/FF, which have over 100 listings at any given time. GW2 has like 3-4.

And the kicker is, those 2 games have much harder raids yet are pugged much more frequently.

I haven’t played wow since the Panda expansion so I can’t speak to the new ones, but seriously? I only remember WoW raids as being artificially hard behind a gear wall. Once you have the proper item level gear for a given raid you can practically face roll through it, spamming your highest damage ability and making sure you don’t like, stand in a big obvious fire field. Even “hard” things like 3-drakes revolved around meeting DPS checks, which once again was mostly gear dependent.

I thought the idea of raids were to add more end game content for the community, can you show me a post saying that anet said the content was only for hardcore players ?

Its complete codswalop they may of said the content was difficult but never its only for the hardcore or the elitist’s, and the fact that people still try to pedal this crap is beyond a joke now.

The only reason a small minority of hardcore elitists want to keep it this way on lfg is because they only want to sell raids to the casual players so they never have to use real money to by gems from the bltc for more shinies that they are not will to get by supporting anet with real money. END OF!!

Also the lfg is not the same on EU as NA so people saying lfg has groups not looking for LI/KP is few and far between, and having to waste hours on lfg with no joy is not how end game content should be NEW or VET players.

As a person that primarly solo’s and is not interested in guild’s this shutdown any further raid content for not just me but alot of others and even people that have guilds. From my experience with guilds they only run a closed raid group that has been raiding since day 1 and are not willing to let others run with experience or not!

The same forces drive those who establish requirements and those seeking to get into random groups at will. The primary force is limited play time. Another force is desire for success.

The problem is that the players who know the content inside out know that accepting the inexperienced means the group is more likely to fail, which would mean an unsuccessful run and thus a waste of cherished play time. Meanwhile the inexperienced player knows that if he tries to set up his own group with other inexperienced players they’re going to face the same learning curve that the experienced had to go through to get to be experienced. That is also likely to lead to failure. The difference, though, is that it would not lead to a waste of play time unless the inexperienced player does not learn from failure the way the experienced players had to.

That leads to the third driving force: impatience. The inexperienced are impatient to get on with it, they want to get in groups fast, not after an hour or more of waiting for other inexperienced players to join them. The experienced are also impatient, and thus less tolerant of the inexperienced who could waste their time.

The issue with LFG’s and exclusion is solvable only by random grouping, with some form of disincentive for kicking people after the group has formed. That approach would be developer regulation of LFG’s. What we have now is player regulation of LFG’s. Give players freedom to tailor their group experience, they’ll use it. Deny them that freedom, and you’d likely see more experienced players leave the LFG in favor of guild or friend’s list groups. The extreme outcome would result in mostly inexperienced players in the random assignment LFG. Then we’d see the “Content too hard.” posts.

IndigoSundown.5419:

The issue with LFG’s and exclusion is solvable only by random grouping, with some form of disincentive for kicking people after the group has formed. That approach would be developer regulation of LFG’s. What we have now is player regulation of LFG’s. Give players freedom to tailor their group experience, they’ll use it. Deny them that freedom, and you’d likely see more experienced players leave the LFG in favor of guild or friend’s list groups. The extreme outcome would result in mostly inexperienced players in the random assignment LFG. Then we’d see the “Content too hard.” posts.

I’m curious. How would random grouping work on Vale Guardian?
For the trash mobs before you even engage the boss itself, you need 2 to 3 condition damage dealers and someone with good boon strip capabilities. Then for the boss itself you need those but someone with more toughness than anyone else as well. How is this random grouping going to take care of these issues?

Random grouping works in a game with distinct roles were you make content for 1 tank, 2 healers and 7 dps and each player selects which one of the above they are and join a random group. In GW2 we do not have that easy distinction and most raid bosses require way more than that.

A hand kiter at Deimos, an orb pusher at KC, a flame kiter at Sabetha, the mushroom eaters at Slothasor, there is an huge amount of special roles used in Raids that no random tool can take care of all of them.

maddoctor.2738:

IndigoSundown.5419:

The issue with LFG’s and exclusion is solvable only by random grouping, with some form of disincentive for kicking people after the group has formed. That approach would be developer regulation of LFG’s. What we have now is player regulation of LFG’s. Give players freedom to tailor their group experience, they’ll use it. Deny them that freedom, and you’d likely see more experienced players leave the LFG in favor of guild or friend’s list groups. The extreme outcome would result in mostly inexperienced players in the random assignment LFG. Then we’d see the “Content too hard.” posts.

I’m curious. How would random grouping work on Vale Guardian?
For the trash mobs before you even engage the boss itself, you need 2 to 3 condition damage dealers and someone with good boon strip capabilities. Then for the boss itself you need those but someone with more toughness than anyone else as well. How is this random grouping going to take care of these issues?

Rift did it by looking at gear numbers. For VG, the algorithm would have to examine and select one player with high toughness, and at least two with a high condition damage stat.

Random grouping works in a game with distinct roles were you make content for 1 tank, 2 healers and 7 dps and each player selects which one of the above they are and join a random group. In GW2 we do not have that easy distinction and most raid bosses require way more than that.

A hand kiter at Deimos, an orb pusher at KC, a flame kiter at Sabetha, the mushroom eaters at Slothasor, there is an huge amount of special roles used in Raids that no random tool can take care of all of them.

That’s a good point. If those roles (or tasks) that are needed for a successful strategy are stat-based, ANet could select for the stat. If they are character-skill-based (as opposed to player-skill-based), they could select for the profession(s) that have the requisite skills. The questions at that point would be, “Are those roles/tasks that would be hard (if not impossible) to design selection criteria for required for completion? Or, is there another way to complete the encounter that is?” If the answers are, “Yes.” then, “No.” a random grouper could not work and the encounter mechanics would have to change to something that is.

Anyway, this is hypothetical and I am not advocating random forced grouping. I just think it’s the only way to force players to play with anyone who happens to come along.

skillze.7689:

I thought the idea of raids were to add more end game content for the community, can you show me a post saying that anet said the content was only for hardcore players ?

Its complete codswalop they may of said the content was difficult but never its only for the hardcore or the elitist’s, and the fact that people still try to pedal this crap is beyond a joke now.

“Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns™, introduces the ultimate challenge: our first raid, which is made up of three distinct raid wings. Raids are 10-player, instanced, elite dungeon content that’s a challenge unlike anything we’ve previously released in Guild Wars 2. These raids are meant to put you and your teammates to the test and challenge you to grow your skills as Guild Wars 2 players. Raids are our answer to what skilled PvE players have to look forward to at endgame—the ultimate test to overcome and defeat.”

It’s up to you, how you want to interpret this statement.

The only reason a small minority of hardcore elitists want to keep it this way on lfg is because they only want to sell raids to the casual players so they never have to use real money to by gems from the bltc for more shinies that they are not will to get by supporting anet with real money. END OF!!

Yes, you are right. The hardcore guilds are also activly sabotaging pug lfg runs to make those fail. All the build and raid guides are also fake. Actually, those are all bad builds to make pugs never improve and to keep the gold from sells flowing.

Also the lfg is not the same on EU as NA so people saying lfg has groups not looking for LI/KP is few and far between, and having to waste hours on lfg with no joy is not how end game content should be NEW or VET players.

Raids weren’t designed to be pug content, so just find a guild/friends and learn raids by progressing together, especially if you are new.

As a person that primarly solo’s and is not interested in guild’s this shutdown any further raid content for not just me but alot of others and even people that have guilds. From my experience with guilds they only run a closed raid group that has been raiding since day 1 and are not willing to let others run with experience or not!

Oh well here we go. Even though you try to make this to a global ingame problem, it seems to be more of a personal issue. Believe it or not, but group play and guilds are the reason why most people play an MMO in the first place, especially when it comes to raids. You should try rpg’s instead.
There are plenty of raid learning /casual guilds that accept everyone who is atleast willing to make an effort and actually tries to improve. To quote Anet again: “Expecting to be able to just watch the UI to beat a boss? Guess again!”

arenanet logic: inspect is the evil , but the toxicity they made up with raid, no easy or story mode, and stuff is ok… DAT LOGIC.

btw , usually on reddit there are some ppl that organiza some training weekly run, you should check there and try to talk with any of those guys….

Eldar.5146:

Yes, you are right. The hardcore guilds are also activly sabotaging pug lfg runs to make those fail. All the build and raid guides are also fake. Actually, those are all bad builds to make pugs never improve and to keep the gold from sells flowing.

I know you’re being funny here, but there IS a top selling guild on NA who’s leader encourages all his members, if they’re pugging, to /gg on a winning Sabetha run at 1% to not give out “free Eternals.”

many of you here think that the problem is that raids are hard.
this is not the case, raids are not too hard anyway. the problem is that if u haven’t finished the raids allready u can’t get a group and get in unless u invest in a guild and meet up to their meetings ate tuesday at 22pm which is very uncomfortable.
i don’t want to make this game a paid job i just want to pass through the raid, have some fun do it once and never look back like every other game. yah this is an issue for new guys. i bet everyone remember the time they first tried to get into the raiding which was horrible.

Leo Schrodingers Cat.2497:

Anet, I’m not sure if you have been paying attention to the LFG, but as it stands getting into a raid group is virtually impossible from the LFG panel for newer players, or players who had not done any of the raids from Day 1 of HoT. They are just stuck in a Catch 22 and SOLed.

I sincerely suggest coming up with a way to fix this before the new raid content is released. Mostly by offering a bonus incentive or buff for allowing new raiders into the group.

Or new players can create their own groups that accept everyone.

Squee Squashington.5189:

There’s a difference between creating content that may or may not be enjoyable for part of your player base and creating content that deters and alienates part of your player base.

Just like there’s a difference between an expansion and raids.

As others have said, you are far better off finding a guild that offers raid training than wishfully hoping for a lfg fix. I see a LOT of them in the recruitment section of this forum.

As an experienced raider, I can tell you that you don’t want to be lfging anyways. Raid lfg groups are utter sh*tshows a lot of the time. Training lfgs with pugs are sh*tshows; casual lfgs with pugs are sh*tshows; exp lfgs with pugs are sh*tshows (especially on xera and matthias). Even on the super easy bosses like VG or Cairn, there’s a good chance your lfg group is going to fail. There is a reason why people tell you to join a raiding guild. Raids never run smoothly with a group of random people you’ve never raided with before compared to running with a guild group where you have the same people every raid. Team synergy is a deceptively powerful element that decides how successful you are as a raiding group, and a lot of times with lfg pugs, you just don’t have that synergy/team mentality there. And also, as some people have pointed out here, lfg pugs are where you usually encounter trolls and overall toxic people.

Just be patient when looking for a training guild. I started out in a super newbie training group that was barely getting 1-2 kills a week. Then I moved on to a casual raiding guild where I was getting around 5-6 kills a week. Then, I got accepted into a semi-exp guild. I am still with that guild and I am getting full clears on all wings every week with them. If I can do it, you can too. Just gotta be patient and willing to slog through a lot of failed runs and practice as you move up the ladder.

Just my 2 cents, as a beginner-intermediate in raids with a full time job, a family and other adult responsibilities. I have very little play time, perhaps 8 hours in a good week.

Pugging is a no-no because of all the waiting and drama that involves. I can’t get into the elite 500+LI groups either because I only have 61 LI at latest count.

The only sensible option is to join a raid group. Meet up on a regular basis, 2 hours twice a week, with like-minded people of about the same skill level. Start and finish on time. Do we clear every boss? No. But it is a good honest progression group and I’m learning a lot. I joke that it is my part time job with no pay, but I do enjoy and look forward to it.

I have run with training groups with much more skilled players 6/10 of the squad. We would one- or two- shot each boss and that was fun, but apart from that, I didn’t really learn the nuances of each fight because it was over so fast and we moved on to the next one.

Raids is really one of the few areas of this game that requires effort, perseverance and commitment. If it feels too easy as a beginner (edited), you’re probably being carried and people are just too nice to tell you.

Hello guys,

Being in the same case when I decided to try raids a few months ago (hurting the LI wall and elitism as well), I have created my own guild with the purpose of grouping people in the same situation together.

Starting from scratch, we reached 50 members after the first 2 months, and are now 60 members.

Some of us are more experienced, but are happy to explain and help. We are having fun trying to kill bosses even if we die many times as we always progress. Last week we killed Cairn-Mursaat-Samarog for instance.

We raid at least once a week, on friday (today!).

We are looking for new members to help filling raid groups every time, but we would like to recruit people also involved in the guild life, and not only coming when they have a personal interest. That means also participating to some of our events (guild missions, fractals, pvp, short farm runs, decoration and upgrade of the guild hall, etc).

If you are interested, feel free to contact me IG!

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Pomdepin.7068:

Some of us are more experienced, but are happy to explain and help. We are having fun trying to kill bosses even if we die many times as we always progress. Last week we killed Cairn-Mursaat-Samarog for instance.

This is really significant. Once people join a guild, there’s the likelihood that they will actually become friendly (if not friends) with the members. This is crucial to the group’s ability and the players’ willingness to enjoy each others’ company, laugh about mistakes and persevere. Friends act that way. Random strangers are a lot less likely to.

In LFG, you will find people who haven’t taken the time or don’t want to form that kind of social bond. You’ll also find people who want a quick run because their playtime is limited. Doubtless, you’ll find other motivations, but none of those motivations will have any relation to the camaraderie that can develop in a stable group.

The people in LFG are not your friends. They are not there for you. They are there for the convenience of having to wait less time and to take less time to complete an instance. People seem to want or expect people in LFG to be social (i.e., friendly to and accepting of the inexperienced). The reason they’re in LFG in the first place is because being social is not part of their agenda, at least at that moment.

That doesn’t mean the LFG can’t be for the inexperienced. It does mean, though, that access to a group when you want to play may depend on you taking the initiative. It may depend on you trying to find other inexperienced players. It may mean you having to accept that you may not succeed and the group may fall apart because of failure. It does not mean that other people in LFG ought to treat random strangers on the internet as they would good friends. That does not mean such people should be rude, but basic courtesy does not include acting toward strangers as they would towards their inner circle.

narcx.3570:

Eldar.5146:

Yes, you are right. The hardcore guilds are also activly sabotaging pug lfg runs to make those fail. All the build and raid guides are also fake. Actually, those are all bad builds to make pugs never improve and to keep the gold from sells flowing.

I know you’re being funny here, but there IS a top selling guild on NA who’s leader encourages all his members, if they’re pugging, to /gg on a winning Sabetha run at 1% to not give out “free Eternals.”

Eternal isn’t hard to get anyway. He’s just trashing his own reputation.