Guild Wars 2

Absurdo.8309:

I’m trying get your take-away point to generate discussion, but it’s hard to see your point. Is it that raids should be more inclusive because the rest of the game is?

We’ve had hard content before. Why can’t hard content stay hard and easy content stay easy?

Further, most proposed easy modes would divide the player base, just as open-world and raids divides the player base.

Because this will widen raid playerbase, which is good in a lot of ways. Including actual possibility to continue raid development, instead of scrapping them due to low payoff from creating such niche content. You know that Ncsoft is pretty practical company when it comes to monetary decisions, right?

Absurdo.8309:

Further, most proposed easy modes would divide the
player base, just as open-world and raids divides the player base.

You’ve made this point before. Let’s discuss it for a second.

When you look at it, your statement doesn’t really equate to further division. Saying that tiered difficulties will divide the player base just like it is being divided now because of open world is a zero sum start (eg, there is no further division).

I posit that bringing new people into to raids will result in two groups. The first will be the casuals who just want to have fun in the raid. I say more power to them – more people having fun, the more successful the game is, and the more justification Anet has for investing in more raids. That’s something we all want.

But it is the second group that will have the impact I’m talking about – and the one that moves the needle even further. The group that wants to learn to raid but doesn’t want to beat their head against the wall learning the mechanics. These are the people that will participate in lesser difficulty raids, see how much fun overcoming the challenges are and want to move on to the higher level difficulties (or try to work their way up from bronze to gold in my earlier example). We know these people exist because we see them taking this very path to raiding in other raid focused games.

So, at worse, it’s a zero sum, only not really, because you would still have more people sharing similar experiences (which could still be considered less division). At best, it deepens the interest in raids, justifies more development and encourages more people to put in the work to tackle higher end challenges – giving those that raid (pug or organized) a deeper pool and more opportunities to raid.

And thank you for trying to see this from both sides as we have the discussion. The conversation really is starting to become more productive.

Hey all,

I’ve been catching up with this thread but haven’t posted yet. Recently felt compelled to share some thoughts and ideas. This may be a bit long

EDIT: Had to break it into multiple posts

Background about me
Before I dive into the topic at hand I’d like to give a bit of background of my play style. I am a dedicated raider who raids with multiple guild groups per week. I am one of those players who doesn’t care about legendary armor and doesn’t really care about shards or gear. The only gain I’ve received so far from shards/drop has been gearing out other characters that I can use to raid and start the process over again.

That being said, I am very aware and respectful that other people may not have the same opinion and play style. I’m okay with that. MMOs are meant to have a diverse community. Even inside the “raiding community” there are players with different play styles. I’d be willing to bet that every consistent raid group has at least 1 person of the following:
1. A player who loves to raid no matter the day time, shard cap, boss, etc. (aka. me)
2. A player who likes to raid but not spend a ton of time every night. One or two bosses then they leave.
3. A player who likes to raid, but doesn’t like to be part of the process of learning the fights. They just like to come in and beat the boss once the strategy is established.

And i’m sure there are many more and other people who don’t raid have their own set of play styles as well. This wasn’t meant to be an exhaustive list, just a few examples.

So now that is out of the way…I’d like to pose a few questions and then maybe a few ideas based on them.

For those folks who are pro “easy mode raid”, are you particular about the “easy mode” being the same content as the “regular or hard” mode. For example, does an “easy mode wing 1” need to include an “easy mode” of all 3 bosses? Or could it have a slight variation?

What about something like this?

We do have signs that ANET is open to putting encounters of varying difficulty inside a raid. The escort event in wing 3 and the bandit trio in wing 2 are prime examples. What if instead of “easy mode” being a direct copy of the existing raiding difficultly, it instead was built into the raid itself.

For example, imagine a Spirit Vale with only 1 or two wings. (Ignore lore reasons why this wouldn’t work in this example, you can imagine it could work with a new raid with new lore).
Lets say the Escort event was the first boss. Personally, I think this is a great encounter for people who want “easy” or “entry” level raiding. It has no enrage timer, has no DPS requirement, and failure is 100% based on mechanics. It even opens up skills that don’t get used elsewhere. For example, I usually play condi PS warrior on this event and I take Throw Bolas because with Bolas, LB #5, and Sword immobilize, I can solo a warg while keeping it permanently immobilized. There is no other content in the game where I use that skill! That is pretty cool IMO. I think this is a perfect example of “entry level raiding” because it isn’t all that challenging but it teaches you 10 man coordination and group effort.

So, lets say in this imaginary raid you’ve now beaten the Escort. Let’s now say that after Escort the raid has a choice, to go on the “easier” path and do Bandit Trio, or go to down the “regular/harder” path and attempt to kill Vale Guardian. This would allow more "hardcore’ groups to skip the easy path if they wanted. Or they could go and quickly kill it. It would also allow the “easy mode” raiders to chose the easier path and attempt it. They may fail a few times, but then they may succeed. The actual difficulty of the Bandit Trio in this imaginary raid isn’t important, but the concept of players choosing their fate is.

Now, lets say you went on the easy path and there is 1 more “easy boss” before you would get looped back around to Vale Guardian, where the “normal/hard” mode group went after Escort.

This split could even happen for the first encounter, but for this example I chose to use a consistent starting point.

I think something like this would encourage players to start off easy and see their progression. It also means that ANET doesn’t have to completely redesign every encounter to have 3 modes, easy, normal, and potentially “challenge” motes.

The rewards for the “easy” path would of course be different than the “harder path”. This is consistent with the encounters today. Trio doesn’t give as many shards/rewards as Sabetha for example.

So there is my proposition, now I’ll play devil’s advocate and talk about potential criticisms of this proposal:
1. The “easy path” wouldn’t cover every boss. This has its downsides in terms of rewards, lore, diverse content for the group, etc. However, I think most groups who aren’t raiding at all today would either decide raiding still isn’t for them after doing the “easy mode”, or rise up to the challenge and continue along. No evidence to support this, just a thought.
2. Based on the current reward structure (again this could in theory change), this means that the “easy path only” group would never be able to get legendary armor because there are items that only drop from certain bosses. Personally, I’m okay with that because of my argument in #1 above. I think the people that start in the “easy path” group that also want legendary armor would soon have the drive/incentive to continue along the “regular/hard path”.
3. The “easy path” may be too easy/boring for existing groups and there may not be enough incentive to run this content. I’ll address this one next.

The next enhancement that I would suggest would be to take a look at the “hard mode” achievements that are currently in the raid. For example, slippery slubbling on Sloth, the Bandit trio without help, Matthias with Blood stone Bisque, and KC with challenge mote. Personally, I don’t like Sloth or Matthias because they are either:
1. A challenge that really only involves 1 or 2 players
2. A debuff you put on and forget about.

Lets take a look at KC for an example. For those who don’t know the challenge mote for KC just makes the arena stuck in its “smaller” state permanently. The reason this is “challenging” is because there are mechanics that require the group to spread out from each other. This becomes more difficult to do if the arena is smaller. Granted, I personally don’t find this challenge mote all that hard, but the idea is still solid. It applies to all players and is something you actively think about in the fight.

Now, in order to address #3 above related to the “Easy path” being too hard, i believe they should restructure the "hard mode’ parts of the fight to have incentives to repeat them. Currently, the only incentive to repeat one of these achievements is if someone in your group doesn’t have it. Otherwise, there is really no need. Yes the “hardcore only” players may want to do it every time, but getting 10 people to agree on that would be a challenge to say the least. So, there should be incentives to repeat them. This could include things like, repeatable achievements, small % increase in drop rates, more shards, specific titles/rewards for doing it X amount of times, etc. These are just a few ideas, but you can imagine a scenario where a raid group comes into a fight and based on the comp of 10 people in that group, they could decide if they want to try the “hard mode” or not every time they do the encounter…not just once.

So back to KC, lets say instead of the challenge mote being “spread out less”, lets say instead they did one of the following:
1. Make the number of total rifts you can close to give KC his stacking buff reduced from 5->3
2. Reduce the effectiveness of the debuff so you still do 5 total but it impacts KC less.

In this scenario, you could have groups like qT who could probably still phase KC from 100%->66% in one burn of rift closing, but you may have other groups who need 2 burns. This provides extra challenge/rewards that would otherwise never be attempted.

Now you might be asking, why do you want to make more “hard modes” but not an “easy mode”. For a few reasons:
1. This is already a concept in all aspects of the game. Living story achievements, raids, fractals, etc. They all have concepts of making things more challenging for some kind of reward, whether that be an achievement or more loot. I think raids just need more incentive to repeat those ever week.
2. There is a framework in the game for this already. I could be totally wrong, but I don’t think it is outlandish to say that adding in a “hard mode” like the one I described for KC would be less total time then having to redesign the fight entirely to make it easier, but not too easy. ANET is used to adding unique snippets that make content more challenging, but doing the reverse isn’t always as trivial. I could be totally wrong here but just a thought.

Now, lets jump back into the legendary armor discussion. Personally, I find the PVP backpiece, the fractal backpiece, and the legendary armor a much better set of legionaries than the original weapons for example for the following reasons:
1. You can’t strictly buy them off the TP. This also means you can’t effectively by them with your credit card.
2. They have some sort of “challenge” associated with them.

IMO, #2 is the reason why I don’t go for legendary weapons. I personally don’t find grinding 10000 wooden logs challenging. The goal grind/sink isn’t hard, its just time consuming with activities that aren’t challenging. I’d much rather spend that time doing a challenging piece of content that gives you a trophy required for the legendary. This also means that there will be players who no matter how much time they spent doing that “challenging piece of content”, they may never beat it…aka they may never get the legendary. That may not be the route ANET wanted for legendary items, but IMO that is a better system. Legionaries should be earned through doing something you are proud of, not spending $$$ or running around collecting wood for months. For example, instead of having to grind resources for a legendary weapon, maybe you have to solo X amount of dungeons with all classes who can use that weapon. Again just one small idea that probably has its own set of pros/cons.

Well that was a long. Hopefully someone enjoyed reading/commenting on it.

Blaeys.3102:

When you look at it, your statement doesn’t really equate to further division. Saying that tiered difficulties will divide the player base just like it is being divided now because of open world is a zero sum start (eg, there is no further division).

But there would be. Right now all interest in raids is funneled into only one difficulty, all persons interested. Adding a difficulty either harder or easier would immediately divide the interest and population, of who knows what the divide would be, into those who want to do the normal, and the ones that want to do the other mode.

Blaeys.3102:

I posit that bringing new people into to raids will result in two groups. The first will be the casuals who just want to have fun in the raid. I say more power to them – more people having fun, the more successful the game is, and the more justification Anet has for investing in more raids. That’s something we all want.

Assuming they need more justification, sure. Is this really necessary though? That’s a question you have been dodging for a while, is it necessary to spend resources creating an easier mode for players who do not want to go through all the hoops that the normal version has to get what they assume is a ‘raid’ experience. You can not make that argument, that raiding can be more successful if they added an easier mode nor can you suggest that bringing in players who normally would not be able to raid the current raid content, to this new content, would generate further success.

Blaeys.3102:

But it is the second group that will have the impact I’m talking about – and the one that moves the needle even further. The group that wants to learn to raid but doesn’t want to beat their head against the wall learning the mechanics.

Excusing the hyperbole there, that particular line I pointed out is extremely important and has been a question left unanswered for a long time now. How does one learn to raid without learning the mechanics? Do you introduce the mechanics in the easier mode but do not make them threatening whatsoever? How would that teach them to deal with it in the normal version, why not just do the normal version and train the normal version while getting currency for wipes?!

Every single time you say that these ‘raiders’ who are interested in raiding but do not want to engage, learn and adapt to the raid encounters but simply just want to win, I feel you are taking a side that is strictly ‘not a raider’. It is anything but raiding if you remove failure from the equation. You aren’t giving these raiders who do not want to try the normal raid a raid, you are giving them a win button.

Blaeys.3102:

So, at worse, it’s a zero sum, only not really, because you would still have more people sharing similar experiences (which could still be considered less division). At best, it deepens the interest in raids, justifies more development and encourages more people to put in the work to tackle higher end challenges – giving those that raid (pug or organized) a deeper pool and more opportunities to raid.

Similar experiences, kind of like how that VG in the Fen is a similar experience for open world groups to have a taste of a raid am I right?

Let’s face it, there will be a net loss of raider population going into normal mode, as those raiders who weren’t quite confident of their skills yet very possibly could have raided normal mode just fine, were caught by an allure to do easy mode. Upon doing easy mode, they might it entertaining or very likely boring, as the ultimate PvE challenge has been trivialized.

Regardless, their perception of easy mode would taint and likely harm their chances of doing normal mode properly, depending on what extent the easy mode diverges from the normal, certain mechanics they could have avoided all together, now they cannot, and they have an entirely different fight. Oh joy! The easy mode did not prepare them whatsoever for the normal encounter! They will have to relearn it.

OR, if the easy mode is just a slightly tuned down version of normal, then there will still be complaints about how hard this easy-mode is. Because people are selfish and lazy, they certainly don’t want to learn, and they believe they are raider material until they get the pressure turned on and they either drop out, or strive and experience a thrill not felt anywhere else in the game right now.

……Not everything needs to be inclusive. I shouldn’t need to demand that SPvP have more jumping puzzle mechanics just because I love those mini-dungeons in the open-world so much, and I would like them in SPvP. WvW certainly didn’t NEED more NPC boss mobs, but we got them anyways.

Is it so hard to ask for an PvE element in this game, that through its very nature being difficult, stays difficult now and in the future? Where any inquiring new player would ask ’What’s the hardest content in the game right now’ and someone would suggest ‘Raids’ and not say ‘Raids, well except for the easy mode’.

Rednik.3809:

Because this will widen raid playerbase, which is good in a lot of ways. Including actual possibility to continue raid development, instead of scrapping them due to low payoff from creating such niche content. You know that Ncsoft is pretty practical company when it comes to monetary decisions, right?

Unless it expands the entire playerbase (which it won’t; nobody is or would play GW2 for easymode raids) this is not correct. Development time is a finite resource, and ANet spending more of their limited resources than they currently do on raids is a lose for everybody. Most of the playerbase will never play raids; even most of the PvE playerbase will never play raids.

These are the exact mistakes that Blizzard made, and World of Warcraft actually has a legitimate reason to provide multiple modes (the ramping gear barrier and short-term nature of their raid content).

If you can’t complete something and another person can, it means that either your build or your gameplay (or both) are bad. If you really wanna complete it, there’s nothing preventing you from fixing that issue. If your build is bad, get a good one. Meta builds are called meta for a reason. If you play poorly, practice and try to get better. Many people who are among the top raiders now got there by attempting to solo various dungeon/fotm bosses and doing other challenges.

If you don’t want to get better and stubbornly stick to your stupid useless build, you won’t get raid rewards, period. For a long time people used to claim that their special unique way of playing the game (stupid and totally random builds) is just as effective as the meta. Now you have a clear proof that it IS NOT, because you can’t complete it and other people can. Adapt or go home.

(And btw. this is the very reason why enrage timers are a good thing. They tell you your way of playing the game is wrong and bad. Without them we would still have “special snowflakes” who argue that other stat combos are just as effective as berserker, that you don’t need full offense, shouldn’t be forced to dodge unless you find it fun, non-meta builds are just as good or even better than meta and other kinds of BS.)

TexZero.7910:

You want a different difficulty of raiding…whatever you choose to call it it’s still raiding.

No. It is a 10 man instance, that serves both as a new content, and as a gateway to the legendary armor. Those are the things i do care about. Raiding here would be needing to spend a ton of time getting a group, preparing, then failing and failing and failing again. This is the very thing i do not want.

TexZero.7910:

Raids are meant to be hard challenging group content.

And easy mode is meant to be more casual, and less challenging group content. Just like WoW’s LFR

TexZero.7910:

Hello there strawman 1 and 2. I’ll address these although it will likely prove fruitless.
The current state of raids provides the best state and healthiest state of raiding because there is just one mode.

Again, it is healthiest for you personally, because you don’t need easy mode. It doesn’t mean it’s the healthiest for other players, or for the game however. In fact, currently it seems that while raiders are generally content, it does have some really unheathy impact on others.

TexZero.7910:

You’ve made the choice with your friends not to run it. That is not the same as the content not being there.

The content is no longer designed for the same group of people it was before. That means it has effectively been removed from the pool of content aimed at that group.

Tarasicodissa.7084:

And btw. this is the very reason why enrage timers are a good thing. They tell you your way of playing the game is wrong and bad.

Play my way, or the highway?
No, thank you very much. Do not like.

If you wanted to give a reason why enrage timers are bad, you couldn’t find a better one.

Sykper.6583:

Blaeys.3102:

When you look at it, your statement doesn’t really equate to further division. Saying that tiered difficulties will divide the player base just like it is being divided now because of open world is a zero sum start (eg, there is no further division).

But there would be. Right now all interest in raids is funneled into only one difficulty, all persons interested. Adding a difficulty either harder or easier would immediately divide the interest and population, of who knows what the divide would be, into those who want to do the normal, and the ones that want to do the other mode.

Blaeys.3102:

I posit that bringing new people into to raids will result in two groups. The first will be the casuals who just want to have fun in the raid. I say more power to them – more people having fun, the more successful the game is, and the more justification Anet has for investing in more raids. That’s something we all want.

Assuming they need more justification, sure. Is this really necessary though? That’s a question you have been dodging for a while, is it necessary to spend resources creating an easier mode for players who do not want to go through all the hoops that the normal version has to get what they assume is a ‘raid’ experience. You can not make that argument, that raiding can be more successful if they added an easier mode nor can you suggest that bringing in players who normally would not be able to raid the current raid content, to this new content, would generate further success.

Blaeys.3102:

But it is the second group that will have the impact I’m talking about – and the one that moves the needle even further. The group that wants to learn to raid but doesn’t want to beat their head against the wall learning the mechanics.

Excusing the hyperbole there, that particular line I pointed out is extremely important and has been a question left unanswered for a long time now. How does one learn to raid without learning the mechanics? Do you introduce the mechanics in the easier mode but do not make them threatening whatsoever? How would that teach them to deal with it in the normal version, why not just do the normal version and train the normal version while getting currency for wipes?!

Every single time you say that these ‘raiders’ who are interested in raiding but do not want to engage, learn and adapt to the raid encounters but simply just want to win, I feel you are taking a side that is strictly ‘not a raider’. It is anything but raiding if you remove failure from the equation. You aren’t giving these raiders who do not want to try the normal raid a raid, you are giving them a win button.

Blaeys.3102:

So, at worse, it’s a zero sum, only not really, because you would still have more people sharing similar experiences (which could still be considered less division). At best, it deepens the interest in raids, justifies more development and encourages more people to put in the work to tackle higher end challenges – giving those that raid (pug or organized) a deeper pool and more opportunities to raid.

Similar experiences, kind of like how that VG in the Fen is a similar experience for open world groups to have a taste of a raid am I right?

Let’s face it, there will be a net loss of raider population going into normal mode, as those raiders who weren’t quite confident of their skills yet very possibly could have raided normal mode just fine, were caught by an allure to do easy mode. Upon doing easy mode, they might it entertaining or very likely boring, as the ultimate PvE challenge has been trivialized.

Regardless, their perception of easy mode would taint and likely harm their chances of doing normal mode properly, depending on what extent the easy mode diverges from the normal, certain mechanics they could have avoided all together, now they cannot, and they have an entirely different fight. Oh joy! The easy mode did not prepare them whatsoever for the normal encounter! They will have to relearn it.

OR, if the easy mode is just a slightly tuned down version of normal, then there will still be complaints about how hard this easy-mode is. Because people are selfish and lazy, they certainly don’t want to learn, and they believe they are raider material until they get the pressure turned on and they either drop out, or strive and experience a thrill not felt anywhere else in the game right now.

Agreed. Easy modes will divide those who currently raid. It also won’t help train any potential raiders.

Based on some other easy-moders in this thread, all they seem to want is rewards. If they actually wanted to learn to raid, nothing is stopping them.

Jerus.4350:

bai long.2085:

A timer has no place in competitive weight lifting. It’s not about speed.

World’s Strongest Man competition. :b

Pretty sure people would pull a clock on you if you deliberatly waited for the weights to crumble into dust to make it easier.

Absurdo.8309:

This post is satire.

Easy mode world v. world would satisfy most.

We all know wvw is dying. It’s only played by a small portion of the player base. I know what I’m talking about. I’m the leader of a large wvw guild. I wvw everyday, and have several years of risk and call of duty: world at war under my belt.

Several of my guild members have told me that wvw is just too hard for them. They don’t have the time to get on ts and play more than 15 minutes. They don’t like constantly dying and respawning in their home keep. It’s like banging their head against a wall.

So I propose World v. World: Infantile mode

Instead of dying, confetti shoots out of their weapon, disabling them for 5 seconds. Alternatively, anet could disable the scoring timer. The mode will have, say, one half the rewards of regular mode.

Pros
- It gets more players involved in wvw
- It allows players to practice the mechanics of the maps and siege weapons without the stress of dying or a timer
- It provides a common experience with the hardcore wvw crowd
- It allows players to experience the extensive story in the mists (remember how rytlock became a revenant in the mists!?! This story link is key)
- Players get a sense of accomplishment, instead of dying
- Since there’s no timer, players can focus on tankier builds, like healing mesmer
- It gives players an alternate method to progress towards wvw rewards

Cons
- None

Thoughts? The divide between casual and hardcore wvw is tearing apart the space-time continuum of guild wars 2. Anet shouldn’t put any more resources to wvw until it fixes this problem.

Half the rewards!?
That’s unfair! I should be able to get all the WvW exclusive rewards without dealing with the extremely too hard normal WvW mode, or it’s toxic & elitist community!

You WvW every day? That’s just way too elitist right there. I don’t think you can be objective enough since you are obviously biased as you WvW every day. I can only trust and believe those who played WvW like once or twice since release. I mean who are you gonna trust, a biased WvW guy who has years of experience or someone with no agenda and has only played WvW once or twice? I know who I’d go for!!!!!

kek <- this
kek
kek

You can belittle and derail, but most see it for what it is – instead of arguing the actual topic, you, once again, turn to attacking the people posting in an attempt to shut the conversation down. That is usually a sign of people realizing how weak their arguments actually are.

I made the comments about my past raiding activities ONLY after people started saying “you have no idea because you don’t raid.” It was to illustrate that this isn’t just non raiders wanting this. But, in typical fashion, I’m attacked for those comments.

All posts like these do is show the weak nature of your criticisms (resorting to personal attacks YET AGAIN) and illustrate the divisive culture and elitism that raids have actually brought to the game.

Despite the obvious attempt to shame me directly – as well as others you disagree with – this conversation will continue. As Ive said before, Ive seen people attacked, belittled and even receive death threats over this topic. It really is sad that people cant talk rationally about a topic without resorting to this BS.

Satire or not, you cannot compare WvW or any PvP situation to PVE. It simply doesn’t work.

After this, I wont be responding to Absurdo at all in this thread. He has made it clear that his one and only goal is to shut down the conversation in any way he can – resporting (once again) to weak personal attacks. It is unproductive and pathetic.

Absurdo.8309:

Agreed. Easy modes will divide those who currently raid.

If you really think that is the main reason against easy mode ,here are my counterpoints against that https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/Different-Raid-Difficulty-Would-Satisfy-Most/page/16#post6319454
Under Indigo’s #2 point.

Absurdo.8309:

It also won’t help train any potential raiders. Based on some other easy-moders in this thread, all they seem to want is rewards.

If you have any point to prove that without generalizing everyone who doesn’t raid right now, I’m willing to listen.

Absurdo.8309:

This post is satire.

In other words, this post is not contructive what so ever and doesn’t move the discussion forward, and only derails the thread. I could explain why what you wrote down doesn’t apply to this situation in detail, but I don’t think it is necessary. And if you don’t think it is derailing the thread just read the following responses.

TexZero.7910:

…I dont even man.

Raids specific goal is to be challenging end game content. By having multiple modes you are giving up any desire for them to be challenging. You are instead choosing to water down the experience in favor of getting more people through the ride instead of creating the best ride you can.

I entirely disagree. Those who want to raid, can and will. It’s been proven to death. Those that don’t for whatever reason they chose don’t. Changing the content to cater to them will only break communities up further. Hence one mode of play is better than 15 modes of play as it consolidates the players in 1 spot.

This is an insincere statement to make, you’re not a gameplay designer and have no idea how long the pipeline would be for toning raids down to a level deemed acceptable to warrant an easy mode, nor can you give us the specifics required to know what the timeline is for a raid created from scratch.

They aren’t taking away any content. This is the most disingenuous statement you could have possibly made. Even more so considering you’re “pro easy mode” stance. Tier 1-3 still exist. T4 has had its difficulty increased and people are complaining that the hard end of fractals is now “too hard”. This is the same problem that will befall raids if they attempt to create a modular environment.

Even though we disagree, thank you for providing rational and respectful feedback on this topic.

I actually agree with some of the statements here. I do believe that the primary goal of raids should always be to provide challenging content. And, I do not believe that developers have deliberately tried to exclude anyone or divert away from other content. I also agree that some of the onus is definitely on the players rather than the devs.

Where our opinions diverge isn’t as black and white as some other posters have tried to make it. It is about degrees.

I don’t want raids to be faceroll easy (one of the reasons I don’t think the boss in BSF is a raid boss). I want variable difficulty primarily to accommodate a greater variety of playstyles.

I feel the current model punishes non meta build players and groups a little too much (not completely locking them out – but enough to matter – again, its about degrees). Even with that, though, I think those that do research the metas and play the game perfectly should have a greater challenge.

Adding lower tiers – with lesser rewards (it could be as low as champion bags – it really isn’t a reward issue, imo) – would open raiding to more playstyles – with the existing tier (or even harder) remaining in place for those seeking that challenge.

Ive said it before, but it really is about degrees. Raids should never be faceroll easy, but they should (imo) be a bit more accommodating for different playstyles, which (again, imo) they currently are not.

I really hate the idea that a player who has enjoyed a particular playstyle for 3.5 years is punished so severely now – unless they change how they play. Again, they don’t deserve the highest level reward unless they do change, but if they are good at their current style (even if that style is rifle engi or condi Mesmer), they should have a realistic (again, about degrees) way to experience raids in a fun environment.

That is all this is really about.

And – I cant say this enough – thank you for being open to having this conversation in a respectful and productive manner.

As a sidenote – I think the best thing we can all do at this point is completely ignore any derogatory comments or insults directed at players rather than actually debating the topic at hand. Let’s continue the productive conversation around the dismissive, trollish attempts to derail.

You talk a lot about how the meta constricts playstyles and whatnot but my first VG clear, like many others, was done in a random assortment of exotics/ascended with weird stats like rampagers for the condi classes. Most of us did not have top tier meta builds because there was no meta back then.

We still did it despite that difficulty with our random builds and weird non chrono tank (we used an ele, a DH and a scrapper tank) for our first couple of VG kills.

It is my firm belief that people like you who complain about the meta are just using this as an excuse to not raid. Just like in PvE, PvP has a certain meta with meta builds but I too do not run the builds on metabattle.com. Still got legend just fine all 4 seasons.

Basically it all comes down to attitude. Most of you do not have that attitude to raid and easy mode raids won’t fix that.

fishball.7204:

You talk a lot about how the meta constricts playstyles and whatnot but my first VG clear, like many others, was done in a random assortment of exotics/ascended with weird stats like rampagers for the condi classes. Most of us did not have top tier meta builds because there was no meta back then.

We still did it despite that difficulty with our random builds and weird non chrono tank (we used an ele, a DH and a scrapper tank) for our first couple of VG kills.

It is my firm belief that people like you who complain about the meta are just using this as an excuse to not raid. Just like in PvE, PvP has a certain meta with meta builds but I too do not run the builds on metabattle.com. Still got legend just fine all 4 seasons.

Basically it all comes down to attitude. Most of you do not have that attitude to raid and easy mode raids won’t fix that.

I lead raids multiple nights a week, so it is definitely not an excuse to not raid.

I also get the point you are trying to make about the diversity of some pug groups and that more off-meta builds are being included. But, I still posit that, in typical situations and with guilds first starting off in raids, the meta is a little too strong – to the point where non-meta groups and builds are punished a little more than they should be. Again, it is about degrees.

Again, optimal effort should result in optimal reward. At the same time, I would like to see raids be a little less punishing on those groups that start off outside the meta (with the understanding that the reward would definitely not be the same).

As far as whether or not people would play the content, I would point to other sources. Variable difficulty raids in other games have been rather successful, as have fractals (there are LFG groups for almost every fractal tier on an ongoing basis). These kinds of systems work – and I think it is worth giving them a try in raids.

A lot of people try to state why people like me argue so strongly for this, making up a thousand silly reasons. For me, it really is about wanting to experience raids with more diverse groups of my friends/guildees, many of whom are put off by the current raid implementation. I enjoy raiding. I want more of my friends to enjoy it with me, even if they are playing a condi elementalist or healing focused engineer (again, understanding that the rewards would be diminished).

And, thank you for being a productive part of this conversation. I realize this is an emotional topic – but it is definitely one worth discussing.

Unrelated – I really wish people would stop saying I hate raids. I actually love raids.

Since this thread has gone off topic and become an argument, it will now be locked. Please remember to be respectful of all community members.