Guild Wars 2

Forum bug strikes again.

I too wish my Ice Cream that i ordered was instead a Popsicle. /s

jheryn.8390:

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.

I really doubt a group of people can breeze thorught arah p4 and TA and at same time find raid way to difficult.
But if its true i know probably the reason, they runned a lot of dungeons, failed a couple of times, until they got used to it and breeze thought.
Guess what??? After failing a couple of times in raids you will breeze thought it just like TA and arah p4. Who would knew that you get better if you try, instead of giving up without trying :O

My only strong opinion is if it only takes a dev a couple of quick hours to add a “story mode” button and nerf the hp, damage, and mechanics of each boss, then disable the weekly rewards, then I don’t mind it.

It might actually be fun to solo raid bosses.

But if adding story mode means that new raid wings will come out less often or be lower quality then hell no.

Lol, you guys have had it pretty kitten good for too long now. I think you can bear to wait a little bit if it means the rest of the community can be included. Fractals have been covered in dust and cobwebs for ages now.

OnizukaBR.8537:

But if its true i know probably the reason, they runned a lot of dungeons, failed a couple of times, until they got used to it and breeze thought.
Guess what??? After failing a couple of times in raids you will breeze thought it just like TA and arah p4. Who would knew that you get better if you try, instead of giving up without trying :O

No it is because raids are much much more difficult. There are rotations and mechanics you must have down. Etc., etc., etc.

And raids are not easy after failing a couple of times for many people. Maybe not you. Maybe not me, but for some it is the way it is.

jheryn.8390:

OnizukaBR.8537:

But if its true i know probably the reason, they runned a lot of dungeons, failed a couple of times, until they got used to it and breeze thought.
Guess what??? After failing a couple of times in raids you will breeze thought it just like TA and arah p4. Who would knew that you get better if you try, instead of giving up without trying :O

No it is because raids are much much more difficult. There are rotations and mechanics you must have down. Etc., etc., etc.

And raids are not easy after failing a couple of times for many people. Maybe not you. Maybe not me, but for some it is the way it is.

Not really.

Raids are on par with the launch dungeons and the early days of Fractals (aka before ascended gear and a metric ton of power creep). Not so much harder, but people have this affinity to believe that because they can’t, won’t or don’t that it’s somehow harder.

jheryn.8390:

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.

I think you underestimate your guild mates here. Pretty much any player can handle raids, if they are willing to spend the time required to learn the encounters. It’s a steep entry, I agree. But it’s not an impenetrable barrier. I’d argue it was pretty much the same with dungeons, albeit on a (slightly) different scale.

Sure, many players would have troubles taking roles with more responsibility. But for the most part they don’t have to. There are encounters where you can be tasked with something important regardless (Matthias, Sloth, etc.) but there are others where you can simply dps. Surely someone who can deal with the oozes in Aetherblade can handle few White Mantles and a warg at Escort. It’s a long journey, but it begins with just tagging along and doing your best.

Feanor.2358:

I think you underestimate your guild mates here. Pretty much any player can handle raids, if they are willing to spend the time required to learn the encounters. It’s a steep entry, I agree. But it’s not an impenetrable barrier. I’d argue it was pretty much the same with dungeons, albeit on a (slightly) different scale.

I think you underestimate the difficulty of raids, even compared to how dungeons were to many people at launch. I think you also overestimate that patience of many people and the lack of interest many have to study and practice to play a game.

I could teach people to survive and contribute to dungeons, because the mechanics there are sufficiently forgiving of mistakes, both big and small. But even T4 fractals require many (and perhaps, most) people to step up their game an order of magnitude or more, even with a lot of help.

It’s not that raid mechanics are fundamentally impenetrable, it’s the combination of mechanics and timing and punishment-for-small-errors. Some people won’t want to make the investment in time to learn, some people don’t have the time, and some people need so much time that it simply stops being fun for them to even consider it.

I’m sure there’s a sizeable fraction of non-raiders who could raid, if they put their mind to it, without that much trouble. I don’t think that’s the majority of non-raiders though.

This is one of many situations (in life or gaming) in which those who are really good at something have trouble understanding why everyone can’t be at least pretty good at it.

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the difficult of raids and I don’t think raids need a story mode. At the same time, I also think that raids aren’t accessible for everyone and that therefore, ANet might want to think twice about how much “interesting lore” they include in future raids.

Feanor.2358:

I think you underestimate your guild mates here. Pretty much any player can handle raids, if they are willing to spend the time required to learn the encounters. It’s a steep entry, I agree. But it’s not an impenetrable barrier. I’d argue it was pretty much the same with dungeons, albeit on a (slightly) different scale.

Well, you don’t know my guild mates, so I think it fair to say that you really are not in a position to kitten them. I am. As I said earlier, not all people have the same ability and time. Many of these guildmates are people with jobs and families that leave them little time to learn encounters. Dungeon’s are infinitely easier to do.

Some like TA and Arah have slightly more difficulty, but there are no timers, enrage, party requirements, builds, etc., etc., etc., that you need to do them. In many raids, one or two people dying means wiping. Not so in dungeons. Make it to the next waypoint and all is good. Also no ressurecting in dungeons from dead.

Again, I love raids, dungeons, and fractals and do them all. They are not all created equal.

Feanor.2358:

Sure, many players would have troubles taking roles with more responsibility. But for the most part they don’t have to. There are encounters where you can be tasked with something important regardless (Matthias, Sloth, etc.) but there are others where you can simply dps. Surely someone who can deal with the oozes in Aetherblade can handle few White Mantles and a warg at Escort. It’s a long journey, but it begins with just tagging along and doing your best.

The escort is by far the easiest of the raids. We have indeed taken some of these people along for that. The other raids, however, just require to many skill sets and damage output for these guild members to keep up with.

The oozes in Aetherblade are very easy if you just have one person who is knowledgeable about how to dispose of them. You can guide your teammates along. Same with most of the encounters in TA. In raids, everyone has to be good at playing their character, know what they are doing in the encounter, and be able to know boss mechanics. On top of that the difficulty scale and damage required is infinitely higher.

You are probably a good raider and it is often easy to think that other players can be just as good. What may seem a cake walk for people like you and me are often a mountain to climb for others.

TexZero.7910:

jheryn.8390:

OnizukaBR.8537:

But if its true i know probably the reason, they runned a lot of dungeons, failed a couple of times, until they got used to it and breeze thought.
Guess what??? After failing a couple of times in raids you will breeze thought it just like TA and arah p4. Who would knew that you get better if you try, instead of giving up without trying :O

No it is because raids are much much more difficult. There are rotations and mechanics you must have down. Etc., etc., etc.

And raids are not easy after failing a couple of times for many people. Maybe not you. Maybe not me, but for some it is the way it is.

Not really.

Raids are on par with the launch dungeons and the early days of Fractals (aka before ascended gear and a metric ton of power creep). Not so much harder, but people have this affinity to believe that because they can’t, won’t or don’t that it’s somehow harder.

Sorry, but that is simply not true. Raids are much more difficult than early fractals or dungeons. I’ve played them from the start. Raids are much more difficult.

Many people believe that they can’t and it it is harder because it is.

The difference between raids and dungeons at launch (and even different than T4 fractals) is that raids, in addition to adding to the difficulty, add in hard mathematical walls (enrage timers for one, but not the only one). Yes – speed running dungeon groups still min-maxed, but other players could enjoy them (albeit slower) as well with little to no frustration.

By incorporating these elements into raids, they put artificial limits on the realistically viable playstyles, builds, etc that can be enjoyed in the content. Yes, I agree that, for anything close to the meta, the timers are lenient, but they are limiting to the average player, none the less. The same is true of and burst damage mechanics or mechanics that require specific types of damage or utility.

And, once again, Im not saying those barriers do not belong in the game. It is just that, since there is only one version of the raids, they create an artificial exclusivity within raids. A story mode or lesser difficulty of some kind would alleviate that concern – while the higher end versions would continue to offer the challenge to the more mathematically inclined players.

And this is most definitely not a settled issue. It is obviously still a concern to a number of players – thus why the topic seems to naturally reoccur on the forums every so often (even during raid release down times like we have now).

Enrage timers are primarily a mercy mechanic. They can make the difference between success and a wipe, but it’s extremely rare. In general if you hit the enrage, you’re struggling a lot and you’ll most likely wipe anyway. They don’t really add any significant difficulty.

Feanor.2358:

Enrage timers are primarily a mercy mechanic. They can make the difference between success and a wipe, but it’s extremely rare. In general if you hit the enrage, you’re struggling a lot and you’ll most likely wipe anyway. They don’t really add any significant difficulty.

You are definitely right about them not adding any real difficulty. All they do is help to (again, it isnt just about enrage timers) emphasize the importance of damage centric professions and playstyles – including those support builds that add to that damage.

The result is the meta (there is a reason QT ranks build viability by dps) – and a more frustrating experience for those people who enjoy professions that differ significantly from that meta.

Im not saying the damage-focused approach is bad. It is most likely necessary to maintain the illusion of difficulty for min-max players. Im saying that secondary difficulties (story mode) would open the experience to those players who aren’t as concerned with the mathematics of damage-focused design.

Sorry, but most of the replies saying that raids are simple are absolutely incorrect. There is no dungeon in the game that is comparible with the raids. It is simply a tough step entering the raids after finishing each dungeon. And yes: I played NM in SWTORS. Certainly there are bosses in SWTOR that are harder than the raids in GW2. However there are 3 different modes: story, hm and nm. The thing is, that most players cannot train the raids in GW2 since they have no experience with them. And for most raids here it is insane to enter with a random group. There are for sure the hardcore gamers spending every free minute in GW2, however most players are casual players.

Finally, I want to state a last thing. Yes, it is not hard to get some ascended stuff. But that’s not the essence of my critics. The essence is, that the actual system benefits only hardcore gamers.

Just 2 things, Hildemar:

1. You don’t need to spend every free minute to succeed in raids, that’s for sure.

2. Compare Escort to Arah paths. I’m not the only one stating that on the one hand Escort is shorter than any dungeon path there in terms of time and on the other it’s much easier. Same goes for Mursaat Overseer.

I think i will post this video anytime anyone complain about enrage and build diversity on raids:
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/140375798

If 10 man PUGS! turrent enginer can raid, anyone with anybuild can, if you cant i bet the problem isnt your build, but you failing to do mechanics, and if you cant even fail mechanics after doing mistake after mistake where is the fun in the game? You cant always win no matter what you do, if you could that would be the dullest game ever

Hildemar Moguntiaco.3057:

Sorry, but most of the replies saying that raids are simple are absolutely incorrect. […] And yes: I played NM in SWTORS.

Why am I not surprised at how easymodes have distorted the scales? I still hate Blizzard for opening the floodgates with WotLK :’-(

OnizukaBR.8537:

I think i will post this video anytime anyone complain about enrage and build diversity on raids:
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/140375798

If 10 man PUGS! turrent enginer can raid, anyone with anybuild can, if you cant i bet the problem isnt your build, but you failing to do mechanics, and if you cant even fail mechanics after doing mistake after mistake where is the fun in the game? You cant always win no matter what you do, if you could that would be the dullest game ever

You’re talking about a single raid encounter (that doesn’t utilize a true enrage) that admittedly was tuned as an intro fight (and that doesnt use an enrage resembling the rest of the raids in any real way) – using gimmick builds that are a known issue – to exemplify the raid scene in GW2.

To explain what you’re actually watching in that video – turret builds allow for continual damage output in low AOE damage (from the enemy) scenarios where the actual player needs to move in and out of range a lot. In other words, the mechanics of this particular fight allow players to exploit features in ways that generate more damage output than balance intended. It was a smart move by whoever set it up, but it isn’t indicative of anything other than a strong understanding of the fight mechanics combined with how turrets work.

Groups will always come up with creative ways to do things like this – and then people who dont understand what is actually going on will try to use those as justifications for debating against accessibility features. It’s a good thing, but it doesnt equal build diversity. You can post it all you want to try and prove a point, but it is a faulty representation.

That said, I will say that how they designed Cairn is a step in the right direction as it pertains to a lower difficulty encounter – a direction they should probably take even further with every future raid boss if they continue to resist the idea of a story mode.

Blaeys.3102:

OnizukaBR.8537:

I think i will post this video anytime anyone complain about enrage and build diversity on raids:
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/140375798

If 10 man PUGS! turrent enginer can raid, anyone with anybuild can, if you cant i bet the problem isnt your build, but you failing to do mechanics, and if you cant even fail mechanics after doing mistake after mistake where is the fun in the game? You cant always win no matter what you do, if you could that would be the dullest game ever

You’re talking about a single raid encounter (that doesn’t utilize a true enrage) that admittedly was tuned as an intro fight (and that doesnt use an enrage resembling the rest of the raids in any real way) – using gimmick builds that are a known issue – to exemplify the raid scene in GW2.

To explain what you’re actually watching in that video – turret builds allow for continual damage output in low AOE damage (from the enemy) scenarios where the actual player needs to move in and out of range a lot. In other words, the mechanics of this particular fight allow players to exploit features in ways that generate more damage output than balance intended. It was a smart move by whoever set it up, but it isn’t indicative of anything other than a strong understanding of the fight mechanics combined with how turrets work.

Groups will always come up with creative ways to do things like this – and then people who dont understand what is actually going on will try to use those as justifications for debating against accessibility features. It’s a good thing, but it doesnt equal build diversity. You can post it all you want to try and prove a point, but it is a faulty representation.

That said, I will say that how they designed Cairn is a step in the right direction as it pertains to a lower difficulty encounter – a direction they should probably take even further with every future raid boss if they continue to resist the idea of a story mode.

All i read are excuses trying to justify only turret eng ( they were only using turret nothing else ) as a valid strategy, when it is clearly a joke build.
Any build can clear raids, but sure turret enginer is actually a good build and therefore they killed cairn lol.
So yeah raids have a clear build barrier /s

People who can’t raid don’t really want to.

I took a 6-month hiatus, and tried the wing 4 bosses for that first time last week. The first three bosses are straightforward and doable by new players (having been one). My group beat each of those bosses after one or two tries. For comparison, it took me a week to beat VG and sloth when they first came out.

I had the benefit of experienced players. Of proven strategies and builds.

I’m glad to see that anet hasn’t budged on this, even with the same debate still being argued. After doing the living stories (once), raids and fractals are all I do now.

@OnizukaBR

Certain people will never listen about the non Meta builds being able to clear Raid bosses, or any low mans clearing Raids because it proves their difficulty/Meta barrier argument wrong.

Since Cairn isn’t the only Raid boss to be cleared with non Meta classes or builds or strategies.

Blaeys.3102:

Im not saying the damage-focused approach is bad. It is most likely necessary to maintain the illusion of difficulty for min-max players. Im saying that secondary difficulties (story mode) would open the experience to those players who aren’t as concerned with the mathematics of damage-focused design.

You’re probably right, except it would open a very different experience. My personal feeling is, it would be a disappointing experience. Raids are designed to be challenging, and I don’t think the story would have the same impact if they weren’t. It is true that “challenging” is subjective and depending on skill, but you can’t possibly make something equally challenging for everyone.

And it wouldn’t be trivial to do, it would require a full rebalance of every encounter at the very least.

Feanor.2358:

Blaeys.3102:

Im not saying the damage-focused approach is bad. It is most likely necessary to maintain the illusion of difficulty for min-max players. Im saying that secondary difficulties (story mode) would open the experience to those players who aren’t as concerned with the mathematics of damage-focused design.

You’re probably right, except it would open a very different experience. My personal feeling is, it would be a disappointing experience. Raids are designed to be challenging, and I don’t think the story would have the same impact if they weren’t. It is true that “challenging” is subjective and depending on skill, but you can’t possibly make something equally challenging for everyone.

And it wouldn’t be trivial to do, it would require a full rebalance of every encounter at the very least.

Don’t you know? They just want the HP cut in half and enrage timers completely removed lol.

They also claim Raids are less accessible than t4 Fractals, yet T4 Fractals actually gate players from even playing them needing full Ascended and 150 AR when Raids have no such stipulations and can be cleared in Full greens

jheryn.8390:

TexZero.7910:

jheryn.8390:

OnizukaBR.8537:

But if its true i know probably the reason, they runned a lot of dungeons, failed a couple of times, until they got used to it and breeze thought.
Guess what??? After failing a couple of times in raids you will breeze thought it just like TA and arah p4. Who would knew that you get better if you try, instead of giving up without trying :O

No it is because raids are much much more difficult. There are rotations and mechanics you must have down. Etc., etc., etc.

And raids are not easy after failing a couple of times for many people. Maybe not you. Maybe not me, but for some it is the way it is.

Not really.

Raids are on par with the launch dungeons and the early days of Fractals (aka before ascended gear and a metric ton of power creep). Not so much harder, but people have this affinity to believe that because they can’t, won’t or don’t that it’s somehow harder.

Sorry, but that is simply not true. Raids are much more difficult than early fractals or dungeons. I’ve played them from the start. Raids are much more difficult.

Many people believe that they can’t and it it is harder because it is.

Or maybe they won’t because they choose not to learn.

I’ve also been a part of both raids and dungeons, the literal difference between then and now is a timer and more mechanics. Not more difficult mechanics, just different ones.

Nothing you see in raids is any harder in practice than what you see in dungeons/fractals.

TexZero.7910:

Or maybe they won’t because they choose not to learn.

I’ve also been a part of both raids and dungeons, the literal difference between then and now is a timer and more mechanics. Not more difficult mechanics, just different ones.

Nothing you see in raids is any harder in practice than what you see in dungeons/fractals.

That is just in no way true. Anet built raids to be the most difficult content in the game. It isn’t guessing or speculating about it, that is literally why they were built to give elite players a platform.

And as far as players “not wanting to learn”, that is rubbish. Maybe not 100%. There are several people I know that can pull off dungeons. They have been taught and have tried, ad nauseum, to participate in raids. They have been through dozens of tries in the raids and they simply cannot pull it off. They want it bad, but by their own admission, cannot do it. Calling people ‘lazy and ’unwilling’ is not really understanding players who are not as skilled as you.

jheryn.8390:

That is just in no way true. Anet built raids to be the most difficult content in the game. It isn’t guessing or speculating about it, that is literally why they were built to give elite players a platform.

And as far as players “not wanting to learn”, that is rubbish. Maybe not 100%. There are several people I know that can pull off dungeons. They have been taught and have tried, ad nauseum, to participate in raids. They have been through dozens of tries in the raids and they simply cannot pull it off. They want it bad, but by their own admission, cannot do it. Calling people ‘lazy and ’unwilling’ is not really understanding players who are not as skilled as you.

In what way they can pull of dungeons? Pressing key numero uno and getting carried by the rest of the 5-man-group?
Because I call it rubbish that a player who can run Arah without any problems will struggle at Escort, or Mursaat Overseer, Samarog, VG, Trio and Cairn.
Yesterday night we carried 4 ppl through Cairn and MO and they had 0 clue of those bosses before. Earlier we killed VG 3 new players with a short explanation only.

Of course raids are hard at the beginning but after a few weeks 8 out of 13 bosses are solid kills.

Vinceman.4572:

jheryn.8390:

That is just in no way true. Anet built raids to be the most difficult content in the game. It isn’t guessing or speculating about it, that is literally why they were built to give elite players a platform.

And as far as players “not wanting to learn”, that is rubbish. Maybe not 100%. There are several people I know that can pull off dungeons. They have been taught and have tried, ad nauseum, to participate in raids. They have been through dozens of tries in the raids and they simply cannot pull it off. They want it bad, but by their own admission, cannot do it. Calling people ‘lazy and ’unwilling’ is not really understanding players who are not as skilled as you.

In what way they can pull of dungeons? Pressing key numero uno and getting carried by the rest of the 5-man-group?
Because I call it rubbish that a player who can run Arah without any problems will struggle at Escort, or Mursaat Overseer, Samarog, VG, Trio and Cairn.
Yesterday night we carried 4 ppl through Cairn and MO and they had 0 clue of those bosses before. Earlier we killed VG 3 new players with a short explanation only.

Of course raids are hard at the beginning but after a few weeks 8 out of 13 bosses are solid kills.

Yes his explanation make 0 sense, i mean the player can dodge attacks and do mechanics on arah like the boss that does an green attack that snares you and grow a poisons tree ( the one with the gorillas ) , but for some reason cant dodge a blue circle on VG? its literally the same thing press dodge button, dodge the green/purple/rainbown color attack, boon you are done.

OnizukaBR.8537:

Blaeys.3102:

OnizukaBR.8537:

I think i will post this video anytime anyone complain about enrage and build diversity on raids:
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/140375798

If 10 man PUGS! turrent enginer can raid, anyone with anybuild can, if you cant i bet the problem isnt your build, but you failing to do mechanics, and if you cant even fail mechanics after doing mistake after mistake where is the fun in the game? You cant always win no matter what you do, if you could that would be the dullest game ever

You’re talking about a single raid encounter (that doesn’t utilize a true enrage) that admittedly was tuned as an intro fight (and that doesnt use an enrage resembling the rest of the raids in any real way) – using gimmick builds that are a known issue – to exemplify the raid scene in GW2.

To explain what you’re actually watching in that video – turret builds allow for continual damage output in low AOE damage (from the enemy) scenarios where the actual player needs to move in and out of range a lot. In other words, the mechanics of this particular fight allow players to exploit features in ways that generate more damage output than balance intended. It was a smart move by whoever set it up, but it isn’t indicative of anything other than a strong understanding of the fight mechanics combined with how turrets work.

Groups will always come up with creative ways to do things like this – and then people who dont understand what is actually going on will try to use those as justifications for debating against accessibility features. It’s a good thing, but it doesnt equal build diversity. You can post it all you want to try and prove a point, but it is a faulty representation.

That said, I will say that how they designed Cairn is a step in the right direction as it pertains to a lower difficulty encounter – a direction they should probably take even further with every future raid boss if they continue to resist the idea of a story mode.

All i read are excuses trying to justify only turret eng ( they were only using turret nothing else ) as a valid strategy, when it is clearly a joke build.
Any build can clear raids, but sure turret enginer is actually a good build and therefore they killed cairn lol.
So yeah raids have a clear build barrier /s

I never said it was a serious strategy. Like most of these things, it is someone cleverly identifying an exploitable feature or aspect of the game that bypasses or minimizes an aspect of the fight. You see that – time and again – in pretty much every raiding game out there.

And then you see people who cannot understand that simple fact trying to make more out of it in an uninformed attempt to belittle requests for greater accessibility or gameplay elements.

It doesnt make it a viable strategy. It makes it an aberration – and not something to be held up as an example of ANYTHING whatsoever.

We all know that, in skilled hands, most builds can clear most (not all) raid fights. But what we are talking about here is the average player and a realistic, non-frustrating experience. That is all people are looking for in the request.

And, as much as people want to belittle people for simply asking (which is usually just a way to try and browbeat into silence when real counterpoints cannot be made), it is a reasonable request.

Feanor.2358:

Blaeys.3102:

Im not saying the damage-focused approach is bad. It is most likely necessary to maintain the illusion of difficulty for min-max players. Im saying that secondary difficulties (story mode) would open the experience to those players who aren’t as concerned with the mathematics of damage-focused design.

You’re probably right, except it would open a very different experience. My personal feeling is, it would be a disappointing experience.

I will concede that fact. It would be a disappointing experience for most people currently enjoying the raids as they stand today – so, for you personally, it would probably be disappointing. Here’s the thing though – you arent the only one playing GW2.

There are many different kinds of people playing the game – which is the whole point. Different modes would serve to address the gameplay desires of different kinds of players. If that can be done with reasonable developmental effort (which I firmly believe it can), then there is no downside to doing it.

Sly.9518:

Don’t you know? They just want the HP cut in half and enrage timers completely removed lol.

I already said why this won’t work. The players who have a problem to wipe time and again in order to learn the mechanics for a fight will have the exact same problem.

Feanor.2358:

Sly.9518:

Don’t you know? They just want the HP cut in half and enrage timers completely removed lol.

I already said why this won’t work. The players who have a problem to wipe time and again in order to learn the mechanics for a fight will have the exact same problem.

I wasn’t defending their suggestion, my sarcasm was missed by you

OnizukaBR.8537:

Vinceman.4572:

jheryn.8390:

That is just in no way true. Anet built raids to be the most difficult content in the game. It isn’t guessing or speculating about it, that is literally why they were built to give elite players a platform.

And as far as players “not wanting to learn”, that is rubbish. Maybe not 100%. There are several people I know that can pull off dungeons. They have been taught and have tried, ad nauseum, to participate in raids. They have been through dozens of tries in the raids and they simply cannot pull it off. They want it bad, but by their own admission, cannot do it. Calling people ‘lazy and ’unwilling’ is not really understanding players who are not as skilled as you.

In what way they can pull of dungeons? Pressing key numero uno and getting carried by the rest of the 5-man-group?
Because I call it rubbish that a player who can run Arah without any problems will struggle at Escort, or Mursaat Overseer, Samarog, VG, Trio and Cairn.
Yesterday night we carried 4 ppl through Cairn and MO and they had 0 clue of those bosses before. Earlier we killed VG 3 new players with a short explanation only.

Of course raids are hard at the beginning but after a few weeks 8 out of 13 bosses are solid kills.

Yes his explanation make 0 sense, i mean the player can dodge attacks and do mechanics on arah like the boss that does an green attack that snares you and grow a poisons tree ( the one with the gorillas ) , but for some reason cant dodge a blue circle on VG? its literally the same thing press dodge button, dodge the green/purple/rainbown color attack, boon you are done.

Well, since you don’t know me or my group or have any basis whatsoever to make those assumptions, I honestly don’t care if you understand or not. Making assumptions about what they can and can’t do is way off track as well. Please don’t assume you know what their skills sets are or are not.

When I said breeze through with those people, I meant that we can accomplish it with them without spending hours in there or constantly wiping. Even great players make mistakes. Many times they may die in the dungeons but they have waypoints to respawn from. They don’t have to deal with timers, not being able to be resurrected, and any other number of mechanics that take more skill than dealing with poisonous trees. You don’t have to have certain roles for dungeons. Sometimes we do dungeons by just taking one class type in the group.

I’ve just got the feeling instead of acknowledging that there are people with different skill sets, people with limited abilities, and those with real life restrictions that limit their ability and time to play, you just want to be hateful about it. You probably don’t understand that other people can’t just be as good as you with or without practice. You also can’t seem to understand that Raids are harder content (and were created to be) than any other PvE game types.

If you truly believe that dungeons are on par with raids then I wonder how well you do in raids. I wouldn’t think very.

Raids are not on par with dungeons but they are not that far away as your impression is.
All of the players that are breezing through raids had to learn and it was the same with dungeons pre-Hot aera. If you run them a couple of times you will wipe less and less and less since you just run through without even having a downstate.
It’s just a matter of learning and practice and I hold the line with saying you can easily clear Escort with your friends as long as one of you can skip the cave and get some others up with a portal.

And to the other point, yes you have to learn them and that’s ok because there is a group of players in this game that want to have such harder content. Hey, we also have PvP and WvW which are a special type of game not everybody is pleased to play. Just ignore raids then if you are not able to due to whatever reason is holding you off. Just don’t play it and disclaim.

Guys, I did not say that dungeons in GW2 are undoable. I just stated that the difficulty and the required group size is a problem for players that have not yet done any raids. For all those thinking I am some kind of a noob flaming about the difficulty: I succeeded in Vale. However it took me very long to try it, since I did not know anything about the mechanics and there was simply no way for testing the raid. The easiest way to improve the whole thing would be kind of buffs:

- normal mode: all players get a certain buff and can learn the mechanics
- hardmode = actual mode
- nightmare or whatever you call it: players get a malus or sth. like that

From my experience with the game, there are many players not being happy at all with the raids as they are at the moment. You guys should als think about casual gamers. Not everybody has ascended weapons and armors. Hardcore gamers are only a low percentage of all players. As we see in the forum they are at least a loud percentage ????. That’s all I wanted to say: in my opinion the raids’ system needs to be improved by some means.

jheryn.8390:

When I said breeze through with those people, I meant that we can accomplish it with them without spending hours in there or constantly wiping. Even great players make mistakes. Many times they may die in the dungeons but they have waypoints to respawn from. They don’t have to deal with timers, not being able to be resurrected, and any other number of mechanics that take more skill than dealing with poisonous trees. You don’t have to have certain roles for dungeons. Sometimes we do dungeons by just taking one class type in the group.

I’ve just got the feeling instead of acknowledging that there are people with different skill sets, people with limited abilities, and those with real life restrictions that limit their ability and time to play, you just want to be hateful about it. You probably don’t understand that other people can’t just be as good as you with or without practice. You also can’t seem to understand that Raids are harder content (and were created to be) than any other PvE game types.

If you truly believe that dungeons are on par with raids then I wonder how well you do in raids. I wouldn’t think very.

If you honestly believe what your saying right now… then boy do i have news for you.

Raid groups have beaten said content with all x classes before. This puts them according to your statement on par with dungeons.

In fact, they may have even died a few times learning it, but once they did they too were able to complete and even “breeze” through raids, much like how you can breeze through dungeons now.

It’s almost like history is repeating itself here. Dungeons used to be seen by the casual crowd as some impossible feat requiring nerfs(much like current raids), however they really didn’t need any changes, the player base just needed to improve.

Hildemar Moguntiaco.3057:

Guys, I did not say that dungeons in GW2 are undoable. I just stated that the difficulty and the required group size is a problem for players that have not yet done any raids. For all those thinking I am some kind of a noob flaming about the difficulty: I succeeded in Vale. However it took me very long to try it, since I did not know anything about the mechanics and there was simply no way for testing the raid. The easiest way to improve the whole thing would be kind of buffs:

- normal mode: all players get a certain buff and can learn the mechanics
- hardmode = actual mode
- nightmare or whatever you call it: players get a malus or sth. like that

From my experience with the game, there are many players not being happy at all with the raids as they are at the moment. You guys should als think about casual gamers. Not everybody has ascended weapons and armors. Hardcore gamers are only a low percentage of all players. As we see in the forum they are at least a loud percentage ????. That’s all I wanted to say: in my opinion the raids’ system needs to be improved by some means.

You don’t need Ascended for Raids, you don’t even need Exotics and they can be done well before enrage timers, they don’t require specific builds, there is absolutely no barrier to entry, there are only excuses why people won’t do them, the fights as they are teach players what to do, no easy mode is necessary.

The people upset are the players that didn’t want Raids in game to begin with and they were never the target audience, Raids aren’t the main endgame content it is niche side content, The game doesn’t focus on Raids like most other Mmos so they don’t have to open it up for a wider Player base or to focus anymore resources on it, Raiders are happy with the pace of their content.

just make the god kitten solo story mode it will just benefit the game in the longterm …

@Sly: My last comment on this. That’s simply not true, what you are saying. There are for certain some hardcore gamers that can do the raids with level 2 armor and weapons but that’s not the majority of gamers. The difficulty of raids is not compatible at all with the rest of the whole game. Everybody saying the inverse was else never in a raid or wants to exhibit by his reply what a tough hardcore gamer he or she is.

As Zealex says: hell, make a Story Mode. The simplest way is to buff the gro directly when entering the raids.

Hildemar Moguntiaco.3057:

@Sly: My last comment on this. That’s simply not true, what you are saying. There are for certain some hardcore gamers that can do the raids with level 2 armor and weapons but that’s not the majority of gamers. The difficulty of raids is not compatible at all with the rest of the whole game. Everybody saying the inverse was else never in a raid or wants to exhibit by his reply what a tough hardcore gamer he or she is.

As Zealex says: hell, make a Story Mode. The simplest way is to buff the gro directly when entering the raids.

Your right this content is not like the rest of the game, it was made for a specific target audience, the end.

And the fact that it can be low manned and done in highly sub optimal gear and with weird comps proves that it is not as hard as people try to make it out to be, if players can do it with less than 60% of the optimal stats across the board or less than 50% of the players needed, then the Dps checks are non existent, and proves it is all based on completing the mechanics not about forcing as much dps to beat a timer.

The Devs are happy where the Raids are at and so are the target audience, end of story.

And if a story mode is so wanted, then it should provide no rewards, nothing except the reward of seeing all the “story” in Raids.

I still will never get the we want a “story mode” crowd when there’s literally hours of footage on youtube for them to consume about the very loose existence of lore in the raids.

Pretty sure those people really just want the rewards but use a mode as justification for their desire not to do it the current way.

“that they require a group of ten highly equipped players with very good skill”

But you can complete every raid encounter in exotics without issue and time to spare still. And, yeah, skill isn’t what I would call required for raids in this game. It’s hardly skill. It’s more so common sense and knowing your encounters.

Raid encounters in this game are very, very forgiving. I got Eternal my training run for Spirit Vale and hardly considered myself an efficient player at the time. I still don’t. I mess up my rotations all the time, sometimes to the point that my G-Leader is yelling at me for “MOOOOAAAAR POOOWWAAAH” and everyone else is doing just as bad; and we still get the kills. Raids in this game are not difficult.

As for the Story Mode, sure why not, but a dumbed down version of the raid had better not give LIs (Other rewards, sure why not) to players. You do not deserve something actual raid enthusiasts worked their booties off for with five times the effort and dedication. Also, if you want to experience the story there’s the wiki, the recap Anet gave and, of course, the completed raid instances a lot of people provide every week for you to go and explore. You seriously aren’t losing out on anything as the story is told through cutscenes and items.

TexZero.7910:

I still will never get the we want a “story mode” crowd when there’s literally hours of footage on youtube for them to consume about the very loose existence of lore in the raids.

Pretty sure those people really just want the rewards but use a mode as justification for their desire not to do it the current way.

I’m sure there are people who want the rewards without going through all the hoops. Even so, there are plenty of people who just want to experience every single line of dialogue, read every journal scrap, examine every interactable — that’s not something they can get from the videos.

I don’t dismiss the concerns outright just because I disagree about what ANet should do about it. (I don’t think it’s a good use of ANet’s resources to retrofit existing wings. I do hope they think twice about making the lore more accessible in Wing 5 and beyond.)

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

I’m sure there are people who want the rewards without going through all the hoops. Even so, there are plenty of people who just want to experience every single line of dialogue, read every journal scrap, examine every interactable — that’s not something they can get from the videos.

If I had to judge human nature based on the threads in this forum, I’d suspect that the true story mode people are a vanishingly small minority. The rest is just whiners who want all the shinies for no effort. If the devs found a way to create a story mode without spending substantial resources on it, that would probably be something I welcome. Anything else would seem like a waste of resources.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot and there seems to be many many many more voices saying that this would be a bad thing rather than a good thing. I’m… I’m not sure if I’m 100% convinced but I think there must be something there.
I don’t know if the easy mode people are dwindling because they are quitting the game or if they really have moved on.

A few years ago the biggest complaint about gw2 was there’s no end game. Perhaps this is people coming from other MMOs were end game and raids are synonymous with each other. To raids aren’t the main end game or guild wars 2 isn’t a raiding mmo which could jade new players need to realise that you can only say that with internal knowledge.

The most active forum by far is this one, granted it serves 3 game types but the majority of posts are raid related. Reddit is similar there’s always going to be raids on the front page. Unspecialised guilds that welcome anyone talk about raiding all the time which colours people’s expectations when they level up.

People are finding themselves in a situation where they’ve been fed all this information about the end game and are then being told for whatever reason sorry but we’re not going to let you do it either because the raid team is already established by now or if pugging it they don’t have the hundreds of lis needed. Of course all sympathy does go out the window when they could just make an everyone welcome group like I did. We didn’t manage the encounter but I did at least prove to myself that it isn’t actually completely impossible to put with 0li which is a claim I’ve heard and nausium.

I do think though that people who make groups should ease up just a little bit on the li requirements. I’ve seen 600 before, are you honestly telling me that there’s a huge difference between someone who has run the raid 500 times to someone who has run 600 times? Surely after a while you’re just going through the motions. What makes it particularly insulting is people with that level of li are the people who say that raids are too easy, so easy that you need hyper levels of experience to join, it doesn’t add up!

Raids are shrodingers difficulty. Simultaneously impossible to do if you haven’t already done it over and over and over and so easy that you can do it in blues. But screw those people who try to do it in greens!

Maybe this is something that only makes sense if you are a raider yourself, maybe it’s impossible to really fathom any of this if you’re on the outside. I’ll give you that. Although I would like to say this.

I’m coming round to the raider point of view because someone showed me a completed instance today and it’s really exactly what I wanted in terms of a story mode. Okay reading or watching a video is never the same as experiencing it but if an easy mode made the mechanics pointless all I’ve done is saved myself 10 minutes of beating on something that poses no threat back (a microcosm of pretty much the rest of gw2). However I wasn’t ever really told about this, maybe I’m just ignorant and maybe everyone who is asking for a story mode already knew about this and wants the 10 minute beat down thing but I suspect I’m not the only one. It was enough to satisfy me and actually quite well done but perhaps poorly communicated that it was there to begin with.

I have always been more interested in the lore than the rewards and I’ve heard the anamosity towards people who want the reward for no effort, I always thought it was a strawman but…. you can see the story, you can make a group with no requirements, you can form/join a guild…idk…is it necessarily laziness or poor communication?

MerlinGamer.7410:

I’ve been thinking about this a lot and there seems to be many many many more voices saying that this would be a bad thing rather than a good thing. I’m… I’m not sure if I’m 100% convinced but I think there must be something there.
I don’t know if the easy mode people are dwindling because they are quitting the game or if they really have moved on.

I don’t think they have moved on or quit the game. I think there are actually several reasons you get this impression on these particular forums.

First, the only real place where there are more voices against this idea are here – on the raiding subforum of the GW2 forums. And that is to be expected.

Look anywhere else – Reddit, media sites like MMORPG or massivelyOP or the general discussion subforum (when the mods allow a raiding conversation to happen there without moving it to this subforum instead) – and the inverse is usually true. The call for this kind of change is pretty significant. If you go back to the first real discussion about this topic (the raiding CDI), it is even more obvious. In game, I hear from people every day – and I have gotten mail messages through this forum with people supporting the idea. They are simply reticent to comment publicly because of the next reason -

Second, there is a small group of people who constantly berate, insult and browbeat anyone who dares to offer any criticism of the raids in their current form. It is VERY (EXTREMELY actually) hard to have this discussion on this subforum. You don’t see most of the more extreme posts because they have been removed by moderators, but the attacks from the same 3-5 posters are pretty vicious. I have even had people hunt me down in game to yell their insults – and even had one particularly nasty poster (who is in this thread, btw) follow me onto reddit and threaten to come to my home and kill my family.

And finally, it really is spearheaded by a small group of posters – several of whom are obviously in the same guild. For whatever reason, they are against this idea and have no issues getting as nasty as needed to shut the conversation down.

And while I personally do not respond to that kind of BS (I served with the US Marines for six years. I don’t back down when confronted – I have the opposite response), there are a lot of people who simply dont think it is worth wading through the constant barrage of hate, insults and even threats to be part of the conversation (and who can blame them). It’s disgusting and it’s sad.

Haven’t seen anti-raids or need-story-mode threads on reddit over a month btw. and I’m checking HoT and Top section every day.

Vinceman.4572:

Haven’t seen anti-raids or need-story-mode threads on reddit over a month btw. and I’m checking HoT and Top section every day.

That is to be expected. Raids arent top of mind for most people right now. The conversation usually dies down between content drops. I was actually surprised (in a good way) to see the last two threads that popped up on this subforum.

And, I feel a need to qualify something. My post above this one does not apply to everyone advocating against story or easy mode. There are several posters who make a real effort to have a civil discussion (and I count Vinceman among that group, btw). While we obviously disagree, I respect that a lot. When the vitriolic undertones aren’t present, there have been some pretty productive conversations around this topic (for all sides).

EDIT – but of course, it didn’t take long for the irrational need to personally attack rather than engage in actual conversation to resurface (even as I was typing this post ), did it? Of course people will avoid the conversation when that is the typical response it invokes.

I’m sorry to hear that you’ve had people attacking you over an open discussion but at the same time I don’t find it surprising sadly.

Before raids came along I don’t recall a single person ever using the word “elitist” once and now I hear it several times a day. I also never saw anyone criticise someone else’s DPS or demand that people share their personal counter information. I think it is important that the hardcore player base gets some content they can enjoy as well but raids have brought so much toxicity into this game and I am wondering if it would have been better without them.

I’ll tell you one thing, this has certainly put me off ever trying a game like WoW where the raids aren’t optional.

Forum bugs are crawling around again.