Guild Wars 2

This thread has derailed so horrendously it’s absurd. Let it die now.

Raiding is fine tho. Its only the puggles that are toxic scum. Its like that in every game mode and most mmos. You can’t change puggles, they don’t have the magic of teamwork. Puggles do not get along with other puggles. If a puggle gets magically brought to a unified group they are generally tame or they get removed.

Murdock.6547:

A game that’s supposed to be prided in its community got this from a new player to our game.
It’s disgusting that it’s devolved so far that it’s making outside players laugh, sneer, insult and pity what is happening here.

Something that troubles me, is that neither of these are informed opinions. New players do not have an accurate picture of the raiding community. One week isn’t enough to form an accurate picture. Outside players is even less informed.

Murdock.6547:

Due to the fact that there is no gating to raids, literally anyone can do them. There are no storyquest requirements. You aren’t required to have cleared any dungeons, there’s not even a gearscore (or in this case quality) requirement. Show up. Be 80. You can technically walk in.

Gating is imposed by players. Things like LI pings, gear pings, and even monitoring dps meters are used by players to gate new players from joining groups they don’t belong in. The problem is always, when players get teammates that are not a good fit. Experienced speed runners need to stick with experienced speed runners, and beginners need to stick with beginners. When these groups mix, that is when expectations are not met, and frustration emerges.

Designing game content that is first and foremost fun for as many players as possible – that sounds like something we should be saying to devs a lot more often.

Blaeys.3102:

Designing game content that is first and foremost fun for as many players as possible – that sounds like something we should be saying to devs a lot more often.

Chill the crusade down there. You guys get 4 new maps and stories and you want more.

The raid isn’t taking anything away from you as a player. It’s your choice to either raid with the entire community or isolate yourself from it. Only you are responsible in this regard for your lack of raid/raid based content.

It’s not the devs job to fix that problem for you.

Blaeys.3102:

Designing game content that is first and foremost fun for as many players as possible – that sounds like something we should be saying to devs a lot more often.

+1 x10,000 if I could. The game was originally designed with this in mind, and I wish it had stayed that way.

Makai.3429:

Blaeys.3102:

Designing game content that is first and foremost fun for as many players as possible – that sounds like something we should be saying to devs a lot more often.

+1 x10,000 if I could. The game was originally designed with this in mind, and I wish it had stayed that way.

And raids totally killed that aspect of the game because everything else is not playable anymore?

Have there been only raids in development since HoT?

Tyria maps are empty and not played as well as Verdant Brink, Auric Basin, Tangled Depths and Dragon Stand (because a lot of people are raiding every day)?

There’s no new open world content every 2-3 months since one year?

1. GW2 didnt stop making content that is enjoyed by the masses. 99% of this game is ubercasual, having raids which provide difficulty for the few doesnt change that.

2. A lot of this is due to to a lack of understanding between newer players and exp ones. Yes, raids can be cleared with suboptimal gear and despite making many mistakes during fights. But if i’m an experienced raider who’s killed VG 100 times and is in full meta gear and a meta build, is it really unfair that i would like to play with players of similar standards? I can play VG with newer players and get the kill after 2h, but the reality is that i want to play VG with experienced players in good builds and 1-shot it.

I don’t think its unfair or “elitist” of veteran raiders to set requirements for their raids. If newer players then join those groups and then get kicked because they dont have any of the requirements that were clearly stated in the LFG, i dont think thats elitist behaviour.

New players need to seek out groups of their own mindset and skills and judging by how many people complain about raids and elitism there should many out there. I dont think its unfair of raiders to want to play with people of similar experience.

Lastly, this behaviour isnt new to raiding. People like whining about raiding but this exists in higher level fracs and existed in the old dungeon runs just as much. Certain Dungeons can be completed by lvl 50 chars but people still asked for lvl 80 chars with meta gear and only certain classes.

Blaeys.3102:

Designing game content that is first and foremost fun for as many players as possible – that sounds like something we should be saying to devs a lot more often.

The thing is, the game needs harder content to cater for the tastes of different people. Targeting just one auditory won’t cut it. Hence the progressively harder content, from open world through various instanced content, to raids. If you’re looking to ‘much about’ harder content, you’re obviously having wrong expectations. Yes, it is still there so that players have fun playing it. However, it’s a different kind of fun. It’s the fun of being challenged and overcoming it. Which does happen, when your party all has the same mindset. Just think of the mindset needed for any content of the game. And if it doesn’t fit yours, don’t play it. Simple as that. The game is huge, there’ll always be plenty of content for you to have fun with it. That’s the beauty of it being diverse.

TexZero.7910:

The raid isn’t taking anything away from you as a player. It’s your choice to either raid with the entire community or isolate yourself from it.

If you can’t remember, we have raids now exactly because some players, instead of playing with the entire community, preferred to isolate themselves from it, and asked Anet to help them with that.

Also, it’s no longer just raids now. Nowadays this kind of content starts to infect other areas (fractals, for example). If not for the massive backlash Anet got for HoT, i’m sure the PoF open world would have tried to continue on that path as well.

Which means, that pointing out to Anet what i dislike is important. Otherwise someday i may wake up to find that it’s not just some parts of the game, but the game as a whole that is no longer for me.

Astralporing.1957:

If you can’t remember, we have raids now exactly because some players, instead of playing with the entire community, preferred to isolate themselves from it, and asked Anet to help them with that.

This sentence is so incorrect. How is raiding isolating people? It forces you to play with 10 other people. And it forces you to cooperate, communicate and depend on eachother far more than anything ever before in GW2. 1 raid means more interaction with players than a year of running in open world maps an occasionally ressing a player to which he replies “ty” and i say “np”.

Astralporing.1957:

Also, it’s no longer just raids now. Nowadays this kind of content starts to infect other areas (fractals, for example). If not for the massive backlash Anet got for HoT, i’m sure the PoF open world would have tried to continue on that path as well.

People deliberately asked for this when they said that they wanted more challenging content but in a 5-man scenario. They’ve also implemented it very well with a challenge mote which offers a tad extra but keeps a normal lvl 99 or 100 which keeps it easy for players to do dailies.

Baseleader.4128:

They’ve also implemented it very well with a challenge mote which offers a tad extra but keeps a normal lvl 99 or 100 which keeps it easy for players to do dailies.

I’m not complaining about the challenge mote. It’s the normal mode that is a step up compared to previous fractals of same tier.

Baseleader.4128:

This sentence is so incorrect. How is raiding isolating people? It forces you to play with 10 other people.

10 other people is not “the whole gaming community”.

Astralporing.1957:

Baseleader.4128:

This sentence is so incorrect. How is raiding isolating people? It forces you to play with 10 other people.

10 other people is not “the whole gaming community”.

No it’s not, but you’re never going to play with the entire community though. People have different interests. Are people who play mostly WvW and PvP isolating themselves of the community? Besides, playing raids doesnt mean not playing other content. I can raid on monday and do open world on tuesday. The notion that raiding has isolated people from the community is utter foolishness. The reality for me is that i’ve made more connections with other people through raiding than ever before, because you actually need to communicate and cooperate. I interact more during 30min of raiding with 10 people than during an hour of doing a DS meta with 150 people.

The only game that allows to play with the entire community at once is EVE online.

Murdock.6547:

I want that to change.

What do you propose?

Astralporing.1957:

TexZero.7910:

The raid isn’t taking anything away from you as a player. It’s your choice to either raid with the entire community or isolate yourself from it.

If you can’t remember, we have raids now exactly because some players, instead of playing with the entire community, preferred to isolate themselves from it, and asked Anet to help them with that.

You mean some people didn’t adhere to your idea of fun and dared to have their own? Shame!

Feanor.2358:

You mean some people didn’t adhere to your idea of fun and dared to have their own? Shame!

Well, it is a shame if those people try to then push that different idea of fun on me, and if i disagree i get told that i can either play along or get out. Those people did not follow that advice themselves, after all.

Sooo, to put it short it’s OK if you try to push your idea to others, but it’s not OK if they do the same to you? I got that right, didn’t I?

Just to clarify, if you got told to either play along or get out, you very clearly were actively hindering someone from having their fun. So in your place, here’s what I would think: Why would I expect 4/9 other people to conform with me? It’s only normal for me, being the minority, to do so, or simply leave, if I can’t do it/don’t find it fun. There are plenty of groups with various mindsets out there. I can easily find another one to have fun with. Just common sense, no?

Murdock.6547:

But before I go too much further I’ll leave a quote from a good friend and raid leader in another raiding mmo after being asked how she felt about the GW2 raiding community.

“It’s a new raiding community with raids that are too accessible. There’s no work or discipline. The imbalance of the game creates a completely unnecessary elitism aspect and a vastly innacurate impression of how ‘good’ people are, since the game itself is laughably easy.
The raids aren’t well designed enough to curb this on their own (you laugh at kittenbabies in a game like FF14 because either someone is ACTUALLY good or they don’t clear), as there’s barely any research or effort needed to clear. Nobody knows what they’re doing, but they get results and their little carrot, and that’s what matters to them.
Because this is the state of raids, nobody wants to try and tame the kittenstorm that is the community, myself included.
I loathe the raids and the community around them[…]”

But isn’t that itself just another completely unnecessary form of elitism? She’s judging this raid community as an outsider, putting herself above everybody here who does raids. What’s next, someone from an even more hardcore raiding community comes to her game for a week and tells her how easy everything is and that there is no skill or knowledge involved? Do you think she would give a kitten? So guess what the GW2 community will not give.

Astralporing.1957

If you can’t remember, we have raids now exactly because some players, instead of playing with the entire community, preferred to isolate themselves from it, and asked Anet to help them with that.

Agree. If you look at the way the raids are designed and if you look at the devs. statements you will see that this content was designed only for a few. Few discontent players. Unable to find pleasure in playing the game along with all the other “scrubs” (or commoners or unskilled or lazy ppl). And asking for something only for them.
Is hilarious to see them now claiming that the raids are for the entire community. If someone forgot, please read again and again the devs. statements regarding the raids. As being designed to be completed only by the best/dedicated … etc players. ONLY. This means all the community?

TexZero.7910

Chill the crusade down there. You guys get 4 new maps and stories and you want more.
The raid isn’t taking anything away from you as a player. It’s your choice to either raid with the entire community or isolate yourself from it.

May I ask you if someone of the devs stated that the new 4 maps are only for the non raiders? And the raiders are not allowed (because of the mechanics / protection procedures etc) to play the new maps?
And YES, the raids took from me the legendary armor. Because of that “only by the best/dedicated/ … etc” from the devs statements, it means that not all will be able to complete the raids. And that means the legendary armor has been taken away from a lot of players even before the HoT start. By design!

Feanor.2358

Just to clarify, if you got told to either play along or get out, you very clearly were actively hindering someone from having their fun.

What a brilliant example of logic!
If the developers cannot keep the scrubs away, then we (The Chosen) should take the problem and solve it: “Play with me or go out! If you dare to question the raids, leave the game!”

How can a player hinder you from having fun in such a way you advise him to leave the game?
Or only expressing an opinion different of yours means a capital sin? And the sinner should be banned?

Yeah raids was designed for the few and many veteran players wanted raids, but not because we didnt want to play with other people. Simply because we wanted hcallenging content that demanded strategy, coordination, communication,…… I like that raids arent for the entire community, but not because i dont want the community to have stuff. I like that its not for everyone, meaning that it requires skill and dedication to complete it.

You’re saying people play Dark Souls because they want to play something that other cant, while people just wanna play Dark Souls because its fun to be challenged.

Cristalyan.5728:

How can a player hinder you from having fun in such a way you advise him to leave the game?

It’s really easy and it happens all the time. This thread is quite the testament to it. It boils down to
a) players having different expectations
and b) players trying to enforce these expectations onto others.

Scenario A: you want a relaxed run, while the others want a quick, smooth one. If you don’t adhere to their playstyle, you’re being an annoyance and you’re spoiling their fun. There’s nothing smooth in one player hugging the floor, not doing its part and in general getting carried.

Scenario B: you join a random group of casual players and try to make them play the meta. That’s just as stupid and you’re being just the same annoying prick as in (A).

In both cases, I’d rather kick the single offender than endure the annoyance. It’s my off time, I want to get some fun, not deal with childish behaviour. Please get this: you’re not entitled to play with every single player in the game. Just as you’re not entitled to make friends with each and every person in the world. Some will play with you, some won’t. Stop crying about it.

This thread is a testament to why a single raid mode/difficulty is bad design in GW2.

The issue most struggle with is “XYZ person is holding back our group,” balanced against “But I just want to have fun in the raid.”

The ideal answer to this question is the same one that (I believe) works in fractals – those players who want to just have fun and play their way in raids need a place they can do so that does not hinder or aggravate the more serious raiders. And, before people say it, it does work in fractals – I see it in my guild every week.

A tiered raiding model – based off a simple inverse of the currently implemented challenge mote system – would fix it.

Nope. It’s a testament to unrealistic expectations.

• Player sees new content: “me wants”. Doesn’t care it’s targeted at different auditory and he’s missing its whole point.
• Player gets kicked: “but whyyyyy”? Why, I wonder…

I didn’t think this thread would explode so quickly, but let me just address a few things.
The biggest one that I’ve noticed and that personally annoys me the most…

The legendary insight requirement is inherently very flawed as a means of gating.
It’s not unfair just very flawed. Not only can it be cheated via code generating programs or websites, but I’ve noticed more often than not the commanders refuse to ping their own LI. This leads me to believe there are a lot of people with a tag looking to get carried by more experienced players.

My friend’s opinion, while it may seem unfair to everyone who plays this game, is her opinion.
Telling her she’s simply wrong, or uninformed as some way to attempt to invalidate the very real problem she felt is silly.

And if I were to make a suggestion on how to help raids that could be put in by the devs?

*Give some sort of incentive to bring new players along and clear. Perhaps the first clear bonus is given to the entire squad (nonstacking)?

*Gate the raids behind something of lesser or equal difficulty to “train” players. It’s likely too late for this current wing, but next wing.. there should be some gating of some sort; preferably behind this current wing? And raids be an expansion content, not just HoT or PoF content. Much like the revenant.

*Make raids require tighter dps AND tighter mechanics. The way things are now, the content is incredibly easy to blow up by experienced (and even some inexperienced) groups. Mechanics can be ignored, enrage timers can be ignored as healers work into overtime, and overall there is little punishment for the individual being sub-par.
I’m not asking for -more- mechanics, I’m asking for mechanics that matter. Being able to ignored everything in VG with a strong healer and a good chronomancer is unacceptable.
It’s cool… but clearing the content normally should be the cool part.

In the end, I think what could be one of the big attributes to the feelings of frustration a lot of players have is simply because raids are supposed to be this thing with a lot of prestige that few players can accomplish, but most players look up to for advice from those who can… and yet it’s hardly a step up from fractals. In fact there was a debate that the newest fractal on CM 100 is harder than most of the raids currently (if not all of them).

Tl;dr: If the devs were to implement things to fix, it would be to gate the content behind other hard content (fractals is a good idea), give some sort of rewards or incentives for helping new players learn and clear the encounter, or simply make the raids much harder and punishing for individuals’ kitten ups. Too many players are getting carried with no knowledge of the fight.
Honestly, too many GROUPS are clearing with little knowledge of the fight.

But in the end, it’s mostly up to the COMMUNITY to make the community better. At best the devs can only reward you for being nice.

I find T4 fractals to be far more toxic than raids. Fractals suffers even more of massive distinctions in skill between players. You have players who are ok with spending 30 min on a frac and wear knights gear opposed to players who wanna do 3 fracs in 30 min and wear full zerk and meta builds. I think Fractals are good for helping people have some fun at low levels, but they fail miserably at taking away skillgaps and toxicity on the higher levels.

@ Murdock, i don’t think the raids need to be harder as such. But what would meet your idea and is something many many raiders want, is repeatable Challenge Motes in raids. The w4 CMs are actually decently hard. Samarog CM is actually quite a decent DPS check. Making those repeatable and give better rewards would keep the normal raids fairly doable and reward those who seek more.

Murdock.6547:

Honestly, too many GROUPS are clearing with little knowledge of the fight.

But in the end, it’s mostly up to the COMMUNITY to make the community better. At best the devs can only reward you for being nice.

So making raids harder makes the community better? Is that what you are saying with so many words? How the kitten could that work out? If you make them harder, the division between raiders and non-raiders would be just greater. People would whine even more about elitism, many people would fall through the net because they simply lack the arcade skills and reaction time, or hand-brain coordination.

I see your intentions are good, but most people probably feel that making raids more accessible for players would help the community, that’s the opposite of your proposal. And I still don’t give a kitten what people from other games say.

Vinceman.4572:

Makai.3429:

Blaeys.3102:

Designing game content that is first and foremost fun for as many players as possible – that sounds like something we should be saying to devs a lot more often.

+1 x10,000 if I could. The game was originally designed with this in mind, and I wish it had stayed that way.

And raids totally killed that aspect of the game because everything else is not playable anymore?

Have there been only raids in development since HoT?

Tyria maps are empty and not played as well as Verdant Brink, Auric Basin, Tangled Depths and Dragon Stand (because a lot of people are raiding every day)?

There’s no new open world content every 2-3 months since one year?

I just want to go back to late 2012 when dungeons were en vogue; where I could play the game to the best of my abilities without being judged or lambasted, and earn some nice rewards for it. I miss pick up and play group content that lets me unwind after work and allows a mistake or two: unlike raids and what fractals are becoming. I want the game to be the MMO I bought; not the MOBA APM OHKO retina burning festival it has become.

Faaris.8013:

Murdock.6547:

Honestly, too many GROUPS are clearing with little knowledge of the fight.

But in the end, it’s mostly up to the COMMUNITY to make the community better. At best the devs can only reward you for being nice.

So making raids harder makes the community better? Is that what you are saying with so many words? How the kitten could that work out? If you make them harder, the division between raiders and non-raiders would be just greater. People would whine even more about elitism, many people would fall through the net because they simply lack the arcade skills and reaction time, or hand-brain coordination.

I see your intentions are good, but most people probably feel that making raids more accessible for players would help the community, that’s the opposite of your proposal. And I still don’t give a kitten what people from other games say.

Careful with that statement. Defending the disabled is a no-no in the post-HoT “community”.

Makai.3429:

I just want to go back to late 2012 when dungeons were en vogue; where I could play the game to the best of my abilities without being judged or lambasted, and earn some nice rewards for it. I miss pick up and play group content that lets me unwind after work and allows a mistake or two. I want the game to be the MMO I bought; not the MOBA APM OHKO retina burning festival it has become.

+1 x10,000 if I could

The devs seem to have changed course as it pertains to base game goals and philosophy somewhere in the past few years and it wasn’t a change for the better. GW2 was building a strong reputation for accessibility and community focus in a field of MMOs that seemed to be going the opposite direction. If they want to know why the game has fallen out of favor a little – and why there is less excitement about PoF than there was for past game updates – it is because of their change in direction.

Adding in single mode raids for an exclusive audience may seem like a little thing, but it is a major leap to making GW2 just a me-too clone of what everyone else is doing. It is helping deprive GW2 of what made it unique – a game where content (and definitely all PVE content) was designed for the community rather than for niche groups.

I want that community focus and accessibility back in the game.

Raids are factually too accessible. The fact that a level 80 in missmatched masterwork gear, some not even being level 80 can enter a raid is unacceptable.
And everyone and their mother knows this. Someone who has absolutely no business raiding is, by the game’s own ruleset, allowed to raid. So players who (not unfairly) want to keep this sort out, have to make their own rulesets.
With little viable way to showcase skill in a raid without having raided, the default falls to LI. I’ve already mentioned my problem with this.

Elitism is currently totally unjustified, by the way. The clubhouse that’s being run is more or less (please pardon the euphemism) a flimsy tree fort made of sticks and branches with a sign scribbled in crayon reading “no noobs alloud ples”.

I will stand firm in the belief that to make raids more accessible within the community, they must be considerably less accessible within the game’s ruleset.
Otherwise “noobs” will just wander in aimlessly, as they’ve been known to do, and get attacked by the experienced raiders, the learning parties, and the bosses and lack of knowledge they have on them.

There have to be hard systems put in place that somehow teach people how to raid. Not mechanically; but the mindset.
The fact that you must do legwork to be useful. That you must read boss fights to understand. That you must have some semblance of a rotation, or bring valuable group utility to be desired.
None of that is enforced or even implied before someone is allowed to walk into the aerodrome and queue up, and so the community makes things up and enforces it themselves… often with frustrating results for all involved.

Murdock.6547:

And if I were to make a suggestion on how to help raids that could be put in by the devs?

I’m not sure if making raids harder or adding extra gates would make the community better. The Raids were supposed to be content for guilds and not content to do in random groups. How do you make them guild content though?

Murdock.6547:

Raids are factually too accessible. The fact that a level 80 in missmatched masterwork gear, some not even being level 80 can enter a raid is unacceptable.
And everyone and their mother knows this. Someone who has absolutely no business raiding is, by the game’s own ruleset, allowed to raid. So players who (not unfairly) want to keep this sort out, have to make their own rulesets.
With little viable way to showcase skill in a raid without having raided, the default falls to LI. I’ve already mentioned my problem with this.

Lol, tell this to people trying to start raiding. Your statement is nonsense, raiding is not too accessible.
Yes, you can enter a raid with the mentioned gear but since you are not actually skilled you won’t succeed. Maybe you get Escort down with totally random gear on all 10 pug players but not more.
Either those 10 people will lack the mechanics on easier bosses like MO or Cairn or totally fail due to more specific ones like tanking VG and so on.
Doesn’t feel like you have very much raiding experience in GW2 yourself.

Raid is accessible but also not easy to succeed. Recently a raiding friend of mine joined a WvW guild and managed to convince her guild to give raids a try. These people are who play WvW exclusively every day. Most of them don’t enjoy pve, nor care about fractals/dungeons (“what is raid? Is it near Bravost?”). They never min max to pve meta – wvw uses their own meta build, so it was a tall task to attune the whole group to a proper raid build and rotation. I worked with my friend to provide raid training to the group for three weeks now and also picked up 2-3 pugs in the training along the way. Result? Last week we managed to kill VG with 20s on the timer https://padl.tk/u/N8M9TP4S9AIY and had Escort down.

If an experienced raider looks at the padl log, he would rofl. The DPS is pitiful and the mechanics isn’t smooth (too many downs). So what makes this particular group successful? Communication! Coordination! Teamwork! Encouragement! Perseverance! Critiques! Coming from a WvW guild with vast experience in pugmanding, they already possess these qualities. Also precisely from a WvW background they get to enjoy the raids whose challenge is focused on more team coordination than a banal dps race.

So what takes away from my experience? If you want to get into raid and make the most of your experience, be an active part of the team and your team will be successful. If you put your own benefit or perception outside or above the team, your success rate will vary and it’s not the game’s fault.

Murdock.6547:

There have to be hard systems put in place that somehow teach people how to raid. Not mechanically; but the mindset.
The fact that you must do legwork to be useful. That you must read boss fights to understand. That you must have some semblance of a rotation, or bring valuable group utility to be desired.
None of that is enforced or even implied before someone is allowed to walk into the aerodrome and queue up, and so the community makes things up and enforces it themselves… often with frustrating results for all involved.

The community has done a superb job of compiling all of the necessary information, to be honest. We have build, gear and rotation guides on metabattle. Countless videos on youtube and text instructions on the forums and third party websites.

As with most things in life, it’s not knowing what to do…. it is getting it done that poses a problem. To paraphrase Paul Mooney …‘Everybody wanna raid but nobody wanna be a raider.’

Jahroots.6791:

snip

I’m sorry if I gloss over the others for now, but I want to address this one head on.
The community HAS done a fantastic job, yes. There are more resources on bosses, mechanics, builds, rotations, and not just that—- but GOOD resources to boot.
Where your written rotation is the optimal middle ground between mathematically perfect, and raid realistic. There are established raiding mmos with solid communities for raiding that don’t have it half as good as we’ve got it!

But who on earth is going to make people read, find, or do these things? Who on earth is going to enforce that people know what they’re doing? That they simply practice before the attempts?
And more importantly. How will it be enforced?

That quote you made is spot on; Everyone does want to raid. And nobody wants to be a raider.
Nobody wants to put forth the effort -required-, and in the case of GW2, nobody makes them.
Any bozo with a generated link can get into an experienced group with whatever gear they scrounged together (if they even bothered to do that much) and get carried by their experienced teammates. The frustration can come from the inherent lack of trust you have in your teammates to even know what the kitten ed mechanics are!
I’ve had someone do vale guardian who couldn’t even tell me what the spawn for greens were or the rotation timer. This person was in legendary armor. Or perhaps he had a code gen’d for the set as he was wearing a gemshop outfit over his gear? Both feel just as likely, if you ask me.

The raids. Are too. Accessible. Anyone can try, and so anyone does. But by god, not everyone should until they’ve proven they’ll take it seriously… and few do.

I apologize if I’ve gotten a bit blunt and abrasive with this particular post, but it’s absolutely frustrating to see something like a clear new player squeak into an experienced group on a gen’d code and then watch as an elementalist, doing just fine otherwise, gets exploded by a seeker pushed onto the group by said new player.. and the ele gets kicked for going down.
I’ve seen that sort of thing happen twice and I felt sick both times.

There needs to be a rite of passage of some sort; a trial by fire if you will. If you can clear THIS, you’ve earned the right to raid on this character (or account). That’s possibly the best solution for it. At least short term.
I wouldn’t even be bothered if I myself got gated out of raiding. I’m willing to do some legwork if it means the people around me were willing to as well.

TL;DR: Casuals ruin video games, yadda yadda. Salty nonsense blah blah blah. Normies posting misinformation, etc etc. Memes, dreams, and well oiled machines, or some such.

Then.
Stop.
Pugging.

That’s what people do when they want to raid seriously.

So, is it me or OP simply seek the entitlement of “Raiders = Invested Elites” under the veil of “We should have fun as a community” but raise the difficulty to bar casual players who don’t want to spend most of their time in raids?

What is wrong with you? Running out of other heights to reach? Sorry I start to understand the opening post and the author’s motivation less and less…

Sorry. I’ve been derailed a bit. I’m biased, of course.
I do want to find pugs who aren’t so horrid either as people or as players that it takes hours to clear either due to this or that.

The main post is about really just… somehow getting things better. I don’t know. My idea isn’t grand or clean, but it’s an idea that’s worked in other games, and in one case quite well.
I just want the community in raids to be closer to dungeons or mid/low level fractals where I occasionally see goofy titles and people not taking themselves so seriously. but in the end we have a good time.. even if the clear isn’t a sure thing.

I guess what I really want is to casualize the air of raids without compromising the difficulty.. which sounds contrary to what I post, so I apologize. It’s difficult for me to be neutral on a subject like this when it does directly affect me.

That’s my two cents, and I’ll leave it at that. I’ll go back to my kittenposting and harassing people who take themselves too seriously now.

Baseleader.4128:

Astralporing.1957:

Baseleader.4128:

This sentence is so incorrect. How is raiding isolating people? It forces you to play with 10 other people.

10 other people is not “the whole gaming community”.

No it’s not, but you’re never going to play with the entire community though. People have different interests. Are people who play mostly WvW and PvP isolating themselves of the community? Besides, playing raids doesnt mean not playing other content. I can raid on monday and do open world on tuesday. The notion that raiding has isolated people from the community is utter foolishness. The reality for me is that i’ve made more connections with other people through raiding than ever before, because you actually need to communicate and cooperate. I interact more during 30min of raiding with 10 people than during an hour of doing a DS meta with 150 people.

Same thing for me. I had mb 2 people to play with until i started raiding. Through time i met people specifically through raids and soon i’ve found myself in a wonderful guild. I can’t remember when i last played this game alone.

There are 2 things in this game that have an actual community with people that know each other and socialize. Raiding and WvW. Suffice to say, most active guilds are also centered around these activities….talk about isolation {sarcasm}.

Murdock.6547:

The raids. Are too. Accessible. Anyone can try, and so anyone does. But by god, not everyone should until they’ve proven they’ll take it seriously… and few do.

There’s an inherent problem with this idea. If you put the bar too high, too many will get discouraged. Very few will take it seriously without giving it a shot first and you end up limiting your player base a lot more than necessary. In my opinion, the current accessibility is just fine. Everyone can give it a shot. And it usually shows very fast who has genuine interest in the content and who doesn’t or is only interested in the rewards. And the ones actually interested, they do take it seriously. However, I’m not even sure if that can happen at all beforehand. It’s a huge investment do follow a guild schedule for weekly raids. I do it, now. If you had asked me if I would do it before I started raiding, I’d say “not a chance”. Perhaps some players would have replied otherwise. I would fathom a guess the vast majority of them has raiding experience in other games, however.

Murdock.6547:

There needs to be a rite of passage of some sort; a trial by fire if you will. If you can clear THIS, you’ve earned the right to raid on this character (or account). That’s possibly the best solution for it.

Technically there is a trial. You need Heart of Thorns to start raiding, you need certain mastery abilities unlocked in order to start raiding and of course in most cases you need to have your elite spec unlocked to start raiding.

What kind of trial do you want? A boss encounter or something?

Murdock.6547:

I just want the community in raids to be closer to dungeons or mid/low level fractals where I occasionally see goofy titles and people not taking themselves so seriously. but in the end we have a good time.. even if the clear isn’t a sure thing.

I guess what I really want is to casualize the air of raids without compromising the difficulty.. which sounds contrary to what I post, so I apologize. It’s difficult for me to be neutral on a subject like this when it does directly affect me.

That kind of thing is possible for raids, but generally only at the edges of skill and experience. It’s either the truly casual groups that do that – and wipe (but that generally doesn’t last long before players give up on the content), or the people that are so good that they find raids to be a cakewalk. In the middle you have people that are more serious about it, because they have to be serious if they hope to be succesful.

I don’t see this ever changing without changes to the difficulty itself, which apparently is not what you want.

No, raising the entry bar won’t help. It will only remove the lowest group from the equation. It won’t make the last group any bigger. It won’t make the middle group any less serious.

I do have fun raiding as a team. My guild only recently started raiding a few months ago. We took our lumps and bumps and had early struggles, but now we can roll through 3 of the raid bosses and our close to beating our fourth.

While challenging, it has been one of the most enjoyable experiences I’ve had in the game. The satisfaction and sense of accomplishment you get is second to none – especially if you achieve it with a group of your guild mates.

I would hate to see anet reduce the difficulty or team work needed for raiding. That’s half the fun.

Raiding is only a small part of the game and is not required for any other mode. I didn’t raid for the longest time, e.g.

Please don’t ruin this aspect of the game for those of us who put in the time and enjoy it.

Astralporing.1957:

Murdock.6547:

I just want the community in raids to be closer to dungeons or mid/low level fractals where I occasionally see goofy titles and people not taking themselves so seriously. but in the end we have a good time.. even if the clear isn’t a sure thing.

I guess what I really want is to casualize the air of raids without compromising the difficulty.. which sounds contrary to what I post, so I apologize. It’s difficult for me to be neutral on a subject like this when it does directly affect me.

That kind of thing is possible for raids, but generally only at the edges of skill and experience. It’s either the truly casual groups that do that – and wipe (but that generally doesn’t last long before players give up on the content), or the people that are so good that they find raids to be a cakewalk. In the middle you have people that are more serious about it, because they have to be serious if they hope to be succesful.

I don’t see this ever changing without changes to the difficulty itself, which apparently is not what you want.

No, raising the entry bar won’t help. It will only remove the lowest group from the equation. It won’t make the last group any bigger. It won’t make the middle group any less serious.

IMO, it’s not just about skill and difficulty. People tend to get a lot less serious when they trust each other. That’s one of the great benefits of running a static. The group I play with isn’t top-level. We clear everything weekly, but it certainly isn’t always a cakewalk. Yet we feel comfortable enough to experiment with different builds and don’t pressure or flame each other when our performance gets bad. Which happens, we are only people, we get tired, we make mistakes. However in a pug you can’t know if the person is tired, out of focus, or just bad. Hence the much lower tolerance and the unpleasant atmosphere when things start to get bad.

So there… that’s the alternative I wanted to point out to the people in the middle. Find a group and have fun.

Cristalyan.5728:

TexZero.7910

Chill the crusade down there. You guys get 4 new maps and stories and you want more.
The raid isn’t taking anything away from you as a player. It’s your choice to either raid with the entire community or isolate yourself from it.

May I ask you if someone of the devs stated that the new 4 maps are only for the non raiders? And the raiders are not allowed (because of the mechanics / protection procedures etc) to play the new maps?
And YES, the raids took from me the legendary armor. Because of that “only by the best/dedicated/ … etc” from the devs statements, it means that not all will be able to complete the raids. And that means the legendary armor has been taken away from a lot of players even before the HoT start. By design!

I could just as easily turn this around on you. So here it goes. Where did the devs lock you out of raids. I personally don’t see a sign on any portal saying anyone whose account is named Cristalyan.5728 isn’t permitted in. Raiding, like any other part of the game is a choice, an optional side portion of content you either choose to partake in or choose to isolate yourself from. Blaming the community at large for what is ultimately your decision is foolish.

Now then, you’ll like come back with a retort about how the “community” is imposing some artificial barrier that you don’t agree with, so to cut this extremely short create your own raid group with your own rules. You’ll never change what the speed running community wants or the established norms for “Efficient Pugs” but there is only one thing stopping you from creating your own raid group and that’s you.

Finally to address your last complaint about armor: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/WvW-and-PvP-Ascended-Armor-Upgrades/first#post6670394

If you want legendary armor there’s 2 ways to get it not involving raiding.
If you want the Raid specific armor, go raid.

Astralporing.1957:

10 other people is not “the whole gaming community”.

No, it’s not and you’re correct. However what you want to do to raiding would subdivide the existing raid community between that of the Adults and the Kiddie Pool.
It doesn’t work and causes even worse community segregation than what you currently believe to exist.

I mean raids really don’t give much tbh.
All they get is ugly as heck armors that really don’t make much of a difference. Oh boy yayyyy stat swapping, let me just go do the thing that takes less then 2g to go switch my ascended.
If they want the most ‘veteran’ people there, that’s fine.
I’ll just be laughing when I get the bulk of everything else in PVE, WvW, and PVP.
It’s even more funny when people /only/ raid and do nothing else.
You are basically praying for drops that you are not guaranteed, and have to wait a week for your raids to reset while I can do content every single day and probably make more gold in an hour compared to you trying to organize people in an hour.

Again, the raid community itself is laughable when they want to be serious and fractals are even taking over their position.

Raids are a minority in PVE. Everything else you can get by grinding outside of them. So don’t be mad ladies and gentlema, because in the end you are not missing anything

You can certainly make more g/hr outside of raids. The difference is, farms get boring much, much faster.

TexZero.7910:

I could just as easily turn this around on you. So here it goes. Where did the devs lock you out of raids.

They didn’t, but he has a point. Open world is a content meant for everyone. Raids, by design and stated devs intention, aren’t.
Besides, anyone that can do raids will do fine in open world. The opposite is obviously not true.
So, it’s not that one side gets 4 maps, and another gets a raid. No. Raiders get the maps as well… in addition to raids.

TexZero.7910:

Astralporing.1957:

10 other people is not “the whole gaming community”.

No, it’s not and you’re correct. However what you want to do to raiding would subdivide the existing raid community between that of the Adults and the Kiddie Pool.

No, the divide already exists and got created by introducing raids. All my suggestions might do is shift a bit the point where the divide lies.

By the way, i find it funny that you go out of your way to disparage the people that might want to play the easy mode, and yet at the same time are so afraid that these very same people might no longer want to play with you. If you think so poorly about those “kiddies” as you name them, why would you care if they’ll end up separated from the “real raiders”?