Guild Wars 2

Blaeys.3102:

Thaia.5146:

Vinceman.4572:

~snip~
But I would be fine with Anet picking the devs from LS and fractals to develop these 2 modes while the raid team is completely focussing on new raid content. Don’t blame the company for content drought then because you would have to suffer maybe a year before you get new stories or fracs.

I would be fine with them not making any more raids and start making something that caters to a larger playerbase.
/sarcasm

Your post was so toxic and selfish that I had to respond. Can we please all leave our elitism out of the discussion for once?

There is definitely a toxic undercurrent of posts on this forum designed to belittle people and encourage them not to post.

If you go back through these threads (and even moreso on reddit), pretty much anyone daring to criticize raids in any way is immediately attacked by the same small group of people. It gets to the point where people don’t want to get involved with/continue the conversation just to avoid having to deal with it (believe it or not, I even received a death threat on reddit).

People need to make counterpoints and lucid arguments to what people say – not attack those people directly (that is one of the surest signs of a weak argument).

Pot and Kettle comes from both sides. Even labeling post toxic devalues the arguments made.

Though its really ironic that the people who don’t raid seem to think they are super knowledgeable about how to fix them.

Just once i’d love the I don’t raid crowd to go out there and do what everyone who is currently raiding did and then come back with a level headed an honest reproach to what they think the problems are. If they did that then rather than speaking from a position of ignorance they could actually make some informed post on the actually problems facing raids instead of this non-sense bandwagon appeal so they can have their cake and eat it too.

Blaeys.3102:

thrag.9740:

I support an easy mode that literally has no rewards, only existing for story purposes (also shouldn’t get achievements from easy mode).

My entire guild has basically taken a 6 month break, we came back with living story 3, but it seems to continue from the raid story. We probably won’t be playing unless we can experience the raid story first.

It definitely continues from the raid story – something many of us have been trying to tell them all week – even as others try to deny it.

It is good to see a fresh perspective from returning players on this point. The more they hear this is needed, the more likely we are to see them do something.

Yeah….No. The belief players had with caudecus being associated with white mantle was not introduced by raids. The secret chamber Taimi has been hiding from other asuras was also not part of raids. The lack of trustiness shared by heroes towards Caithe was definitely not used in raids. The story that Anet tied to lore from the original GW was definitely not told by raids. In fact if the story started assuming that raids were completed by everyone, there would have been no big climatic reveal at the end of this first episode. As a side note, I would say that using the words “it seems that” is definitely not a proof, coming from someone who took a six months break

TexZero.7910:

the I don’t raid crowd

I do raid – every week. As, I’m sure, others who are critical of raids do as well.

This isn’t pro versus anti-raiding. It never has been (except in some very rare cases).

This is about wanting to see certain improvements to the system (which I respect you and many others do not see as improvements).

But, again, it isn’t about being for or against raiding. You can like something but still see a need for change.

thrag.9740:

I support an easy mode that literally has no rewards, only existing for story purposes (also shouldn’t get achievements from easy mode).

My entire guild has basically taken a 6 month break, we came back with living story 3, but it seems to continue from the raid story. We probably won’t be playing unless we can experience the raid story first.

This would not produce any staying power for your guild. You would complete them once and be done.

Blaeys.3102:

TexZero.7910:

the I don’t raid crowd

I do raid – every week. As, I’m sure, others who are critical of raids do as well.

This isn’t pro versus anti-raiding. It never has been (except in some very rare cases).

This is about wanting to see certain improvements to the system (which I respect you and many others do not see as improvements).

But, again, it isn’t about being for or against raiding. You can like something but still see a need for change.

Honestly, almost all easy mode raid arguments just seem anti-raid to me.

If your strongest argument is “story-telling,” then that doesn’t say much. Because, again,

- Almost all story elements are in a cleared instance
- The raid story is summarized at the beginning of wing 3
- The raid story has extremely little to do with the main story of the game

You ask for a “compromise” for story-telling, but ANET has bent over backwards to accommodate people like you.

Blaeys.3102:

TexZero.7910:

the I don’t raid crowd

I do raid – every week. As, I’m sure, others who are critical of raids do as well.

This isn’t pro versus anti-raiding. It never has been (except in some very rare cases).

This is about wanting to see certain improvements to the system (which I respect you and many others do not see as improvements).

But, again, it isn’t about being for or against raiding. You can like something but still see a need for change.

Sure you can want improvements, but it helps to have a very real grounded perception of what the issue is. Several of the complaints are drastically overblown or are so far from reality that they aren’t issues except for those that willingly make them issues for themselves.

Are there changes i’d still like to see for raids, absolutely. I’d love an end of encounter recap that gives all players the respective information of what they did/didn’t do. I’d love to see an overhaul to the guild system to allow for an actual guild charter to describe what the function of the guild is as well as a constantly updated guild table for players looking for active guilds to pick through. Both of these are healthy things for raids, but are such a programming and logistically hassle that i doubt we’d see them for quite some time as they aren’t quite fully supported through the backend yet.

Those few things imo would solve the not being able to raid (as proper guild finding is made easier) and Being unable to learn from your mistakes is made easier through basically error reporting.

Those are logical steps to take as opposed to the outcry to nerf/created nerfed versions of content. Instead they should be spending time creating tools that help players elevate their gameplay and become better. That is what end-game content is about, not appealing to everyone.

Story is like the least important part of the game, it does not provide any longevity or replayability to a MMO at all. So I do not understand why some people are obsessed with story.

Malediktus.9250:

Story is like the least important part of the game, it does not provide any longevity or replayability to a MMO at all. So I do not understand why some people are obsessed with story.

I’m not a huge story fan myself, but it’s not least important to everyone…

Vinceman.4572:

thrag.9740:

My entire guild has basically taken a 6 month break, we came back with living story 3, but it seems to continue from the raid story. We probably won’t be playing unless we can experience the raid story first.

Your assumption is wrong. The LS3 starts where the HoT story ended.

As I said "it seems ". There are things in the living story I don’t understand. Why does my character assume the explosion is from a bloodstone? Why does my character say white mantle are involved? Am I missing it somewhere in the story? What is informing my character of these things.

Absurdo.8309:

thrag.9740:

I support an easy mode that literally has no rewards, only existing for story purposes (also shouldn’t get achievements from easy mode).

My entire guild has basically taken a 6 month break, we came back with living story 3, but it seems to continue from the raid story. We probably won’t be playing unless we can experience the raid story first.

This would not produce any staying power for your guild. You would complete them once and be done.

Yes, we would complete the raids, and then feel free to play living story 3. The staying power isn’t from raids (which are slowly produced at a rate of one every few months) but by the living story (which in the past has been every 2 weeks). So it would make more of us come back and stay at least for the duration of ls3.

Malediktus.9250:

Story is like the least important part of the game, it does not provide any longevity or replayability to a MMO at all. So I do not understand why some people are obsessed with story.

Think outside your own bubble, all I can say.

Additionally, an easy mode with no rewards has other benefits. My own guild is only 5 friends who know each other in real life. None of us want to waste the time of other players. An easy mode would allow the 5 of us to go in, learn the encounters, and then join other groups without being as much of a burden. This could be a good way to get more people to try raiding.

thrag.9740:

Vinceman.4572:

thrag.9740:

My entire guild has basically taken a 6 month break, we came back with living story 3, but it seems to continue from the raid story. We probably won’t be playing unless we can experience the raid story first.

Your assumption is wrong. The LS3 starts where the HoT story ended.

As I said "it seems ". There are things in the living story I don’t understand. Why does my character assume the explosion is from a bloodstone? Why does my character say white mantle are involved? Am I missing it somewhere in the story? What is informing my character of these things.

Absurdo.8309:

thrag.9740:

I support an easy mode that literally has no rewards, only existing for story purposes (also shouldn’t get achievements from easy mode).

My entire guild has basically taken a 6 month break, we came back with living story 3, but it seems to continue from the raid story. We probably won’t be playing unless we can experience the raid story first.

This would not produce any staying power for your guild. You would complete them once and be done.

Yes, we would complete the raids, and then feel free to play living story 3. The staying power isn’t from raids (which are slowly produced at a rate of one every few months) but by the living story (which in the past has been every 2 weeks). So it would make more of us come back and stay at least for the duration of ls3.

Malediktus.9250:

Story is like the least important part of the game, it does not provide any longevity or replayability to a MMO at all. So I do not understand why some people are obsessed with story.

Think outside your own bubble, all I can say.

Additionally, an easy mode with no rewards has other benefits. My own guild is only 5 friends who know each other in real life. None of us want to waste the time of other players. An easy mode would allow the 5 of us to go in, learn the encounters, and then join other groups without being as much of a burden. This could be a good way to get more people to try raiding.

Raid story would not give you much insight into the current story.

But, if your actually care enough, it’s all there in a completed instance and summarized at the beginning of wing 3.

I saw plenty of teaching runs in lfg today — you can learn to raid if you want.

Absurdo.8309:

Raid story would not give you much insight into the current story.

But, if your actually care enough, it’s all there in a completed instance and summarized at the beginning of wing 3.

I saw plenty of teaching runs in lfg today — you can learn to raid if you want.

I think you missed what I said. We don’t want to waste the time of another player. It would be nice to be able to go in and experience and learn mechanics on your own time.

thrag.9740:

Absurdo.8309:

Raid story would not give you much insight into the current story.

But, if your actually care enough, it’s all there in a completed instance and summarized at the beginning of wing 3.

I saw plenty of teaching runs in lfg today — you can learn to raid if you want.

I think you missed what I said. We don’t want to waste the time of another player. It would be nice to be able to go in and experience and learn mechanics on your own time.

You can actually always go into a raid an just experience everything on your own. The raids themself are not that difficult, once you understand the mechanics.
The problem of the raids is, that it need 10 people to complete (or less very good people). My own guild has difficulties with finding 10 people for raiding :/
A mode for 5 people might be a solution, but could still be hard.

For the story part, the raid you play not as the raid commander, but as a totaly unknown group of soldiers(?). So in the living story it’s like your character hasn’t expirienced the raid at all and does not know, what happened there.
Hints for the white mantle activity existed in the silverwastes, where you could find bandit badges with the white mantle symbol

Nana.9512:

thrag.9740:

Absurdo.8309:

Raid story would not give you much insight into the current story.

But, if your actually care enough, it’s all there in a completed instance and summarized at the beginning of wing 3.

I saw plenty of teaching runs in lfg today — you can learn to raid if you want.

I think you missed what I said. We don’t want to waste the time of another player. It would be nice to be able to go in and experience and learn mechanics on your own time.

You can actually always go into a raid an just experience everything on your own. The raids themself are not that difficult, once you understand the mechanics.
The problem of the raids is, that it need 10 people to complete (or less very good people). My own guild has difficulties with finding 10 people for raiding :/
A mode for 5 people might be a solution, but could still be hard.

For the story part, the raid you play not as the raid commander, but as a totaly unknown group of soldiers(?). So in the living story it’s like your character hasn’t expirienced the raid at all and does not know, what happened there.
Hints for the white mantle activity existed in the silverwastes, where you could find bandit badges with the white mantle symbol

I agree with you on one point. The problem with the current raid design isn’t difficulty. The fights in themselves aren’t really that demanding.

The problem is that certain mechanics (most notably, enrage timers and other dps dependent elements) significantly punish anyone who doesn’t conform to the “more damage” metagame. After three years of being able to play builds that we have grown attached too (for whatever reason), this content effectively removes the idea of “play how you want.”

The best example of this is the escort event at the start of Stronghold of the Faithful. That fight allows for more build and group diversity, yet remains fun.

And all they would need to do to make it “more difficult” like the other raid fights is add a timer.

I would like to see them make a compromise that could benefit all types of raiders, and fix the meta issue. Remove the timers (and look at other dps dependent mechanics) and replace them with a gold, silver, bronze reward system based on how fast the encounter is beaten.

That way, the super focused hardcore raiders would still have the challenge and reward they do now, but groups who may want to play a little differently aren’t overly punished for doing so.

Blaeys.3102:

Nana.9512:

thrag.9740:

Absurdo.8309:

Raid story would not give you much insight into the current story.

But, if your actually care enough, it’s all there in a completed instance and summarized at the beginning of wing 3.

I saw plenty of teaching runs in lfg today — you can learn to raid if you want.

I think you missed what I said. We don’t want to waste the time of another player. It would be nice to be able to go in and experience and learn mechanics on your own time.

You can actually always go into a raid an just experience everything on your own. The raids themself are not that difficult, once you understand the mechanics.
The problem of the raids is, that it need 10 people to complete (or less very good people). My own guild has difficulties with finding 10 people for raiding :/
A mode for 5 people might be a solution, but could still be hard.

For the story part, the raid you play not as the raid commander, but as a totaly unknown group of soldiers(?). So in the living story it’s like your character hasn’t expirienced the raid at all and does not know, what happened there.
Hints for the white mantle activity existed in the silverwastes, where you could find bandit badges with the white mantle symbol

I agree with you on one point. The problem with the current raid design isn’t difficulty. The fights in themselves aren’t really that demanding.

The problem is that certain mechanics (most notably, enrage timers and other dps dependent elements) significantly punish anyone who doesn’t conform to the “more damage” metagame. After three years of being able to play builds that we have grown attached too (for whatever reason), this content effectively removes the idea of “play how you want.”

The best example of this is the escort event at the start of Stronghold of the Faithful. That fight allows for more build and group diversity, yet remains fun.

And all they would need to do to make it “more difficult” like the other raid fights is add a timer.

I would like to see them make a compromise that could benefit all types of raiders, and fix the meta issue. Remove the timers (and look at other dps dependent mechanics) and replace them with a gold, silver, bronze reward system based on how fast the encounter is beaten.

That way, the super focused hardcore raiders would still have the challenge and reward they do now, but groups who may want to play a little differently aren’t overly punished for doing so.

I think you may be putting on some rose-tinted glasses here.

You cannot “play how you want” (PHYW) and beat all content, unless you are already skilled.

You cannot PHYW in wvw, and succeed.
You cannot PHYW in pvp, and succeed.
You cannot PHYW in all dungeons, and succeed in a reasonable period of time.
You cannot PHYW in all fractals.

I’m not sure why a “compromise” is needed for raids. If your complaints are about meta, there’s plenty of flexibility. If your complaints are about difficulty, then there’s plenty of easy and medium tier content. Like, just maybe, a new living story chapter, a new meta map, and new and redesigned fractals.

And, of course, that does not stop anyone from learning raids. I saw plenty of learning posts last night and within my guild.

But, apparently, that’s not enough. Let’s disavow new content and focus on making difficulty levels for every piece of content in this game. I’m sure it wouldn’t get stale.

Absurdo.8309:

You cannot PHYW in all dungeons, and succeed in a reasonable period of time.
You cannot PHYW in all fractals.

When limited to the PVE content, I do not agree with either of the above.

You can complete any dungeon. Speed running may be out, but “finishing in a reasonable amount of time” – that’s definitely possible. I know this because Ive been in many groups that have.

And fractals use a tiered difficulty scaling – exactly what people are asking for here. In fact low level fractals are all doable with level 10 characters (Ive done it with a guild group for fun). All of the actual content is accessible – with challenge coming from higher levels.

As far as PvP and WvW, I could also argue that tiers exist in the form of ladders and rankings, but I don’t think you can really compare PvE and PvP content. They really are two separate games.

Yeah about that enrage timer and DPS dependent elements:

But yeah sure it’s the meta keepin you down mate sure sure

fishball.7204:

Yeah about that enrage timer and DPS dependent elements:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEcVtSo0-H8

But yeah sure it’s the meta keepin you down mate sure sure

This is a ridiculous comparison – and even the people involved would tell you that. They did it simply because it is ridiculous.

Doing things like this take the same (probably more) level of planning and build tweaking that speed grouping takes. Instead of going super heavy dps focus, they took a super heavy defense focus.

Removing timers simply allows more build flexibility. You don’t have to go 100% dps or 100% defensive in group composition. You can still do these things if you want to spend 3 minutes or 2 hours killing the boss, respectively, but their would be room for other options (with a gold, silver, bronze reward system in place for taking that extra effort).

Blaeys.3102:

Absurdo.8309:

You cannot PHYW in all dungeons, and succeed in a reasonable period of time.
You cannot PHYW in all fractals.

When limited to the PVE content, I do not agree with either of the above.

You can complete any dungeon. Speed running may be out, but “finishing in a reasonable amount of time” – that’s definitely possible. I know this because Ive been in many groups that have.

And fractals use a tiered difficulty scaling – exactly what people are asking for here. In fact low level fractals are all doable with level 10 characters (Ive done it with a guild group for fun). All of the actual content is accessible – with challenge coming from higher levels.

As far as PvP and WvW, I could also argue that tiers exist in the form of ladders and rankings, but I don’t think you can really compare PvE and PvP content. They really are two separate games.

I do not think inexperienced players, in whatever gear/build they wanted, could beat HOTW, SE p2, AC p2, CM, COF p3, Arah, TA forward, and aetherpath.

You think these dungeons are easy because you’ve played them for years. You think inexperienced players can beat them on their own because you taught them and carried them.

I wasn’t always good at dungeons. I wasn’t always good at raids. I spent four hours in my first aetherpath run. Days of failed attempts in arah. Days/weeks for some raid bosses. Hours killing those two bosses at the end of SE p2. Failed runs because of the traps and hodges burrows in ac. They were all hard at the beginning.

Yes, I can beat them now in whatever build I want. But people are doing that with raids too. Low-person parties, class stacking, green gear, whatever.

And even so, you could likely get a guild group to run with your snowflake build, as long as it wasn’t crazy.

It’s always been a process of adapting your build as you gain experience. So now, yes, you can PHYW to beat dungeons (and raids). But it wasn’t always that way. You had to learn the mechanics of the instance and how to play the game. I think you’ve forgotten that. And it’s probably been a long time in gw2 since you were put in that position.

Blaeys.3102:

fishball.7204:

Yeah about that enrage timer and DPS dependent elements:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEcVtSo0-H8

But yeah sure it’s the meta keepin you down mate sure sure

This is a ridiculous comparison – and even the people involved would tell you that. They did it simply because it is ridiculous.

Doing things like this take the same (probably more) level of planning and build tweaking that speed grouping takes. Instead of going super heavy dps focus, they took a super heavy defense focus.

Removing timers simply allows more build flexibility. You don’t have to go 100% dps or 100% defensive in group composition. You can still do these things if you want to spend 3 minutes or 2 hours killing the boss, respectively, but their would be room for other options (with a gold, silver, bronze reward system in place for taking that extra effort).

It would allow for less flexibility if you wanted the highest tier reward. You would need to maximize dps.

I want the option of beating matthias in enrage by playing it safe.

I want the option of beating sabetha in enrage by meticulously completing cannons.

I want the option of beating gorseval in enrage by going to all the updrafts.

I want the option of beating vg in enrage by playing it safe with circles.

I can’t speak to the other bosses, because I’ve never been enraged in them. But allowing it actually opens up more class compositions not less.

The reason why people prefer to complete the encounter as quickly as possible is because you deal with less mechanics the faster you beat the boss. Fewer opportunities to make a mistake. But it’s certainly an option to prolong the fight — a tradeoff worth it in some circumstances.

TexZero.7910:

Blaeys.3102:

TexZero.7910:

the I don’t raid crowd

I do raid – every week. As, I’m sure, others who are critical of raids do as well.

This isn’t pro versus anti-raiding. It never has been (except in some very rare cases).

This is about wanting to see certain improvements to the system (which I respect you and many others do not see as improvements).

But, again, it isn’t about being for or against raiding. You can like something but still see a need for change.

Sure you can want improvements, but it helps to have a very real grounded perception of what the issue is. Several of the complaints are drastically overblown or are so far from reality that they aren’t issues except for those that willingly make them issues for themselves.

Are there changes i’d still like to see for raids, absolutely. I’d love an end of encounter recap that gives all players the respective information of what they did/didn’t do. I’d love to see an overhaul to the guild system to allow for an actual guild charter to describe what the function of the guild is as well as a constantly updated guild table for players looking for active guilds to pick through. Both of these are healthy things for raids, but are such a programming and logistically hassle that i doubt we’d see them for quite some time as they aren’t quite fully supported through the backend yet.

Those few things imo would solve the not being able to raid (as proper guild finding is made easier) and Being unable to learn from your mistakes is made easier through basically error reporting.

Those are logical steps to take as opposed to the outcry to nerf/created nerfed versions of content. Instead they should be spending time creating tools that help players elevate their gameplay and become better. That is what end-game content is about, not appealing to everyone.

Theses “tools”, or settings, open up more end game options for more players to approach and play… That also improves retention and participation rates, and in turn it makes the devs more likely to put more effort and resources into end game raiding… All players benefit.

Difficulty setting wouldn’t disrupt your gameplay personally… You and your buddies would be running the hardcore versions and having a good old time, while others are doing their thing.

Much like your complaints about economy related stuff (that you have brought up a number of times), that you feel favors only a small percentage of players, so do some players feel about raids. You want the economy designed for the average player to “get by”, so players want raids to have options so they can “get by”… See how that works out?

In your anti-difficulty settings argument, you are also forgetting that it would not be an easy feat for casuals to defeat 150 bosses over the course of many months and gather all the required materials for crafting these armor sets. It’s still a big and long term accomplishment and goal.

Time for you to start thinking more objectively about raids and more about the players as a whole, just like you do for economy related stuff.

Swagger.1459:

TexZero.7910:

Blaeys.3102:

TexZero.7910:

the I don’t raid crowd

I do raid – every week. As, I’m sure, others who are critical of raids do as well.

This isn’t pro versus anti-raiding. It never has been (except in some very rare cases).

This is about wanting to see certain improvements to the system (which I respect you and many others do not see as improvements).

But, again, it isn’t about being for or against raiding. You can like something but still see a need for change.

Sure you can want improvements, but it helps to have a very real grounded perception of what the issue is. Several of the complaints are drastically overblown or are so far from reality that they aren’t issues except for those that willingly make them issues for themselves.

Are there changes i’d still like to see for raids, absolutely. I’d love an end of encounter recap that gives all players the respective information of what they did/didn’t do. I’d love to see an overhaul to the guild system to allow for an actual guild charter to describe what the function of the guild is as well as a constantly updated guild table for players looking for active guilds to pick through. Both of these are healthy things for raids, but are such a programming and logistically hassle that i doubt we’d see them for quite some time as they aren’t quite fully supported through the backend yet.

Those few things imo would solve the not being able to raid (as proper guild finding is made easier) and Being unable to learn from your mistakes is made easier through basically error reporting.

Those are logical steps to take as opposed to the outcry to nerf/created nerfed versions of content. Instead they should be spending time creating tools that help players elevate their gameplay and become better. That is what end-game content is about, not appealing to everyone.

Theses “tools”, or settings, open up more end game options for more players to approach and play… That also improves retention and participation rates, and in turn it makes the devs more likely to put more effort and resources into end game raiding… All players benefit.

Difficulty setting wouldn’t disrupt your gameplay personally… You and your buddies would be running the hardcore versions and having a good old time, while others are doing their thing.

Much like your complaints about economy related stuff (that you have brought up a number of times), that you feel favors only a small percentage of players, so do some players feel about raids. You want the economy designed for the average player to “get by”, so players want raids to have options so they can “get by”… See how that works out?

In your anti-difficulty settings argument, you are also forgetting that it would not be an easy feat for casuals to defeat 150 bosses over the course of many months and gather all the required materials for crafting these armor sets. It’s still a big and long term accomplishment and goal.

Time for you to start thinking more objectively about raids and more about the players as a whole, just like you do for economy related stuff.

The economy related rant you’re bringing up was one about AG’s which were a real long term problem that needed to be adjusted. They just so happened to be adjusted go figure. This isn’t the same sort of issue.

The problem here is very much a problem created by a few short sighted individuals who for whatever reason want to create barriers for themselves then blame Anet.

It doesn’t fly. Thanks, have a nice day.

I did kill VG in the new zone. That is one example of different difficulty for the same boss…. and I must say that I am more than happy that a challenging version of it exists. But well at least, everyone can experience the fight and feel the pleasure to kill a vale guardian.

But I’d like to see an open world “easy” Sabetha as long as she has the same deadly flamethrower. And also maybe a 10 man version of some world boss would actually be a challenging fight.

TexZero.7910:

Swagger.1459:

TexZero.7910:

Blaeys.3102:

TexZero.7910:

the I don’t raid crowd

I do raid – every week. As, I’m sure, others who are critical of raids do as well.

This isn’t pro versus anti-raiding. It never has been (except in some very rare cases).

This is about wanting to see certain improvements to the system (which I respect you and many others do not see as improvements).

But, again, it isn’t about being for or against raiding. You can like something but still see a need for change.

Sure you can want improvements, but it helps to have a very real grounded perception of what the issue is. Several of the complaints are drastically overblown or are so far from reality that they aren’t issues except for those that willingly make them issues for themselves.

Are there changes i’d still like to see for raids, absolutely. I’d love an end of encounter recap that gives all players the respective information of what they did/didn’t do. I’d love to see an overhaul to the guild system to allow for an actual guild charter to describe what the function of the guild is as well as a constantly updated guild table for players looking for active guilds to pick through. Both of these are healthy things for raids, but are such a programming and logistically hassle that i doubt we’d see them for quite some time as they aren’t quite fully supported through the backend yet.

Those few things imo would solve the not being able to raid (as proper guild finding is made easier) and Being unable to learn from your mistakes is made easier through basically error reporting.

Those are logical steps to take as opposed to the outcry to nerf/created nerfed versions of content. Instead they should be spending time creating tools that help players elevate their gameplay and become better. That is what end-game content is about, not appealing to everyone.

Theses “tools”, or settings, open up more end game options for more players to approach and play… That also improves retention and participation rates, and in turn it makes the devs more likely to put more effort and resources into end game raiding… All players benefit.

Difficulty setting wouldn’t disrupt your gameplay personally… You and your buddies would be running the hardcore versions and having a good old time, while others are doing their thing.

Much like your complaints about economy related stuff (that you have brought up a number of times), that you feel favors only a small percentage of players, so do some players feel about raids. You want the economy designed for the average player to “get by”, so players want raids to have options so they can “get by”… See how that works out?

In your anti-difficulty settings argument, you are also forgetting that it would not be an easy feat for casuals to defeat 150 bosses over the course of many months and gather all the required materials for crafting these armor sets. It’s still a big and long term accomplishment and goal.

Time for you to start thinking more objectively about raids and more about the players as a whole, just like you do for economy related stuff.

The economy related rant you’re bringing up was one about AG’s which were a real long term problem that needed to be adjusted. They just so happened to be adjusted go figure. This isn’t the same sort of issue.

The problem here is very much a problem created by a few short sighted individuals who for whatever reason want to create barriers for themselves then blame Anet.

It doesn’t fly. Thanks, have a nice day.

Nope, there are general comments made by you about the state of “things” that are parallel to the pro difficulty settings crowd.

You want a part of the game to be inclusive to all, but here you are wanting raids to be as exclusive as possible, not thinking about the average players. You do so to suit your personal want, not what’s good for the average players and the game as a whole…

Some players feel this way about raids as you do other things…

So instead of starting with difficulty settings from the ground up and making the process something achievable by the average player, the devs pushed raids into niche crowd and grind centric territory.

“Instead of starting from the ground up and making the entire process something achievable by even the casual crowd, they’ve actually gone and pushed it into a very niche grind centric crowd.”

The exclusive mentally is what prevents progress from being made for all players and the game from being fun for everyone, and not just for the minority….

“It’s that sorta mentality that prevents progress from actually being made and the game from being fun for everyone and not the minority that hoard gold like skirtts hoard junk.”

And since you recognize that it’s a game that people play for fun, speed clears, rewards…, you should have no problem wanting to open the raid doors, with difficulty settings, to all these types of players to play “it’s a game”…

“It’s a game; some people play for fun, others play for speed clear, while some play for the rewards.”

So while raids have reached their target goal of providing difficult content, this lack of difficulty settings has alienated some and failed many average players as well… I’m saying this as a player who looks at the playerbase as a whole, just like you do with the economy “stuff”, and the same sentiments can be see on these forums and reddit.

“Yes it met it’s target goals, but in doing so it failed the average player base drastically and turns people away from actively playing the game. I’m saying this as a player who is a part of several large guilds and the same sentiments can be heard from a vast majority of anyone who is not new to the game.”

And just remember…

“At the end of the day, this is a game not a 2nd job to invest in.”

Again, quote context is about AG’s and the New Legendary Crafting system which had flaws which have been addressed. If you still want to harp on this you can send me a PM or I’ll just PM a mod as this is completely unrelated to the topic at hand and frankly disturbing that you think you need to pull off topic quotes out of context to somehow validate yourself.

Archeia.8905:

I always liked how FF XIV tackled this. They have “normal mode” for the casuals which can be easily cleared by pugs with significantly crappier rewards, and then there’s savage mode, for the organized statics with quality rewards.

Could just remove the ability to attain LI’s from normal raids, so it’s more like a way to learn the encounter/mechanics or something.

The thing is, current raid is on the same level of the FFXIV “normal mode” ( I play FFXIV ), the big difference is that there you have to play mechanics in every dungeon/raid/primal. So even casual know how to play with few mechanics.
Now because GW2 was so easy, you can get to raids without never doing a single mechanic, so players think raids are hard when they are not.

TexZero.7910:

Again, quote context is about AG’s and the New Legendary Crafting system which had flaws which have been addressed. If you still want to harp on this you can send me a PM or I’ll just PM a mod as this is completely unrelated to the topic at hand and frankly disturbing that you think you need to pull off topic quotes out of context to somehow validate yourself.

And raids have flaws that still need to be addressed. You are fighting for raids to be exclusive, which happens to alienate much of the playerbase.

Difficulty settings in no way impacts your enjoyment of raids at all, but you fail to see that there are average players out there that are turned off by the raid design and lack of features such as difficulty settings.

You either look out for the average and casual players throughout the game or you don’t, and raids are part of the game so those average and casual players should be looked out for too right?

Swagger.1459:

TexZero.7910:

Again, quote context is about AG’s and the New Legendary Crafting system which had flaws which have been addressed. If you still want to harp on this you can send me a PM or I’ll just PM a mod as this is completely unrelated to the topic at hand and frankly disturbing that you think you need to pull off topic quotes out of context to somehow validate yourself.

And raids have flaws that still need to be addressed. You are fighting for raids to be exclusive, which happens to alienate much of the playerbase.

Difficulty settings in no way impacts your enjoyment of raids at all, but you fail to see that there are average players out there that are turned off by the raid design and lack of features such as difficulty settings.

You either look out for the average and casual players throughout the game or you don’t, and raids are part of the game so those average and casual players should be looked out for too right?

Among other reasons, difficulty settings split the player base and slow development on new content.

There is tons of easy and medium tier content in the last patch, what’s wrong with that?

And, personally, I enjoy bloodstone fen when I’m in the mood for easy content. However, I would not enjoy an easy mode raid, because it would be content I’ve already done that week.

Absurdo.8309:

Swagger.1459:

TexZero.7910:

Again, quote context is about AG’s and the New Legendary Crafting system which had flaws which have been addressed. If you still want to harp on this you can send me a PM or I’ll just PM a mod as this is completely unrelated to the topic at hand and frankly disturbing that you think you need to pull off topic quotes out of context to somehow validate yourself.

And raids have flaws that still need to be addressed. You are fighting for raids to be exclusive, which happens to alienate much of the playerbase.

Difficulty settings in no way impacts your enjoyment of raids at all, but you fail to see that there are average players out there that are turned off by the raid design and lack of features such as difficulty settings.

You either look out for the average and casual players throughout the game or you don’t, and raids are part of the game so those average and casual players should be looked out for too right?

Among other reasons, difficulty settings split the player base and slow development on new content.

There is tons of easy and medium tier content in the last patch, what’s wrong with that?

And, personally, I enjoy bloodstone fen when I’m in the mood for easy content. However, I would not enjoy an easy mode raid, because it would be content I’ve already done that week.

Never had such “splitting” issues with difficulty settings in another game… Players played just fine in game without controversy.

The players are split atm, so shouldn’t that be a concern you’d want to fix?

Swagger.1459:

Absurdo.8309:

Swagger.1459:

TexZero.7910:

Again, quote context is about AG’s and the New Legendary Crafting system which had flaws which have been addressed. If you still want to harp on this you can send me a PM or I’ll just PM a mod as this is completely unrelated to the topic at hand and frankly disturbing that you think you need to pull off topic quotes out of context to somehow validate yourself.

And raids have flaws that still need to be addressed. You are fighting for raids to be exclusive, which happens to alienate much of the playerbase.

Difficulty settings in no way impacts your enjoyment of raids at all, but you fail to see that there are average players out there that are turned off by the raid design and lack of features such as difficulty settings.

You either look out for the average and casual players throughout the game or you don’t, and raids are part of the game so those average and casual players should be looked out for too right?

Among other reasons, difficulty settings split the player base and slow development on new content.

There is tons of easy and medium tier content in the last patch, what’s wrong with that?

And, personally, I enjoy bloodstone fen when I’m in the mood for easy content. However, I would not enjoy an easy mode raid, because it would be content I’ve already done that week.

Never had such “splitting” issues with difficulty settings in another game… Players played just fine in game without controversy.

The players are split atm, so shouldn’t that be a concern you’d want to fix?

Players are not split, you are raiding or you are not. There is not a split on raiding base( as that would be if easy mode / hard mode ). I think this topic need a lock, as we already have easy VG on the new map, probably will get another bosses on the next episodes. If you want at least a little to raid you will. I took 9 “blind run” people on scort ( wing 3 1st encounter ) as a mesmer i could do the tower part alone, so the other 9 only need to walk and kill few mobs each time. I dont know how easier this encounter could get.
And i’m just an average joe, with only 34 LIs.

Raiding!

How can we make it more difficult? Lets take this conversation another way and ask the real question that should be thought about and that is how can we improve raids to be more challenging to those who beat it in under a day or week? For those of us that raided in WoW raiding one boss took weeks or months even but this was the fact from Vanilla till the end of Wrath. Where is the titles for those who do world first and have it shine across all servers for everyone to see? Where is the sexy tier armor sets to be the carrot on the stick? Where is that special glider or back pack only for raids that people drool over?

This is the questions we should be asking, not making the raid so pre-school that we have a drop down menu to make the raid easy for those who do not want to take the time and improve themselves for what is already an easy run. WoW does this now and it is dropping subs like a cannon ball, Sure the sub will jump up with the expansion for a bit but will drop again cuase nothing will change from the lobby game they have created. The Point of all this is that if you make it easier than it already is it will do more harm than good.

For the legendary armor I thought it was a bad idea to put that into the raid due to the time in making such quality armor for a raid, so will the next raid have another set of legendary and then how long do you have to wait for that to finish? Anet should have done tier gear but instead of making the stats climb up with each raid like WoW you place special bonuses on each piece to improve QoL for raiding. Then you would have more people going into the raid to achieve that special loot in the end so they can stand in LA with bad kitten armor and drive others to do the same.

Conclusion: Do not make raids easy, keep everything on a level playing field, never never make another legendary armor set for the next raid ( head aces abound.) Always look to make them more difficult so that completing a raid will be more taste full instead of watching guild run through your raids in hours. This is why I don’t raid I have more challenge as a guardian doing higher level fractals with that boon thief cheese than running a raid.

Swagger.1459:

TexZero.7910:

Again, quote context is about AG’s and the New Legendary Crafting system which had flaws which have been addressed. If you still want to harp on this you can send me a PM or I’ll just PM a mod as this is completely unrelated to the topic at hand and frankly disturbing that you think you need to pull off topic quotes out of context to somehow validate yourself.

And raids have flaws that still need to be addressed. You are fighting for raids to be exclusive, which happens to alienate much of the playerbase.

Difficulty settings in no way impacts your enjoyment of raids at all, but you fail to see that there are average players out there that are turned off by the raid design and lack of features such as difficulty settings.

You either look out for the average and casual players throughout the game or you don’t, and raids are part of the game so those average and casual players should be looked out for too right?

Raids are far from exclusive and the only people making this out to be an issue are those that are constantly excluding themselves.

As far as looking out for a playerbase, the game already does that and there is no need to create an easy mode content of raids to do so. You have open world and dungeons (easy), You have Fractals (mid tier), and you have Raids (hard).

They cover the gambit of available difficulties, and even within each subset there are varying difficulties. So please stop the strawman, Stop the out of context quotes, and sincerely stop trying to character assassinate me to validate yourself.

I really question how many people are willing to form 10 people together and organize yourselves to manage the mechanics, but not willing to spend some gold to re-equip in a better suited build.

Who would actually use easier raids, not just like the sound of it? The biggest hurdle in accessibility is still going to be organizing 10 people to work as a team.

TexZero.7910:

Swagger.1459:

TexZero.7910:

Again, quote context is about AG’s and the New Legendary Crafting system which had flaws which have been addressed. If you still want to harp on this you can send me a PM or I’ll just PM a mod as this is completely unrelated to the topic at hand and frankly disturbing that you think you need to pull off topic quotes out of context to somehow validate yourself.

And raids have flaws that still need to be addressed. You are fighting for raids to be exclusive, which happens to alienate much of the playerbase.

Difficulty settings in no way impacts your enjoyment of raids at all, but you fail to see that there are average players out there that are turned off by the raid design and lack of features such as difficulty settings.

You either look out for the average and casual players throughout the game or you don’t, and raids are part of the game so those average and casual players should be looked out for too right?

Raids are far from exclusive and the only people making this out to be an issue are those that are constantly excluding themselves.

As far as looking out for a playerbase, the game already does that and there is no need to create an easy mode content of raids to do so. You have open world and dungeons (easy), You have Fractals (mid tier), and you have Raids (hard).

They cover the gambit of available difficulties, and even within each subset there are varying difficulties. So please stop the strawman, Stop the out of context quotes, and sincerely stop trying to character assassinate me to validate yourself.

Sure they are, the current design is meant to be very exclusive, but thankfully the devs are looking into being more inclusive.

Again, thankfully the devs are looking for ways to “look out” for the playerbase.

You “fought” to be fair and more inclusive for the average and casual players, so I’m sure it’s no problem to extend that mentality for raids instead of being negative and insulting to certain posters here… Do you want to build a stronger raid community or do you want to contribute to the unnecessary divide among paying customers?

Swagger.1459:

TexZero.7910:

Swagger.1459:

TexZero.7910:

Again, quote context is about AG’s and the New Legendary Crafting system which had flaws which have been addressed. If you still want to harp on this you can send me a PM or I’ll just PM a mod as this is completely unrelated to the topic at hand and frankly disturbing that you think you need to pull off topic quotes out of context to somehow validate yourself.

And raids have flaws that still need to be addressed. You are fighting for raids to be exclusive, which happens to alienate much of the playerbase.

Difficulty settings in no way impacts your enjoyment of raids at all, but you fail to see that there are average players out there that are turned off by the raid design and lack of features such as difficulty settings.

You either look out for the average and casual players throughout the game or you don’t, and raids are part of the game so those average and casual players should be looked out for too right?

Raids are far from exclusive and the only people making this out to be an issue are those that are constantly excluding themselves.

As far as looking out for a playerbase, the game already does that and there is no need to create an easy mode content of raids to do so. You have open world and dungeons (easy), You have Fractals (mid tier), and you have Raids (hard).

They cover the gambit of available difficulties, and even within each subset there are varying difficulties. So please stop the strawman, Stop the out of context quotes, and sincerely stop trying to character assassinate me to validate yourself.

Sure they are, the current designed to be meant to be exclusive, but thankfully the devs are looking into being more inclusive.

Again, thankfully the devs are looking for ways to look out for the playerbase.

You “fought” to be fair and more inclusive for the average and casual players, so I’m sure it’s no problem to extend that mentality for raids instead of being negative and insulting to certain posters here… Do you want to build a stronger raid community or do you want to contribute to the unnecessary divide among paying customers?

Again i love your out of context, completely off base, absurd rationale being used. AG’s were the context of all of those quotes and yet you still haven’t seen that that problem was addressed because as i stated several times it created an unnecessary element of grind in a system that was aimed at everyone. In a system aimed at everyone the supply of said items was so finite that they faced becoming a real long term problem.

I dont see how you can remotely, even remotely link the two topic and yet here to you are completely and utterly failing to realize that they are not related.

I’m done with your badgering. Go validate yourself somewhere else.

TexZero.7910:

Swagger.1459:

TexZero.7910:

Swagger.1459:

TexZero.7910:

Again, quote context is about AG’s and the New Legendary Crafting system which had flaws which have been addressed. If you still want to harp on this you can send me a PM or I’ll just PM a mod as this is completely unrelated to the topic at hand and frankly disturbing that you think you need to pull off topic quotes out of context to somehow validate yourself.

And raids have flaws that still need to be addressed. You are fighting for raids to be exclusive, which happens to alienate much of the playerbase.

Difficulty settings in no way impacts your enjoyment of raids at all, but you fail to see that there are average players out there that are turned off by the raid design and lack of features such as difficulty settings.

You either look out for the average and casual players throughout the game or you don’t, and raids are part of the game so those average and casual players should be looked out for too right?

Raids are far from exclusive and the only people making this out to be an issue are those that are constantly excluding themselves.

As far as looking out for a playerbase, the game already does that and there is no need to create an easy mode content of raids to do so. You have open world and dungeons (easy), You have Fractals (mid tier), and you have Raids (hard).

They cover the gambit of available difficulties, and even within each subset there are varying difficulties. So please stop the strawman, Stop the out of context quotes, and sincerely stop trying to character assassinate me to validate yourself.

Sure they are, the current designed to be meant to be exclusive, but thankfully the devs are looking into being more inclusive.

Again, thankfully the devs are looking for ways to look out for the playerbase.

You “fought” to be fair and more inclusive for the average and casual players, so I’m sure it’s no problem to extend that mentality for raids instead of being negative and insulting to certain posters here… Do you want to build a stronger raid community or do you want to contribute to the unnecessary divide among paying customers?

Again i love your out of context, completely off base, absurd rationale being used. AG’s were the context of all of those quotes and yet you still haven’t seen that that problem was addressed because as i stated several times it created an unnecessary element of grind in a system that was aimed at everyone. In a system aimed at everyone the supply of said items was so finite that they faced becoming a real long term problem.

I dont see how you can remotely, even remotely link the two topic and yet here to you are completely and utterly failing to realize that they are not related.

I’m done with your badgering. Go validate yourself somewhere else.

You just choose not to be objective about difficulty settings because you’re being defensive.

And for the record, those legendary insights, which are tied to boss kills, are part of the “new legendary crafting system” that you wanted fixed. The grind is extensive regardless of difficulty settings, so additional qol difficulty settings would be welcome by players to help them achieve their own legendary armor.

We need different raid modes.

We have normal mode right now, we need hard mode.

Actually, just step it up the next raid’s normal mode, we got a decent spread of encounters from this first one, let’s have less Escorts (albeit if it were just an event prior to a boss that’s fair), more Matthias…es?

Anyways, the larger issue present is that those who actually put in the work to raid and do the bosses on repeat find themselves getting better as raiders overall, more accustomed to dynamic changes in the encounter. VG is a decent introduction to changing strategies on the fly when people go down, and fights like Matthias or even Keep Construct test those capabilities.

Let’s not entertain the prospect of reducing the difficulty of raids and thus destroy the very nature of which the raids were created- The Ultimate Challenge for PvE End-game. If any solution did need to be provided for some obscene reason not yet fleshed out, the resources for this…‘non-raid’ raid difficult should never come from the raid devs but from work towards future open world PvE content.

I do not want the raid content that exists now, the quality and delivery of it to be diminished because of a group that seemingly knows what everyone wants, over what the content’s intended audience is supposed to be.

Yes there should be different difficulty modes. I see no reason Anet can’t incorporate what it seems every other game successfully has.

First there needs to be an easy mode. The current raids are catering to an extremely small number of players. If you want people to raid with you, an easy mode is the best way to learn, not wiping for hours. If that works out, and the numbers exist to make a hard mode version of current raids a viable business choice, that’s great. But, continuing to cater to a very small number of players will simply cause people to quit because of the content drought.

Now, I can hear the extremely small minority of ‘elitists’, who see some false sense of superiority by being better button pressers, groaning “but casuals will have legendary armor, how will everyone know I’m better than them?”……fear not, there need not be LIs given in easy mode. Just come up with an appropriately scaled reward system.

HoneyBadger.5691:

First there needs to be an easy mode. The current raids are catering to an extremely small number of players. If you want people to raid with you, an easy mode is the best way to learn, not wiping for hours.

Ok, the people who raid might not be the majority, but their number is no “extremely small”. I can’t offer numbers, but the raiding community is pretty big from my expirience.
Also going into a raid and wipe, till you get the mechanics right, that’s how it worked for everyone, when raids were released. That’s even how dungeons worked, when the game launched.
Why is it so difficult to accept, that some things are hard?

HoneyBadger.5691:

First there needs to be an easy mode. The current raids are catering to an extremely small number of players. If you want people to raid with you, an easy mode is the best way to learn, not wiping for hours. If that works out, and the numbers exist to make a hard mode version of current raids a viable business choice, that’s great. But, continuing to cater to a very small number of players will simply cause people to quit because of the content drought.

Can we stop this argument over and over ?
What is extremely small ? Do you have numbers? A proportion? Do you have insider information?
As long as you cannot provide real numbers, out of developers’ metrics, this argument has no validity and only serves your will by saying it is not only for you but for many others. It is the same as “only no-lifes can craft a Legendary” yet there are some many in LA wearing one.
From my experience in WoW, easy mode for raid did not help people to understand a fight but rather made them think they don’t do anything wrong in case of wipe because they’ve already beaten that boss. It is like a PUG group where people accuse others to be responsible of everything because they’ve killed this boss, while they don’t realise they’ve got carried by good players until now.

Go to Bloodstone Fen and fight the Unbound Guardian. Lern that fight and then you got your first easy mode boss.

Sird.4536:

Go to Bloodstone Fen and fight the Unbound Guardian. Lern that fight and then you got your first easy mode boss.

100% this. It is an intelligent reuse of assets and it is great way to learn a bit about VG mechanics without having to form a group to raid.

flog.3485:

Sird.4536:

Go to Bloodstone Fen and fight the Unbound Guardian. Lern that fight and then you got your first easy mode boss.

100% this. It is an intelligent reuse of assets and it is great way to learn a bit about VG mechanics without having to form a group to raid.

What mechanics? Any “mechanics” of legendary unbound guardian could as well be just visuals for how much they impact the fight (hint: none at all).
It’s as if devs decided to make a jab at people asking for easy mode raids, by using a strawman example of one (and hinting using the name of the achieve that’s the best people can count on seeing). Any ties to vale guardian are nothing more than a bad (and definitely not funny) joke .

Astralporing.1957:

flog.3485:

Sird.4536:

Go to Bloodstone Fen and fight the Unbound Guardian. Lern that fight and then you got your first easy mode boss.

100% this. It is an intelligent reuse of assets and it is great way to learn a bit about VG mechanics without having to form a group to raid.

What mechanics? Any “mechanics” of legendary unbound guardian could as well be just visuals for how much they impact the fight (hint: none at all).
It’s as if devs decided to make a jab at people asking for easy mode raids, by using a strawman example of one (and hinting using the name of the achieve that’s the best people can count on seeing). Any ties to vale guardian are nothing more than a bad (and definitely not funny) joke .

So just like the mechanics people want for easy raid ( non wiping ones ), see how this is bad? And if there are a wiping mechanic they will say thats not easy.

Astralporing.1957:

flog.3485:

Sird.4536:

Go to Bloodstone Fen and fight the Unbound Guardian. Lern that fight and then you got your first easy mode boss.

100% this. It is an intelligent reuse of assets and it is great way to learn a bit about VG mechanics without having to form a group to raid.

What mechanics? Any “mechanics” of legendary unbound guardian could as well be just visuals for how much they impact the fight (hint: none at all).
It’s as if devs decided to make a jab at people asking for easy mode raids, by using a strawman example of one (and hinting using the name of the achieve that’s the best people can count on seeing). Any ties to vale guardian are nothing more than a bad (and definitely not funny) joke .

-.-a
To be honest, if Unbound Guardian isn’t anything close to what you have in mind for easier raiding, then I’m not sure what exactly is it that you want from this game =/ (I mean, well, you could be into pvp or wvw a lot, but then why bother posting in a raiding thread)

Astralporing.1957:

flog.3485:

Sird.4536:

Go to Bloodstone Fen and fight the Unbound Guardian. Lern that fight and then you got your first easy mode boss.

100% this. It is an intelligent reuse of assets and it is great way to learn a bit about VG mechanics without having to form a group to raid.

What mechanics? Any “mechanics” of legendary unbound guardian could as well be just visuals for how much they impact the fight (hint: none at all).
It’s as if devs decided to make a jab at people asking for easy mode raids, by using a strawman example of one (and hinting using the name of the achieve that’s the best people can count on seeing). Any ties to vale guardian are nothing more than a bad (and definitely not funny) joke .

Seekers and Blue Circles still hit fairly hard from the Unbound Guardian, the green circle gives an incentive to ranged standing inside of it for a damage buff rather than preventing a wipe mechanic. The spirit of VG is in the fight in a much more easier form (people however like to stand in overlapping blue circles when he dips below 25% for some reasons).

By calling out unbound guardian, you have only hurt your own arguments for easy-mode raiding by proving you do not care about the encounters, just the loot.

At this point, and given the profound evidence in the other thread about the lore in the raid being utterly irrelevant to the main narrative of the Living Story, I believe we have reached a point demonstrating why Easy-Mode raiding would be a terrible waste of time and resources.

The Unbound Guardian is most definitely not a raid fight and not what people should seek when asking for a story or training mode raid.

To me, a better example would be the first encounter in Stronghold of the Faithful. By removing the enrage and toning the bosses down similar to that experience, we would have what were looking for – something that feels more like a stepping stone between fractals and the hard mode raids.

The Unbound Guardian is a great example of how they should do open world bosses – and something I hope they do with other raid bosses (a verson of Slothasor skulking around Tangled Depths would be pretty interesting) – but it isn’t what anyone (or just about anyone) means when they say they want tiered difficulty in raids.

For me (and many others, I’m sure), I just want a tier of fights that aren’t as punishing to players who deviate from the meta (alongside what we have now – or, even better, alongside much more punishing raid fights).

Sykper.6583:

Seekers and Blue Circles still hit fairly hard from the Unbound Guardian, the green circle gives an incentive to ranged standing inside of it for a damage buff rather than preventing a wipe mechanic.

So far i have seen people at LUG fleeing from “those green AoE’s”, and trying to gather seekers together in order to better stack and cleave them about as often (if not more often) than stacking in green circles and avoiding real AoEs. And i haven’t noticed any meaningful real difference between those two in how much the guardian went down. Yeah, the second group did it 1-2 minutes faster, maybe.

OnizukaBR.8537:

Astralporing.1957:

flog.3485:

Sird.4536:

Go to Bloodstone Fen and fight the Unbound Guardian. Lern that fight and then you got your first easy mode boss.

100% this. It is an intelligent reuse of assets and it is great way to learn a bit about VG mechanics without having to form a group to raid.

What mechanics? Any “mechanics” of legendary unbound guardian could as well be just visuals for how much they impact the fight (hint: none at all).
It’s as if devs decided to make a jab at people asking for easy mode raids, by using a strawman example of one (and hinting using the name of the achieve that’s the best people can count on seeing). Any ties to vale guardian are nothing more than a bad (and definitely not funny) joke .

So just like the mechanics people want for easy raid ( non wiping ones ), see how this is bad? And if there are a wiping mechanic they will say thats not easy.

No. As i said it was a strawman example of “easy mode”. The one raiders claim people ask for, but not the one people asking actually want.

What i want is for the mechanics to be easier, not faceroll easy. It’s not a binary thing, there’s a ton of ground in between. Even if some people intentionally try to ignore it.

Also yes, i do care about the loot. I never claimed otherwise.

Astralporing.1957:

Sykper.6583:

Seekers and Blue Circles still hit fairly hard from the Unbound Guardian, the green circle gives an incentive to ranged standing inside of it for a damage buff rather than preventing a wipe mechanic.

So far i have seen people at LUG fleeing from “those green AoE’s”, and trying to gather seekers together in order to better stack and cleave them about as often (if not more often) than stacking in green circles and avoiding real AoEs. And i haven’t noticed any meaningful real difference between those two in how much the guardian went down. Yeah, the second group did it 1-2 minutes faster, maybe.

OnizukaBR.8537:

Astralporing.1957:

flog.3485:

Sird.4536:

Go to Bloodstone Fen and fight the Unbound Guardian. Lern that fight and then you got your first easy mode boss.

100% this. It is an intelligent reuse of assets and it is great way to learn a bit about VG mechanics without having to form a group to raid.

What mechanics? Any “mechanics” of legendary unbound guardian could as well be just visuals for how much they impact the fight (hint: none at all).
It’s as if devs decided to make a jab at people asking for easy mode raids, by using a strawman example of one (and hinting using the name of the achieve that’s the best people can count on seeing). Any ties to vale guardian are nothing more than a bad (and definitely not funny) joke .

So just like the mechanics people want for easy raid ( non wiping ones ), see how this is bad? And if there are a wiping mechanic they will say thats not easy.

No. As i said it was a strawman example of “easy mode”. The one raiders claim people ask for, but not the one people asking actually want.

What i want is for the mechanics to be easier, not faceroll easy. It’s not a binary thing, there’s a ton of ground in between. Even if some people intentionally try to ignore it.

Also yes, i do care about the loot. I never claimed otherwise.

Yes there is ton of ground, that will maybe satisfy you or not , and probably not a lot of other people, because they will still fail at it ( as it will be not face roll ) so complain will still exists and now the raid group is divided in easy mode / normal mode. So in the end its way more harm/trouble then a solution for a problem that only exist if you want.
Many encounters if you remove 1 mechanic it become faceroll easy as you say. Remove Green Circle from VG = faceroll easy. Gorseval remove the enrage = slow grind his health updrafting all the time = faceroll easy. Remove warg from scort = faceroll easy. Remove cannons from sabetha = faceroll easy. Etc.
And if they dont remove this mechanic people will still fail and complain. Because they are already too easy, so its a player problem if you cant complete it in its actual state.

OnizukaBR.8537:

Astralporing.1957:

Sykper.6583:

Seekers and Blue Circles still hit fairly hard from the Unbound Guardian, the green circle gives an incentive to ranged standing inside of it for a damage buff rather than preventing a wipe mechanic.

So far i have seen people at LUG fleeing from “those green AoE’s”, and trying to gather seekers together in order to better stack and cleave them about as often (if not more often) than stacking in green circles and avoiding real AoEs. And i haven’t noticed any meaningful real difference between those two in how much the guardian went down. Yeah, the second group did it 1-2 minutes faster, maybe.

OnizukaBR.8537:

Astralporing.1957:

flog.3485:

Sird.4536:

Go to Bloodstone Fen and fight the Unbound Guardian. Lern that fight and then you got your first easy mode boss.

100% this. It is an intelligent reuse of assets and it is great way to learn a bit about VG mechanics without having to form a group to raid.

What mechanics? Any “mechanics” of legendary unbound guardian could as well be just visuals for how much they impact the fight (hint: none at all).
It’s as if devs decided to make a jab at people asking for easy mode raids, by using a strawman example of one (and hinting using the name of the achieve that’s the best people can count on seeing). Any ties to vale guardian are nothing more than a bad (and definitely not funny) joke .

So just like the mechanics people want for easy raid ( non wiping ones ), see how this is bad? And if there are a wiping mechanic they will say thats not easy.

No. As i said it was a strawman example of “easy mode”. The one raiders claim people ask for, but not the one people asking actually want.

What i want is for the mechanics to be easier, not faceroll easy. It’s not a binary thing, there’s a ton of ground in between. Even if some people intentionally try to ignore it.

Also yes, i do care about the loot. I never claimed otherwise.

Yes there is ton of ground, that will maybe satisfy you or not , and probably not a lot of other people, because they will still fail at it ( as it will be not face roll ) so complain will still exists and now the raid group is divided in easy mode / normal mode. So in the end its way more harm/trouble then a solution for a problem that only exist if you want.
Many encounters if you remove 1 mechanic it become faceroll easy as you say. Remove Green Circle from VG = faceroll easy. Gorseval remove the enrage = slow grind his health updrafting all the time = faceroll easy. Remove warg from scort = faceroll easy. Remove cannons from sabetha = faceroll easy. Etc.
And if they dont remove this mechanic people will still fail and complain. Because they are already too easy, so its a player problem if you cant complete it in its actual state.

The idea that they cannot tone the fights down in ways that don’t make them “faceroll” is a little shortsighted, in my opinion. Of course there is room.

For me, most of the people I talk to are concerned more with the limiting nature of the fights in terms of build/gear/playstyle. Removing or toning down those elements that force (to a degree) players into the meta in order to have realistic chances would be a good thing – in a lower tier level of the raid (there should also be a harder experience that rewards the work people put in).

For many players, copy/pasting a build from metabattle takes the one thing they care about most from the experience – the perceived uniqueness of their character. While they shouldn’t expect to perform at the same level as those that min/max, I don’t think it is unfair for them to expect a raid experience that doesn’t overtly punish thme for getting creative with their characters.

Blaeys.3102:

OnizukaBR.8537:

Astralporing.1957:

Sykper.6583:

Seekers and Blue Circles still hit fairly hard from the Unbound Guardian, the green circle gives an incentive to ranged standing inside of it for a damage buff rather than preventing a wipe mechanic.

So far i have seen people at LUG fleeing from “those green AoE’s”, and trying to gather seekers together in order to better stack and cleave them about as often (if not more often) than stacking in green circles and avoiding real AoEs. And i haven’t noticed any meaningful real difference between those two in how much the guardian went down. Yeah, the second group did it 1-2 minutes faster, maybe.

OnizukaBR.8537:

Astralporing.1957:

flog.3485:

Sird.4536:

Go to Bloodstone Fen and fight the Unbound Guardian. Lern that fight and then you got your first easy mode boss.

100% this. It is an intelligent reuse of assets and it is great way to learn a bit about VG mechanics without having to form a group to raid.

What mechanics? Any “mechanics” of legendary unbound guardian could as well be just visuals for how much they impact the fight (hint: none at all).
It’s as if devs decided to make a jab at people asking for easy mode raids, by using a strawman example of one (and hinting using the name of the achieve that’s the best people can count on seeing). Any ties to vale guardian are nothing more than a bad (and definitely not funny) joke .

So just like the mechanics people want for easy raid ( non wiping ones ), see how this is bad? And if there are a wiping mechanic they will say thats not easy.

No. As i said it was a strawman example of “easy mode”. The one raiders claim people ask for, but not the one people asking actually want.

What i want is for the mechanics to be easier, not faceroll easy. It’s not a binary thing, there’s a ton of ground in between. Even if some people intentionally try to ignore it.

Also yes, i do care about the loot. I never claimed otherwise.

Yes there is ton of ground, that will maybe satisfy you or not , and probably not a lot of other people, because they will still fail at it ( as it will be not face roll ) so complain will still exists and now the raid group is divided in easy mode / normal mode. So in the end its way more harm/trouble then a solution for a problem that only exist if you want.
Many encounters if you remove 1 mechanic it become faceroll easy as you say. Remove Green Circle from VG = faceroll easy. Gorseval remove the enrage = slow grind his health updrafting all the time = faceroll easy. Remove warg from scort = faceroll easy. Remove cannons from sabetha = faceroll easy. Etc.
And if they dont remove this mechanic people will still fail and complain. Because they are already too easy, so its a player problem if you cant complete it in its actual state.

The idea that they cannot tone the fights down in ways that don’t make them “faceroll” is a little shortsighted, in my opinion. Of course there is room.

For me, most of the people I talk to are concerned more with the limiting nature of the fights in terms of build/gear/playstyle. Removing or toning down those elements that force (to a degree) players into the meta in order to have realistic chances would be a good thing - in a lower tier level of the raid (there should also be a harder experience that rewards the work people put in).

For many players, copy/pasting a build from metabattle takes the one thing they care about most from the experience – the perceived uniqueness of their character. While they shouldn’t expect to perform at the same level as those that min/max, I don’t think it is unfair for them to expect a raid experience that doesn’t overtly punish thme for getting creative with their characters.

The bolded part, what people fail to see that the VG on BF is exactly this, but people think its just a strawman or way toned down, and its not, the actual VG is actually that weak/easy, so if you tone down the wipe mechanic you will get BF VG that you dont want.