Guild Wars 2

STIHL.2489:

You were not entitled to a raid at all to start with, and many feel that even making the raid was a total waste of resources, so, moving on, can you give me one reason that is not totally pathetically self serving to not make an easy mode?

I’ve posted several through the thread, feel free to review.

Sarrs.4831:

It’s bizarre. You’re lasering in on this one specific thing, when there’s already about 30 PvE maps, 6-10 of which carry meta events, there’s 8 dungeons in the game with a total of 33 paths, Fractals, dozens of world bosses and more- not to even mention sPvP and WvW. If easy mode raids are the sole issue that’s preventing you from enjoying the game, there’s something you’re not being honest about.

If it’s all about Challenge = Better Reward, well, WvW is a lot more a challenge then any PvE content in the game, including the raid, yet they don’t get some legendary armor, or special ascended boxes, or whatever for their constant efforts, why should you get anything better then what they get?

STIHL.2489:

If it’s all about Challenge = Better Reward, well, WvW is a lot more a challenge then any PvE content in the game, including the raid, yet they don’t get some legendary armor, or special ascended boxes, or whatever for their constant efforts, why should you get anything better then what they get?

I’m pretty much okay with WvW getting a rewards revamp up to and including legendary armor? I’ve said this already.

Zenith.7301:

lol seriously? Carrot on a stick? Like the gold gate and RNG droprates already in place aren’t a carrot on a stick?

What the hell are you even trying to say? The basis of many videogames is that you are rewarded for accomplishments with gameplay feats, not by just mashing your autoattack on an HP bag in a dynamic event or downloading some auction house trading app.

If some is able to make 3k gold by mashing autoattack or trading, he definitely earned his reward, because amount of time or trading skill for that is quite impressive.
Btw, I’d like to see how you can handle “downloading some auction house trading app” and earning that amount of gold, to back up your bragging.

Astralporing.1957:

Besides you’re completely ignoring that we’re talking about tier 1 precursor so far.

And how exactly is that going to affect the point you quoted? You mean tier 2 and tier 3 will require a harder Raid that won’t be doable in Easy mode?

Sure. But since there won’t be a second legendary armor set anytime soon, easy mode raids seem to be the most likely option at the moment.

You can also wait until the first armor is out and then you can ask for a different method of acquisition. Asking for a second armor or a second acquisition method, when we haven’t seen the first one yet, isn’t helping.

Propose a better option, and you may kill Ohoni’s suggestion, but until that hypothetical other option becomes something more concrete, Ohoni’s “easy mode” are what people would follow. Because so far there’s only one other option that would be easier to implement.

I made loads of proposals which are vastly superior to Ohoni’s suggestion I’m just not defending them with non-sense arguments to keep a troll thread alive. You can look them up. There is a difference between Easy Mode to allow more players to experience the Raid, and a joke mode which is Ohoni’s proposal. Apples and oranges.

maddoctor.2738:

I made loads of proposals

I’ve read most of your posts, I don’t recall a single proposal on your part to make raids more accessible to the population, refresh my memory please.

STIHL.2489:

maddoctor.2738:

I made loads of proposals

I’ve read most of your posts, I don’t recall a single proposal on your part to make raids more accessible to the population, refresh my memory please.

Of course they are hard to find even for me… all that multi quote off-topic arguing has this effect of concealing important things.

1) Raid encounters as Fractals:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/What-new-fractals-would-you-like-to-see/first#post6036048

5-man content, bonus Fractals for the Fractal crowd (at least 9 new Fractals!) massive amount of content. Already existing reward system, fits the lore (as far as fractals fit it at least). Much easier than 10-man content. Perfect to see the Story, if that’s what you want, perfect for extra Fractal content after all this time, doesn’t give Legendary armor though.

2) A choice between removing enrage timers OR making content easier:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/Do-you-think-Raids-in-GW2-were-a-bad-idea/page/13#post6071386

Removing enrage timers completely is enough of a nerf and (in that case was discussing Vale Guardian) there is no need to nerf anything else, because there is no hard dps check. Either remove the timer, or make the rest easier, pick one, not both.

3) Unlocking of achievements only in normal mode:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/Do-you-think-Raids-in-GW2-were-a-bad-idea/page/13#post6069341

The idea is to progress legendary insights, magnetite shards and other repeatable achievements/collection requirements etc in any mode you wish. However, unlocking only happens in normal mode.

4) Better ways to improve Raid Accessibility than an easy mode, some of them are already being worked on:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/Suggestion-Raid-Difficulty-Settings-Merged/page/14#post6066814

LFG tool getting an upgrade, revisiting dungeons, tweaking fractals, will all help in making the transition to Raids much easier, for those at least who follow the progression and don’t want to jump directly into Raids after reaching level 80, and skipping everything else. And in the end you can see clearly I say what I always said since the very beginning of this type of thread:
They are working to make Raids more accessible. The effects of the changes might help a lot, might not help at all. Once we have more results we can go to the next step, whatever it might be.

5) Different types of “easy mode”
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/Suggestion-Raid-Difficulty-Settings-Merged/page/13#post6065029

The main “solution” of this thread is a type B, stupidly easy. I’d rather they go for C instead. It’s called Iteration, start with slow nerfs then see how it goes. Going directly for “joke mode” as I call it, won’t do anyone a favor.

6) Adding an easy mode, but adding it later, when we get more Raids (not wings) to keep the older Raids relevant:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/Do-you-think-Raids-in-GW2-were-a-bad-idea/page/3#post6044103

It’s actually an idea by “Just a flesh wound.3589” not mine, but I agree with it.

7) Using Phases as difficulty settings:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/Suggestion-Raid-Difficulty-Settings-Merged/page/7#post6043283

Reposting the example for Vale Guardian:

Vale Guardian has 3 distinct phases, I won’t count the split phases for this, so it’s like this: Phase 1 ? Split ? Phase 2 ? Split ? Phase 3
Each Phase has all the mechanics of the previous one but with a few tweaks and additions, and the last Phase is usually super chaotic. So here is the idea:
An “Elite” difficulty will be as we know the encounter today. A “Veteran” difficulty will have only 2 Phases, Phase 1 ? Split ? Phase 2 and maybe an “Easy” difficulty will have just the first Phase (I say “maybe” because I think Phase 1 is very very easy).

This can allow for infinite expansions in the future too, with more complex Phases added later but always only 3 “working”. For example a Champion difficulty would use Phase 2 -> Split -> Phase 3 -> Split -> Phase 4 (new phase) and a Legendary difficulty would start with Phase 3 -> Split -> Phase 4 (new – as above) -> Split -> Phase 5 (new phase)

There are likely more but I can’t bother to search for more now.

The whole appeal of Raids is that they’re not brain dead content where you can just spam auto attack and never dodge. If they nerf them they’re gonna kitten up this game for a lot of people who want an actually challenge (the only hard content in the game really).

What is the point of making hard content that people really wanted, to just nerf it in the end?

Raids are all about pratice, practice, practice until you win.
Forming the raid group is the hard part.

maddoctor.2738:

Astralporing.1957:

Besides you’re completely ignoring that we’re talking about tier 1 precursor so far.

And how exactly is that going to affect the point you quoted? You mean tier 2 and tier 3 will require a harder Raid that won’t be doable in Easy mode?

No, i mean that one of the tiers will almost certainly cost way more than an ascended armor. The total cost/effort for sure will be greater even if we ignore tier 1 completely. And yes, will require a lot of raid grinding (we do know that already).

maddoctor.2738:

Sure. But since there won’t be a second legendary armor set anytime soon, easy mode raids seem to be the most likely option at the moment.

You can also wait until the first armor is out and then you can ask for a different method of acquisition. Asking for a second armor or a second acquisition method, when we haven’t seen the first one yet, isn’t helping.

Isn’t helping you, you mean. I already know that the first acquisition method will not do for me.Why should i wait half a year? The situation is not going to improve on its own, so for me it’s better if Anet starts thinking on it already.

Davey.7029:

The whole appeal of Raids is that they’re not brain dead content where you can just spam auto attack and never dodge. If they nerf them they’re gonna kitten up this game for a lot of people who want an actually challenge (the only hard content in the game really).

Good then noone is asking for a nerf. Yet anyway.

Davey.7029:

What is the point of making hard content that people really wanted, to just nerf it in the end?

What’s the point of defending raids from being nerfed when noone suggested it?

The problem comes from people that do/want easy mode also saying they want the rewards from the hard mode version. If you want the damage, timers, mechanics etc reduced then the rewards will be reduced.

But I’ve said from the very beginning that I assume rewards would be reduced! 1/3 of what they currently are, that’s my starting position, that’s what I think would be fair, but I’m a bit flexible on quantity.

And again, I would be open to the idea of the current raid rewards being completely off the table for easy mode, so long as

1. There is a new reward for easy mode, not necessarily unique, but of sufficient amount that it would be worth running weekly to earn that reward.

2. That the raid rewards ARE available through some other PvE access point, for people that still never want to do hard mode raids.

Given both of those, however, I stand by my assertion that putting them in the easy mode is by far the simplest solution overall.

(1) It would be a waste of developer resources, since there is already tons of easy and medium tier content in this game.

But there is no reason to believe that it would take a significant amount of develoepr resources to implement. ANYTHING is a “waste of developer resources” in the abstract. Do you think that they never should have done raids in the first place because they are a “waste of developer resources?”

(2) It would devalue the existing rewards for raids.

Nope. Same value as before.

Easy modes are not really a thing in Guild wars 2.

Except the several places where they are, of course.

Aether path in TA is much harder than a regular dungeon path. Arah is much harder than other dungeons. “Not so secret” is much harder than other jumping puzzles. Triple trouble is much harder than other world bosses.

And yet all of them are easier than raids. I beat all of those on the first try (aside from Triple Trouble, which was pretty random at first so it took several tries).

But I don’t demand that all content is catered to my skill level. I don’t demand access to every single skin. I don’t ask for hard mode mark ii golem. I don’t ask for hard mode cof. Why? Because there’s plenty of content that is at my skill level! Just as there’s plenty of content at yours.

That’s nice and all, but just because you don’t ask for things that you would enjoy, does not make it wrong for other people to ask for the things they enjoy. You guys who say “don’t raid? Don’t deserve the rewards,” well the same thing applies here, “don’t ask? Don’t deserve content you might want.”

I’ve seen a mania over legendary armor. Despite that you’ve lived without legendary armor for 3 years. Despite that it has the same stats as ascended. Despite that stat changing is mostly worthless. Despite that other legendaries require similar amounts of effort to achieve. Despite that we don’t even know what the skin is. (And based on ascended armor, it could be very ugly).

But we have been asking for and expecting it for years. It’s like we’ve been asking for SAB back for years, even though we lived without it, well what if they had brought it back, but Tribulation Mode only? You don’t think a lot of people would be justifiably upset?

No one has really admitted to me the real reason they want legendary armor. The only answer I get is that “I want it because it’s in the game.” This answer is wrong on so many levels. Unless you can tell me you’ve achieved every other skin in the game, don’t tell me you need legendary armor.

My straightforward and honest reasons are:

1. I like the idea of being able to swap my stats, no matter how much you insist this doesn’t matter.

2. While we don’t know what the skins will look like, I have to assume that they won’t all be awful and I’ll want at least a few pieces of it on at least a few of my characters. I’d prefer to get the ball rolling now then wait to find out.

3. And yeah, “because it’s there.”

I know the real reason you want it. You want the prestige. You know that it shows a certain mastery and dedication to guild wars 2.

Nope. That’s impossible, if you think about it.

What am I asking for here? I’m asking for an easy mode path. An easy mode would democratize the rewards for the masses, not just for me individually. If everyone can get the skin, then how could there possibly be any prestige in owning it?

But you don’t want to put in the effort. You could learn how to beat raids. It is pve content, after all, so everything has a level of predictability that you could learn. But you don’t want to.

Exactly.

If it’s balanced around random players with random builds then it’s push-over content.

I think you overestimate the balance level of existing content.

And for everyone other than the bottom feeders it will be a joke, literally effortless in every sense of the word.

Again, I do not think that word means what you think it means.

How are you going to limit this easy mode to be run only by the lowest of the low skilled players?

That’s not really one of the goals. It’s open to all.

If there is nothing in-between those to keep the other players busy. Those who find the hard mode out of their reach due to difficulty, while at the same time find your “balanced on random exotics” difficulty a joke. There is a huge distance between “joke” and “hard”.

Sure, but “joke mode” is your personal straw version, I don’t think that’s necessary, myself. I’m aiming for something equivalent to ALL the other content in the game, the stuff that people run nightly, and seem to enjoy doing.

That’s non-sense. There is a difference between afking and playing.

Yes, there is, and nobody but you is talking about AFKing, so I’m not sure why you bring it up.

But since such websites exist, why not force everyone to use them? There is nothing preventing anyone from using those.

Because again, not everyone wants to have to go and buy expensive armor just to meet some “meta build” for one specific type of content, and in casual content, you can’t assume that you’ll always have the right balance of classes available, so you need a bit more flexibility. Open world content like say the Octovine it’s easier to assume you’ll have at least a few people with CCs out of 150 players, which is really the only hard requirement to beat it, but with ten people, you might not randomly end up with the right comp, which is a fine requirement for hard mode, but unnecessary for easy.

Well judging by the recent Legendary precursor abandonment, working on those collections doesn’t seem to be something easy for them.

Right, that’s why my solution involved not touching the collections themselves at all, but rather the loot tables of the mobs, so that they drop partial ingredients instead of completed ones. That should be simpler to implement.

Who knows, maybe the playerbase as a whole will adapt to Raids and make those easy mode too and then we won’t be asking for an easy mode anymore, but a hard mode.

I don’t think that’s a reasonable expectation. I think that the “players got good” situation you describe came from the fact that everyone went in with ZERO understanding of the game, and had to slowly learn how basic mechanics functioned, like stacking, or optimal boon application, things like that. Those basics are the same today as they were years ago, so while I’m sure raid groups will refine their techniques in a way that leads to better peak speedclears and stuff, I don’t anticipate a major seachange in which suddenly groups that are really struggling with the raids are coasting through it, and if such a thing happened, I wouldn’t be shocked if ANet patched that capability out.

I think hard mode should remain hard, I think they should actively keep it hard when players find exploits. I just don’t think everyone should have to play that mode if they want to play any mode at all.

I want to be able to get Eternity for 1c. Do you think that would devalue Eternity?

I could while away the hours, conferrin’ with the flowers
Consultin’ with the rain.
And my head I’d be scratchin’ while
my thoughts were busy hatchin’

. . .I forget what I was going to say next.

No, you don’t understand what I mean. In a progression environment, tackling lower raid difficulties before doing higher ones is practically mandatory because you push into deeper phases and deeper bosses, and can get experience on bosses you haven’t seen yet in your ‘hard mode’ runs.

But we aren’t talking about a “progression environment,” we’re talking about GW2. And besides, my proposal is that easy mode wouldn’t hit until at least a couple months after the corresponding hard mode wing, so the content should already have been beaten by then. Sure a player who starts late could do easy mode before hard mode, but by the same token he could just watch videos and read strats and have fewer surprises too. The lesson is the same either way, if you don’t want to spoil yourself, stay away from spoilers.

Flat nerfs to the raid would probably be a better choice than multimodal raiding.

If that’s what you want, fair enough, I was just trying to make everyone happy.

It’s bizarre. You’re lasering in on this one specific thing, when there’s already about 30 PvE maps, 6-10 of which carry meta events, there’s 8 dungeons in the game with a total of 33 paths, Fractals, dozens of world bosses and more- not to even mention sPvP and WvW. If easy mode raids are the sole issue that’s preventing you from enjoying the game, there’s something you’re not being honest about.

It’s not the only thing preventing me from enjoying the game, I do continue to enjoy the game, but it is the only thing that bothers me about raids, and one of the easiest things they could do to increase my overall enjoyment of the game. Hell, if they’d prefer to add a bunch more open world maps, that’d be great, but that’s a lot more work. I just see it as a very clear cost/benefit scenario.

Sure, if the “easy mode” will fail to actually be easy mode, then we’d have a wasted developer time, but why would you assume that anet would botch it that badly?

AND assume that they’d be incapable of correcting it if they did?

You can also wait until the first armor is out and then you can ask for a different method of acquisition. Asking for a second armor or a second acquisition method, when we haven’t seen the first one yet, isn’t helping.

What would be the benefit in waiting? All that would do is postpone any potential solutions. If it takes another six months to a year for the Legendary armor to be fully available, and only THEN do we start raising concerns, then it would probably take them six months to a year on top of that to actually implement anything, and then of course it wouldn’t just be “we’ll mail you some,” it would be a whole long path to earn them, likely a longer path than the existing one, meaning it would take another six months to a year to actually acquire them, so we’re talking around three years from now before anyone would be getting “easy mode” armors" if we followed your advice. Sorry, I’d rather not wait that long. I’;m going to ask now, so they can start working on it now, so that it’ll be available ASAP, so I can start working on it ASAP, and receive it ASAP.

Removing enrage timers completely is enough of a nerf and (in that case was discussing Vale Guardian) there is no need to nerf anything else, because there is no hard dps check. Either remove the timer, or make the rest easier, pick one, not both.

Just removing rage timers would certainly make things easier, but it would leave in most of the “one-shot” mechanics, which are the primary stressors of the content. Better than nothing, far from ideal.

The idea is to progress legendary insights, magnetite shards and other repeatable achievements/collection requirements etc in any mode you wish. However, unlocking only happens in normal mode.

But then players would have to beat it on normal mode to get the legendary collection, which defeats the entire purpose.

LFG tool getting an upgrade, revisiting dungeons, tweaking fractals, will all help in making the transition to Raids much easier, for those at least who follow the progression and don’t want to jump directly into Raids after reaching level 80, and skipping everything else.

All this is nice in and of itself, but completely irrelevant to the topic at hand.

6) Adding an easy mode, but adding it later, when we get more Raids (not wings) to keep the older Raids relevant:

Why wait? We’re not getting any younger.

Ohoni.6057:

Working hard towards something is all find and good. Working hard JUST because of the medal attached, to the point that you believe someone else getting the same medal makes your accomplishments any lesser is what is entirely pathetic. If Person A completed the full marathon, he should be happy about that, not that he got a medal for doing so. If Player B also gets a medal, that should not matter to Player A at all.

The Medal is a measure of what Person A accomplished, regardless of how anyone even Person A feels about it the medal is a testament to the marathon Person A ran that no one else did. The Medal loses any significance of merit when it is earned through anything easier, nor is it equal to something greater than itself.

Every single one of your proposals is screaming out against having any sort of reward in the game having merit through difficulty. None of your ‘compromises’ can adequately reward someone who goes through the hardest trials as eventually the merit of those rewards fades with time, given that everyone else can breeze to that same reward at their own pace eventually. Yours is a position that dismisses that merit earned through doing the most difficult of tasks, and demonizes players who seek a just reward for doing something that many cannot.

I know for a fact that we have had this discourse many a time before, and I am if anything impressed that you maintained a position like this for so long. But I will still stand by what I said months ago, and that is if you do not create content that seeks to advance and progress players, and instead keeps them in a safe bubble, players will get bored and leave, why play something that stays dull. Creating an ‘easy-mode’ raid is a waste of resources, drives away the merit of the normal raid and its unique rewards, and will kill the game in that regard.

There are only two ways this can be handled in a compromised approach:

- Release Legendary Armor in another mode, perhaps a similar style to Legendary Weapons where you scour Tyria for them. The best compromise and honestly I would even say this solution is required, I see no reason for Raids to have Legendary Armor only.
- Release Legendary Armor in a new Raid that is a couple steps DOWN in difficulty (I am thinking VG difficulty would be the highest it would ever peak at) so more people become invested. Although developing easier content might frustrate raiders wanting an equal or better challenge than Forsaken Thicket, I believe there would be a bigger adoption of newer raiders who might train up in this new raid and then go back to Forsaken Thicket for a better challenge and to get that Legendary Armor they weren’t prepared for initially.

These are it, no pointless gear checks do nothing to speak of player skill or creativity, no redundant encounters that take too many resources to balance for an easier crowd.

Those two are what I believe many posters on the other side Ohoni, that we would be OK with.

Thank you.

I’d love to go over these point by point, and while we can approach things always with the understanding that “better” is a relative term, it’s really the first one that catches my attention the most.

maddoctor.2738:

1) Raid encounters as Fractals:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/What-new-fractals-would-you-like-to-see/first#post6036048

5-man content, bonus Fractals for the Fractal crowd (at least 9 new Fractals!) massive amount of content. Already existing reward system, fits the lore (as far as fractals fit it at least). Much easier than 10-man content. Perfect to see the Story, if that’s what you want, perfect for extra Fractal content after all this time, doesn’t give Legendary armor though.

I have to say, I kinda like this idea, but only to a point.

The first thing that comes to mind is:
Devoting of Resources

Since, Converting a Raid into a Fractal, arguably, would take a lot more balance programming, and revision then simply toning down the numbers of the existing Raid to make an Easy Mode, I wonder what would be the gain from doing this, especially by a company that is already, potentially strapped for development staff.

The next point would be.

Difficulty and Challenge Level affecting Reward

Unless this quasi-part raid would be restricted to existing in the Pre -20’s Fractals, it becomes:

“The Raid – with a Gear Check”

This becomes even more pronounced the higher up the fractal level you go. And then you factor in the Mist-Instability to the existing Raid Mechanics, it can easily become a greater challenge for the players then the Raid itself is. Which means it should provide not only the same rewards, but contingent upon the fractal level, in some cases better.

I could fully understand that if the “Raid Specific” parts, like the parts needed to make Legendary Armor, were only available for the post 20 Fractals, perhaps even needing post 50, and I would say that by the Post-75, the reward might even surpass the Raid itself, because by that time, with the massive gear check, and mist-instabilities, it could become far harder then the raid.

You know, with just a minor variation in the rewards to fix them to be more inline to the Challenge/Demand, I could totally get behind this as a solution.

The Medal is a measure of what Person A accomplished, regardless of how anyone even Person A feels about it the medal is a testament to the marathon Person A ran that no one else did.

No, Person A running the marathon is the testament to him doing so, and Person A is the only person who does or SHOULD care that Person A ran it. If Person A ran the marathon because he wants other people to be impressed with him then he’s just setting himself up for disappointment, medal or not.

The Medal loses any significance of merit when it is earned through anything easier, nor is it equal to something greater than itself.

the medal loses no significance of merit under any circumstances, because it had none to begin with. It’s a piece of medal, no more or less special than any other.

But I will still stand by what I said months ago, and that is if you do not create content that seeks to advance and progress players, and instead keeps them in a safe bubble, players will get bored and leave, why play something that stays dull.

And I will remind you that different players are DIFFERENT, and that what one player wants is not necessarily what other people want. You clearly want a challenge treadmill, new tasks coming along that require more skill to complete. That’s fine, the game should provide those experiences for you.

But don’t just assume that every player wants the same experiences you do, that every player constantly seeks out more and more difficult challenges. That is not a universal trait, it is your personal preference (shared by many in this thread). Other players might appreciate novelty, and want to have new experiences, but not necessarily more difficult ones than those they previously completed. They don’t seek to improve their gameplay, or at least don’t have that as a primary goal, they just want to experience new content, and if they do improve it’s just a side-effect of participating in content that they are enjoying.

I think you should have the opportunity to play the sort of content you want to play, but I don’t think that the content you want to play is the content everyone should be playing. Other players are not wrong for not playing like you do.

No, Person A running the marathon is the testament to him doing so, and Person A is the only person who does or SHOULD care that Person A ran it. If Person A ran the marathon because he wants other people to be impressed with him then he’s just setting himself up for disappointment, medal or not.

Not true, especially given a public competition or trial. Those who are interested in the shiny medal will naturally be impressed with others having it, they will desire it. They will strive to get it. The medal is proof of what Person A did, it IS a reward for their efforts. The only time when Person A would be running a marathon for their own testament would be a PERSONAL GOAL. That is DIFFERENT, solitary, and private.

the medal loses no significance of merit under any circumstances, because it had none to begin with. It’s a piece of medal, no more or less special than any other.

It HAS significance if the only means you can obtain it were to do the marathon. It IS special because if you earn the medal, everyone acknowledges that you ran that Marathon. It is PROOF.

And I will remind you that different players are DIFFERENT, and that what one player wants is not necessarily what other people want. You clearly want a challenge treadmill, new tasks coming along that require more skill to complete. That’s fine, the game should provide those experiences for you.

I want a lot of things, I do want to see the full potential of GW2 PvE combat being brought forth. I also want more jumping puzzles, or open world maps, more new content that continues to bring me back to the game. Arenanet has done a phenomenal job branching out to a lot of different players with its content and should continue to expand on what it has now and not go back.

But don’t just assume that every player wants the same experiences you do, that every player constantly seeks out more and more difficult challenges. That is not a universal trait, it is your personal preference (shared by many in this thread). Other players might appreciate novelty, and want to have new experiences, but not necessarily more difficult ones than those they previously completed. They don’t seek to improve their gameplay, or at least don’t have that as a primary goal, they just want to experience new content, and if they do improve it’s just a side-effect of participating in content that they are enjoying.

As you said there are different players wanting to do different things. They have made it known quite well if their mode is suffering or prospering. That also means players who absolutely despise certain aspects of this game have made the personal choice to not desire the rewards for doing the content they abhor, and that’s fine. It’s a decision they made themselves.

Asking for a part of this game to be neutered for the sake of your own personal desire, rather than asking for a similar opportunity in a mode you actually enjoy is far more debilitating to the growth of this game than you realize. Furthermore, it boggles me that whenever you mention that these ‘anti-raiders’ want to experience raiding without the current difficulty that you think somehow an ‘easy-mode’ will give them that experience they so crave.

It won’t. It’s not authentic.

I think you should have the opportunity to play the sort of content you want to play, but I don’t think that the content you want to play is the content everyone should be playing. Other players are not wrong for not playing like you do.

They can go play other parts of this game. They can request Legendary Armor elsewhere, the next shiny to be in Living Story perhaps, I honestly do not care at this point. Everyone doesn’t have to play raids, but they should realize that they give up an opportunity right now to start working towards them. Who knows? Maybe they will suddenly desire to raid properly. Future is uncertain.

Sykper.6583:

- Release Legendary Armor in another mode, perhaps a similar style to Legendary Weapons where you scour Tyria for them. The best compromise and honestly I would even say this solution is required, I see no reason for Raids to have Legendary Armor only.

I think this would go a long way in resolving the issue for many players.

Those who are interested in the shiny medal will naturally be impressed with others having it, they will desire it.

Lol, no, no, no, that’s not how it works at all, I’m dreadfully sorry to have to tell you that.

If the medal itself is particularly cool. . . let’s just dispense with the analogy because no medal could actually be that cool- if the armor in question was actually really cool, then another player might think that armor was very cool, be impressed by that, but that has kitten-all to do with the person wearing it, that’s a compliment to the ARTIST who designed that armor. Nobody is interested in the guy who just happened to be handed that armor, that’s nonsense.

The only time anyone is impressed with a player because of his armor is not when he’s just casually decked out in BiS gear, but rather when he does a good job coordinating mismatched armors and colors to achieve a unique and attractive combination, a look that he is responsible for, not something one of the devs made for him.

The only time when Person A would be running a marathon for their own testament would be a PERSONAL GOAL. That is DIFFERENT, solitary, and private.

And also the only thing that actually matters, the only thing that is not horribly depressing. If someone actually runs content because he wants other players to think he’s somehow special for doing so. . . I don’t even know what to say about that, it’s just too tragic, and it certainly shouldn’t be enabled by the developers.

It HAS significance if the only means you can obtain it were to do the marathon. It IS special because if you earn the medal, everyone acknowledges that you ran that Marathon. It is PROOF.

Yeah, but nobody actually cares that you did it except for yourself, so what does it matter whether you have “proof?” It’s like having “proof” that you ate breakfast. You know that you ate breakfast, because you aren’t hungry, issue resolved. Nobody else needs to know or care.

Asking for a part of this game to be neutered for the sake of your own personal desire, rather than asking for a similar opportunity in a mode you actually enjoy is far more debilitating to the growth of this game than you realize.

Again, and apparently I cannot possibly stress this often or loudly enough, nobody is talking about “neutering,” nerfing, downgrading, etc. ANY of the existing raid content. It will all be left 100% intact, at least if I have any say in that. If you enjoy it, you can continue enjoying it.

What is on the table is the creation of NEW content, content which is remarkably similar to the existing content, just a lot lower risk level, which you can choose to participate in, or not, entirely up to you. It’s like the Clark Kent and Superman situation, they look remarkably similar, but one is clearly much weaker than the other, and you suspiciously never see the two in the same place at once. Hmm. . .

Furthermore, it boggles me that whenever you mention that these ‘anti-raiders’ want to experience raiding without the current difficulty that you think somehow an ‘easy-mode’ will give them that experience they so crave.

It won’t. It’s not authentic.

I know what I want, and what I want is the current raids with reduced risk, which I have described in detail up-thread. I genuinely, authentically believe that a large portion of the playerbase would enjoy the same content. Is it a “true raid?” Maybe not, but this audience doesn’t care about that. The audience that cares about a “genuine raid experience” is currently hard mode raiding, and can continue to do so. I don’t think this makes anyone “anti-raid,” we aren’t talking about harming the existing raids in any way, it just means that it’s not a part of the game we want to do in its current form, but which we would want to do in a slightly different form.

Astralporing.1957:

maddoctor.2738:

Astralporing.1957:

Besides you’re completely ignoring that we’re talking about tier 1 precursor so far.

And how exactly is that going to affect the point you quoted? You mean tier 2 and tier 3 will require a harder Raid that won’t be doable in Easy mode?

No, i mean that one of the tiers will almost certainly cost way more than an ascended armor. The total cost/effort for sure will be greater even if we ignore tier 1 completely. And yes, will require a lot of raid grinding (we do know that already).

maddoctor.2738:

Sure. But since there won’t be a second legendary armor set anytime soon, easy mode raids seem to be the most likely option at the moment.

You can also wait until the first armor is out and then you can ask for a different method of acquisition. Asking for a second armor or a second acquisition method, when we haven’t seen the first one yet, isn’t helping.

Isn’t helping you, you mean. I already know that the first acquisition method will not do for me.Why should i wait half a year? The situation is not going to improve on its own, so for me it’s better if Anet starts thinking on it already.

Davey.7029:

The whole appeal of Raids is that they’re not brain dead content where you can just spam auto attack and never dodge. If they nerf them they’re gonna kitten up this game for a lot of people who want an actually challenge (the only hard content in the game really).

Good then noone is asking for a nerf. Yet anyway.

Davey.7029:

What is the point of making hard content that people really wanted, to just nerf it in the end?

What’s the point of defending raids from being nerfed when noone suggested it?

People have suggested, and unfortunatly Anet does listen to bad suggestions.

STIHL.2489:

Devoting of Resources

Here is the thing. They already have a team for Fractals, which is working on instabilities, the new backpack, and even new Fractals, it has been confirmed that we will get new Fractals soon™.
Unlike other methods of making Raids more accessible, turning the Raid fights into Fractals is not just a Raid thing, it’s also a major Fractal addition (9 new Fractals added! Double the amount of Fractal content!) It would actually be worth it to devote resources on this one, resources that have nothing to do with the Living World or the Raids, so I think this is a worthy investment.

Difficulty and Challenge Level affecting Reward

That’s a problem with existing Fractals too. Cliffside and Swampland are completely different in terms of difficulty. A fix is needed here to balance reward/risk but it’s not specific to these new potential Fractals. ALL Fractals need re-balancing of their rewards and as part of that they can figure out proper rewards of the new ones.

As for adding Legendary Armor rewards in these Raids, that’s a big one. The problem here is that Fractal rewards themselves aren’t balanced. Adding another tier of rewards before fixing the current isn’t a very good idea. Now if/when they fix the Fractal reward system (which I hope will come in the April patch) there are ways of adding Raid rewards but there is the big problem of one piece of content offering two different reward systems (raid and fractal). That’s a rough one to balance

I know and can already imagine how specific instabilities at higher levels can turn the encounters much harder than the Raid encounters themselves :P That’s another consideration that requires some careful thinking.

Davey.7029:

Astralporing.1957:

What’s the point of defending raids from being nerfed when noone suggested it?

People have suggested, and unfortunatly Anet does listen to bad suggestions.

Easy mode raids are not a suggestion to nerf raids, you know.

Here is the thing. They already have a team for Fractals, which is working on instabilities, the new backpack, and even new Fractals, it has been confirmed that we will get new Fractals soon™.

Sure, but that team is already probably doing their own projects, them switching to making a raid instance is not as simple as flicking a switch.

Making a functioning Fractal out of the existing Raid content would be a heavier lift than the sort of easy mode I put forth, since it would involve having to slice it up to load properly in Fractals, the loot mechanisms would need to change completely, it would be equivalent to the repackaging of S1 content, which took quite a while. Not to mention that the content balancing would have to be changed entirely, to not only shift from 10-man design to 5-man, but also to take instabilities and agony into account for higher level versions. This is WAY more effort than just scaling the existing mechanics down to be lower risk.

I’m not saying it wouldn’t be worth doing if they insisted on going this route, but it’s far from the simplest path available to them and the results would be far from ideal.

Maybe Fractals fans would like having these new maps added, I don’t know, personally I think they’d rather see the Fractal team leveraging NEW content. The s1 Fractals kind of worked because that content was completely removed from the rest of the game. The raid is still already there, so having a Fractal of it just seems a bit redundant and out of step with their time-travel shenanigans.

As for adding Legendary Armor rewards in these Raids, that’s a big one. The problem here is that Fractal rewards themselves aren’t balanced. Adding another tier of rewards before fixing the current isn’t a very good idea. Now if/when they fix the Fractal reward system (which I hope will come in the April patch) there are ways of adding Raid rewards but there is the big problem of one piece of content offering two different reward systems (raid and fractal). That’s a rough one to balance

Also, if they did add Legendary armor to Fractals, they would still need to add yet another way of earning them via PvE, since Fractals and hard raids are so similar as to be basically the same thing. It would be like if they said “hey, we hear you guys, you want to be able to earn The Ascension through some method other than ranked PvP, totally makes sense, so we’re going to give you another option. . . Unranked PvP!” Fractals content is in many ways even more restrictive than Raids, since you almost absolutely require Ascended gear just to play in the higher levels due to Agony.

Easy mode raids are not a suggestion to nerf raids, you know.

From the many many many times this comes up, I think maybe they have some sort of a mental blindspot on this point. Like it goes into their eyes, and then vanishes before they can process it into their thoughts. It’d be like hysterical blindness or something, only specific to a single notion.

Ohoni.6057:

This is WAY more effort than just scaling the existing mechanics down to be lower risk.

Well obviously it’s way more effort, I never said otherwise. But it’s effort that on its own it will be well worth it, even if it’s not used for Raid Accessibility at all, doubling the amount of Fractals we have is always nice for Fractal players. Now, they could make brand new fractals and not release old content in fractals, but it’s a fair compromise and it’s something they’ve done in the past.

Also, if they did add Legendary armor to Fractals, they would still need to add yet another way of earning them via PvE, since Fractals and hard raids are so similar as to be basically the same thing.

I’m of the opinion that the Fractal backpack is a “test” of Fractals as a reward system. Once that’s complete the next reward coming from Fractals will be another Legendary, a trinket maybe? Or another way of getting Legendary Armor (or a different Legendary Armor), same goes for PVP. At least for PVP we KNOW next year we will have a different reward, it wouldn’t make much sense to be another backpack. Say no to more backpacks!

Once the reward system is in place, they can offer new Legendary items on a more regular basis (every year new reward?) from Fractals, PVP and Raids. Unless tier 2 and tier 3 of the Envoy Armor require the next Raids, the next Raid should offer something other than Armor. Eventually PVP, Fractals and Raids should offer Legendary Armor, Legendary trinkets and Legendary backpacks in some form. Sometime along the way, general PVE (LS3 maybe?) and WVW should get their turn in the Legendary process. Maybe the first Legendary Ring will come from general PVE and the first Legendary Amulet from WVW, so all game modes offer different Legendary items, and then mix and max them so in the end all of them, offer all the reward types (maybe different skins, but all Legendary tier).

Give each type of content a unique reward to look out for, then mix and max them so eventually they give them all. That’s how I’d do it anyway.

gavyne.6847
“….I just don’t think right now is a good time to add raids when the game could use resources pretty much everywhere else. Anet is essentially gambling 95% of the player population in hopes to please the 2-5%. Anet isn’t Blizzard, when your resources are extremely limited, you need to put them to good use.”

Ohoni.6057
“…Fun fact, btw, raiding almost completely destroyed my guild, which had been running rather smoothly after HoT dropped, but then after the first raid we had some teams attempting the raid, some on TS and others not, and those on TS were pressuring the rest to join in, even just on listen mode, but for whatever reason the guild leader was very averse to voice chat, and the pressure to conform eventually caused her to snap and kick out some of the most vocal advocates, which then caused a Night of Drama where sides were taken and punches were thrown, and eventually most of the people involved settled back down, but it certainly was A Thing.”

I can’t agree more than these 2 and sorry for any mistakes in english. Let’s be realistic, Anet, is a company, a company’s purpose it to make money, translating this into “making customers happy”. They obviously need some kind of economical/financial advisor to show them which sector makes them more money, which sector provide more “happiness”, so they can focus on. Raids is not the one, and they are also not the ones to blame, huge lack of content is, also the fact that legendary armor can only be obtained through raiding, meaning that they knew from the very start that a huge percentage of the people would not be happy about that.
I am also happy that someone actually mentioned, what raids actually produced for most guilds and that is Destruction, giving birth to “raiding lists” with limited time of life. Gw2 had always had the best community, but transforming the core game into f2p, introducing only elitist content like raids, a kitten expansion and other small factors made the community so toxic, far more toxic than gw2 pre-expansion on pvp, actually now you see toxicity everywhere. Raids indeed had a huge role on destroying most of guilds pre-expansion, they were never intended for small groups of friends or guild mates. Impossibility to form a decent raiding group in a 500 members guild, is Anet’s fault. Raids should have difficulty scaling, be accessible to even more casual players, more players=more profit for the company, pure logic.
Still in my opinion, raids are not to blame. At the same time we blame them, only because, this is the only content being released after the expansion release date. Yet i still have hope for Gw2, as this is the only good mmo out there, enough with all those korean joke-games.

Well obviously it’s way more effort, I never said otherwise. But it’s effort that on its own it will be well worth it, even if it’s not used for Raid Accessibility at all, doubling the amount of Fractals we have is always nice for Fractal players.

Well there are all sorts of ways that they could add Fractal content, I mean they could make Fractal versions of existing dungeons, of extinct boss fights, all sorts of things, but that doesn’t always mean it’s the best use of their time working on Fractals.

Personally I’d prefer that instead of repackaging existing content, the fractals team should be focused on leveraging the unique benefits of the Fractals theme, that is, building new content that explores the apocrypha of the Guild Wars timeline. I’d like to see that scrapped Abbadon Fractal, or a Rhytlok in the Mists Fractal, or a Fractal based on a major scene from one of the novels, unique stories from the Guild Wars universe.

Yes, those would obviously take more time, but I think you’re proposal is stuck in that death’s valley between “too much work to be trivial,” and “not cool enough that the time could not be better spent elsewhere.”

Obviously I don’t have final say on that, but that’s my two cents.

I’m of the opinion that the Fractal backpack is a “test” of Fractals as a reward system. Once that’s complete the next reward coming from Fractals will be another Legendary, a trinket maybe? Or another way of getting Legendary Armor (or a different Legendary Armor), same goes for PVP. At least for PVP we KNOW next year we will have a different reward, it wouldn’t make much sense to be another backpack. Say no to more backpacks!

I’m not saying that Fractals can’t be a delivery mechanism for something like that, just that it can’t be the ONLY alternative, because players that raid and Fractal are a nearly overlapping Venn diagram, while players that don’t raid AND don’t Fractal seriously are also a nearly overlapping diagram, so it would basically help the VERY few people that Fractal seriously but don’t raid, rather than the much larger population that does neither.

Basically, Fractals would be a terrible Plan B, it should be Plan D or E, after Plan B is already covered, something involving attainable goals within the open world, like the Precursor Crafting only without the massive deforestation and strip-mining required, or more like the Elite Spec weapons upgrades.

I’ll also point out that of all game types, PvP should be the very LAST on the list to get Legendary armor, after raids, open world PvE, Fractals, WvW, maybe a few other things. This isn’t hating on PvP or anything, it’s just that PvP has ZERO mechanical necessity for armor, you can PvP naked and do just as well as in full Ascended, while in all the other categories, having stat-swapping Ascended stat-ed armor, however much you wish to downplay that aspect, IS a useful advantage, so those activities deserve first crack at the armor. I mean, hell, PvP is getting glider wings when the only thing a hardcore PvPer can do with the things is screw around in the lobby!

If they do give PvP some sort of “early access,” I think the most fair way to do it would be to only give them access to a Legendary “Outfit.” That way, they could wear the skin of full Legendary armor, while not being able to have the stat benefits when in PvE environments, and it also gives both sides a little extra to work for, since even max-achievers in PvE who already had Legendary armor might appreciate the convenience of being able to throw on the Outfit, and PvPers who earned the Outfit would still want to eventually earn the full armor so that they could mix and match and take on the stat benefits in other modes.

The divide Ohoni between what we are saying and what you are saying is honestly how rewards are viewed in this game. We can continue to argue back and forth, provide metaphors and the ilk. What it comes down to is that rewards are seen at face-value (appearance) and to what extent they are within your (or anyone else sharing this same view) reach. I see rewards, all rewards, in this game as a carrot on a stick to do that content, however easy, hard or accessible it is, and to some extent it’s appearance. Some rewards gain a kind of merit from this either through time, difficulty, or exclusivity.

This is why we have round-about arguments, the very basis of why we propose the arguments for and against stems from this natural divide. It’s like attempting to force Water and Oil together here…(oh another metaphor).

Anyways, I didn’t really want to touch on this thread at all, given how much I discussed this same thing multiple times months ago. I know too well no one is going to change their mind here, but I am just letting people know the very reasons why there hasn’t been any real compromise.

The basis for understanding rewards between both groups is fundamentally different. I see zero reason to continue a discussion that I know won’t change my mind on how reward structure works in an MMO nor will it alter Ohoni’s position.

The divide Ohoni between what we are saying and what you are saying is honestly how rewards are viewed in this game.

I understand that, and I have no problem with you viewing rewards differently than I do, so long as you don’t then attempt to use your views to justify controlling my access to the rewards I’d like to have. I mean, if you want to view your armor as some Mark of Merit, and imagine people fawning over your enormitude, that’s your business, just don’t say “no, you can’t get that reward unless you jump through the hoops I’m comfortable jumping through, because mah enormitude.”

Your desire for me to NOT have something does not have as much value as my desire to have it. They do not cancel out, because yours is about controlling others. You worry about the rewards you get, and your reasons for doing that, I swear I won’t get involved at all, just you don’t worry about the rewards I’m going for, or the way I’d like to access them either.

STIHL.2489:

Sird.4536:

The path of least resistance is the one that everyone from casual to hardcore players will take.

Are you saying that all the people who have been saying that they love and want the challenge were in fact lying, and would want to do an easy mode as well?

Mind = Blown

No it’s not what I am saying, maybe read what I wrote before. If easy mode gave the same rewards as hard even hardcore raiders will abandon it. I like hard encounters but if there was a easy mode that gave me the same rewards I would never do hard mode ever again. I would save time, food cost, wipes etc.

If easy mode gave the same rewards as hard even hardcore raiders will abandon it.

Which means that the hardcore raiders, given the opportunity, would prefer to NOT have to do the challenge that they claim they want. They’ll only do it if their rewards are substantially higher.

Ohoni.6057:

If easy mode gave the same rewards as hard even hardcore raiders will abandon it.

Which means that the hardcore raiders, given the opportunity, would prefer to NOT have to do the challenge that they claim they want. They’ll only do it if their rewards are substantially higher.

No, they won’t do hard mode because there is no incentive to do it if everything can be achieved in easy. Why on earth will I (let’s say a hardcore raider) spend huge amounts of gold for the top food, spend hours a day with potential wipes and frustration, learning every new mechanic, try and change my build to fit the fight etc if instead I can use no food at all, never change my build, never have to learn more than one mechanic and never wipe. ‘Hardcore players’ don’t just want challenging content they also look for the most efficient way to clear said content. Easy mode is that.

There is already videos of a guild 6 man Matthias with over a minute left. On easy mode you will see ‘Solo Matthias kill’ videos.

Ohoni.6057:

If easy mode gave the same rewards as hard even hardcore raiders will abandon it.

Which means that the hardcore raiders, given the opportunity, would prefer to NOT have to do the challenge that they claim they want. They’ll only do it if their rewards are substantially higher.

I disagree with that. I raid with my guild several times à week, and given the choice between actual raid and your infantile raid mode, we’ll still do the hard mode, even if the rewards are the same. Simply because your infantile mode is not fun…Just a spam 1 festival…we have already too much pve content where the spam 1 is well rewarded

Ohoni.6057:

If easy mode gave the same rewards as hard even hardcore raiders will abandon it.

Which means that the hardcore raiders, given the opportunity, would prefer to NOT have to do the challenge that they claim they want. They’ll only do it if their rewards are substantially higher.

If someone wants Eternity and ANet decides that you should be able to buy Eternity for 1c, they would buy Eternity for 1c.

That doesn’t make the game better. It makes it worse.

No, they won’t do hard mode because there is no incentive to do it if everything can be achieved in easy.

Yes, because they don’t find hard mode “fun,” they just want to have better rewards than other players. If they found it fun, then that would be the incentive.

Why on earth will I (let’s say a hardcore raider) spend huge amounts of gold for the top food, spend hours a day with potential wipes and frustration, learning every new mechanic, try and change my build to fit the fight etc if instead I can use no food at all, never change my build, never have to learn more than one mechanic and never wipe. ‘

Because they enjoy playing hard mode content? Supposedly?

‘Hardcore players’ don’t just want challenging content they also look for the most efficient way to clear said content. Easy mode is that.

But easy mode is, by nature, NOT “hard mode content,” so playing easy mode isn’t “a more efficient way of clearing hard mode content,” it’s just straight not hard content, so they can’t claim to enjoy hard content and then claim that they would enjoy it just as much if it were easier, that’s like claiming that they really like black coffee, but it wouldn’t to add some milk and sugar, and maybe while we’re at it, remove the coffee, and still claim that what they really want is black coffee.

There is already videos of a guild 6 man Matthias with over a minute left. On easy mode you will see ‘Solo Matthias kill’ videos.

Sure, and why not? Sounds like a fun thing to play with.

Ohoni.6057:

If easy mode gave the same rewards as hard even hardcore raiders will abandon it.

Which means that the hardcore raiders, given the opportunity, would prefer to NOT have to do the challenge that they claim they want. They’ll only do it if their rewards are substantially higher.

Cmon don’t play naive. You know as much as anyone else that reward is always important. If the reward in both normal and easy mode is the same. Then player that want a challenge will beat the normal raid for a challenge, then play the easy mode for the reward. Normal raid will still have some traffic at least at the beginning while most people didn’t went thought it yet. At that point the fun of the challenge is fresh enough that rewards isn’t much of a problem. But as people start to beat the normal raid, then it will become a problem. Some people will continue to do the normal raid from time to time because of the challenge, but players will play the easy mode each day because that’s the best way to get their rewards.

Just take a look at aetherpath. Most players agree that’s is a good dungeon. More fun than most other dungeons. People went through it and it was great at the beginning because it was new. But it didn’t stay popular because the reward was the same as most other dungeon, while taking triple the time of a normal dungeon, especially in pugs. The same thing would have happen to SAB if they didn’t removed it. It’s a great content that you do 2-3 times on different difficulty, then more times for the achievement, but there is limited amount of rewards so you don’t keep playing that content forever.

I disagree with that. I raid with my guild several times à week, and given the choice between actual raid and your infantile raid mode, we’ll still do the hard mode, even if the rewards are the same.

Ok, let’s make it so, problem solved!

If someone wants Eternity and ANet decides that you should be able to buy Eternity for 1c, they would buy Eternity for 1c.

That doesn’t make the game better. It makes it worse.

I’m not sure you’re really making your case though as to why that would be a bad thing, you just sort of present it as self-evident. If they put it out for 1c then of course they would buy it for 1c, and they would be happy to have the sword. Now I don’t think they necessarily should put it out for 1c, I think it’s nice to have long term goals and the Legendary weapons can be something to work towards, but a slight decrease in the average price for them would probably be viewed favorably by the players at large.

The “if you do this, then you might as well do something WAY more extreme” argument really isn’t taken by people who are interested in a serious discussion. Why not just discuss the actual proposals on the table instead?

Ohoni.6057:

The divide Ohoni between what we are saying and what you are saying is honestly how rewards are viewed in this game.

I understand that, and I have no problem with you viewing rewards differently than I do, so long as you don’t then attempt to use your views to justify controlling my access to the rewards I’d like to have. I mean, if you want to view your armor as some Mark of Merit, and imagine people fawning over your enormitude, that’s your business, just don’t say “no, you can’t get that reward unless you jump through the hoops I’m comfortable jumping through, because mah enormitude.”

Your desire for me to NOT have something does not have as much value as my desire to have it. They do not cancel out, because yours is about controlling others. You worry about the rewards you get, and your reasons for doing that, I swear I won’t get involved at all, just you don’t worry about the rewards I’m going for, or the way I’d like to access them either.

I think your view of rewards differs massively from the average player.

Let’s look at game modes that do have easy modes. (But, again, for the record, I’m against easy mode raids as a waste of developer resources).

So SAB has an easy mode, normal mode, and hard mode. Green and yellow SAB skins are exclusive to hard mode. The new auras require you to complete the hard mode collections. No way to get them through easy or medium modes.

It’s been a while since I’ve done easy mode SAB. I’m not 100% on whether you’re awarded a bauble bubble at the end of each zone, but I don’t think you do. Thus, blue weapons would be out of reach for easy mode players.

You must play normal and hard mode SAB to get the skins.

Let’s look at fractals. Before HOT, you could not get a fractal weapon until after a certain tier (I think 20). And now, I’m pretty sure you can’t get a golden fractal tier from the lowest fractal levels.

Exclusive rewards in this game is nothing new. Not everything needs multiple paths towards acquisition. If you’ve truly held this view about rewards, then you’ve been suffering for 3 years.

Fair Points and Solid Response.

maddoctor.2738:

STIHL.2489:

Devoting of Resources

Here is the thing. They already have a team for Fractals, which is working on instabilities, the new backpack, and even new Fractals, it has been confirmed that we will get new Fractals soon™.
Unlike other methods of making Raids more accessible, turning the Raid fights into Fractals is not just a Raid thing, it’s also a major Fractal addition (9 new Fractals added! Double the amount of Fractal content!) It would actually be worth it to devote resources on this one, resources that have nothing to do with the Living World or the Raids, so I think this is a worthy investment.

I am all for more Fractals, My Point was simply that it would be more work to try and transform the 10 person Raid encounter into a 5 man Fractal Encounter.

Difficulty and Challenge Level affecting Reward

That’s a problem with existing Fractals too. Cliffside and Swampland are completely different in terms of difficulty. A fix is needed here to balance reward/risk but it’s not specific to these new potential Fractals. ALL Fractals need re-balancing of their rewards and as part of that they can figure out proper rewards of the new ones.

As for adding Legendary Armor rewards in these Raids, that’s a big one. The problem here is that Fractal rewards themselves aren’t balanced. Adding another tier of rewards before fixing the current isn’t a very good idea. Now if/when they fix the Fractal reward system (which I hope will come in the April patch) there are ways of adding Raid rewards but there is the big problem of one piece of content offering two different reward systems (raid and fractal). That’s a rough one to balance

I know and can already imagine how specific instabilities at higher levels can turn the encounters much harder than the Raid encounters themselves :P That’s another consideration that requires some careful thinking.

The reward would need to be balanced, because, well, you can run a Fractal daily, where I hare that the raid is a weekly thing. So there is a lot of factors that would need to be taken into consideration while doing this. I don’t there is a simple answer, but it should be addressed none the less.

As for the rewards for Fractals, to me, the best way to fix the rewards in Fractals would be to award “boxes” for each task done, with increased specific rewards based on Fractal Levels.

IE: Players get a Chest for each seal they do in Cliffside.
Players get a Chest for Each room they do in Thermanova, and extra smaller chests for each Portal they close.
Players get a Chest for doing the Wisps in Swampland.
Each Cannon Phase in Mai Trin awards a Chest.

That way, they up the reward for the more involved Fractals, with the reward being inherent to the complexity of the Fractal itself.

Sird.4536:

If easy mode gave the same rewards as hard even hardcore raiders will abandon it.

No one has asked for the same rewards.

STIHL.2489:

Fair Points and Solid Response.

maddoctor.2738:

STIHL.2489:

Devoting of Resources

Here is the thing. They already have a team for Fractals, which is working on instabilities, the new backpack, and even new Fractals, it has been confirmed that we will get new Fractals soon™.
Unlike other methods of making Raids more accessible, turning the Raid fights into Fractals is not just a Raid thing, it’s also a major Fractal addition (9 new Fractals added! Double the amount of Fractal content!) It would actually be worth it to devote resources on this one, resources that have nothing to do with the Living World or the Raids, so I think this is a worthy investment.

I am all for more Fractals, My Point was simply that it would be more work to try and transform the 10 person Raid encounter into a 5 man Fractal Encounter.

Difficulty and Challenge Level affecting Reward

That’s a problem with existing Fractals too. Cliffside and Swampland are completely different in terms of difficulty. A fix is needed here to balance reward/risk but it’s not specific to these new potential Fractals. ALL Fractals need re-balancing of their rewards and as part of that they can figure out proper rewards of the new ones.

As for adding Legendary Armor rewards in these Raids, that’s a big one. The problem here is that Fractal rewards themselves aren’t balanced. Adding another tier of rewards before fixing the current isn’t a very good idea. Now if/when they fix the Fractal reward system (which I hope will come in the April patch) there are ways of adding Raid rewards but there is the big problem of one piece of content offering two different reward systems (raid and fractal). That’s a rough one to balance

I know and can already imagine how specific instabilities at higher levels can turn the encounters much harder than the Raid encounters themselves :P That’s another consideration that requires some careful thinking.

The reward would need to be balanced, because, well, you can run a Fractal daily, where I hare that the raid is a weekly thing. So there is a lot of factors that would need to be taken into consideration while doing this. I don’t there is a simple answer, but it should be addressed none the less.

As for the rewards for Fractals, to me, the best way to fix the rewards in Fractals would be to award “boxes” for each task done, with increased specific rewards based on Fractal Levels.

IE: Players get a Chest for each seal they do in Cliffside.
Players get a Chest for Each room they do in Thermanova, and extra smaller chests for each Portal they close.
Players get a Chest for doing the Wisps in Swampland.
Each Cannon Phase in Mai Trin awards a Chest.

That way, they up the reward for the more involved Fractals, with the reward being inherent to the complexity of the Fractal itself.

Why do we need to turn raids into fractals? I’d rather have 9 completely new ones.

STIHL.2489:

Sird.4536:

If easy mode gave the same rewards as hard even hardcore raiders will abandon it.

No one has asked for the same rewards.

Ohoni.6057 do ask for the same reward.

Ohoni.6057:

I disagree with that. I raid with my guild several times à week, and given the choice between actual raid and your infantile raid mode, we’ll still do the hard mode, even if the rewards are the same.

Ok, let’s make it so, problem solved

But, Ohoni, there is no problem in the actual situation
there is a shinny you want, but you are not skilled enough to have. For me, and many players, it’s not a problem at all.

Furthermore, your infantile mode is not a good solution for your reward problem. Again, you want the same rewards as us, but with no effort (spam 1 is not an effort). And your claim about “it would take 3 more times” is quite entertaining. After all, your easy mode is not 3 times easier than normal mode, but much more easier.

If it’s just for teaching mechanisms, and with almost no reward, I will be behind you.

Then player that want a challenge will beat the normal raid for a challenge, then play the easy mode for the reward. Normal raid will still have some traffic at least at the beginning while most people didn’t went thought it yet. At that point the fun of the challenge is fresh enough that rewards isn’t much of a problem. But as people start to beat the normal raid, then it will become a problem. Some people will continue to do the normal raid from time to time because of the challenge, but players will play the easy mode each day because that’s the best way to get their rewards.

True enough, but if the fun of hard mode wears off as quickly as you say, maybe it shouldn’t even be a permanent thing? Maybe to prevent it growing stagnant, it should be more of a seasonal thing, like the PvP seasons. Like launch the hard mode raid, let people challenge it for, about 3-4 months, seems about right, introduce the easy mode after 2-3 months, but then after a while, leave easy mode up and remove the hard mode.

Then you bring it back for like a month or so every six months. Once there are multiple raids out, there would always be a few hard mode wings in rotation, , so anyone looking for that challenge would find an open opportunity, and anyone who missed the initial run could catch it the next time around, but locking them out after a period of time would concentrate the audience, meaning that you’d have a much easier time finding people interested in that version during the limited time it’s available. It’s like the various holiday content, would anyone be running the Winter JP right now if it were up year round? I doubt it, but SAB is only up for 19 days? Everyone’s all over it.

It’s been a while since I’ve done easy mode SAB. I’m not 100% on whether you’re awarded a bauble bubble at the end of each zone, but I don’t think you do. Thus, blue weapons would be out of reach for easy mode players.

You must play normal and hard mode SAB to get the skins.

You can convert the little currency into the bigger one, so even in infantile you can probably save up to buy blue skins, but really most players should be able to clear normal mode for World 1. World 2 is a whole different story, mainly just because they made the zones sooooooooooooo long without a stopping point.

And let’s be clear, I’m not asking for Infantile mode here, that’s just the slander others have accused me of. I’m asking for Normal mode, when the only option currently available in raids is Tribulation.

Exclusive rewards in this game is nothing new. Not everything needs multiple paths towards acquisition. If you’ve truly held this view about rewards, then you’ve been suffering for 3 years.

Yeah, but hopefully they’ll continue to improve in this regard, as they have with the fractal weapon skins.

Ohoni.6057 do ask for the same reward.

Nope. From the very start I’ve been asking for less reward. I mean, don’t get me wrong, if they offered identical reward I wouldn’t put up much of a fight, but I get that hard mode should offer more reward and that’s fine. For now I’m at around 1/3 reward for easy mode, but my position has never been the exact same reward.

Ohoni.6057:

No, they won’t do hard mode because there is no incentive to do it if everything can be achieved in easy.

Yes, because they don’t find hard mode “fun,” they just want to have better rewards than other players. If they found it fun, then that would be the incentive.

Why on earth will I (let’s say a hardcore raider) spend huge amounts of gold for the top food, spend hours a day with potential wipes and frustration, learning every new mechanic, try and change my build to fit the fight etc if instead I can use no food at all, never change my build, never have to learn more than one mechanic and never wipe. ‘

Because they enjoy playing hard mode content? Supposedly?

‘Hardcore players’ don’t just want challenging content they also look for the most efficient way to clear said content. Easy mode is that.

But easy mode is, by nature, NOT “hard mode content,” so playing easy mode isn’t “a more efficient way of clearing hard mode content,” it’s just straight not hard content, so they can’t claim to enjoy hard content and then claim that they would enjoy it just as much if it were easier, that’s like claiming that they really like black coffee, but it wouldn’t to add some milk and sugar, and maybe while we’re at it, remove the coffee, and still claim that what they really want is black coffee.

There is already videos of a guild 6 man Matthias with over a minute left. On easy mode you will see ‘Solo Matthias kill’ videos.

Sure, and why not? Sounds like a fun thing to play with.

If everyone played for fun this topic would not exist. The only reason hardcore players will do hard mode is when it is first released. Once they have the new wing on farm (like I do with SV and SP) there is no other reason to go back to hard mode. Rewards drive most of the hardcore players (maybe I am wrong) and if rewards can be achieved through a means that requires less effort and time they will do it. Look at fractals, no one is advertising level 100 because you could do level 56/67/77 in the same amount of time for the same rewards.

Ohoni.6057:

It’s been a while since I’ve done easy mode SAB. I’m not 100% on whether you’re awarded a bauble bubble at the end of each zone, but I don’t think you do. Thus, blue weapons would be out of reach for easy mode players.

You must play normal and hard mode SAB to get the skins.

You can convert the little currency into the bigger one, so even in infantile you can probably save up to buy blue skins, but really most players should be able to clear normal mode for World 1. World 2 is a whole different story, mainly just because they made the zones sooooooooooooo long without a stopping point.

And let’s be clear, I’m not asking for Infantile mode here, that’s just the slander others have accused me of. I’m asking for Normal mode, when the only option currently available in raids is Tribulation.

Exclusive rewards in this game is nothing new. Not everything needs multiple paths towards acquisition. If you’ve truly held this view about rewards, then you’ve been suffering for 3 years.

Yeah, but hopefully they’ll continue to improve in this regard, as they have with the fractal weapon skins.

Ohoni.6057 do ask for the same reward.

Nope. From the very start I’ve been asking for less reward. I mean, don’t get me wrong, if they offered identical reward I wouldn’t put up much of a fight, but I get that hard mode should offer more reward and that’s fine. For now I’m at around 1/3 reward for easy mode, but my position has never been the exact same reward.

Tribulation mode has unique rewards. High level fractals have unique rewards.

Game modes have always had exclusive rewards in this game. Have you suffered through this for 3 years?

And let’s be clear, I’m not asking for Infantile mode here, that’s just the slander others have accused me of. I’m asking for Normal mode, when the only option currently available in raids is Tribulation.

No, your asking for raids where builds and team composition don’t matter at all. No possibility of wiping too, because you’re finding that too stressfull. That’s infantile mode for me…

Nope. From the very start I’ve been asking for less reward. I mean, don’t get me wrong, if they offered identical reward I wouldn’t put up much of a fight, but I get that hard mode should offer more reward and that’s fine. For now I’m at around 1/3 reward for easy mode, but my position has never been the exact same reward.

Yes, you want the armor, that is the exact same reward…

Ohoni.6057:

True enough, but if the fun of hard mode wears off as quickly as you say, maybe it shouldn’t even be a permanent thing?

Well first of all it’s not an hard more things. It’s a content thing. ANY content without a proper reward will wears off at some point. Whatever what level of difficulty it is. Who’s doing map even in Brisban Wildlands? Nobody. Why? Because the reward isn’t worth it. Who was doing Trek pre-hot? Nobody. Now? All player that are doing guild mission.

It’s simple dude. People get bored of anything and everything. Guys can get bored of their super sexy wife, so in which world would any video game content could not become boring without external incentive. Either you put variability or you put rewards. PvP and game like diablo bring variability. Either you play against other human meaning that the combat will always vary and you will always have to adapt, or you put some increasing difficulty, variable maps, etc. Or you give reward that people want so they will keep playing the content because of the reward.

And secondly, why are you saying ‘’as quickly as you say’‘. Did I said anything on the time that can take? I vary from people to people and again. If anything the harder the content it is, the longer the time it will take because it start. I completed aetherpath in like 1-2 hours the first time. After that, I started to do the achievement and maybe 3-4 hours. In raid, it took me about 30 hours to beat all 3 boss of the first wings. Longer than anything else in the game. But whatever the time, it will happen eventually, whatever content you do. It’s just human nature and you can’t fight it. Whatever the content, people will get bored of it. Any game designed need to give incentive to player to replay their content because it’s just impossible to create content faster than people can consume it.

Hypairion.9210:

Yes, you want the armor, that is the exact same reward…

Is the armor the only thing that drops in the raid?

STIHL.2489:

Hypairion.9210:

Yes, you want the armor, that is the exact same reward…

Is the armor the only thing that drops in the raid?

i’m talking about the armor because Ohoni only cares about armor. I’m ok from shard from easy mode (in less quantities, since less challenge).

So you’re ok with no armor in easy mode?

Thaddeus.4891:

Cmon don’t play naive. You know as much as anyone else that reward is always important. If the reward in both normal and easy mode is the same.

Why do you keep repeating that? It’s not supposed to be the same. Hard more is supposed to offer better rewards. Just not exclusive ones.

Thaddeus.4891:

Just take a look at aetherpath. Most players agree that’s is a good dungeon.

Actually no, most players didn’t agree on that. Yes, rewards per effort in that dungeon were terrible, but it was also full of annoying gimmicks that made it not really that fun at all.

Thaddeus.4891:

More fun than most other dungeons. People went through it and it was great at the beginning because it was new. But it didn’t stay popular because the reward was the same as most other dungeon, while taking triple the time of a normal dungeon, especially in pugs.

You’re wrong, it was never popular in the first place. The people that asked for hard dungeons turned out to not be enough to sustain it. It would most likely failed even if the rewards were better (unless they’d be way, way better).

Sarrs.4831:

If someone wants Eternity and ANet decides that you should be able to buy Eternity for 1c, they would buy Eternity for 1c..

Now, that’s massive discrepancy in price. Nothing even close to what’s being proposed. You’d do better to look at precursor crafting collections – there are people doing them even when buying that precursor from TP would be much cheaper.

Absurdo.8309:

You must play normal and hard mode SAB to get the skins.

You get baubles from dailies, you know. Without even setting foot in SAB.

Absurdo.8309:

Let’s look at fractals. Before HOT, you could not get a fractal weapon until after a certain tier (I think 20). And now, I’m pretty sure you can’t get a golden fractal tier from the lowest fractal levels.

I’m 99% certain you can, it’s just the drop rates from the adept tier are really, really low.
And you could drop a fractal skin from level 1-10 fractal after Fractured changes. Though, again, the chance of this happening were abyssmal.

Hypairion.9210:

So you’re ok with no armor in easy mode?

As long as there will be another alternative besides hardmode raids to get it, sure.

Astralporing.1957:

Now, that’s massive discrepancy in price. Nothing even close to what’s being proposed. You’d do better to look at precursor crafting collections – there are people doing them even when buying that precursor from TP would be much cheaper.

Precursor crafting is very, very different from buying the precursor from the TP.

Raids with the numbers tuned down are just numbers tuned down.

Absurdo.8309:

You must play normal and hard mode SAB to get the skins.

Baubles can be turned into Bubble Baubles, chief. You can do nothing but easy mode, collecting baubles, and then turn them into bubble baubles and buy the blue skins that way. Sure, it takes longer, but it’s still possible.

Only tribulation mode skins are locked behind anything, which are the green and yellow ones.