Guild Wars 2

Hello!

I am playing GW2 since release and I was also part of thecommunity in GW1.

Today, it is the first time, I want to discuss an issue in the Forum in order to give some thoughts to the developers. At least, german customer service told me, the best way to contact the developers is the english forum ????.

First of all, in my opinion, the new raid maps look fantastic. However, I think, most players have only limited chances to access an play the Story there. For all now thinking, I am a noob and not skilled enough, I can say, I am skilled enough to have done all Dungeons and bosses in the game. In other MMORPGs, I was raid leader such as in SWTOR. The main problem with the raids in GW2 is the fact, that they require a group of ten highly equipped players with very good skills. Some guilds do have Teams like that, many not. Even if there teams for Raids it is complicated to join them, especially in case you have not der visited the raid before. There are actually raid teams “selling” raid runs for much ingame gold or ectos. Just have a look in the group finder to find them.

I hope, the “death Circle” I am talking about becomes obvious.

Since I am not here to criticize the raids, here are some things the developers could do. to improve the raids by making them accessible both for casual and “hard core Gamers”:

- implement a Story Mode for the raids:
The mechanics would be the same as now. Simply reduce damage by enemies and reduce life bars on bosses of lengthen timers. For Story Mode I would then recommend to reduce the loot: less difficulty less loot. Story Mode could be used by casual Gamers in order to discover the raid maps and raid stories or to train the bosses and their mechanics.

- leave actual mode as it is and call it hardmode:
Here the developers have to change nothing.

- Since there would be two modes you could Start at the beginning of the raid when the Group enters a query, where the Players chose between normal and hardmode. For normal Mode you could also just add a permanent buff to each player that enhances endurance and dps, so the developers would not have to change too many things.

These are my thoughts about the actual raid problems. It would be nice if other players would discuss about my ideas. It would be even better, if the developers would react too. In case, they want to hear more detailed ideas about the topic they can also contact me by email.

Best regards,

Hildemar

“The main problem with the raids in GW2 is the fact, that they require a group of ten highly equipped players with very good skills.”
That’s was the target audience of the raids since they went out, there was an official dev post verifying this but i wont spend the time to find it. Also most mechanics in raids are already covered by t4 fractals which is a good stepping stone. Skills, organizing,builds,coordination are pretty much what raids are about.

It was never supposed to be a multi-layered difficulty mode. Wow turned on this path and raids ended up as watered down, afk encounters that lost their quality and their “social” concept to the point where the raid dev himself openly regretted his decision. Even today u can hear it from a lot of players that the magic is gone since we’re getting handed everything for free.

Raids were designed for players who wanted content that required preparation, high levels of Coordination, and high levels of skill/teamwork for highly organized groups to complete, if you aren’t into those then you weren’t the target audience, Raids have no impact on the progression of the Gw2 main story arc, it is niche content that is not the main focus of Gw2.

The Devs have stated they are good with their Raid design and difficulty level. There is. No need for multiple difficulty levels of Raids since they were never designed to appeal to everyone.

All of wing 4 and some older bosses already have easy and hard mode (challenge motes or achievements). They could make an easier story mode with no rewards, but I think most of us would prefer to get wing 5 instead of a story mode for the previous 4 wings.

Easier fights also tend to make the story less significant so it would take away from the story.

It’s fairly easy to get into raids. All you need is to join a guild that does raids weekly and copy a few meta builds that you like. Might not even need a guild if you catch on quickly. This is not like some other games where you have to have been doing it from the start to have a chance.

I had no idea a quick trip to the trading post to buy materials to craft or outright buying the exotics was somehow highly geared.

The only obvious thing here is how your bias toward a story mode is blinding you.

Hildemar Moguntiaco.3057:

The main problem with the raids in GW2 is the fact, that they require a group of ten highly equipped players with very good skills.

I’m sorry, but this is just plain wrong. Getting the gear to start raids (some ascended weapons and ideally ascended trinkets) is anything but hard unless you just started playing GW2 a month ago or so. And very good skills? GW2 raid bosses present, at best, some kind of moderate difficulty compared to other MMOs. Most of them already are stupidly easy.

Hildemar Moguntiaco.3057:

The main problem with the raids in GW2 is the fact, that they require a group of ten highly equipped players with very good skills. Some guilds do have Teams like that, many not.

You’re wrong here. Gear is helpful but not necessary. All the better gear does for you is leave more room for mistakes. It helps for a smoother experience, especially while learning. But it is not required. All that’s required is for the players to be familiar with the encounters and their mechanics. And guess what, there’s only one way to do that – play raids.

True, many guilds do not have teams who raid. But here’s something you can do about that – step up and organize one. From my experience people are generally curious about this content and willing to give it a shot. Of course, not every guild would still have enough players who would be interested or have the time to do it. It would be unreasonable to expect otherwise. But then, you can join 5 guilds at a time.

You were raid leader in swotor? How did you handle Dread Master Brontes in nightmare mode if you think gw2 raids are hard?

How you were a raid leader if you think raids in GW2 are difficult? Everyweek you see post of something like 10 man turret eng, 10 man naked ( So how you need to be highly equiped again ? ) , 10 man guardians, 9 man only healers… all kind of funny comps for fun that clear the bosses.
So i can conclude two things with your post:
1 – You are lying about being a raid leader on another game
or
2 – You are not lying about your exp but you created this thread before even giving a serious attempt on raiding on GW2.

There’s probably a much more simple explanation: He just did the easymode and thought it was srs bsns.

NikeEU.7690:

You were raid leader in swotor? How did you handle Dread Master Brontes in nightmare mode if you think gw2 raids are hard?

NiM Dread Guard at tier was so much worse.

Gw2 thinks it has DPS checks. NiM Dread Guards was a real DPS check.

I’ll take your word for it. I just remember the swotor branch of dnt during brontes nim progression and it being insanely painful.

Yes, a story mode is definitely needed.

It’s good to see that this topic is naturally reoccurring on the forums as more players begin to realize this. Hopefully the developers are watching.

What isn’t good to see is the troll brigade that also reoccurs every time someone decides to express this opinion. Once again, we have the same people lurking in the shadows ready to pounce on anyone expressing this concern with personal attacks like “get good”, “It’s already easy enough – you must suck”, “you’re lying about XYZ”, “experienced groups can do it with 8 people, so anyone that cant with 10 is bad at the game”, etc. I know, because I’ve had every one of these (and many more – including, unbelievably, death threats) levied at me for choosing to have this conversation as well.

For the most part, it’s better to just ignore people like that. The discussion needs to continue and we need people like the OP to feel comfortable expressing this opinion.

A story mode is warranted (and no, wing 4 is not an example of one) – both for accessibility and the ongoing health of all forms of raiding.

If you can debate for or against that, you should feel free to do so. If you only know how to insult the actual posters making the points, you aren’t helping anyone on any side of the issue.

I think this is a good idea, and I really don’t understand the objections.

The OP is asking for a completely separate mode with separate rewards. Your raiding experience will not be changed at all as you can just click on hard mode. If the original point was to nerf the difficulty across the board of raids then I would be with you in objecting but I don’t see the harm of a completely separate box that aims to be more inclusive.
If you buy an expansion pack then you are paying for the development cycle of that expansion pack. If part of that development cycle is based on raids then you are getting a worse deal on that pack if you are someone who doesn’t raid then someone who can enjoy all the content.

There are going to be people in this game who will never qualify for raids, the reasons are numerous:
They’re too lazy to learn their class (100% of all people if you ask the average raider)
They have bad hardware/laggy internet.
They’re not playing guild wars 2 as their main game and therefore have less practice than someone who plays this full time.
They may have some form of disability that makes playing the game much much much harder than it would someone without that disability.
They might have honestly tried as hard as they possibly can and are just not at the required skill level despite that.
They may value role playing or fun over the math™ when gearing their character (unlike a table top RPG MMOs seem to punish role play instead of reward it).

I understand that if you want to do raiding content you don’t want to play with these people and that’s fine. It’s your group after all and you can invite who you want. But because everyone who raids thinks this way it means if you’re one of these people you are unlikely to ever get to do the raids.

Currently there is no easy way of experiencing a raid to completion. If you want to raid now then you kinda have to set up a guild and lead it yourself. This is of course not impossible but it requires a lot of time and effort on your part for something that you might later find out really wasn’t for you in the first place. It’s also something that gets harder and harder as the pool of people who haven’t raided before and want to is getting shallower and shallower as time goes on.
Most of the pug groups that you can join are expecting hundreds upon hundreds of kills even on the first boss of the first raid.
You can try to start a pug yourself, (something I did once, and it actually worked out which was pretty awesome although we didn’t manage to get the kill). Perhaps given time you would eventually succeed this way, I really don’t know.

Fractals has a level 100 mode, does the knowledge of the fact that some people are running level 1 fractals somehow ruin the fact that you can do 100? If so why? I don’t get it!

People who raid say they like the difficulty but I think what they really like is the exclusivity. Whenever anyone asks for an easy mode people seem to get a bit anxious despite the fact that they could just stay on their hyper elite hard mode and ignore the easy mode and I don’t really get why…I’m kinda really put off by the idea of raiding in this game to be honest. I know forums contain the vocal minority and its unfair to tar everyone with the same brush but raids seem to be such a polarising toxic thing in this game. I know I’ve taken quite a negative stance in this post and I probably have insulted some people and I’m sorry about that. I just wish I understood your point of view on why allowing more people to experience something without taking anything away from you is necessarily bad

@MerlinGamer

Again eaids were designed for a Specific Target audience, like everything else in game, all content each has its own specific target audience, players wanting easy mode Raids ruins he concept and design goal behind Raids, for it to be the most challenging content in game, if you make an easy mode Raid it is still a Raid and it is no longer the most challenging content in game, pretty simple common sense stuff there.

And by your logic because one player that doesn’t like any form of pvp gets next to no value since this game has 2 pvp gamemodes out of the 3 gamemodes provided…. so they should remove pvp completely form the game since they don’t get to enjoy the entirety of the game. Smh

Blaeys.3102:

Yes, a story mode is definitely needed.

I definitely doubt it would change anything. Some people complain about HoT open world being too hard. And the whole point of raids is to offer challenging content. Suppose you dumb them down to Queensdale levels. What’s the point of playing this? To see a story? There’s youtube, you know. It wouldn’t take time and effort from the developers. Time and effort they could have been using for creating new content instead of depriving existing content of the very reason it was created in the first place. And when these same players play through the story and get disappointed – because they’ll be missing the whole point of raiding – they’ll simply complain about devs “wasting time” on this content at all. Sorry, but I just can’t seem to find any positive for this idea.

Sly.9518:

And by your logic because one player that doesn’t like any form of pvp gets next to no value since this game has 2 pvp gamemodes out of the 3 gamemodes provided…. so they should remove pvp completely form the game since they don’t get to enjoy the entirety of the game. Smh

And by the same logic, the existence of a story mode would not invalidate the purpose of the harder mode. They can coexist without diluting either experience (if anything, it would free them up to make the hard mode actually hard).

Feanor.2358:

Time and effort they could have been using for creating new content instead of depriving existing content of the very reason it was created in the first place.

The reason it was created (challenge) would still exist parallel to the story mode, so no one would be deprived of anything (again, I think they could actually make it harder with the story mode addressing accessibility).

The argument about developer resources is worth discussion, but, again, I think it probably isn’t as great an issue as people think. I believe they could probably develop this concept with little to no more effort than they put into the challenge motes used in wing 4. It would be a better use of the time (most people didnt like the inclusion of challenge motes anyway) and address the issue elegantly.

Hi Sly.

I understand that raids are designed at a target audience and in the OPs post he isn’t saying that raids need to be changed at all. He’s asking for a separate mode where the original raid and design goal is completely maintained and preserved. If the objection is that it shares the same name would it be alright to make an easy mode of a raid and call it something different like a Foray? I don’t remember at any point saying that raids should be removed, that’s ridiculous! PVP isn’t really a fair comparison either. It has different difficulty levels and match making. It is available to the best players in the game and the worst.

Honestly the OP’s idea isn’t a bad one. Yes the raids were designed as high end content for a small pool of players. That is true, was stated by the devs, and is still true today. But guild wars 2 has a large pool of players and a lot enjoy any story in the game. So by the devs putting some type of story in the raids like they did, a whole bunch of players are missing out on that content. I know there are a number of people in my guild that won’t complete all the bosses in a raid to get to hear and see of the extra stuff that is in there.

So the OP’s idea of adding a story mode is a good idea. But, in my opinion the magnetite shards should be dropped as a reward like the dungeon tokens are for story dungeons. Also, all drops that are specific for the raid bosses should also be taken out for a story mode, along with LI’s. Now standard ascended drops and the other stuff is fine to stay there. This would allow a lot larger portion of the populatioin a chance to experience the raid maps, the story and the mechanics, and in turn could stop a lot of the raid hate that shows up here on the forums.

Blaeys.3102:

Sly.9518:

And by your logic because one player that doesn’t like any form of pvp gets next to no value since this game has 2 pvp gamemodes out of the 3 gamemodes provided…. so they should remove pvp completely form the game since they don’t get to enjoy the entirety of the game. Smh

And by the same logic, the existence of a story mode would not invalidate the purpose of the harder mode. They can coexist without diluting either experience (if anything, it would free them up to make the hard mode actually hard).

Not really they can make them hard now like they already are and focus on their Target audiences needs and not cater to pleasing people not intended as the target audience for such a small niche content. But what you want would come to a detriment to the Raid development schedule by forcing more resources and development time on small niche content that has no repercussions on the main Gw2 story arc progression. But that doesn’t matter to you if Raiders have to receive slower content pace as long as your wants are met right?

Sly.9518:

Blaeys.3102:

Sly.9518:

And by your logic because one player that doesn’t like any form of pvp gets next to no value since this game has 2 pvp gamemodes out of the 3 gamemodes provided…. so they should remove pvp completely form the game since they don’t get to enjoy the entirety of the game. Smh

And by the same logic, the existence of a story mode would not invalidate the purpose of the harder mode. They can coexist without diluting either experience (if anything, it would free them up to make the hard mode actually hard).

Not really they can make them hard now like they already are and focus on their Target audiences needs and not cater to pleasing people not intended as the target audience for such a small niche content. But what you want would come to a detriment to the Raid development schedule by forcing more resources and development time on small niche content that has no repercussions on the main Gw2 story arc progression. But that doesn’t matter to you if Raiders have to receive slower content pace as long as your wants are met right?

Again, be wary of personal insults and attacks. Let’s discuss the topics – not the people making them.

As I stated further in my response above, I don’t see the developer resource issue as a significant one because of the inclusion of challenge motes in the last wing. I think they could transition those resources to story motes of some kind and address the issue with little to no additional effort.

Blaeys.3102:

Sly.9518:

Blaeys.3102:

Sly.9518:

And by your logic because one player that doesn’t like any form of pvp gets next to no value since this game has 2 pvp gamemodes out of the 3 gamemodes provided…. so they should remove pvp completely form the game since they don’t get to enjoy the entirety of the game. Smh

And by the same logic, the existence of a story mode would not invalidate the purpose of the harder mode. They can coexist without diluting either experience (if anything, it would free them up to make the hard mode actually hard).

Not really they can make them hard now like they already are and focus on their Target audiences needs and not cater to pleasing people not intended as the target audience for such a small niche content. But what you want would come to a detriment to the Raid development schedule by forcing more resources and development time on small niche content that has no repercussions on the main Gw2 story arc progression. But that doesn’t matter to you if Raiders have to receive slower content pace as long as your wants are met right?

Again, be wary of personal insults and attacks. Let’s discuss the topics – not the people making them.

As I stated further in my response above, I don’t see the developer resource issue as a significant one because of the inclusion of challenge motes in the last wing. I think they could transition those resources to story motes of some kind and address the issue with little to no additional effort.

As pointed out multiple times before the challenge notes only add extra mechanics they don’t touch or rebalance anything else, unlike what the Story more or easy mode notes would do…. which rebalancing would more likely than not take more development time to test and adjust the mode over all than say slap on an additional mechanic to the existing Raid and they only have to adjust the one mechanic…

And where did I insult anyone in my last post you quoted? I did not and I didn’t make an attack, I asked a simple question you are refusing to answer.

Blaeys.3102:

The reason it was created (challenge) would still exist parallel to the story mode, so no one would be deprived of anything (again, I think they could actually make it harder with the story mode addressing accessibility).

The argument about developer resources is worth discussion, but, again, I think it probably isn’t as great an issue as people think. I believe they could probably develop this concept with little to no more effort than they put into the challenge motes used in wing 4. It would be a better use of the time (most people didnt like the inclusion of challenge motes anyway) and address the issue elegantly.

1. You’re missing the point.

2. You’ve already started doing it. Unlike a story mode, challenge motes serve a purpose.

Sly.9518:

As pointed out multiple times before the challenge notes only add extra mechanics they don’t touch or rebalance anything else, unlike what the Story more or easy mode notes would do…. which rebalancing would more likely than not take more development time to test and adjust the mode over all than say slap on an additional mechanic to the existing Raid and they only have to adjust the one mechanic…

And where did I insult anyone in my last post you quoted? I did not and I didn’t make an attack, I asked a simple question you are refusing to answer.

Removing mechanics and tweaking numbers (the inverse of what the challenge motes do – and they have done both in the past) would likely be enough to create the story experience we are discussing here, so i challenge the statement that they would take significantly more resources.

And only because you asked – as to the personal attack, when you make comments like this one -

Sly.9518:

But that doesn’t matter to you if Raiders have to receive slower content pace as long as your wants are met right?

That is most definitely a personal attack. You are trying to deflect the argument to me being irrational or having some nefarious agenda – rather than debate the points directly. As an example, it would be just as easy for me to say that your motivations are selfish because you dont want anyone else to enjoy the raid content unless they choose to play the way you do (and that is just an example – I don’t actually believe it to be true). The point is, debate the points – not the people making them – and we can have an actual civil discussion.

Blaeys.3102:

Sly.9518:

As pointed out multiple times before the challenge notes only add extra mechanics they don’t touch or rebalance anything else, unlike what the Story more or easy mode notes would do…. which rebalancing would more likely than not take more development time to test and adjust the mode over all than say slap on an additional mechanic to the existing Raid and they only have to adjust the one mechanic…

And where did I insult anyone in my last post you quoted? I did not and I didn’t make an attack, I asked a simple question you are refusing to answer.

Removing mechanics and tweaking numbers (the inverse of what the challenge motes do – and they have done both in the past) would likely be enough to create the story experience we are discussing here, so i challenge the statement that they would take significantly more resources.

And only because you asked – as to the personal attack, when you make comments like this one -

Sly.9518:

But that doesn’t matter to you if Raiders have to receive slower content pace as long as your wants are met right?

That is most definitely a personal attack. You are trying to deflect the argument to me being irrational or having some nefarious agenda – rather than debate the points directly. As an example, it would be just as easy for me to say that your motivations are selfish because you dont want anyone else to enjoy the raid content unless they choose to play the way you do (and that is just an example – I don’t actually believe it to be true). The point is, debate the points – not the people making them – and we can have an actual civil discussion.

First thing adding an extra mechanic without touching any of the existing difficulty takes a lot less development time and resources than having to adjust every encounter and every aspect down for an easy mode you can’t debate that fact.

Again I asked a simple question there was no nefarious intent, would you or would you not mind the development time increasing at the detriment of Raid release schedule being set back, just for your own benefit of the easy mode Raids?

And your statement may hold true if I even raided, I own exactly 0 LI, 0 Magnetite Shards, 0 Kill proofs, never stepped foot in a raid in gw2….. so yeah about that.

The points are Target Audience for Raids was exclusively for Players wanting highly coordinated challenging content, and to provide the highest difficulty PvE content. Anet has held this stance for close to two years now and are happy with the results, as stated multiple times by Devs reaffirming this stance and point.

And what point would adding a story mode do that makes it essentially non-repeatable like all of the dungeon story modes going to do for the game besides waste resources on content that by your own suggestions would offer no rewards.

Sly.9518:

First thing adding an extra mechanic without touching any of the existing difficulty takes a lot less development time and resources than having to adjust every encounter and every aspect down for an easy mode you can’t debate that fact.

Sly.9518:

The points are Target Audience for Raids was exclusively for Players wanting highly coordinated challenging content, and to provide the highest difficulty PvE content. Anet has held this stance for close to two years now and are happy with the results, as stated multiple times by Devs reaffirming this stance and point.

And what point would adding a story mode do that makes it essentially non-repeatable like all of the dungeon story modes going to do for the game besides waste resources on content that by your own suggestions would offer no rewards.

First off, are you a developer, have you seen the code used for raids to know that it is easier to add a mechanic then it is to adjust some numbers. Don’t state something as a fact when I can guarentee you haven’t seen the code or the processes they have in place. Could you be right, yes you could, but you could be wrong also. Don’t state something as being non-debatable fact when you honestly don’t have any idea.

Second, I totally agree raids were designed for a target audience. But the next thing gets me, why put so much lore and story stuff into the raids when that is most likely not something the target audience is even going to care about. The audience that would care about it, is the one that grip here on the forums about not being able to do it, or to add a story mode so they can.

As I stated in my above post, don’t change the mechanics of the raids, just lower the bosses health pools, remove the enrage timer and remove the rewards as stated above and you could have the story mode that a large pool of the player base would enjoy. Tell me how that would require more development resources then adding mechanics to a fight does.

Hjorje.9453:

Sly.9518:

First thing adding an extra mechanic without touching any of the existing difficulty takes a lot less development time and resources than having to adjust every encounter and every aspect down for an easy mode you can’t debate that fact.

Sly.9518:

The points are Target Audience for Raids was exclusively for Players wanting highly coordinated challenging content, and to provide the highest difficulty PvE content. Anet has held this stance for close to two years now and are happy with the results, as stated multiple times by Devs reaffirming this stance and point.

And what point would adding a story mode do that makes it essentially non-repeatable like all of the dungeon story modes going to do for the game besides waste resources on content that by your own suggestions would offer no rewards.

First off, are you a developer, have you seen the code used for raids to know that it is easier to add a mechanic then it is to adjust some numbers. Don’t state something as a fact when I can guarentee you haven’t seen the code or the processes they have in place. Could you be right, yes you could, but you could be wrong also. Don’t state something as being non-debatable fact when you honestly don’t have any idea.

Second, I totally agree raids were designed for a target audience. But the next thing gets me, why put so much lore and story stuff into the raids when that is most likely not something the target audience is even going to care about. The audience that would care about it, is the one that grip here on the forums about not being able to do it, or to add a story mode so they can.

As I stated in my above post, don’t change the mechanics of the raids, just lower the bosses health pools, remove the enrage timer and remove the rewards as stated above and you could have the story mode that a large pool of the player base would enjoy. Tell me how that would require more development resources then adding mechanics to a fight does.

It’s nothing about the code having to completely rebalance every encounter is more time consuming than Adding a new mechanic through challenge motes to one Raid wing….. for what you suggest for easy mode Raids it’s not just changing numbers it’s also Testing those numbers going in and changing them and so on one every encounter and every mechanic in the raid, while adding a challenge mote that adds a mechanic without adjusting anything else besides that one added mechanic in the encounter when it is added during the actual encounter development (essentially part of the encounter at that point) would most assuredly take less time, since it is not a completely different encounter unlike easy modes would be.

And have you noticed nonchallenge notes were implemented on previously existing Raid wings? They shipped the new wings with the Motes. I wonder why that would be…

W4 is practically story mode difficulty, its forgiving and dps checks are so lenient.

Your logic isn’t sound in this. Take VG for example. 20mil health. Drop that to 10mil and remove the enraged timer. What balance needs to be checked there. They aren’t removing anything from the fight mechanics wise. They have done it for open world bosses.

Second, the encounters are the same, no change in mechanics. So how are they different encounters. Please explain that to me. The only thing that changes the encounter is there is no timer.

Adding a mechanic to an encounter is changing the encounter, yeah they didn’t change is health pool or damage multiplier, but they change the whole encounter by adding mechanics to something. And yes the challenge motes were added to new wings. So they realized that some things were easy for a select group of players and wanted to give them something more. Same thing could be said about a story mode.

Hjorje.9453:

Your logic isn’t sound in this. Take VG for example. 20mil health. Drop that to 10mil and remove the enraged timer. What balance needs to be checked there. They aren’t removing anything from the fight mechanics wise. They have done it for open world bosses.

Second, the encounters are the same, no change in mechanics. So how are they different encounters. Please explain that to me. The only thing that changes the encounter is there is no timer.

Adding a mechanic to an encounter is changing the encounter, yeah they didn’t change is health pool or damage multiplier, but they change the whole encounter by adding mechanics to something. And yes the challenge motes were added to new wings. So they realized that some things were easy for a select group of players and wanted to give them something more. Same thing could be said about a story mode.

The target audience isn’t asking for an Easy mode…. and the challenge motes don’t get repeated after he initial completion in most cases, and they weren’t added they were designed and shipped with the wing…… adding would be if the wing existed prior and then they went back and put the challenge more in…..

Hjorje.9453:

Your logic isn’t sound in this. Take VG for example. 20mil health. Drop that to 10mil and remove the enraged timer. What balance needs to be checked there. They aren’t removing anything from the fight mechanics wise. They have done it for open world bosses.

Second, the encounters are the same, no change in mechanics. So how are they different encounters. Please explain that to me. The only thing that changes the encounter is there is no timer.

And people would still find it difficult. VG doesn’t kill you with HP or enrage, it kills you because you fail mechanics. Sure, lower HP would make the fight quicker, but you’ll wipe time and again in the first 1 min due to mechanics just like now. So if you’re going to learn the mechanics anyway, why don’t you just do it on the normal mode?

By the way, the above is true for each and every boss in the game. Enrage wipes are extremely rare and when they happen, they happen because people died early. Due to failing mechanics.

There is a lot of very nice story elements locked into the raids. What if they just added more options to the Priory agents in LA? You could walk up and ask them what happened in Spirit Vale and they would give you a video, like the explanation of Season 1. The video would contain any cut scenes that were part of the raid and a voice over explanation of discoverable elements.

Because raids are so difficult and strictly in their design:
So this is clearly a video edit and not true:
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/140375798
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jM5UHfnCDNM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gABRTxhXwiY&feature=youtu.be
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9CKhI_g7ng

So how can you defend that raids are a dps checking really hard game mode after all these proof?
I doubt anyone have a prof thats raids are too hard, but there are plenty that they are actually easy and you can play whatever you want.

Hjorje.9453:

Just because it is easy to us, doesn’t mean it isn’t difficult for others.

And that’s the key point for me. It hasn’t to be easy for others.

@Sly The developers HAVE stated that Raids were for a select audience. That is true.

What is unfair about that is that many PvE players that are casual, role players, and play for the lore/content they will never be able to experience the lore/content in raids because they will never be at the play skill level required.

While I have no problem with difficult content, if they are going to include heavy lore content, then that content should be accessible to all, not just the premium player.

As Lillis, Hjorje, and others have stated, there are various other ways that could be implemented to let non-raid level players experience the story and content without rewarding them with exclusive loot and currencies.

IMO to exclude people from rich lore, if that is what the game is to those people, is unfair. Locking lore behind elite content is wrong.

People keep bringing up target audience and the original intent of raids.

Because it should be said, I will – none of that matters in the least. It is simple semantics. The target audience for game content is people who play the game and people who might enjoy playing the game (potential customers). It is as simple as that.

No one can say with a straight face that the game at launch was targeted to the same people it is targeted at today. The game has adapted around the desires of the players – it has changed in ways that some find appealing and in ways some find unnecessary – with the singular goal of offering players fun things to do in game. And, I think, for the most part, it has been successful in achieving that goal. The same needs to happen with raids.

Raids haven’t been out that long. They are not sacrosanct content that is immune to growth and change. In fact, it is in these first years that they MUST evolve into something that fits with the game as a whole – as all new PVE content modes must (and do).

So, I do not see any validity to the argument that raids must have a singular mode simply because that is what they had when they were first introduced.

As for another popular argument – that a story mote would require more work than a challenge mote – my opinion stands that it would not. Taking Vale Guardian as an example, I believe it would likely be enough to simply remove the enrage timer and the green circle mechanics. The fight would retain some complexity and still require a modicum of skill, but it would be considerably easier for both starter groups and those who dislike playing the build wars metagame. It isnt about making the fights mindnumbingly easy – it is about leveling the playing field based on builds and preferred playstyles.

Please, however, keep in mind, that is simply conjecture on my part. As with all things (including the challenge motes they currently use), any change would require testing and tweaking before a final judgement could be made.

The one undeniable fact that remains, however, is that there are people in the community asking for this – and I think that group is large enough to warrant serious consideration by the developers (and I full expect they will eventually realize they have to do exactly that).

jheryn.8390:

@Sly The developers HAVE stated that Raids were for a select audience. That is true.

What is unfair about that is that many PvE players that are casual, role players, and play for the lore/content they will never be able to experience the lore/content in raids because they will never be at the play skill level required.

While I have no problem with difficult content, if they are going to include heavy lore content, then that content should be accessible to all, not just the premium player.

As Lillis, Hjorje, and others have stated, there are various other ways that could be implemented to let non-raid level players experience the story and content without rewarding them with exclusive loot and currencies.

IMO to exclude people from rich lore, if that is what the game is to those people, is unfair. Locking lore behind elite content is wrong.

You mean lore that has no impact on the main game story arc? They have a path already available if they want to experience the lore first hand, either complete the Raids themselves (not at all too difficult) or enter cleared instances since none of the bosses contribute to the Raid Lore etc…

Again not all content is designed to appeal or be completed by everyone in game, it doesn’t matter if there is something behind it that certain players may want(which exists in all gamemodes) the target audience was selected and that’s who it is designed for, if someone really wants to experience the story they would figure it out, if not they probably didn’t really want to experience it.

Again Taiders don’t go around demanding Anet commandeer content that wasn’t designed for them to fit their needs, they asked for their own content designed specifically for their needs.

Blaeys.3102:

Yes, a story mode is definitely needed.

It’s good to see that this topic is naturally reoccurring on the forums as more players begin to realize this. Hopefully the developers are watching.

What isn’t good to see is the troll brigade that also reoccurs every time someone decides to express this opinion. Once again, we have the same people lurking in the shadows ready to pounce on anyone expressing this concern with personal attacks like “get good”, “It’s already easy enough – you must suck”, “you’re lying about XYZ”, “experienced groups can do it with 8 people, so anyone that cant with 10 is bad at the game”, etc. I know, because I’ve had every one of these (and many more – including, unbelievably, death threats) levied at me for choosing to have this conversation as well.

For the most part, it’s better to just ignore people like that. The discussion needs to continue and we need people like the OP to feel comfortable expressing this opinion.

A story mode is warranted (and no, wing 4 is not an example of one) – both for accessibility and the ongoing health of all forms of raiding.

If you can debate for or against that, you should feel free to do so. If you only know how to insult the actual posters making the points, you aren’t helping anyone on any side of the issue.

You haven’t offered an argument as to why story mode is warranted. Raids are more accessible than ANet expected; participation seems pretty healthy, even after many got their legendary armor. New training guilds keep forming, existing guilds that never tried to raid are trying it.

Raids aren’t designed to be something for everyone — they are intended as a specific sort of challenge. And because of that narrow focus, it’s easier for a smaller number of developers to keep releasing changes, which is also healthy for the game mode.

I’ve been playing guild wars since the flame seeker prophecies. Something Arena net have always done is taken content that has been historically difficult and over time made it easier, either through reducing the damage enemies to (like thunder head keep) or by releasing overpowered PVE only skills (something that could happen potentially with elite specialisations and according to some has already happened). What the OP is asking for is something that could potentially stop that from ever happening as the hard mode stuff would be preserved.

So far the only objections to this idea that you’ve been able to raise is:
1) It would take a bit longer to develop which is questionable.
2) An easier raid would make the term raid no longer mean the hardest content in the game which is just a linguistic semantic and as I have asked before does the fact that there is both a level 1 and a level 100 fractal that are completely exclusive from each other somehow have some form of negative effect on fractals.
3) The original design for raids target audience would change, even though it doesn’t change at all for hard mode and all kinds of other parts of guild wars 2 have changed from their original design to the betterment of the game and if they couldn’t it would be catastrophically harmful.

Forgive me but I’m not convinced about why this is a bad idea.

If a larger percentage of the community could experience and got into the concept of raiding then the developers would have more of an excuse to devote more time to raids, so it would likely create more raid content, not less.

I agree with Jheryn that there’s no particular reason to gate lore behind elite content. On the other hand, there’s some lore in virtually all aspects of the game. When the game launched, dungeons were considered “elite” (obviously not by top gamers, but by the hordes of new-to-the-genre players that joined the community) and they have arguably critical lore, especially by comparison to raids.

So perhaps ANet would be better served by including less “critical lore” in raids. At the same time, I don’t think it serves the community well to consider redesigning raids to make the story more accessible.

One thing they could do is make it easier to see the lore in action: by offering an in-game way to read the various journals and to offer an NPC to display any relevant cinematics. I’m not sure that is worth a lot of invested time either, but it would be a lot less complicated and it wouldn’t require re-inventing the fundamentals of raids.

MerlinGamer.7410:

I’ve been playing guild wars since the flame seeker prophecies. Something Arena net have always done is taken content that has been historically difficult and over time made it easier, either through reducing the damage enemies to (like thunder head keep) or by releasing overpowered PVE only skills (something that could happen potentially with elite specialisations and according to some has already happened). What the OP is asking for is something that could potentially stop that from ever happening as the hard mode stuff would be preserved.

So far the only objections to this idea that you’ve been able to raise is:
1) It would take a bit longer to develop which is questionable.not questionable adding more work adds more time, revamping all encounters past and moving forward will lengthen development time
2) An easier raid would make the term raid no longer mean the hardest content in the game which is just a linguistic semantic and as I have asked before does the fact that there is both a level 1 and a level 100 fractal that are completely exclusive from each other somehow have some form of negative effect on fractals. Fractals aren’t and were never designed to be the Hardest content for highly organized groups, it was always designed to have tiered difficulty for everyone to to access it
3) The original design for raids target audience would change, even though it doesn’t change at all for hard mode and all kinds of other parts of guild wars 2 have changed from their original design to the betterment of the game and if they couldn’t it would be catastrophically harmful. Gw2 was designed to not have Raids be the main driving force of content, it relies on LW/ openworld to push game direction, making it into a Raiding Mmo will jade more players, adding more resources won’t speed up content, look at LW vs Raids Larger team and priority resources has slower release time, Raids much smaller Rev team with extremely small scope has faster release schedule

Forgive me but I’m not convinced about why this is a bad idea.

If a larger percentage of the community could experience and got into the concept of raiding then the developers would have more of an excuse to devote more time to raids, so it would likely create more raid content, not less.

See bolded.

MerlinGamer.7410:

If a larger percentage of the community could experience and got into the concept of raiding then the developers would have more of an excuse to devote more time to raids, so it would likely create more raid content, not less.

If that’s supposed to happen, the easymode crowd first would have to find a consensus on what they actually want. So far, I’ve seen a crapton of different and sometimes contradictory concepts (some more stupid, some a little bit less), of which each would appeal only to a small subsection of the easymode crowd. At the current state, I see no reason to believe we’d see more raid content if they added another mode.

@jheryn

Again if someone really wants to get that lore they would. And the group wanting easy modes don’t care if it takes away from Raiders because it’s would more than likely make the release schedule longer, Raiders aren’t taking away anything from the non raiders wanting an easy mode, the Teams you mentioned are the shared departments(every team uses them, their scope is to provide for the main content teams), you are wanting a dedicated team focus on something not in their scope or their target audience, taking away from the Raiders, the Raid teams development doesn’t slow down other content releases.

Now if all the people want the lore would accept a cutscene done by a different team that’s fine, but not commandeering content and causing it to take away something from the Target audience.

But keep at it.

The raid team could be working on non raid stuff so the fact that there is a raid team does slow down other content releases. Tweaking a few numbers in a LUA script will take considerably less time than making a cut scene and its going to move some artists/designers off other projects. Raids wouldn’t be commandeered at all, they’re preserved in the hard mode.

@sly

I am not wanting a dedicated team to focus on anything different. But it is obvious that there are many who do. Again, they have as much right to ask that it happen as does any of the hundreds of players on here asking what they want, including you. You want faster release for raid content. Fine. They want an easy mode fine. It is just my opinion that you shouldn’t be telling them what they should or should not want.

As Hjorje mentioned above, unless you are one of the coders for raid content, you really don’t know if it would be any kind of serious drag on release or not.

Don’t you think raids would be released a lot faster if they didn’t have all that lore attached? Well, that takes time to develop too.

Again, not all people could get that lore whether you think they could or not. You don’t know everyone’s situation so you can’t make that claim. Try again.

Since you are obviously part of the “target audience” that you keep bringing up, it is very easy for you to rail against those who are not. You may not realize this, but target audiences change all the time because of demand.

It’s obvious that you are probably a skilled player. It seems you have little compassion and maybe even disdain for players not of the same skill level as you. I know raids are supposed to be the hardest content in the game. Making an easier mode with less or no rewards doesn’t mean that raids will not still be the hardest content in the game.

MerlinGamer.7410:

The raid team could be working on non raid stuff so the fact that there is a raid team does slow down other content releases.

Nah, that’s a wrong assumption.

Vinceman.4572:

Nah, that’s a wrong assumption.

Quite possibly although its the same blanket logic being used against me.

I’m really seeing very little evidence that raids aren’t just kitten stuff:
We can’t possibly have an easier version of the same name! I did it before it had an easy version and because it was so elite and exclusive I had a couple of extra inches, now they’re gone

But as I said earlier raids are pretty much the most polarising thing in this game. I really honestly can’t see Sly’s view point and he probably can’t see mine so I’m happy to just agree to disagree at this point really. Arena.net can do what they like! Although I think there clearly is a demand for something like the OPs original point.

So long!

jheryn.8390:

What is unfair about that is that many PvE players that are casual, role players, and play for the lore/content they will never be able to experience the lore/content in raids because they will never be at the play skill level required.

That specific argument seems pretty moot. There’s a lot of lore/story in explorable dungeons. I highly doubt said players will make it through Arah or TA Aetherblade either. And these have been around for years.

Oh another one…..sigh……I personally don’t want more resources spent on raids. I play the game based on the notion that I wouldn’t need to get into high end pve content to be relevant in the game. Not that the game should be made under the notion that everything should be accessible to everyone no matter their interest and/or skill, which would become a really boring game imo. Furthermore, I don’t want that Anet to open that pandora box which would force them to balance rewards for each tier and also force them to reconsider skill balance in an even harder way, if they are already struggling very hard as of now. If the players really want to experience tiered difficulty, they should really get into fractals.

Feanor.2358:

jheryn.8390:

What is unfair about that is that many PvE players that are casual, role players, and play for the lore/content they will never be able to experience the lore/content in raids because they will never be at the play skill level required.

That specific argument seems pretty moot. There’s a lot of lore/story in explorable dungeons. I highly doubt said players will make it through Arah or TA Aetherblade either. And these have been around for years.

Not true. Arah and TA are both cakewalks compared to any raid area. I’m a raider and I like dungeons. Some of my guildmates are those people that will never be at the level to handle raids. On both Arah and TA I have grouped up with these people and we mostly breeze through. Even the hardest dungeon content is easy compared to raids.

Some of these people have also tried to raid with my group and they just don’t have the skill level to contribute to the group and no amount of healing is able to keep them alive. Many would probably be capable players, but they have lives and families that don’t allow them to spend large amounts of time in game.

Most of them, however, are players from the start of GW1 and love the story, history, and lore of the game. And my previous comments are due to my knowledge that these people are disappointed in not having any access to that lore.