Guild Wars 2

Ohoni.6057:

Fair enough, though I doubt Anet will actually make all legendary armour now and in the future raid only.

I don’t know about that. They might add future options later, but given that it’s been four months since HoT released and they still don’t even have it in raids, I’m not holding my breath that they’ll add it to other game modes any time soon. I definitely hope that they do though.

I still think the better solution is to have “easy mode” raids, where pretty much any player would be able to participate on their own merits, and still progress towards the existing rewards, just at a slower pace than through the hard mode raids. The hardcore raiders would always have the cool stuff months before anyone else, maybe up to a year, but eventually everyone else could catch up. The easy mode raids would also act as “training wheels” to allow lower-skill players to eventually work their way up to the hard mode versions, instead of the current method of “bang your head against the wall until you get through, or get a concussion, whichever comes first.”

Last I checked you still couldn’t get Fires of Balthazar without structured PvP (which I don’t do) and the legendary weapons in the game already do force you to complete certain content that you might not want to do to get the what you need for them.

People often raise the “two wrongs obviously make a right” argument, but I’ve never believed in that. There are flaws with all the game modes right now, but a flaw in one mode does not justify a flaw in another, it just exists as something that should be fixed for its own reasons.

you have to wonder, will legendary armors be account bound ?

I kinda doubt that players will be able to sell legendary armor. Given the HoT weapons, that doesn’t seem to be the direction they want to go. Of course, they did make crafted precursors sellable, which is not the direction I would have gone with them.

I had a proper reply written out but the forums ate it.

Gist of the previous reply: I don’t think having to do specific things to get skins is a flaw (stats is another matter) even if it often dose not work out in my favour but can see why others don’t like it.
I think having an easier (and less rewarding) version of the raid would be a decent idea unless it’s a much larger undertaking than it appears. Although I’m personally not too worried about missing out on the amour I would like to be able to get the general gist of the raid so I don’t feel like a complete heel if I join a group for the hard one. I think it would increase participation in more difficult raids if getting into it was less intimidating.

Anakita Snakecharm.4360:

I don’t necessarily think adding raids was a bad idea, but I do think it was a bad idea to place so much focus on the raid for so long. I think it would be better to alternate raid releases with content that’s more accessible to the general community of players so people who aren’t interested in raiding don’t feel bored or left out.

In the AMA, they stated that the raid team its not that big, so its not a lot of resources being placed on the raid.
A company with ~300 developers, allowing 6-10 people to work on the raid its not that bad imo

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/48zlyd/im_mike_obrien_here_with_gw2_dev_team_ama/d0nwad9

Gist of the previous reply: I don’t think having to do specific things to get skins is a flaw (stats is another matter) even if it often dose not work out in my favour but can see why others don’t like it.

If you don’t think it’s a flaw, that’s fine. So long as you can accept that other people do see it as a flaw, and don’t prevent them from resolving what they believe to be a flaw just because you don’t see it yourself, it’s all good.

I think it would increase participation in more difficult raids if getting into it was less intimidating.

Exactly. People are much more likely to participate in the hard raid if they’ve completed the easy one enough that they have the patterns down than they are to run face first into the meat grinder repeatedly until eventually they come out the other side.

Anakita Snakecharm.4360:

I don’t necessarily think adding raids was a bad idea, but I do think it was a bad idea to place so much focus on the raid for so long. I think it would be better to alternate raid releases with content that’s more accessible to the general community of players so people who aren’t interested in raiding don’t feel bored or left out.

We got an expansion with content for a lot of players — four zones, meta events, adventures, exploration and rewards to chase that one can actually get. Then we got one raid wing — three events, really. Then we got a Shatt rework. Then another wing. Still no L. Armor as raid reward. Come back and complain about “so much focus on raids” if you’re a WvW player, but not if you’re into general PvE.

Raids do work even though I haven’t killed any boss except VG. The hardest issue still is 10 people when you were so used to having just 3-4 as a core group for 3 years.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Anakita Snakecharm.4360:

I don’t necessarily think adding raids was a bad idea, but I do think it was a bad idea to place so much focus on the raid for so long. I think it would be better to alternate raid releases with content that’s more accessible to the general community of players so people who aren’t interested in raiding don’t feel bored or left out.

We got an expansion with content for a lot of players — four zones, meta events, adventures, exploration and rewards to chase that one can actually get. Then we got one raid wing — three events, really. Then we got a Shatt rework. Then another wing. Still no L. Armor as raid reward. Come back and complain about “so much focus on raids” if you’re a WvW player, but not if you’re into general PvE.

Anet have admitted that HoT failed the casual audience
they plan on rectifying it with the next map..whenever that comes out
lets see how many will return, when the time comes
they have lost a good deal of core players with this one

Wildstar didn’t fail because of Raids, the Game had many issues. ( Server Problems, PVP was really kitten and Endgame PVE was inaccessible for many )

Both Games, GW2 and WS, handle their Content different.
Just to look at Raids: WS Raids were considered one of the Hardest Raids in the Genre but also one of the most inaccessible Raids since WoW Classic. 40 Man Groups and heavily relying on attunements. It was Rading for those who liked it the way back then, but with mechanics of today.
Now to GW2. GW2 Raid Wings ( since we only have two third of one Raid ) aren’t easy. They are right now the hardest PVE Content in the Game. But they are also very accessible. You just need a LvL 80 Character and HoT to go into the Raid instance, the Gear you should bring is very easy to get, so it isn’t really a Problem. Also with just 10 Man it is on the lower Scale of what you need to bring.

But well Raiding is blamed for Wildstar failing and despite this Anet brings in Raids.
Why? Why are they bringing in a Feature that many consider it the Reason for anoter Game to fail miserably. Well first, as Anet saw it: Its not the Raiding itself that brings Problems but how you implement them so they implemented it with being accessibility in Mind. ( srsly even LFR Raiding in WoW has more Requirements than Gw2 Version of Raiding )

Second and this will surprise some People ( since I often see People claiming that Anet never wanted to bring in hard Content ): Since the Beginning of GW2 Anet wanted to have Content in the Game for the so called " Hardcore Players ". Hard Content that can only be beaten with Skill, good Builds and Coordination. Guess what their first attempt was. Explorable Dungeons. These were meant to be the Hard Content. Content that wasn’t there for the lower skilled Players, they even advertised this Fact multiple Times. But guess what happened after Release? Players complained everywhere that Dungeons were way too hard and impossible as a Casual. Well to be honest in 2012 the Game was so different that not only we had to learn the Mechanics of the Dungeons ( if they were there xD ) but more importantly the Mechanics of the Game itself. Dungeons were not expected to be difficult, and this was a Problem. ( well and Balancing, polishing etc )

I think the next attempt was the Release of the Fractals but something in Anet shifted.

In the late 2013 there came a new Dungeon which was the closest to the Vision Anet had in Dungeons. But this also didn’t went well. Rewards aside People felt that the Boss Fights were too gimmicky ( or what other would call, Real Mechanics that set them apart from the old Dungeon Bosses ) and that Puzzles, which were coordination checks and were teaching about Boss Mechanics, had no Place there. And that the Cutscenes were unskippable didn’t help that Dungeon.

Also 2013 came Anets Third Attempt for Hardcore Content. Worldbosses. Teq was reworked so it wasn’t a Loot Pinata anymore but an Enemy that is Hard to kill. Guess what. Community Crapstorm about how impossible Teq is now. ( despite being on Farm for everyone a few Months later )
Then we had Marionette as a Worldboss for normal Players and Triple Trouble for the hardcore Players. But this Version of Hardcore Content also had its Problems. First, was a Nightmare to Organize. Second, you had no Control what kind of Players are there, if they are Trolling: Good Luck next Time. In Instances you can kick such Players and get others who are serious about the attempt. It also stressed the Servers, so you had DCs at the Fight and even mire Problems.
I think after Triple Trouble. Anet dropped the Idea of Worldbosses being Hardcore Content and searched for another Version of it and they found it in the Format of Raids. The CDI with Chris Whiteside showed us that Anet was interested in Raids.

And here we are now. Anet might have found the right Direction for Hardcore Content with Raids. Every other Attempt had too many Problems and this is why we have Raiding, because everything else, failed in deliering Hardcore Content without too many Problems. And since Anet had done a good Job so far with the Raid Encounters ( and the Community in general having accepted Raids ) I think this Format is a successful one for GW2 and has a Future.

Wait another month or two, till many more players have left and ask again.

It will be more popular then, with fewer responses.

Ohoni.6057:

i don’t know about you, but i’ve changed the stats on my frostfang maybe twice in the two years i’ve had it. if the reason you got your legendary items is not because of how it looks, you’re a rare breed indeed.

To be fair, armor is even more useful in this regard, since if you equip a weapon on a character, you’re pretty much defining the role you’ll play, like Scepter on a Necro is a condi weapon, so you’d always want condi stats. With armor though, you might have situations where you’d want to completely swap your build, and in such cases, stat-shifting armor would be more useful. Not to mention being able to shift it from character to character.

For all he talk about “elitists”, it’s the other side of the coin thats been getting increasing vocal and venomous, and not just in this game. Liking harder content such as raids dose not automatically mean you think you are higher than other players and make you elitist.

True, but advocating that everyone else doesn’t deserve the rewards you do would be elitist. I have no problem with people who like raids. I do have a problem with people that vocally attack those who would like to see “easy mode” raids or some equivalent way for more casual players to participate and work towards the same rewards.

funny you mention armor, i’ve changed my armor stats even less.

Were raids in GW2 a bad idea?

Well, I’d say ‘yes’, but I’d also say that they had to try them at some point. ANet is very focused on trying new things in GW2. Sooner or later the question of raids would have to happen.

I fully expect the second full raid (not wing) to be the last we’ll see of raids in this game. IF ANet decides to deliver on more “hard core” content after that point, I’m sure they’ll have some new idea to go with. Of course, they may just abandon that idea entirely. The fact is, there’s only so far they can go with “better loot” without starting a gear treadmill. And without that better loot, I don’t see most raiders bothering with it.

With all that said, I still think bringing in raids was a bad idea. It was going to happen, and it has happened. So, let’s just get it over with and move on.

Increasing available content is a good thing in my opinion.
Increasing variety of content is a good thing in my opinion.

Adding raids does both.

funny you mention armor, i’ve changed my armor stats even less.

But if you could do so just by clicking on it, then you probably should have been changing them from time to time.

gavyne.6847:

The audience is too small, and they’re behind on adding PvE, WvW, and PvP content. I’d say yes, they’ve made a mistake going the raiding route. I used to be a raider, so I’m not just some casual talking out of my rear. But I know what it takes to create raids, and the sacrifices gaming companies have to make in order to create these raids.

Raids are never viewed as “content” by the masses, and we’re talking about 95% of your gaming playerbase that’ll never ever touch raids. Raids are also never enough, meaning your hardcore raiders will churn through them within a couple of weeks and they’re on farm mode, begging for more. No matter what you do short of putting a time gate on them, they are never enough, and raiders are never fully satisfied.

So just as I think dropping $400k to promote spvp pro leagues was a bad waste of resources given the small sPvP playerbase, I think spending dev time on raids while the game currently is lacking behind on content for PvE, WvW, and PvP is just a bad call. By dev time, people mistaken the handful of designers as all it took to create raids. It takes more than a handful of designers to create the raids you see in GW2, these include and not limited to art/graphic/animation assets, sound/music, story/lore, environment design, creation of legendary armors, and programming for new mechanics and abilities. All these resources put into raids to please the 2-5% of the player population that’ll try raids. Even less of them will play raids more than once or twice.

This coming at a time when PvE players are asking for more content because they’re through HoT and are getting bored farming the same 4 maps, many weren’t happy with HoT in the first place and the lack of Legendary weapon choices that they were promised. This coming at a time when WvW can’t be in a worse shape, WvW activities are way down, population balance is still bad, borderlands are a mess, and people just aren’t having fun. WvW needed a whole revamp, which would require resources. This coming at a time when sPvP could use new maps, new game modes/design, participation is still low despite an ongoing season, matchmaking still a mess, balance still whacky, etc..

If GW2 always had raids, I would’ve said fine, it’s a niche feature catered to a niche crowd. But it seems Anet thought spending resources on raids right now is a good idea, mainly to attract players from other MMO’s. You can really see the content they’ve sacrificed as a result. You see how short and incomplete HoT expansion is. You see how WvW didn’t even have a dedicated team working on it, it truly is a mess, so many have left the game due to neglect. 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.

This. Good write up. It’s not that the content is bad, but rather the implications it has with development time and resources and how sour the general community is due to a backlog of unmet promises regarding general PvE, fractals, dungeons and WvW.

But yeah…two back to back raid releases within 5 months when older elements of the game are behind…if the bulk of content releases in the future are more and more raid wings, you’ll eventually completely lose your player base that has been playing the game for 3 years for reasons not related to raiding.

Not to mention, a number of the neglected areas were things GW2 did really well, were unique to GW2 and heralded in game reviews. Like every game review of ESO I saw when it came out compared it’s PvP to GW2’s WvW and stated it was lacking. You are competing with a lot of other MMOs when you start to focus on raiding content.

battledrone.8315:

IndigoSundown.5419:

Anakita Snakecharm.4360:

I don’t necessarily think adding raids was a bad idea, but I do think it was a bad idea to place so much focus on the raid for so long. I think it would be better to alternate raid releases with content that’s more accessible to the general community of players so people who aren’t interested in raiding don’t feel bored or left out.

We got an expansion with content for a lot of players — four zones, meta events, adventures, exploration and rewards to chase that one can actually get. Then we got one raid wing — three events, really. Then we got a Shatt rework. Then another wing. Still no L. Armor as raid reward. Come back and complain about “so much focus on raids” if you’re a WvW player, but not if you’re into general PvE.

Anet have admitted that HoT failed the casual audience
they plan on rectifying it with the next map..whenever that comes out
lets see how many will return, when the time comes
they have lost a good deal of core players with this one

That’s a separate issue, having to do with the almost-everything-requires-a-herd nature of HoT. The instanced group PvE crowd getting a teaspoon of content after years of nothing new has nothing to do with what ANet said.

Tumult.2578:

Wait another month or two, till many more players have left and ask again.

It will be more popular then, with fewer responses.

So where are you getting the facts from this claim? Does it make you mad when Anet tries to cater to more types of gamers than you? Are you like “man I love this game but I can’t stand that other players are having fun in content I have no wish to access.”

Avarice.2791:

Tumult.2578:

Wait another month or two, till many more players have left and ask again.

It will be more popular then, with fewer responses.

So where are you getting the facts from this claim? Does it make you mad when Anet tries to cater to more types of gamers than you? Are you like “man I love this game but I can’t stand that other players are having fun in content I have no wish to access.”

Actually, I’d say this one is common sense.

Casual players have had no new content lately. Those that don’t consider HoT to be casual have gone for over a year without new content aimed at them. It’s only natural to assume they’re getting bored and more likely to move on than the raiders are. And as the casuals leave faster than the raiders, the raids will appeal to a greater percentage of the population.

Now, if you want to disagree with him, that’s fine. But realize that what you’re saying is that the raiders are the ones leaving faster, despite the raid content released for them, and it’s the casuals that are the loyal customers. Which would basically destroy any reason ANet has to continue on with making raids, as they’d be throwing good effort after bad.

@Palador

And… What makes you think they’re exclusively working on new raid wings? What if Anet is allocating resources to multiple departments and merely releasing content on deadlines/when it’s ready etc. There’s still going to be living story, new releases, etc so I disagree with you when you say “it’s common sense.” This particular subject is bringing in many so-called casuals because they refuse to “git gud” or had a particular bad experience with a raid group.

I’m just saying, I didn’t say I’d quit the game when they added in keg brawl. That mini-game offers a nifty title. I didn’t rage because I had no kegbrawl team and I didn’t claim that I was going to quit the game and that all Anet is doing is catering to the hardcore kegbrawl players. Where’s my free title???

It’s rediculous that people are this upset over content that isn’t exclusive. Demanding it is removed is straight up selfish.

Avarice.2791:

@Palador

And… What makes you think they’re exclusively working on new raid wings?

They’re not. We all know that.

However, they’ve stated that we’ll not see LS3 until after the third and final wing of the raid is released. That’s the SOONEST we’ll see it, mind you, by their own words.

And the “common sense” is that bored people don’t keep playing the same old game. They tend to move on and find something more interesting to do. I’m sure you’d agree with that, right? If not, then they’d never need to make any new content for anyone.

Right now, it’s the non-raiding players that are bored, because the only recent content has been raids. And the next upcoming content, again by ANet’s own words, is raids.

I’m just saying, I didn’t say I’d quit the game when they added in keg brawl. That mini-game offers a nifty title. I didn’t rage because I had no kegbrawl team and I didn’t claim that I was going to quit the game and that all Anet is doing is catering to the hardcore kegbrawl players. Where’s my free title???

This isn’t about rage quitting, it’s about quitting because the game’s no longer fun. People do that all the time, no matter how they define fun. When they stop having fun, players tend to leave.

I’m not trying to start an argument with you, really. Nor am I trying to demand that the raids be removed. I just wanted to point out that you were getting into a no-win argument there, one you may not have seen for what it was.

Palador.2170:

Avarice.2791:

@Palador

And… What makes you think they’re exclusively working on new raid wings?

They’re not. We all know that.

However, they’ve stated that we’ll not see LS3 until after the third and final wing of the raid is released. That’s the SOONEST we’ll see it, mind you, by their own words.

And the “common sense” is that bored people don’t keep playing the same old game. They tend to move on and find something more interesting to do. I’m sure you’d agree with that, right? If not, then they’d never need to make any new content for anyone.

Right now, it’s the non-raiding players that are bored, because the only recent content has been raids. And the next upcoming content, again by ANet’s own words, is raids.

I’m just saying, I didn’t say I’d quit the game when they added in keg brawl. That mini-game offers a nifty title. I didn’t rage because I had no kegbrawl team and I didn’t claim that I was going to quit the game and that all Anet is doing is catering to the hardcore kegbrawl players. Where’s my free title???

This isn’t about rage quitting, it’s about quitting because the game’s no longer fun. People do that all the time, no matter how they define fun. When they stop having fun, players tend to leave.

I’m not trying to start an argument with you, really. Nor am I trying to demand that the raids be removed. I just wanted to point out that you were getting into a no-win argument there, one you may not have seen for what it was.

The spring update has a chance to revitalize hot though and that comes before the next raid wing. There are a lot of people who barely set foot in HOT who might well be willing to retry the jungle if it’s changing. I know I took a break from the HoT zones because if it is less grindy, I’d rather put less work into farming currencies than more and that might bring some people back and hold them till the Living Story is released.

Remember the 2nd raid wing didn’t drop with the spring update, but before it, so in theory you’d have the hot adjustments this season update and perhaps the living story on the one after.

Which is not that bad as things go.

No kidding? Where’d you get these facts from? What makes you think they AREN’T getting the bulk of the development time? Let’s see some figures here buddy when you make claims like these.

We’re talking about raids here, and currently the time spent on raids only benefits the tiny amount of players that do raids. If they were to add more casual options, then more players could benefit from them. The point is that since casuals make up the vast majority of the players, if they develop content for “all the players” then that content would be casual content.

Yes…. and they spent how many years developing this game? “They have failed at that so far.” No kidding nice opinion to back up your…arguement? Sorry, not going to let you get away with saying kitten like this.

I’m not really sure what point you’re trying to make here, other than that you seem to believe my statement was in error. I stand by it. I think most would agree with it.

Raids at the cost of dungeons I think were a bad idea. Cycling out old content in favor of new content like that is counter to GW2’s core idea of content that is always relevant.

But raids overall are a good idea. Maybe if they used some of what they learned making raids to polish up the dungeons that would be good; tighter fight design, balancing around exotic/ascended, etc.

One thing that I think would be interesting for dungeons is a weekly lockout but I can entirely understand if nobody agrees with me.

@Sarrs

Out of curiosity was their reasoning behind no dungeons due to raids?

I think what they could do to increase dungeon participation is to create dailies around it, like fractals, and REBUFF the rewards! Running dungeons is simply not an efficient way to play this game in its current state. Especially the longer exploration routes on certain dungeons.

Avarice.2791:

I think what they could do to increase dungeon participation is to create dailies around it, like fractals, and REBUFF the rewards! Running dungeons is simply not an efficient way to play this game in its current state. Especially the longer exploration routes on certain dungeons.

I think I read on the AMA that they might revisit dungeons in some form. So there is hope

I think it is a poor assumption to make that casual players can’t raid or wouldn’t find raids entertaining, especially since there are probably as many definitions of casual as there are players. Raids are harder than your average content, but they aren’t by any means impossible for anyone but the elite.

I think it is a poor assumption to make that casual players can’t raid or wouldn’t find raids entertaining, especially since there are probably as many definitions of casual as there are players. Raids are harder than your average content, but they aren’t by any means impossible for anyone but the elite.

Specific to this discussion, I believe it’s safe to assume that there are way more GW2 players who do not want to engage in raids in their current form than there are those that really enjoy how they currently are. That doesn’t mean that the former group has no interest in raids as a concept, or that they will never try them, just that when they do they will be more frustrated than entertained by them and relatively quickly move on to other things. Providing alternate versions may bring these players on board though.

Ohoni.6057:

I think it is a poor assumption to make that casual players can’t raid or wouldn’t find raids entertaining, especially since there are probably as many definitions of casual as there are players. Raids are harder than your average content, but they aren’t by any means impossible for anyone but the elite.

Specific to this discussion, I believe it’s safe to assume that there are way more GW2 players who do not want to engage in raids in their current form than there are those that really enjoy how they currently are. That doesn’t mean that the former group has no interest in raids as a concept, or that they will never try them, just that when they do they will be more frustrated than entertained by them and relatively quickly move on to other things. Providing alternate versions may bring these players on board though.

Is it safe to assume that though? Forums tend to give a polarized picture of the current situation and in game we tend to be around people with a similar mindset enforcing our own beliefs. Only Anet has the stats to back these statements. In the meantime I would encourage not to assume anything.

I am not a fan of raids, but several factors in their presentation have made me hate and detest them.
While I acknowledge the great work the developers have done on them both art wise and mechanics wise I believe their introduction like it has been to be full of glaring errors.

- Legendary armor and hiding it behind raids:
In my opinion the option to switch stats is vital to be able to enjoy different builds on the fly. So I have my berserker armor and an interesting condi build appeals to me? Nah, too much work to make another armor set.
Give raiders exclusive skins but not exclusive functionality! Let them their glowy armors of ultimate archievement. But do introduce alternate ways to gain legendary armor, be they horribly grindy.
Reading that the original plan for the fractal backpieces was to lock the final stage behind a leaderboard was dropped due to “time constraints” is at least an indication that the developers have realized that this would have been yet another kittenstorm waiting to happen and they hurriedly backpedaled.

- Story, missing out on lore:
GW2 has always been a lore intensive game. There is a lot of players (like me) who hungrily devour every bit of story thrown at them. Hiding story bits behind activities where the target audience is usually not known for being interested in lore AT ALL but more in bragging rights (“LOL! WORLD FIRST!”) is one of the worst kicks to the shin for me.

- Timing of the raid releases:
Considering I am not interested in PvP and only play WvW and PvE it has been a long time since any meaningful general population PvE releases. I have maxed out on all the HoT masteries, I am not getting XP for anything, I have played each HoT meta event and all event chains several times and finished the story on a lot of alts and unlocked all elite specializations? Now what? And the solution to this problem should not be: “Just take a break for a few months, you are clearly burnt out.” I am not. I like to play GW2.

- Finally: Do we need 10 people raids?
In my opinion, no we don’t. What we do need in my opinion is variable scaling activities. I would like to see such instances for 3-10 people. Especially in small guilds with varying attendance you often happen upon 6 people on at the same time. Now what? The current solution is one unhappy person dropping out. He barely logs in anymore.
There should be dungeon and raid instances which can encompass a wide variety of player numbers. Of course this would require developers to put a bit of work into the old dungeons and new raids. But I would think it would hit a huge demand for scaling stuff.
Also the action oriented and SFX rich game of GW2 doesn’t lend itself well to a tactical 10 player game anyway in my opinion. I doubt there’s much more depth possible than with 5.

Ohoni.6057:

since “casual” players make up the overwhelming majority of players, it only makes sense that they get the bulk of the development time.

Luckily that is exactly what is happening. Not just the bulk, but the vast majority. Well above 90%.

Ohoni.6057:

Allocating resources to the casuals IS allocating resources to what ALL the players want.

This is false.

Locking story elements behind a raid where they have even said it is for the more advanced players is a bad idea. Story elements should be for all and raids should just be for bragging rights, the best gear and just something more challenging, what happens when a new bit of story content comes up and it requires you to have played the raid.

Raids are good but should have their own story, separate from the main games that goes no further than the raid dungeons.

Otherwise people are going to have more issues with raids than they already will.

Ok, so I take this to mean that you don’t intend to engage in a productive discussion? If we can’t even agree that the Earth is round what’s the point of debating Heliocentricity?

There’s a vast difference between fact, speculation and falsehood. With regard to this topic.

FACTS

• The generally accepted bellwether for WoW raids was that ~5% completed one or more raids. That was before Looking for Raid, after which that percentage doubtless went up.
• 5% of WoW’s 12M apex is 600,000 players.
• HoT was marketed as including raids. That means that the raid demographic was targeted by HoT marketing.
• An article in Fortune, written to tout the partnership of ANet with another company to promote GW2 PvP as an ESport cited 1.5M monthly logins before PFF.
• The revenue figures for GW2 in Q4 15 reveal that in addition to gem sales — which were cited as “stable.” — GW2 brought in an additional $13-14M during the HoT launch period.
• ANet stated the participation of GW2 players was higher than in other games. They did not say whether that was based on pre-LFR or post-LFR numbers.
• The persistent world content in HoT dwarfs the content in two raid wings by an order of magnitude.
• ANet has announced an upcoming “casualization” of HoT (whatever that means).
• ANet is a business, which exists at least in part to make money.
• Casual players do not speak with one voice. Just on these forums, the word can mean casual (time), casual (no hard content), casual (hates grind) and doubtless other preferences. These subdivisions of casual do not all share the same inclinations or desires.

SPECULATION

• It’s unlikely that HoT sold more than 560,000 copies in Q4 15. The number of copies is more likely somewhere in the 300-400K range based on the reported revenue and the retail and wholesale prices.
• 600,000 WoW raiders is a substantial demographic, larger than HoT sales. Did ANet hope to entice raiders to buy HoT who had not bought GW2? Did they get such sales? It certainly seems possible. It also seems possible that some of the existing GW2 players bought HoT because of raids.
• ~1M or more accounts logging in per month did not buy HoT. Surely some of these are 2nd, 3rd or nth accounts. Surely some are people who only log in for daily login rewards taken in case GW2 changes to their liking down the road. Surely, though, some of them are active players who chose not to buy (those who complained about the price, for instance).
• Whatever making HoT more accessible to casual play means, it seems likely that it is going to take substantially more dev resources to accomplish than it took to make three raid bosses.
• Whatever changes there are to HoT, it seems possible (if not likely) that ANet is hoping to sell more copies as well as to address some of the complaints.

FALSEHOOD

• Since casuals do not speak with one voice, you cannot be said to be speaking for casual players en masse.

Is it safe to assume that though?

Yes.

It occurred to me to wonder… Maybe ANet will remove this raid when starting the next set of raids.

If they had the raids in the mists somewhere they could easily add more and more like the fractals do. Or if they were like dungeons with only a door and not a map footprint. But these raids have a PvE map footprint. Granted, there’s lots of room but having a set footprint made me wonder if the old raid will get wiped out when it’s time for the new raid. After all, once the new one comes out the old one is going to be essentially abandoned and the space for it might as well be recycled rather than taking up substantial map space for content that’s not much used. If so, it’s unlikely they’ll make a “raid lite” for temporary content.

Just random musings.

Let the hardcores have their raids. Just don’t alienate the other players by gating essential items that should be available for access at the same time as hardcores. What i mean by essential is stuff like legendary items and ascended trinkets. You see a pattern for ascended trinkets getting harder and harder to get. Compare the new stat spread material against the materials needed for gen 1 stats. Just gonna get worse in the future

Dislike raids, too long and hard and overly necessary for coordination, too much time to get teammates together, too much time to figure out what to do between multiple plebs. DPS timer sucks, limits players to DPS builds or highly organized cohesive builds that aren’t any place for a filthy casual. It’s a one time finish and quit deal, just get it out of the way and over with and never touch it again because of the classic experience it gives the first few times around, Not fun.

Wish it were simply a dungeon, a quick dungeon like fractals. Simple to figure out, mechanics escalate and teach players what they are doing wrong before they are too hard, happy fun times all around Like Mega Man X style where it first shows you a new mechanic then allows you practice before ramping up difficulty.

IndigoSundown.5419:

There’s a vast difference between fact, speculation and falsehood. With regard to this topic.

FACTS

• The generally accepted …

Wait… What? Fact now == “generally accepted”?

IndigoSundown.5419:

• HoT was marketed as including raids. That means that the raid demographic was targeted by HoT marketing.

And your extrapolation of the fact is factual how?

Argh never mind, skipping the rest, except for:

IndigoSundown.5419:

FALSEHOOD

• Since casuals do not speak with one voice, you cannot be said to be speaking for casual players en masse.

Hmmm OK, you are saying he CAN speak for casual players en masse?

Sorry IndigoSundown, while I wouldn’t recommend a job as spindoctor your post was an, above average, smile catalyst.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Ok, so I take this to mean that you don’t intend to engage in a productive discussion? If we can’t even agree that the Earth is round what’s the point of debating Heliocentricity?

There’s a vast difference between fact, speculation and falsehood. With regard to this topic.

FACTS

• The generally accepted bellwether for WoW raids was that ~5% completed one or more raids. That was before Looking for Raid, after which that percentage doubtless went up.
• 5% of WoW’s 12M apex is 600,000 players.
• HoT was marketed as including raids. That means that the raid demographic was targeted by HoT marketing.
• An article in Fortune, written to tout the partnership of ANet with another company to promote GW2 PvP as an ESport cited 1.5M monthly logins before PFF.
• The revenue figures for GW2 in Q4 15 reveal that in addition to gem sales — which were cited as “stable.” — GW2 brought in an additional $13-14M during the HoT launch period.
• ANet stated the participation of GW2 players was higher than in other games. They did not say whether that was based on pre-LFR or post-LFR numbers.
• The persistent world content in HoT dwarfs the content in two raid wings by an order of magnitude.
• ANet has announced an upcoming “casualization” of HoT (whatever that means).
• ANet is a business, which exists at least in part to make money.
• Casual players do not speak with one voice. Just on these forums, the word can mean casual (time), casual (no hard content), casual (hates grind) and doubtless other preferences. These subdivisions of casual do not all share the same inclinations or desires.

SPECULATION

• It’s unlikely that HoT sold more than 560,000 copies in Q4 15. The number of copies is more likely somewhere in the 300-400K range based on the reported revenue and the retail and wholesale prices.
• 600,000 WoW raiders is a substantial demographic, larger than HoT sales. Did ANet hope to entice raiders to buy HoT who had not bought GW2? Did they get such sales? It certainly seems possible. It also seems possible that some of the existing GW2 players bought HoT because of raids.
• ~1M or more accounts logging in per month did not buy HoT. Surely some of these are 2nd, 3rd or nth accounts. Surely some are people who only log in for daily login rewards taken in case GW2 changes to their liking down the road. Surely, though, some of them are active players who chose not to buy (those who complained about the price, for instance).
• Whatever making HoT more accessible to casual play means, it seems likely that it is going to take substantially more dev resources to accomplish than it took to make three raid bosses.
• Whatever changes there are to HoT, it seems possible (if not likely) that ANet is hoping to sell more copies as well as to address some of the complaints.

FALSEHOOD

• Since casuals do not speak with one voice, you cannot be said to be speaking for casual players en masse.

I don’t have any problem with most of this but I absolutely 100% do not believe that Anet was targeting WOW raiders with this release. Not even a tiny little bit. Not at all. It doesn’t make sense.

Assuming that WoW has 600,000 raiders, they also have many many raids. They’ve been making raids for a long time. Guild Wars 2 doesn’t even have a single raid yet. No one, and I do mean no one, is going to leave a game with a dozen raids for a game that has two raid wings. Anyone with half a brain, and I assure you Anet devs are smart enough to know this, is that they won’t get 1% of WoW raiders. They’re not after that market.

What they are after is people who are no longer playing WOW for other reasons, who still want raids in their game. Which might be more people or less people.

Back in the 80s and 90s, if you wanted to be a name in electronics in NYC, you had to have an electronics store on 47th Street in Mahanttan. No one ever opened a store there thinking it would be profitable, to my knowledge anyway. People opened stores there to have a presence, because that was a row of electronic stories, and to be there meant you were in the game.

I believe that Anet felt GW 2 wasn’t being taken seriously on other MMO forums and sites, particularly because people could repeat the oft used phrase no end game. Over and over. You see it all the time. It doesn’t matter if the game has an end game or not, people always said it didn’t.

By putting raids into the game (ie opening up a store on 47th street) they were hoping to add another word to their ads to attract people in general or expected raids in MMOs whether they raided or not.

I think that’s far more likely than ANet trying to get people away from WoW. Because that makes no sense at all to me.

Vayne.8563:

IndigoSundown.5419:

Ok, so I take this to mean that you don’t intend to engage in a productive discussion? If we can’t even agree that the Earth is round what’s the point of debating Heliocentricity?

There’s a vast difference between fact, speculation and falsehood. With regard to this topic.

FACTS

• The generally accepted bellwether for WoW raids was that ~5% completed one or more raids. That was before Looking for Raid, after which that percentage doubtless went up.
• 5% of WoW’s 12M apex is 600,000 players.
• HoT was marketed as including raids. That means that the raid demographic was targeted by HoT marketing.
• An article in Fortune, written to tout the partnership of ANet with another company to promote GW2 PvP as an ESport cited 1.5M monthly logins before PFF.
• The revenue figures for GW2 in Q4 15 reveal that in addition to gem sales — which were cited as “stable.” — GW2 brought in an additional $13-14M during the HoT launch period.
• ANet stated the participation of GW2 players was higher than in other games. They did not say whether that was based on pre-LFR or post-LFR numbers.
• The persistent world content in HoT dwarfs the content in two raid wings by an order of magnitude.
• ANet has announced an upcoming “casualization” of HoT (whatever that means).
• ANet is a business, which exists at least in part to make money.
• Casual players do not speak with one voice. Just on these forums, the word can mean casual (time), casual (no hard content), casual (hates grind) and doubtless other preferences. These subdivisions of casual do not all share the same inclinations or desires.

SPECULATION

• It’s unlikely that HoT sold more than 560,000 copies in Q4 15. The number of copies is more likely somewhere in the 300-400K range based on the reported revenue and the retail and wholesale prices.
• 600,000 WoW raiders is a substantial demographic, larger than HoT sales. Did ANet hope to entice raiders to buy HoT who had not bought GW2? Did they get such sales? It certainly seems possible. It also seems possible that some of the existing GW2 players bought HoT because of raids.
• ~1M or more accounts logging in per month did not buy HoT. Surely some of these are 2nd, 3rd or nth accounts. Surely some are people who only log in for daily login rewards taken in case GW2 changes to their liking down the road. Surely, though, some of them are active players who chose not to buy (those who complained about the price, for instance).
• Whatever making HoT more accessible to casual play means, it seems likely that it is going to take substantially more dev resources to accomplish than it took to make three raid bosses.
• Whatever changes there are to HoT, it seems possible (if not likely) that ANet is hoping to sell more copies as well as to address some of the complaints.

FALSEHOOD

• Since casuals do not speak with one voice, you cannot be said to be speaking for casual players en masse.

I don’t have any problem with most of this but I absolutely 100% do not believe that Anet was targeting WOW raiders with this release. Not even a tiny little bit. Not at all. It doesn’t make sense.

Assuming that WoW has 600,000 raiders, they also have many many raids. They’ve been making raids for a long time. Guild Wars 2 doesn’t even have a single raid yet. No one, and I do mean no one, is going to leave a game with a dozen raids for a game that has two raid wings. Anyone with half a brain, and I assure you Anet devs are smart enough to know this, is that they won’t get 1% of WoW raiders. They’re not after that market.

What they are after is people who are no longer playing WOW for other reasons, who still want raids in their game. Which might be more people or less people.

Back in the 80s and 90s, if you wanted to be a name in electronics in NYC, you had to have an electronics store on 47th Street in Mahanttan. No one ever opened a store there thinking it would be profitable, to my knowledge anyway. People opened stores there to have a presence, because that was a row of electronic stories, and to be there meant you were in the game.

I believe that Anet felt GW 2 wasn’t being taken seriously on other MMO forums and sites, particularly because people could repeat the oft used phrase no end game. Over and over. You see it all the time. It doesn’t matter if the game has an end game or not, people always said it didn’t.

By putting raids into the game (ie opening up a store on 47th street) they were hoping to add another word to their ads to attract people in general or expected raids in MMOs whether they raided or not.

I think that’s far more likely than ANet trying to get people away from WoW. Because that makes no sense at all to me.

Ok, I’ll buy the WoW raiders bit. However, what’s the current pop on WoW? ~7M or less, down from a 12M high? 5% of a ~5M discrepancy would be ~250,000, still a sizable demographic. Of course, one game isn’t going to attract them all. However, the MMO business seems to be very heavily rated on market share, and every regular user helps.

Your point about the game being taken seriously on fan sites is well taken. Those opinions seem to make a large difference in sales.

I also agree with most of IndigoSundown’s post, but I would treat the 5% value with some suspicion as I vaguely recall this was quoted in reference to the proportion of raiders (players?) who had entered the highest tier of raid back in vanilla WoW (or maybe Burning Crusade) when the raid tiers were heavily gated by attunements.

While this figure may be generally accepted, that may be just because it’s been repeated so often since then.

The one thing I don’t like about these raids is that they are on the map (which is nice) but makes it impossible to explore as a casual player. Just that 80 type sitting there teasing you with more landmass that you can’t get to.

Sure you could go begging around for a guild nice enough to let you in their cleared run, but I think it’s bad design to have actual landmass in the game that not every player can access.

Guild halls are similar in this regard as well, though to a much lesser extent.

There should be an exploration aspect of that map for all players. It just seems like a waste of resources to have a fairly large physical location of the map made and only a fraction of the players can see it, even if most players can only explore it only.

The one thing I don’t like about these raids is that they are on the map (which is nice) but makes it impossible to explore as a casual player. Just that 80 type sitting there teasing you with more landmass that you can’t get to.

Sure you could go begging around for a guild nice enough to let you in their cleared run, but I think it’s bad design to have actual landmass in the game that not every player can access.

I’ve been asking for an “easy mode” of the raid itself, and I still want that regardless of what I’m about to suggest here, but what if they also add a “Forsaken Thicket: Aftermath” map once all three raid wings are out?

The “aftermath” map would use the same map, but just be a standard open world map, with hundreds of players running around, set after the raid is over, similar to how Kessex Hills is set after the Tower of Nightmares, and would be populated with relatively normal mob spawns. They’ve already done the set-piece work for the raid itself, and while adding in the normal mobs and maybe a few repeatable events would not be trivial, it would at least be easier than making an entirely new map, and would allow casual explorers to enjoy the map, as well as allowing the map to act as a bridge to other maps to the North.

Ohoni.6057:

The one thing I don’t like about these raids is that they are on the map (which is nice) but makes it impossible to explore as a casual player. Just that 80 type sitting there teasing you with more landmass that you can’t get to.

Sure you could go begging around for a guild nice enough to let you in their cleared run, but I think it’s bad design to have actual landmass in the game that not every player can access.

I’ve been asking for an “easy mode” of the raid itself, and I still want that regardless of what I’m about to suggest here, but what if they also add a “Forsaken Thicket: Aftermath” map once all three raid wings are out?

The “aftermath” map would use the same map, but just be a standard open world map, with hundreds of players running around, set after the raid is over, similar to how Kessex Hills is set after the Tower of Nightmares, and would be populated with relatively normal mob spawns. They’ve already done the set-piece work for the raid itself, and while adding in the normal mobs and maybe a few repeatable events would not be trivial, it would at least be easier than making an entirely new map, and would allow casual explorers to enjoy the map, as well as allowing the map to act as a bridge to other maps to the North.

Yeah that would be a nice solution, but I’m not holding my breath of them doing that.

Raids are my favorite content in HOT. I don’t think they need an easy mode – just learn the fight. Wing 2 is hard right now because not everyone knows the encounters.

Absurdo.8309:

Raids are my favorite content in HOT. I don’t think they need an easy mode – just learn the fight. Wing 2 is hard right now because not everyone knows the encounters.

This is something that I don’t get. This raid content will never be made redundant by dev fiat in the way that raids in other games do. Why spoil it with the now-now-now attitude of easy mode fights when you have literally all the time in GW2 to learn it?

Tapioca.9062:

Wildstar have recently announced that they’re letting staff go and are canceling their plans to expand into the Chinese market citing Wildstar’s performance since launch.

This is interesting in relation to Guild Wars 2 because Wildstar was built around the concept of hardcore raiding as its endgame and has experienced nothing but problems because of it. Wildstar started out as a buy and sub game but quickly converted to a free to play model once its playerbase started to collapse. This is because while a vocal contingent of players insisted that hardcore raiding was the best thing ever and the game was designed around that, the reality is that not only was it not enough to carry the game, but the difficulty itself drove players away.

Considering that GW2 and Wildstar are both made by NCSoft subsidiaries it’s highly unlikely that Anet were unaware of what was happening with Wildstar but decided to not only push ahead with raids but coupled them directly into the core story arc so you either have to raid or miss out on core game story unless you really like watching Youtube videos of other people playing the game. The entire situation here just strikes me as curious.

Do you think that Anet made the right call here? Either in regards to the development of raids at all or by tying them in so closely to the core story arc? I’d like to hear your thoughts.

Making that comparison isn’t fair. Wildstar didn’t fail JUST because it had raids. it failed for an array of reasons.

1. Sub model which while was revoked but still killed off many of its original interest and later original players.
2. Bugged mid game. An unacceptable amount of mid level to max level quests were broken.
3. Complicated Grindy attunement process. Yes this has to do with raids but anet decided to not do attunement all together.
4. Run of the mill quest system.
5. Other game types were broken. pvp and such.

You are oversimplifying the situation to fit your narrative. Just because a game failed that focused on raiding doesn’t mean that raiding is now an unattractive game type in today’s gaming climate.

It’s really tiring to see so many people trying to kill off a game type that many people have been asking for since this games inception. Just because it isn’t your cup of tea doesn’t mean it isn’t worthwhile. Yes it’s true that a small proportion of players will do raids but it’s also true that anets raid team is small with 5-10 devs working on it (unless your calling anet liars which if that is the case I’m not sure how a discussion on this can be had).

There has been 3 years of what most people will call casual friendly features, game types, and content added to guild wars 2. Now that certain players get a small amount of attention certain players lose their sensibilities.

Finally, I would like to say that I am not a hardcore player before I get accused of being an elitist kitten . I’ve never been in a raid and I don’t plan to.

Sarrs.4831:

Absurdo.8309:

Raids are my favorite content in HOT. I don’t think they need an easy mode – just learn the fight. Wing 2 is hard right now because not everyone knows the encounters.

This is something that I don’t get. This raid content will never be made redundant by dev fiat in the way that raids in other games do. Why spoil it with the now-now-now attitude of easy mode fights when you have literally all the time in GW2 to learn it?

I agree – I think you may have misread me

Gameplay, I know this falls off the main topic of this thread, yet is still relevant because it’s how we experience the content of GW2. ArenaNet has never been very good at creating content with justified difficulty in the mechanics of a fight, to a extent spamming skills and doing rotations isn’t a good way to overcome an encounter, solo or as a team. Professions are still built for the casual player and it’s very easy for a clever person to build their profession in a ridiculously Over Powered way, making a lot of content a “Push-Over” “Cheat-able”. Stats like Ventari’s (Nomad’s, Toughness, Vitality, Healing Power) is just the illusion of choice, there is no Boss/Content that makes a Ventari’s Guardian build relevant for being the most OP Tank in the game. It’s not worthwhile to master these poorly constructed Professions when they are built by Dev’s that don’t understand exactly how ES’s (Elite Specialization) affect the base professions in negative ways: What is going to happen to 9 Professions with 5-20 ES’s when the base professions is Nerfed? ArenaNet made it unnecessarily difficult to develop this kind of system and to properly achieve this will need very talented developers, but these people may get sick of thinking about what to do next. It’s a nightmare more terrifying than holding a bag of angry kitty cats.

There is flaws everywhere but ArenaNet are not ready to classify anything as Hardcore Content when most of their Developers are casual players and don’t understand the fine lines between what is a Game that gives you the tools to learn and achieve yet doesn’t hold your hand. How is any WoW player going to be attracted to this mess? Anyone who has played much better games than this wouldn’t put down the money to even try it. I’m sorry for being so negative towards GW2 but It’s just that annoying. The worse non-logical development is always taken first. Like Castles built on the other destroyed and ruined Castles. One word: Dungeons. It’s not that awful, even if it doesn’t live true to ArenaNet’s Ideal of difficult.

I believe Professions are important to Raiding and push the Player’s best ability to complete it. It just isn’t there. It’s worse than having a old Trinity system, at least we may face Bosses that make more sense in ways too how Player(s) use their Skill to defeat the Boss. I don’t think the Professions and the game is entirely unplayable but maybe just Ranger using the Druid ES . . . that’s just going to far as to never fix how not enjoyable it is to play that Profession, for Lovers of Ranger’s and Rouge’s-I’m sorry you went through that </3.

I believe Raids could of been great if there was a solid foundation for Professions to perform and develop. We would see new ways to counter content, new mechanics that require Skill to play against. Optimal yet Great Ideas for Profession’s is what GW2 needs the most.

I’m sorry for stretching the topic but I think it’s what ultimately holds Raids and more back from being decent or great content for Hardcore/Casual Player’s too enjoy GW2.

And yet raids have had a positive feedback since their introduction….your logic may be applied to other content of the game but given what players can do with their classes, I think Anet hit the right spot so I fail to see how raids are not decent. In the end just a very subjective opinion of yours

I think there was no harm in adding raids other than the development lost in other areas, that being the case I don’t think it should continue to be a focus going forward at least not regularly especially considering the small percentage of people that play raids compared to the overall community base. Hell I’d have rather seen a new race than raids come in with HoT but now that they are done introducing new systems (their own words) they can concentrate on adding a lot more content, raid should be part of it but only based on the % of players that use it.

Vlad Morbius.1759:

I think there was no harm in adding raids other than the development lost in other areas, that being the case I don’t think it should continue to be a focus going forward at least not regularly especially considering the small percentage of people that play raids compared to the overall community base. Hell I’d have rather seen a new race than raids come in with HoT but now that they are done introducing new systems (their own words) they can concentrate on adding a lot more content, raid should be part of it but only based on the % of players that use it.

I think you may be overestimating the amount of developer resources put towards raids. In a somewhat recent reddit post, the developers stated that the raid team consisted of 4-5 people. Granted, I don’t know if that includes art and assets. But one wing every 3 months is a pretty good raid development cycle.

I have distinctly mixed feelings on raids, if I’m being honest.

On one hand, they aren’t anything more than elaborate dungeons with better challenges. On the other, it’s another segregation tool for certain types of players. You all know who I’m talking about, and you can’t say that they don’t bring some negativity into the game. Maybe not as much as many feared.

It’s probably content that I’ll never get a chance to do. Not that I don’t want to try it. I just not a social butterfly. Making friends is not my strong suit.

And I’m still miffed that raids are the only way to acquire the only available set of legendary armor.