Different Raid Difficulty Would Satisfy Most

Different Raid Difficulty Would Satisfy Most

in Fractals, Dungeons & Raids

Posted by: Rednik.3809

Rednik.3809

Making an easier raid will just make people play that instead. People pick the easy route over the hard route all the time in MMOs. It’s what you do in games really: you try to get past an obstacle to a goal the best (read: easiest) way you find, not the hardest way. It’s simple gaming psychology, that needs to be kept in mind when designing different difficulty modes.

Easier doesn’t mean same loot.

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Different Raid Difficulty Would Satisfy Most

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Posted by: Blaeys.3102

Blaeys.3102

I see several valid points from both sides throughout this thread, which I would summarize as follows:

  • Raiders do not want to see the fights dumbed down in any way. They want a hardcore experience – possibly even exceeding the one we have now.
  • There is a group of people that would enjoy raiding at a lower difficulty than the one currently available – and are interested in ANet exploring ways to make that happen.
  • People who put in the effort to overcome the greater challenge should receive a greater (cosmetic) reward.
  • Some people feel the fights are currently accessible while others feel they are not.
  • Adding additional difficulties would require some additional work by the developers, but no one can say with any certainty how much effort that would be.

Of these points, the first two are pretty much provable through strong anecdotal evidence. There really isn’t anything to discuss – unless you start using phrases like “they don’t deserve” or “they’re being selfish” or “elitism vs casual,” which simply do not belong in this discussion.

The remaining three points are the contentious ones. They are all very fluid, meaning that there is no right or wrong involved. Level of reward, accessibility and how much additional dev effort is warranted are all variables that different individuals will look at much differently.

So, keeping in mind this is my opinion, here is my take on those three:

Level of reward.
I believe that there be tiered rewards based on the difficulty and type of content. And, I believe that the differences should be completely cosmetic. There is some grey room when talking about legendary armor sets, but the reality is – by the time a person could make a legendary armor set, they could probably make 15-20 ascended sets, which would be much more valuable (able to use multiple runes, multiple visual looks, multiple weight classes, etc).

I firmly believe that, if they implemented multiple difficulties, they would need to offer multiple rewards.

Accessibility
This is the big one – and the center of most of the debates here. The reality is (imo), it doesn’t matter what any one person feels about whether the raids are accessible or not. If there are large groups who feel that raids are out of reach (for logistics, meta-focused or other reasons) – and that would still enjoy the experience, then there is a portion of the game population who are going to feel jaded and left out.

Now, the question becomes whether or not Anet should address that. My take is, as long as it does not detract from the difficulty or reward exclusivity of the higher difficulties, they most definitely should. The idea that they shouldn’t because hardcore raiders need some special area that is just for them is really just based around egos (imo) and doesn’t really hold water.

Developer Resources
To me, this is the strongest argument against tiered raiding (but, surprisingly, one that isn’t really used a lot in these discussions).

If developing multiple tiers for raids meant doubling the size of the team at Anet or that it would take twice as long to get raids out, then I could see an argument against the idea. But, I do think they could come up with a creative way to implement this idea into the base game mode system that would lessen the impact on dev time.

The truth is, we do not know the answer to this one. We can only guess. Personally, my guess is that a system that worked on straight percentage decreases (lessening health, damage, etc) and removal of enrage timers at lower levels would be enough to offer the experience, but might make some fights (not all) so easy as to be insignificant – but that would be okay as long as the fights didn’t offer too great a reward.


So, purely emotional arguments about whether or not raiders deserve (or need) a hardcore experience or more casual players deserve (or need) a lesser difficulty are just us spinning our wheels. No one is going to change anyone’s mind on this topic because the realities involved here are based on personal perspective and experience.

There are topics, however – such as how they could achieve greater accessibility without impacting the current experience and what warrants more developer time – that are worth discussion.

Different Raid Difficulty Would Satisfy Most

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Posted by: Ohoni.6057

Ohoni.6057

…So everyone’s opinion is invalid because you have to have your way ?

No no, their opinion is valid about the sort of experience they want to have. It’s just not valid about the type of experience I want to play. If you like the current raids, then that’s great, they should remain exactly as they are. If you want a harder version, that’s fine too, even though I would never want to play it. But just because you don’t see the value in an easier version does not mean that it should not be available for those players who do see the value in such a thing.

How about you actually go and raid before trying to critique them any further. As is no one takes your post with a grain of salt because they know you have not, nor will not give raids an adequate chance.

As I’ve said, I’ve spent about 6 or so hours against VG and Gorseval, which I’m aware is “not that much” to raiders, but is WAY more time than I ever plan to spend on content that I’m not succeeding at. I assure you, playing for more hours will not make me view it at all more favorably.

Maybe if you did, you’d realize that dumbing down the raid any further would actually be an insult to their core design of being challenging end game content.

That may be true, but if so, that core design would be out of touch with the players who are requesting an easier mode.

As long its pure Training Raid without Rewards

No.

The goal of a “pure training” raid would be that eventually players would “graduate” to the current ones. And some people may appreciate that, but for the most part players with that mindset are fine with just playing the current raids and learning to complete them. A “training raid” would provide minimal benefits. An easier raid has to serve as both Alpha and Omega, as “the only raid you’ll ever need” for players who do not and will not enjoy the challenge of the current raids. They should not be seen as merely a stepping stone to other content, but as an end unto themselves.

Again, maybe you don’t want to do the easy version, and that’s fine, but that doesn’t mean that it should be inherently broken for those who do want it.

Making an easier raid will just make people play that instead. People pick the easy route over the hard route all the time in MMOs.

If this is true then they should only make easier modes, because apparently that’s what people actually want. I keep trying to believe raiders when they tell me they actually want and enjoy difficult content, and yet often when presented with a fair alternative of an easier version, they say “well of course I’d only play the easier version.” Well then what is even the point of the harder version? Why have games since the NES included “hard mode” in it if nobody ever bothers with it when “easy mode” is available?

If you put the same goal behind two different paths people will usually pick the easiest path, not the most fun path,

You act as if the two are mutually exclusive. The easiest path can also be the most fun path.

This is also why you never will see a system where you can trade one type of dungeon tokens for other types. For example. It would basically mean favouring the easiest dungeon, rather than making each dungeon valuable on their own.

Not if it’s well balanced. They have a pretty solid idea on the existing dungeons of how difficult each is, so they could apply a reasonable balance equation, so that you could perhaps run Arah once and get a set amount of tokens, or have to run CoF ten times or more to get that same amount. The token exchange should not be designed to be balanced, it should be designed to be balanced + penalty, so that the default way should always be seen as the more appealing to players who could choose to do anything and still enjoy themselves, while still providing an alternative to players that are incapable or completely unwilling to do a certain dungeon.

Level of reward.
I believe that there be tiered rewards based on the difficulty and type of content. And, I believe that the differences should be completely cosmetic.

But then players who want the look of the “top tier” rewards, while not wanting to play that content, would be left out. I believe that top tier content can reward unique achievements and titles, items which ONLY serve a “bragging rights” function, but anything that changes the appearance of the character, armor or weapon skins, should be available to all tiers, though of course the lower tiers would require more time and effort to earn that way than in the upper tiers.

“If you spent as much time working on [some task] as
you spend complaining about it on the forums, you’d be
done by now.”

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Posted by: Zenith.7301

Zenith.7301

Anet can’t even put people to work on proper PvE class balance, can’t produce fractals or dungeons on a timely manner (in all the time we’ve had HoT, a new fractal is just coming now), nor can they produce much in the way of braindead open world PvE.

And you expect they’ll dedicate the manpower to make an easier mode of raids?

They won’t even bother to have art assets from raids drop from them, instead outsourcing them to the gem store.

The only thing that has manpower is their gem store and trading post dev teams lol.

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Posted by: Rednik.3809

Rednik.3809

Anet can’t even put people to work on proper PvE class balance, can’t produce fractals or dungeons on a timely manner (in all the time we’ve had HoT, a new fractal is just coming now), nor can they produce much in the way of braindead open world PvE.

And you expect they’ll dedicate the manpower to make an easier mode of raids?

They won’t even bother to have art assets from raids drop from them, instead outsourcing them to the gem store.

The only thing that has manpower is their gem store and trading post dev teams lol.

Making reused version of already existing content is actually fastest possible way ever to deliver content. You don’t have to create ANY new assets, only copypaste and rewrite some code.

Kiijna, Xast, Satis Ironwail, Sekhaina, Shira Forgesparkle, Sfeno, Nasibi, Tegeira, Rhonwe…
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Posted by: Dahkeus.8243

Dahkeus.8243

It’s like people are completely blind to all the mistakes WoW made by creating different raid difficulties…

Different Raid Difficulty Would Satisfy Most

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Posted by: Ohoni.6057

Ohoni.6057

Anet can’t even put people to work on proper PvE class balance, can’t produce fractals or dungeons on a timely manner (in all the time we’ve had HoT, a new fractal is just coming now), nor can they produce much in the way of braindead open world PvE.

And you expect they’ll dedicate the manpower to make an easier mode of raids?

Different people involved. I mean, the people working on class balance are completely different, and while some of the people involved in dungeons/fractals would be involved in an easier raid, most of them would not, since the art/animations/sounds/etc. are already done. All it would require is a little work from the UI team and a decent amount of work out of some encounter design members. The heavy lifting was already done making the hard mode, and it’s much easier to make a fun easy mode out of an existing hard mode than it would take to make a balanced hard mode out of easy mode, since the tolerances are much less precise.

It’s like people are completely blind to all the mistakes WoW made by creating different raid difficulties…

Or, what some view as “mistakes,” others view as “features.”

“If you spent as much time working on [some task] as
you spend complaining about it on the forums, you’d be
done by now.”

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Posted by: Zenith.7301

Zenith.7301

It’s like people are completely blind to all the mistakes WoW made by creating different raid difficulties…

LFR was not a mistake. It was quite successful and widely used, in fact. Which is why it’s returning to Legion to its un-nerfed state compared to how it was made irrelevant in WoD.

So let’s please not stick to idiotic platitudes like these. Try to live in reality for once.

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Posted by: Ging.6485

Ging.6485

I actually don’t see the problem with just following Fractal philosophy.

When there is a daily for Molten Boss, people willingly do Fractal 90 or 99. When there isn’t they farm Fractal 40. I hear no complaints about that.

Have a hard mode and easy mode for Raids. Hard modes have incentive to do hard modes at least once a week. Easy modes can be used for farming magnite shards or what not. Keep the cap.

Hardmode bosses drop exotics with a chance of special ascended gear + LIs.
Easy mode bosses drop rares with a chance of exotics and 33% less mag shards.

As for the Legendary Armor problem, they could always add LIs as a mystic forge recipe and just make it expensive. That actually follows with the philosophy of GW2 considering that ultimately, everything in GW2 has been behind a cash wall. With Ascended Gear, you can either run Raids (Skill), run fractals (Luck), or simply buy the materials required to make it (Cash).

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Posted by: Astralporing.1957

Astralporing.1957

It’s like people are completely blind to all the mistakes WoW made by creating different raid difficulties…

You mean 20-man mythics, right? Good we’re not asking for anything like that.

If you meant LFR however, then… well, them being a mistake is not so sure as you want others to believe.

Actions, not words.
Remember, remember, 15th of November

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Posted by: Arthas.1074

Arthas.1074

It’s like people are completely blind to all the mistakes WoW made by creating different raid difficulties…

Wasn’t WotLK the most successfull Expansion?

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Posted by: Scipio.3204

Scipio.3204

It’s like people are completely blind to all the mistakes WoW made by creating different raid difficulties…

Wasn’t WotLK the most successfull Expansion?

Depends on what you view as succes. HoT isn’t considered as a great expansion by many, and when the next expansion releases that is going to affect the number of people who will buy it. The next expansion might be better and bigger than the previous in all way, but it’s possible less people will buy it since they got disappointed by the previous.

What I’m saying is financial success is not the same as customer statisfaction.

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Posted by: Ohoni.6057

Ohoni.6057

Depends on what you view as succes. HoT isn’t considered as a great expansion by many, and when the next expansion releases that is going to affect the number of people who will buy it. The next expansion might be better and bigger than the previous in all way, but it’s possible less people will buy it since they got disappointed by the previous.

What I’m saying is financial success is not the same as customer statisfaction.

For a product like GW2, where you buy the expansion and then maybe buy the next one, or not, this is true. But remember that WoW has always been a subscription game, so you can judge the success of an expansion not just by how well it sells, or the next one, but also by how it effects customer retention over the period. I don’t know WoW all that well, I didn’t play it long, but from what I can tell, subscriber numbers held steady throughout WotLK’s run, rose by a little bit for Cataclysm, but that’s where they started to sag a bit.

Still, their numbers were better five years after WotLK than they were at the beginning of Burning Crusade, and given that MMOs typically have overall downward trajectories, and that it’s a ten year old game by now, that’s not terrible.

“If you spent as much time working on [some task] as
you spend complaining about it on the forums, you’d be
done by now.”

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Posted by: Miellyn.6847

Miellyn.6847

It’s like people are completely blind to all the mistakes WoW made by creating different raid difficulties…

You mean 20-man mythics, right? Good we’re not asking for anything like that.

If you meant LFR however, then… well, them being a mistake is not so sure as you want others to believe.

Participation rates in an equipment-driven game where you can only advance through raids at a certain point is a good indicator for the success of LFR, right?

Every argument for LFR in WoW is nonsense in GW2.

The key is to offer different content for the same goals, with other skins if the reward contains equipment, not to rehash the same content in 2 or more difficulties.
WoW lost most of its open world content after LFR introduction.

Meena Wolfsgeist | Ranger
Ceana Mera | Mesmer
Indra Nebelklinge | Revenant

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Posted by: Ohoni.6057

Ohoni.6057

The key is to offer different content for the same goals, with other skins if the reward contains equipment, not to rehash the same content in 2 or more difficulties.

Two flaws in that, first, the skin IS the goal, so you cannot simultaneously offer “different content for the same goals” and “other skins,” and second different content would not satisfy those who want to play the existing content, just in a less challenging version, so while it’s a positive thing in and of itself, it’s not a solution.

WoW lost most of its open world content after LFR introduction.

I admit that I dropped out of the game fairly early, but how much open world content was WoW even adding to their game over time? My impression from the outside was that it launched with plenty to get you to level cap early on, but that expansions were basically all about adding new raids (and some token new starter areas for new races). In any case, the two have nothing to do with each other as far as GW2 is concerned. Adding easier raid modes shouldn’t have any significant impact on the release schedule of any other content.

“If you spent as much time working on [some task] as
you spend complaining about it on the forums, you’d be
done by now.”

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Posted by: Miellyn.6847

Miellyn.6847

The key is to offer different content for the same goals, with other skins if the reward contains equipment, not to rehash the same content in 2 or more difficulties.

Two flaws in that, first, the skin IS the goal, so you cannot simultaneously offer “different content for the same goals” and “other skins,” and second different content would not satisfy those who want to play the existing content, just in a less challenging version, so while it’s a positive thing in and of itself, it’s not a solution.

Do we need an easier sPvP mode where you play against bots? An easier WvW mode with only one team that capture everything, so people that dont’t like PvP can experience it? Solo mode for dungeons/fractals?
There will always be content people can’t reach/experience and rewards they won’t get. The sooner they accept it the better it is for them and the game development.

The main part in a RPG is experiencing the story, not the rewards.
Every game with easy mode raiding has lesser rewards in easy mode than normal modes , so only exotics for easy mode raiding if you want to adapt it from other games. This also applies for GW2, specific fractal rewards only appear above a level threshold.
T1: ascended Rings
T2: T1+ascended weapons, fractal skins
T3: T2+ascended armor and accessoires, golden skins

WoW lost most of its open world content after LFR introduction.

I admit that I dropped out of the game fairly early, but how much open world content was WoW even adding to their game over time? My impression from the outside was that it launched with plenty to get you to level cap early on, but that expansions were basically all about adding new raids (and some token new starter areas for new races). In any case, the two have nothing to do with each other as far as GW2 is concerned. Adding easier raid modes shouldn’t have any significant impact on the release schedule of any other content.

Easy mode raiding will have a huge impact for the next raid releases or even fractals if the raid team is involved there. The tech doesn’t exist for GW2. It may get better afterwards, but we can’t know this.

WoW needs LFR for item progession, you can get ascended in GW2 from other sources.
They have always some patches with open world content. Sometimes with raid patches, sometimes between raid patches. The content there got smaller and more grind the longer LFR existed. You could delete the open world after max level in the current expansion and most players wouldn’t experience a big difference.

Meena Wolfsgeist | Ranger
Ceana Mera | Mesmer
Indra Nebelklinge | Revenant

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Posted by: Ohoni.6057

Ohoni.6057

Do we need an easier sPvP mode where you play against bots? An easier WvW mode with only one team that capture everything, so people that dont’t like PvP can experience it? Solo mode for dungeons/fractals?

If enough players want those modes? Sure, it’d probably be a good idea. I don’t know what the demand for those are, I haven’t really heard much for them myself, but yeah, if the people want them, give the people what they want. Plenty of other games offer PvP combat and also PvP “bot” variation on that combat, even Overwatch. Star Wars Battlefront recently announced that they are adding a bot mode to the game. It might actually be a good idea here, but it’s really a discussion for another time and place.

There will always be content people can’t reach/experience and rewards they won’t get. The sooner they accept it the better it is for them and the game development.

Nah, it’s a game. It’s meant for all players to enjoy, not just the best players.

The main part in a RPG is experiencing the story, not the rewards.

That really depends. if rewards didn’t have value, then nobody would care about keeping them away from the filthy peasants. And if story were the only thing with value then nobody would have been playing at all these past six months, since most people finished all available story within the first month. Rewards are important to replayability, it gives people something to work towards, and while I’ve been inaccurately accused of trying to shortcut this process, I feel the need to remind you that I’ve never suggested a system that would require less time or effort to earn the rewards, just alternate methods.

Every game with easy mode raiding has lesser rewards in easy mode than normal modes , so only exotics for easy mode raiding if you want to adapt it from other games.

GW2 isn’t every other game, they don’t need to make the same mistakes.

Easy mode raiding will have a huge impact for the next raid releases or even fractals if the raid team is involved there. The tech doesn’t exist for GW2. It may get better afterwards, but we can’t know this.

I don’t understand your basis for this claim. Of course the tech already exists, there’s no doubt of that. They already have a selector to choose which raid map you want to enter, all the “tech” they’d need here is to copy/paste the existing maps, tweak the internal math, and then link them in as another three options to the raid selector.

The only actual work involved is in the tweaking of the encounter math, which is not trivial, but it’s 1. easier than developing entirely new content, since it does not involve any art or overall design, 2. easier than balancing hard mode, since the tolerances are much wider and if they get it slightly off, the consequences would be less significant.

It would take some time to produce, but relative to anything else they produce it should not take much at all. I would wager that they spent more time developing the recent open world Leyline mob event chains than it would take to convert existing raids to a suitable easy mode.

WoW needs LFR for item progession, you can get ascended in GW2 from other sources.

But where else can you get Experimental skins? Those are more important than Ascended armor. Ascended armor are just sacks of numbers. I mean, you give me a choice between an Ascended armor crate and a pair of Exotic Experimental boots (light or heavy, don’t need medium), I’ll take the boots any day of the week.

“If you spent as much time working on [some task] as
you spend complaining about it on the forums, you’d be
done by now.”

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Posted by: Miellyn.6847

Miellyn.6847

If enough players want those modes? Sure, it’d probably be a good idea. I don’t know what the demand for those are, I haven’t really heard much for them myself, but yeah, if the people want them, give the people what they want. Plenty of other games offer PvP combat and also PvP “bot” variation on that combat, even Overwatch. Star Wars Battlefront recently announced that they are adding a bot mode to the game. It might actually be a good idea here, but it’s really a discussion for another time and place.

Those games aren’t MMORPGs and don’t have a PvE part. Very bad comparison.

Nah, it’s a game. It’s meant for all players to enjoy, not just the best players.

Timeconsuming content is also unavailable for many players. There will be always content you can’t or don’t want to complete and you won’t get the rewards. Get over it.

That really depends. if rewards didn’t have value, then nobody would care about keeping them away from the filthy peasants. And if story were the only thing with value then nobody would have been playing at all these past six months, since most people finished all available story within the first month. Rewards are important to replayability, it gives people something to work towards, and while I’ve been inaccurately accused of trying to shortcut this process, I feel the need to remind you that I’ve never suggested a system that would require less time or effort to earn the rewards, just alternate methods.

It’s also used to lure people into specific content. Content specific rewards are needed to populate content. This applies to all content.

GW2 isn’t every other game, they don’t need to make the same mistakes.

Content specific rewards are needed to populate content. More difficulties of the same content make it worse. Then you also need specific rewards for the difficulty scales.

I don’t understand your basis for this claim. Of course the tech already exists, there’s no doubt of that. They already have a selector to choose which raid map you want to enter, all the “tech” they’d need here is to copy/paste the existing maps, tweak the internal math, and then link them in as another three options to the raid selector.

The only actual work involved is in the tweaking of the encounter math, which is not trivial, but it’s 1. easier than developing entirely new content, since it does not involve any art or overall design, 2. easier than balancing hard mode, since the tolerances are much wider and if they get it slightly off, the consequences would be less significant.

It would take some time to produce, but relative to anything else they produce it should not take much at all. I would wager that they spent more time developing the recent open world Leyline mob event chains than it would take to convert existing raids to a suitable easy mode.

You don’t know how the selector works or how the maps are coded. It may not be trivial.
Changing mechanics needs additional testing and can produce more bugs.
New content is always better than rehashed content and difficulty scales delay new content.

But where else can you get Experimental skins? Those are more important than Ascended armor. Ascended armor are just sacks of numbers. I mean, you give me a choice between an Ascended armor crate and a pair of Exotic Experimental boots (light or heavy, don’t need medium), I’ll take the boots any day of the week.

Where do I get Wild Abandon if I don’t have a warrior? Where do I get the Luminescent Armor if I don’t like Silverwastes?
There are skins far worse gated than the raid armor and we all know it’s about the purple color and not the skin.
Content specific rewards are neccessary and fine the way they are.

Meena Wolfsgeist | Ranger
Ceana Mera | Mesmer
Indra Nebelklinge | Revenant

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Posted by: Astralporing.1957

Astralporing.1957

Do we need an easier sPvP mode where you play against bots?

There’s a reason why Anet doesn’t act against hotjoin daily farm arenas, even if they are technically skirting EULA.

An easier WvW mode with only one team that capture everything, so people that dont’t like PvP can experience it?

Some people argue that’s exactly what EotM is for.

There will always be content people can’t reach/experience and rewards they won’t get.

That’s unfortunate, even if it’s true, and we should avoid it happening as much as possible.

The sooner they accept it the better it is for them and the game development.

The best thing for game development would be for players to accept that they will pay a lot of money without getting anything in return. Unfortunately for developers, that’s not the best thing for players.

The main part in a RPG is experiencing the story, not the rewards.

Why then so great insistence of the raiders on those rewards being exclusive?

Every game with easy mode raiding has lesser rewards in easy mode than normal modes , so only exotics for easy mode raiding if you want to adapt it from other games.

That’s in games with gear progression, where it’s already assumed that people do not really like to play that content.

This also applies for GW2, specific fractal rewards only appear above a level threshold.
T1: ascended Rings
T2: T1+ascended weapons, fractal skins
T3: T2+ascended armor and accessoires, golden skins

Got an ascended armor box on T2, got a golden weapon skin on T2, bought a basic fractal skin from a vendor for tokens i got from T1 (they look better than golden ones anyway). Not sure what you’re talking about.

Actions, not words.
Remember, remember, 15th of November

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Posted by: Miellyn.6847

Miellyn.6847

There’s a reason why Anet doesn’t act against hotjoin daily farm arenas, even if they are technically skirting EULA.

Other players are bots now?

Some people argue that’s exactly what EotM is for.

Still has the PvP elements. Also not the same map, so it’s not the same experience. Doesn’t count.
If you count it. Do the first event of Wing 3, there is your easy mode raiding, also awards an insight.

That’s unfortunate, even if it’s true, and we should avoid it happening as much as possible.

No. Other games tried it and failed miserably.
People just quit if they reach their goal. You need things to strife for and longterm goals.

The best thing for game development would be for players to accept that they will pay a lot of money without getting anything in return. Unfortunately for developers, that’s not the best thing for players.

People always demand things without seeing the consequences for the playerbase. It is also not the best thing for players to make everything available to everyone.

Why then so great insistence of the raiders on those rewards being exclusive?

Why do people act so entitled for rewards in content they don’t want to play? Content specific rewards are neccessary to populate content.

That’s in games with gear progression, where it’s already assumed that people do not really like to play that content.

This is actually one of the reasons we don’t need an easy mode. You get the same statistical rewards in other areas of the game. Raids get easier over time when people learn the encounter better. Future elite specialization may trivialize the current raids like HoT specializations trivialized the dungeons.

Got an ascended armor box on T2, got a golden weapon skin on T2, bought a basic fractal skin from a vendor for tokens i got from T1 (they look better than golden ones anyway). Not sure what you’re talking about.

You need to complete lvl 50 to unlock the fractal weapon crate at the vendor. Mist Essence items are also level gated.

Meena Wolfsgeist | Ranger
Ceana Mera | Mesmer
Indra Nebelklinge | Revenant

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Posted by: DutchRiders.2871

DutchRiders.2871

No no, their opinion is valid about the sort of experience they want to have. It’s just not valid about the type of experience I want to play. If you like the current raids, then that’s great, they should remain exactly as they are. If you want a harder version, that’s fine too, even though I would never want to play it. But just because you don’t see the value in an easier version does not mean that it should not be available for those players who do see the value in such a thing.

Except you are the minority and not the target audience for raids, so at the end of the day why should we care?

As I’ve said, I’ve spent about 6 or so hours against VG and Gorseval, which I’m aware is “not that much” to raiders, but is WAY more time than I ever plan to spend on content that I’m not succeeding at. I assure you, playing for more hours will not make me view it at all more favorably.

I know right you do not really change you’re mind, again why are you posting in forums? Quite the stubborn fellow. However keep the thought of not succeeding at raids in mind for when we talk about the training raids!

That may be true, but if so, that core design would be out of touch with the players who are requesting an easier mode.

So those players get different content, duh. And no you really do not want to play raids, you want to play easy content with envoy armor as a reward. Luckily you are a minority.

No.

The goal of a “pure training” raid would be that eventually players would “graduate” to the current ones. And some people may appreciate that, but for the most part players with that mindset are fine with just playing the current raids and learning to complete them. A “training raid” would provide minimal benefits. An easier raid has to serve as both Alpha and Omega, as “the only raid you’ll ever need” for players who do not and will not enjoy the challenge of the current raids. They should not be seen as merely a stepping stone to other content, but as an end unto themselves.

Again, maybe you don’t want to do the easy version, and that’s fine, but that doesn’t mean that it should be inherently broken for those who do want it. As long its pure Training Raid without Rewards

YES

Gw has always aimed at skillfull plays instead of spending lots of time and money ( thank you WP!), you Ohoni do not exert the same quality effort as I did put in raiding, as such you do not get the same quality rewards.

You do not want to play content you fail at for 6 hours or content that is to challenging. Now a training raid will increase your skill gradually and the real raids wont be as much of a challenge anymore! And the beauty of a well designed true training raid is, that your skill level improves whether you want it or not!!!!! The alpha and omega we already have with the current raids. Now you might not see the value in training raids, but its about what the developpers think!

If this is true then they should only make easier modes, because apparently that’s what people actually want. I keep trying to believe raiders when they tell me they actually want and enjoy difficult content, and yet often when presented with a fair alternative of an easier version, they say “well of course I’d only play the easier version.” Well then what is even the point of the harder version? Why have games since the NES included “hard mode” in it if nobody ever bothers with it when “easy mode” is available?

People are in it for the rewards in a skin progression based mmo, are you telling me 10 auric basin loot fest maps are filled with players enjoying the content rofl? This is why if you put in exclusive rewards people will keep playing it. But im glad that you agree that raids need exclusive rewards to populate the content, like every other activity in game!

You act as if the two are mutually exclusive. The easiest path can also be the most fun path.

You act like good quality rewards and low quality effort should not be mutually exclusive.

Not if it’s well balanced. They have a pretty solid idea on the existing dungeons of how difficult each is, so they could apply a reasonable balance equation, so that you could perhaps run Arah once and get a set amount of tokens, or have to run CoF ten times or more to get that same amount. The token exchange should not be designed to be balanced, it should be designed to be balanced + penalty, so that the default way should always be seen as the more appealing to players who could choose to do anything and still enjoy themselves, while still providing an alternative to players that are incapable or completely unwilling to do a certain dungeon.

Dungeons originally were meant to be difficult. They turned out easy and as a result arenanet had to abandon them. And here you are arguing for easy mode raids.

But then players who want the look of the “top tier” rewards, while not wanting to play that content, would be left out. I believe that top tier content can reward unique achievements and titles, items which ONLY serve a “bragging rights” function, but anything that changes the appearance of the character, armor or weapon skins, should be available to all tiers, though of course the lower tiers would require more time and effort to earn that way than in the upper tiers.

You cannot brag with something nobody wants or with something that everybody already has my friend. If everybody would drive a ferarri, well little bragging rights would be involved. Personally I believe skins should be mainly locked behind skill based gates and not time based gates. Now I suspect you are the kind of player that puts in lot of time and effort and achieved alot of legendaries, with little skill. I’m the opposite and as such I will always cheer for skill based rewards.

(edited by DutchRiders.2871)

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Posted by: Astralporing.1957

Astralporing.1957

Why do people act so entitled for rewards in content they don’t want to play? Content specific rewards are neccessary to populate content.

No. They aren’t. They are needed only to populate content that would be underpopulated otherwise – so, one that is generally disliked.

Yes, the rewards need to be good (as the dungeons nerf clearly shown), but they don’t need to be exclusive. In fact, making people play the content just for those rewards is often seen as a bad choice. Just ask most of the sPvP veterans what they think about “PvE scrubs” that were playing ranked just to get the backpack.

Future elite specialization may trivialize the current raids like HoT specializations trivialized the dungeons.

They might, but why wait?

Actions, not words.
Remember, remember, 15th of November

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Posted by: Scipio.3204

Scipio.3204

Why do people act so entitled for rewards in content they don’t want to play? Content specific rewards are neccessary to populate content.

No. They aren’t. They are needed only to populate content that would be underpopulated otherwise – so, one that is generally disliked.

Like open world metaevents and world bosses?

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Posted by: Nozome.7853

Nozome.7853

Raids should remain with one mode. The percentage of players wanting a harder mode is really low , and having an easier mode makes no sense. How much easier should they be? VG was killed by 4 people!!!

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Posted by: Blaeys.3102

Blaeys.3102

Raids should remain with one mode. The percentage of players wanting a harder mode is really low , and having an easier mode makes no sense. How much easier should they be? VG was killed by 4 people!!!

The fact that VG was killed with 4 people only illustrates that there are players out there with tremendous skill and the desire to microanalyze everything needed to do this kind of thing. It does not, in any way, speak to the accessibility of the fight. Every raiding MMO out there sees groups like this doing amazing (borderline crazy) things like this. There will always be a tiny group of players looking to develop speed run or limited number metas to do things like this.

In fact, it creates even more need for multiple difficulties. As these small groups get better and better at raids, the gap between PVE players will widen way more than we see now. As Anet works harder and harder to challenge these small groups, more and more people would be left behind with a single difficulty level. There will be greater need for challenge motes, tiered difficulty levels and a deeper pool of potential players raiding.

That will dictate the implementation of core systems designed to address this. What they DESPARATELY need to do is accept that and implement tiered or variable difficulties now – to retain the number of active raiders and warrant continued development on raids.

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Posted by: Absurdo.8309

Absurdo.8309

Raids should remain with one mode. The percentage of players wanting a harder mode is really low , and having an easier mode makes no sense. How much easier should they be? VG was killed by 4 people!!!

The fact that VG was killed with 4 people only illustrates that there are players out there with tremendous skill and the desire to microanalyze everything needed to do this kind of thing. It does not, in any way, speak to the accessibility of the fight. Every raiding MMO out there sees groups like this doing amazing (borderline crazy) things like this. There will always be a tiny group of players looking to develop speed run or limited number metas to do things like this.

In fact, it creates even more need for multiple difficulties. As these small groups get better and better at raids, the gap between PVE players will widen way more than we see now. As Anet works harder and harder to challenge these small groups, more and more people would be left behind with a single difficulty level. There will be greater need for challenge motes, tiered difficulty levels and a deeper pool of potential players raiding.

That will dictate the implementation of core systems designed to address this. What they DESPARATELY need to do is accept that and implement tiered or variable difficulties now – to retain the number of active raiders and warrant continued development on raids.

I think the logical conclusion from “a 4 person squad beats VG” is VG isn’t as difficult as we thought it was.

Other conclusions seem needlessly circuitous.

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Posted by: Blaeys.3102

Blaeys.3102

I think the logical conclusion from “a 4 person squad beats VG” is VG isn’t as difficult as we thought it was.

Other conclusions seem needlessly circuitous.

This is a faulty syllogism (for the reasons I list above, where are anything but circuitous), and I think most people who have played any serious raid-based game see that pretty clearly.

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Posted by: Astralporing.1957

Astralporing.1957

Why do people act so entitled for rewards in content they don’t want to play? Content specific rewards are neccessary to populate content.

No. They aren’t. They are needed only to populate content that would be underpopulated otherwise – so, one that is generally disliked.

Like open world metaevents and world bosses?

I really doubt people do most of those for content-specfic rewards. Because, you know, only few of them even have those.
There are few exceptions, of course, but they are just that – exceptions.

I think the logical conclusion from “a 4 person squad beats VG” is VG isn’t as difficult as we thought it was.

Just as the logical conclusion from “Usain Bolt managed to run 100 m in 9.58s” would be “hey, running it at below 10s wasn’t that hard after all”?

Suuuuure.

Actions, not words.
Remember, remember, 15th of November

(edited by Astralporing.1957)

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Posted by: Razor.9872

Razor.9872

I think the logical conclusion from “a 4 person squad beats VG” is VG isn’t as difficult as we thought it was.

Other conclusions seem needlessly circuitous.

This is a faulty syllogism (for the reasons I list above, where are anything but circuitous), and I think most people who have played any serious raid-based game see that pretty clearly.

Looked pretty circuitous to me.

NSPride <3

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Posted by: Blaeys.3102

Blaeys.3102

I think the logical conclusion from “a 4 person squad beats VG” is VG isn’t as difficult as we thought it was.

Other conclusions seem needlessly circuitous.

This is a faulty syllogism (for the reasons I list above, where are anything but circuitous), and I think most people who have played any serious raid-based game see that pretty clearly.

Looked pretty circuitous to me.

I can see why it is easy for people to want to make that connection, but anyone who has raided for any length of time has seen examples like the 4 player kills many times over and realizes it doesn’t speak to the difficulty of the content as it is experienced by the greater community, but rather to the dedication and skill of the individual group involved.

Ive brought this up multiple times in this thread because it is important to the core issue – difficulty, hardcore vs casual, accessibility – none of these are finite concepts or terms. They are defined by individual perspective.

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Posted by: Katary.7096

Katary.7096

I think the logical conclusion from “a 4 person squad beats VG” is VG isn’t as difficult as we thought it was.

Just as the logical conclusion from “Usain Bolt managed to run 100 m in 9.58s” would be “hey, running it at below 10s wasn’t that hard after all”?

Suuuuure.

A VG kill with a squad of 4 people means that there is a ~60% handicap on the party. I am pretty sure that Mr. Bolt was not dealing with such a condition when he ran 100m in 9.58s. So the logical conclusion should be something like “hey, running 100m in 20something seconds is not that hard”.
What that VG kill tells us, is that the best of the best can kill this boss with 6 players missing, therefore adding those missing players should allow even groups that only perform well to get a kill.

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Posted by: Absurdo.8309

Absurdo.8309

I think the logical conclusion from “a 4 person squad beats VG” is VG isn’t as difficult as we thought it was.

Other conclusions seem needlessly circuitous.

This is a faulty syllogism (for the reasons I list above, where are anything but circuitous), and I think most people who have played any serious raid-based game see that pretty clearly.

Looked pretty circuitous to me.

I can see why it is easy for people to want to make that connection, but anyone who has raided for any length of time has seen examples like the 4 player kills many times over and realizes it doesn’t speak to the difficulty of the content as it is experienced by the greater community, but rather to the dedication and skill of the individual group involved.

Ive brought this up multiple times in this thread because it is important to the core issue – difficulty, hardcore vs casual, accessibility – none of these are finite concepts or terms. They are defined by individual perspective.

This reads like: I know the evidence is against me, but trust my point of view.

If I see a group defeat a boss with 40% of the intended party size, that speaks to the difficulty of the encounter.

And, anecdotally, vg is not a bad pug encounter at all.

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Posted by: Nozome.7853

Nozome.7853

Why do people act so entitled for rewards in content they don’t want to play? Content specific rewards are neccessary to populate content.

No. They aren’t. They are needed only to populate content that would be underpopulated otherwise – so, one that is generally disliked.

Like open world metaevents and world bosses?

I really doubt people do most of those for content-specfic rewards. Because, you know, only few of them even have those.
There are few exceptions, of course, but they are just that – exceptions.

I think the logical conclusion from “a 4 person squad beats VG” is VG isn’t as difficult as we thought it was.

Just as the logical conclusion from “Usain Bolt managed to run 100 m in 9.58s” would be “hey, running it at below 10s wasn’t that hard after all”?

Suuuuure.

All humans are different and some have advantages on a genetics level.
In gw2 everyone is equal.

Your argument makes no sense.

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Posted by: Jerus.4350

Jerus.4350

Anet can’t even put people to work on proper PvE class balance, can’t produce fractals or dungeons on a timely manner (in all the time we’ve had HoT, a new fractal is just coming now), nor can they produce much in the way of braindead open world PvE.

And you expect they’ll dedicate the manpower to make an easier mode of raids?

They won’t even bother to have art assets from raids drop from them, instead outsourcing them to the gem store.

The only thing that has manpower is their gem store and trading post dev teams lol.

Making reused version of already existing content is actually fastest possible way ever to deliver content. You don’t have to create ANY new assets, only copypaste and rewrite some code.

You’d really think so. I mean it’d make sense that it’s mainly a “copy/paste” job. However, that is not necessarily the case. I have no idea if it works this way for GW2 but I know 2 games I used to play it was not that at all. The first I was actually able to talk with some of the devs, they had told us that just creating the instance and linking it up is about half the work, so creating an easier (or harder in that case IIRC) version of the same raid was roughly the same amount of work as creating a new raid.

The other game I played they did initially start out with a “novice” and “expert” raid separation, same raids in general but tweaked for easier/harder version. That stopped because it took quite a bit of extra work, and they found that quickly the novice level was left almost unused because it was not as rewarding and once people understood what to do the expert level wasn’t that bad (main issue, as always, is putting together the group).

Anyways, thought I’d share that, as again until talking to that dev I thought it was a simple task, but apparently it was not at all. GW2 may be different, but I have a feeling it’s still much more complicated than a simple copy paste and change a few numbers that we might think.

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Posted by: Astralporing.1957

Astralporing.1957

All humans are different and some have advantages on a genetics level.
In gw2 everyone is equal.

That’s actually bullkitten, and you know it.
There’s a ton of factors that make people not equal at all – from “genetic” things like reaction time, through liking different types of content, to things like free time available or even RL wealth (while this is no p2w game, someone that can drop a credit card on a gem-to-gold purchase will have it easier).

Actions, not words.
Remember, remember, 15th of November

(edited by Astralporing.1957)

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Posted by: Blaeys.3102

Blaeys.3102

I think the logical conclusion from “a 4 person squad beats VG” is VG isn’t as difficult as we thought it was.

Other conclusions seem needlessly circuitous.

This is a faulty syllogism (for the reasons I list above, where are anything but circuitous), and I think most people who have played any serious raid-based game see that pretty clearly.

Looked pretty circuitous to me.

I can see why it is easy for people to want to make that connection, but anyone who has raided for any length of time has seen examples like the 4 player kills many times over and realizes it doesn’t speak to the difficulty of the content as it is experienced by the greater community, but rather to the dedication and skill of the individual group involved.

Ive brought this up multiple times in this thread because it is important to the core issue – difficulty, hardcore vs casual, accessibility – none of these are finite concepts or terms. They are defined by individual perspective.

This reads like: I know the evidence is against me, but trust my point of view.

If I see a group defeat a boss with 40% of the intended party size, that speaks to the difficulty of the encounter.

And, anecdotally, vg is not a bad pug encounter at all.

You and I both know what it takes to do something like this – and it has nothing to do with the accessibility of raids to the general public.

You analyze the individual encounter. You learn every tiny thing about it by doing it over and over. You then tailor your strategy, build, playstyle, stats, group synergies, etc in such a way as to hard counter the mechanics (such as using the Mesmer abilities to distort through the green circle damage). Then you try and try (often for weeks) to bring all of that together picture perfect.

It is an impressive feat – it deserves recognition – but it isn’t the way 99.99999% of the population raids. And, it most definitely doesn’t prove accessibility for anyone other than that group that spends the hours (or weeks or months) to do EXACTLY what I outlined above.

Again, I was in one of these guilds in WoW. I saw firsthand what they do (and again, it is impressive).

But using it to say that raids are accessible to wider groups of people or to argue against tiered difficulties is just an inaccurate comparison -

and I think most of the people trying to make that argument know that. It just seems like a good way to make their point when it really isn’t.

There are logical arguments against the implementation of tiered difficulties, such as potential strain on Anet resources, that are worth debating and discussing. However, using the 4- player or super speed clears really aren’t among them. They are based around a niche playstyle where some really smart players tailor everything around playing a single strategy perfectly.

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Posted by: Absurdo.8309

Absurdo.8309

I think the logical conclusion from “a 4 person squad beats VG” is VG isn’t as difficult as we thought it was.

Other conclusions seem needlessly circuitous.

This is a faulty syllogism (for the reasons I list above, where are anything but circuitous), and I think most people who have played any serious raid-based game see that pretty clearly.

Looked pretty circuitous to me.

I can see why it is easy for people to want to make that connection, but anyone who has raided for any length of time has seen examples like the 4 player kills many times over and realizes it doesn’t speak to the difficulty of the content as it is experienced by the greater community, but rather to the dedication and skill of the individual group involved.

Ive brought this up multiple times in this thread because it is important to the core issue – difficulty, hardcore vs casual, accessibility – none of these are finite concepts or terms. They are defined by individual perspective.

This reads like: I know the evidence is against me, but trust my point of view.

If I see a group defeat a boss with 40% of the intended party size, that speaks to the difficulty of the encounter.

And, anecdotally, vg is not a bad pug encounter at all.

You and I both know what it takes to do something like this – and it has nothing to do with the accessibility of raids to the general public.

You analyze the individual encounter. You learn every tiny thing about it by doing it over and over. You then tailor your strategy, build, playstyle, stats, group synergies, etc in such a way as to hard counter the mechanics (such as using the Mesmer abilities to distort through the green circle damage). Then you try and try (often for weeks) to bring all of that together picture perfect.

It is an impressive feat – it deserves recognition – but it isn’t the way 99.99999% of the population raids. And, it most definitely doesn’t prove accessibility for anyone other than that group that spends the hours (or weeks or months) to do EXACTLY what I outlined above.

Again, I was in one of these guilds in WoW. I saw firsthand what they do (and again, it is impressive).

But using it to say that raids are accessible to wider groups of people or to argue against tiered difficulties is just an inaccurate comparison -

and I think most of the people trying to make that argument know that. It just seems like a good way to make their point when it really isn’t.

There are logical arguments against the implementation of tiered difficulties, such as potential strain on Anet resources, that are worth debating and discussing. However, using the 4- player or super speed clears really aren’t among them. They are based around a niche playstyle where some really smart players tailor everything around playing a single strategy perfectly.

I think saying raids isn’t as hard as you claim them to be, and then showing this video, is a valid argument.

In my opinion, raids are of a similar difficulty to arah.

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Posted by: Astralporing.1957

Astralporing.1957

In my opinion, raids are of a similar difficulty to arah.

You’ve made that claim before, and it’s no more true than it were then. Arah doesn’t require much of a skill, really, if you don’t try to speedrun it. It just takes a lot of time then. And organizational difficulty is completely incomparable.

But if you will still insist on your “similar difficulty” claim, i’m still waiting to see that raid done by a group of naked bearbows.

Actions, not words.
Remember, remember, 15th of November

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Posted by: Dinosaurs.8674

Dinosaurs.8674

In my opinion, raids are of a similar difficulty to arah.

You’ve made that claim before, and it’s no more true than it were then. Arah doesn’t require much of a skill, really, if you don’t try to speedrun it. It just takes a lot of time then. And organizational difficulty is completely incomparable.

But if you will still insist on your “similar difficulty” claim, i’m still waiting to see that raid done by a group of naked bearbows.

A lot of parts of arah are certainly on par with or even greater than many of the raid encounters in terms of difficulty, especially if you are inexperienced with it and don’t know the mechanics of the various enemies. The major difference isn’t so much the speedrunning or timer or whatever, it’s the fact that in dungeons once you make it past one part you never have to do it again. It would be the equivalent of being able to start VG at whatever your best phase is after every wipe, which would obviously be substantially easier as well as less frustrating to learn. Having to execute every phase consecutively makes most raid encounters obviously harder imo, though in general it is likely true that it’s more difficult to learn all the mechanics of a single path of arah than those of a single raid encounter.

Obviously it’s more difficult to get 10 people together than 5, but this thread isn’t really about how easy or hard it is to get a 10 man squad together.

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Posted by: Zenith.7301

Zenith.7301

It’s like people are completely blind to all the mistakes WoW made by creating different raid difficulties…

You mean 20-man mythics, right? Good we’re not asking for anything like that.

If you meant LFR however, then… well, them being a mistake is not so sure as you want others to believe.

Participation rates in an equipment-driven game where you can only advance through raids at a certain point is a good indicator for the success of LFR, right?

Every argument for LFR in WoW is nonsense in GW2.

The key is to offer different content for the same goals, with other skins if the reward contains equipment, not to rehash the same content in 2 or more difficulties.
WoW lost most of its open world content after LFR introduction.

This is the argument of idiots.

WoW raids have been cleared, including mythic raids, with gear from the previous tier and little/no gear from the tier of the current raid.

Gear is not the driver for raiding in WoW. Raiding is the driver for raiding, because the challenge of the encounters is fun.

And don’t pretend for a second that GW2 raids are more complex than Mythic or WoW or Wildstar raids.

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Posted by: Miellyn.6847

Miellyn.6847

]No. They aren’t. They are needed only to populate content that would be underpopulated otherwise – so, one that is generally disliked.

Yes, the rewards need to be good (as the dungeons nerf clearly shown), but they don’t need to be exclusive. In fact, making people play the content just for those rewards is often seen as a bad choice. Just ask most of the sPvP veterans what they think about “PvE scrubs” that were playing ranked just to get the backpack.

Or maybe ask worldbosses before the loot buff. If you make things available in more paths, people choose the easier road everything and the other path dies. This applies for all content. Add the map specific rewards in HoT to all HoT maps and all maps except Auric Basin die.

They might, but why wait?

Why do you need to have everything the second it comes available? That’s the charm of GW2, all content stays relevant the whole time, why nerf something for crying people when time does the same?

This is the argument of idiots.

WoW raids have been cleared, including mythic raids, with gear from the previous tier and little/no gear from the tier of the current raid.

Gear is not the driver for raiding in WoW. Raiding is the driver for raiding, because the challenge of the encounters is fun.

And don’t pretend for a second that GW2 raids are more complex than Mythic or WoW or Wildstar raids.

Yes LFR is driven by gear progression, the difficulty is a joke. Reduce the itemlevel to heroic dungeons and many won’t play it anymore and the rest plays it once.

WoW raids aren’t complex. They are overloaded with mechanics because addons trivialize most of them. Adding more mechanics is the only way to make them hard.
Reduce time for CC at Matthias, increase damage from all sources and remove the ability to revive downed people and you have a mystic raid boss.

Meena Wolfsgeist | Ranger
Ceana Mera | Mesmer
Indra Nebelklinge | Revenant

(edited by Miellyn.6847)

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Posted by: Astralporing.1957

Astralporing.1957

]No. They aren’t. They are needed only to populate content that would be underpopulated otherwise – so, one that is generally disliked.

Yes, the rewards need to be good (as the dungeons nerf clearly shown), but they don’t need to be exclusive. In fact, making people play the content just for those rewards is often seen as a bad choice. Just ask most of the sPvP veterans what they think about “PvE scrubs” that were playing ranked just to get the backpack.

Or maybe ask worldbosses before the loot buff.

Have you perhaps noticed that part, where i said that rewards do need to be good? I even bolded it, so you might actually read what you quoted.
But please, do tell me what exclusive rewards the world boss loot buff introduced that made killing them so more interesting to the general populace.

Actions, not words.
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Posted by: Miellyn.6847

Miellyn.6847

]No. They aren’t. They are needed only to populate content that would be underpopulated otherwise – so, one that is generally disliked.

Yes, the rewards need to be good (as the dungeons nerf clearly shown), but they don’t need to be exclusive. In fact, making people play the content just for those rewards is often seen as a bad choice. Just ask most of the sPvP veterans what they think about “PvE scrubs” that were playing ranked just to get the backpack.

Or maybe ask worldbosses before the loot buff.

Have you perhaps noticed that part, where i said that rewards do need to be good? I even bolded it, so you might actually read what you quoted.
But please, do tell me what exclusive rewards the world boss loot buff introduced that made killing them so more interesting to the general populace.

Ascended skins from Tequatl and Triple Trouble and especially all collection items for Treasure Hunter most notable Rhendak.

Meena Wolfsgeist | Ranger
Ceana Mera | Mesmer
Indra Nebelklinge | Revenant

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Posted by: Sird.4536

Sird.4536

]No. They aren’t. They are needed only to populate content that would be underpopulated otherwise – so, one that is generally disliked.

Yes, the rewards need to be good (as the dungeons nerf clearly shown), but they don’t need to be exclusive. In fact, making people play the content just for those rewards is often seen as a bad choice. Just ask most of the sPvP veterans what they think about “PvE scrubs” that were playing ranked just to get the backpack.

Or maybe ask worldbosses before the loot buff.

Have you perhaps noticed that part, where i said that rewards do need to be good? I even bolded it, so you might actually read what you quoted.
But please, do tell me what exclusive rewards the world boss loot buff introduced that made killing them so more interesting to the general populace.

Ascended skins from Tequatl and Triple Trouble and especially all collection items for Treasure Hunter most notable Rhendak.

How often have you got an ascended chest from TT or Teq?

RP enthusiast

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Posted by: Astralporing.1957

Astralporing.1957

]No. They aren’t. They are needed only to populate content that would be underpopulated otherwise – so, one that is generally disliked.

Yes, the rewards need to be good (as the dungeons nerf clearly shown), but they don’t need to be exclusive. In fact, making people play the content just for those rewards is often seen as a bad choice. Just ask most of the sPvP veterans what they think about “PvE scrubs” that were playing ranked just to get the backpack.

Or maybe ask worldbosses before the loot buff.

Have you perhaps noticed that part, where i said that rewards do need to be good? I even bolded it, so you might actually read what you quoted.
But please, do tell me what exclusive rewards the world boss loot buff introduced that made killing them so more interesting to the general populace.

Ascended skins from Tequatl and Triple Trouble and especially all collection items for Treasure Hunter most notable Rhendak.

TT and Teq Revised were introduced after the world boss loot buff, and when world boss trains were already going strong. The same for collections. Trinkets themselves existed way before loot buffs, by the way.

In general, the reason people started doing world bosses again wasn’t due to any exclusive rewards. it was something much simpler – a guaranteed rare drop (and a champ box or two on top of it). Notice, that at the time the loot buff got introduced, rare drops were much more rare than now.
No, when world boss trains started, noone was running them for exclusives.

Actions, not words.
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Posted by: Allison The Strange.4519

Allison The Strange.4519

Anyone who says tiers is a bad thing needs to find the door and get out. I meet way more inexperienced players than I ever do uber elite players who can do any & all of the hardest content in the game.

If you actually join an average guild of 300+ members and ask how many of them are able to run a 40 fractal, you get 20 that have done it. Ask that same guild how many can do a lvl 60 and you might get might get 10. Ask that same guild how many can do a lvl 100, and if your lucky 3 will say they can do it.

Ask this same guild another question, how do you spend most of your time in GW2? An overwhelming majority will reply with answers pertaining to extremely easy content that requires very little skill. Of that guild of 300 average players less than 10% will pvp on a regular basis & less than 10% of them will even do dungeons.

To put it in perspective Anet has always cruised around an easy 10~15 mph. Then raids happened and all of the sudden we are going 60 mph and many people don’t know how to go from one extreme to the other.

This content bars far too many from it without a difficulty gap in between. Dungeons could have been this but Anet in their all knowing wisdom decided it was best to make them less rewarding and to never update them.

Until the gap is closed tiers have been the best solution I’ve heard so far. Thank you for the well written post OP. I personally don’t raid & not because I can’t, I just don’t have anything to gain that I actually want.

TL;dr – We need something to bridge the difficulty gap between average gameplay & raids. Tiers are the best option I’ve seen to date.

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Posted by: Razor.9872

Razor.9872

Anyone who says tiers is a bad thing needs to find the door and get out. I meet way more inexperienced players than I ever do uber elite players who can do any & all of the hardest content in the game.

If you actually join an average guild of 300+ members and ask how many of them are able to run a 40 fractal, you get 20 that have done it. Ask that same guild how many can do a lvl 60 and you might get might get 10. Ask that same guild how many can do a lvl 100, and if your lucky 3 will say they can do it.

Ask this same guild another question, how do you spend most of your time in GW2? An overwhelming majority will reply with answers pertaining to extremely easy content that requires very little skill. Of that guild of 300 average players less than 10% will pvp on a regular basis & less than 10% of them will even do dungeons.

To put it in perspective Anet has always cruised around an easy 10~15 mph. Then raids happened and all of the sudden we are going 60 mph and many people don’t know how to go from one extreme to the other.

This content bars far too many from it without a difficulty gap in between. Dungeons could have been this but Anet in their all knowing wisdom decided it was best to make them less rewarding and to never update them.

Until the gap is closed tiers have been the best solution I’ve heard so far. Thank you for the well written post OP. I personally don’t raid & not because I can’t, I just don’t have anything to gain that I actually want.

TL;dr – We need something to bridge the difficulty gap between average gameplay & raids. Tiers are the best option I’ve seen to date.

Tell me, how many times do you do story mode dungeons within any average week?

NSPride <3

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Posted by: TexZero.7910

TexZero.7910

TL;dr – We need something to bridge the difficulty gap between average gameplay & raids. Tiers are the best option I’ve seen to date.

You already have something to bridge the gap, ironically you mentioned it in you post.

Dungeons → Fractals → Raid.

You can thank me later.

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Posted by: Rednik.3809

Rednik.3809

You already have something to bridge the gap, ironically you mentioned it in you post.

Dungeons -> Fractals -> Raid.

You can thank me later.

So you are supporting thread next to this one, about fractals being changed into the bridge between them? Because current fractals are obviously not doing that job.

Kiijna, Xast, Satis Ironwail, Sekhaina, Shira Forgesparkle, Sfeno, Nasibi, Tegeira, Rhonwe…
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Posted by: TexZero.7910

TexZero.7910

You already have something to bridge the gap, ironically you mentioned it in you post.

Dungeons -> Fractals -> Raid.

You can thank me later.

So you are supporting thread next to this one, about fractals being changed into the bridge between them? Because current fractals are obviously not doing that job.

That’s why the fractals team has been talking to and getting advice from the raids team….did you think they were going to turn fractals into open world encounters ?

It’s pretty clear there from even the most recent change to cliffside that they want fractals to have a distinct play pattern and bosses to have more moments of power/phases.

So naturally i’m perfectly fine with them revisiting and updating fractals to make them the stopgap area for players to improve as a group of 5. Not that they don’t already do this, as noted by the first page of the forums and people saying x fractal is impossible.

(edited by TexZero.7910)