Guild Wars 2

Hello,

This has been mentioned quite alot but we never have got an actual answer of this.
Will ANet ever consider and add an Easy mode to Raids for us non-raiders?

Just for the story’s sake and as for rewarding you could lower the chances or getting smaller ending reward.

I would love to actually play all the Raids, just because of their interesting stories, specially about White Mantle since I am a huge fan of them and their lore.

ANet, please, add an Easy Mode for us too so that everyone can actually take part of this!

What are you thoughts about this?
Do you disagree with me? Would you also like to see an easy mode aswell?
Comment below!

But then the raiders wont feel as special snowflakes that they killed a scripted mob when everyone else will be able to do it.

Anet has respawnded to similar post in the past.
I think it went like this “we are not considering adding more dificulties to the game mode we made it as the hardest pve content in game and it will remain as such” but thats how i remember it from a while back if someone can find the exact post and pasta it here that would be cool.

Scykosix.7836:

But then the raiders wont feel as special snowflakes that they killed a scripted mob when everyone else will be able to do it.

Its not about feeling like a special snowflake its about who was that content advertised towards and what it was advertised as if you want to get into it you should get to.the kind set that the gamemode was meant to be played.

There have been responses. The responses were no, there is no intention of ever introducing an easy mode for raids.

Also everyone can participate in raids, it’s just that many aren’t willing to.

Crystal Reid.2481:

This comes up a lot so I’m going to jump in quickly since it’s a new post.

Tier systems for Raids come up a lot as a result of what Fractals did. I worked on the original Fractals team and a tiered system with increased difficulty scaling was always part of the original plan for that team. It was never a plan for Raids. They are, and should remain, the most difficult content in the game.

Accessibility in terms of difficulty is something we talk a lot about internally. We’ve made efforts to help players get in by delivering entry level encounters that ease you into the content (STK) and you’ll see more of that in the next release. You’ll still see encounters that live up to previous raid expectations for mid tier and final bosses. And if you think Matthias is a chump then we have something for you as well.

Accessibility in terms of “Hey, my 5 man Fractal group wants to try raids, but we can’t find 5 other players!” is also something we talk about. It’s just a much more difficult problem to solve.

Bolded a specific sentence I felt was important to point out.

I personally think for newcomers to raids w3 (escort) and w4’s first two bosses are really great places to get started. People also do training runs pretty often and there are always raiding guilds to help too. I guess what I’m trying to say is at least make an effort to do them in their current state because they aren’t that difficult once you learn. Everyone can take part, it’s just a matter of how much they’re willing to put forth.

zealex.9410:

Anet has respawnded to similar post in the past.
I think it went like this “we are not considering adding more dificulties to the game mode we made it as the hardest pve content in game and it will remain as such” but thats how i remember it from a while back if someone can find the exact post and pasta it here that would be cool.

Actually, the response went somewhere along the lines “we didn’t plan for it when we started designing raids”. It didn’t say they are not considering it now, and it definitely didn’t say they won’t change their minds later.

Still, at this moment a definite “yes” is unlikely. All we can do is to keep bringing it up so they will know there’s a need for this.

Astralporing.1957:

All we can do is to keep bringing it up so they will know there’s a need for this.

So if I keep bringing up that I want all legendaries, Anet will know there’s a need for that and just give them to me? I don’t think that’s how it works mate.

There is absolutely no need for easy mode raids. Toxic casuals want it because they feel entitled to all rewards despite not putting in any effort whatsoever.

Astralporing.1957:

zealex.9410:

Anet has respawnded to similar post in the past.
I think it went like this “we are not considering adding more dificulties to the game mode we made it as the hardest pve content in game and it will remain as such” but thats how i remember it from a while back if someone can find the exact post and pasta it here that would be cool.

Actually, the response went somewhere along the lines “we didn’t plan for it when we started designing raids”. It didn’t say they are not considering it now, and it definitely didn’t say they won’t change their minds later.

Still, at this moment a definite “yes” is unlikely. All we can do is to keep bringing it up so they will know there’s a need for this.

it said tho that it is and should remain the hardest pve content

Scykosix.7836:

But then the raiders wont feel as special snowflakes that they killed a scripted mob when everyone else will be able to do it.

First post and you already poisoned the well. At least you work fast.

Do you disagree with me? Would you also like to see an easy mode aswell?

I don’t care if an easy mode exists or not as long as it doesn’t cut into development time of the raid, so they’d probably need to take resources from another team. Depends what you’re willing to sacrifice.

zealex.9410:

Its not about feeling like a special snowflake its about who was that content advertised towards and what it was advertised as if you want to get into it you should get to.the kind set that the gamemode was meant to be played.

If we’re going based on advertisement, then raids and other instanced content would not be the heavy part of the game, which they now are. The stated design goals were to make an MMO unlike others that featured a persistent world driven by cause-and-effect.

Instanced dungeons, by their very nature, violate this principle as they are not part of a persistent world. Consequences of actions performed in them are not persisted and the dungeon treats players returning as if nothing happened at all. The personal story itself also violates this principle as it largely exists separate from the world, and very little of it persists.

Even dynamic events, especially with the introduction of megaservers, are minorly driven by cause-and-effect. Mostly they just operate on timers and are agnostic to player participation.

I don’t say this to imply raids, dungeons, or personal story are wrong for this game, ¹ but to point out that design direction changes, and you should take what Arena Net “advertises” with a grain of salt. Ultimately they will do what they see as best for the game. Raid difficulties and scaling based on party size are options on the table (it’s a big table, as they say), and ones I support for my smaller guild of 8-ish active players.

¹ – Though I really do hope for an MMO that does stick to these design goals more closely and doesn’t try to be too many things at once. Maybe the one being developed at Amazon by a bunch of ex-Arena Net people will pull through?

Tarasicodissa.7084:

Astralporing.1957:

All we can do is to keep bringing it up so they will know there’s a need for this.

So if I keep bringing up that I want all legendaries, Anet will know there’s a need for that and just give them to me? I don’t think that’s how it works mate.

There is absolutely no need for easy mode raids. Toxic casuals want it because they feel entitled to all rewards despite not putting in any effort whatsoever.

Lets not get emotional here its true theres no need for raids to be easier as theres 5 man content that works a a bridge to raids and thats some of the t4 fractals. After that tho you should expect to dedicate some time of your life learning the encounters, improving and then you can start going for eay clears and such. We all went through that process even ppl without “Loads of free time”.
I myself have a firend who had 2 hours a day and he decided to spend that practicing the raids until he got confortable with it and now he does weekly clears in 2 days 2 wings each day. His a doctor with a wife and a kid if he was able to do that i sure as hell believe everyone can.
Now im sure this will come out as a thing an kitten would say but if someone cant be kitten d to spend x amount of time learning the encounters and then progressing the story like everyone else then that content isnt for him or he doesnt want it bad enough.
And thats no reason to devalue the hard work others went through to experience it because in the end everyone who went there for the story will tell you that because the fight were hard the outcome was so satisfying.

It is way past time for them to do this.

Every communication we’ve seen from developers in the recent past is hyper focused on raids – from the story to interesting design (which we didnt see for the open world stuff – where is that team and why arent they doing this kind of stuff?).

They are pushing raids harder than we ever expected them to. they obviously want them to be a centerpiece of the game moving forward.

So now they need to decide what kind of player they want to keep in the game. Who do they want to design the game for? It’s hard to remember the last time they did anything for organized groups over 10 people for example (eg guild missions, tequatl style open world bosses, etc).

The next year will be very telling – as will the next expansion. My biggest fear is that we are going the direction of WoW or Wildstar, just without the dev realization regarding how raids need to work regarding the larger game community.

It’s hard to log in right now for a lot of people – and the hyperfocus on raid (no matter how big the team is) in current game promotion is a big part of that (people seeing them boast about things obviously designed for a small percentage of the population).

Ayrilana.1396:

Crystal Reid.2481:

This comes up a lot so I’m going to jump in quickly since it’s a new post.

Tier systems for Raids come up a lot as a result of what Fractals did. I worked on the original Fractals team and a tiered system with increased difficulty scaling was always part of the original plan for that team. It was never a plan for Raids. They are, and should remain, the most difficult content in the game.

Accessibility in terms of difficulty is something we talk a lot about internally. We’ve made efforts to help players get in by delivering entry level encounters that ease you into the content (STK) and you’ll see more of that in the next release. You’ll still see encounters that live up to previous raid expectations for mid tier and final bosses. And if you think Matthias is a chump then we have something for you as well.

Accessibility in terms of “Hey, my 5 man Fractal group wants to try raids, but we can’t find 5 other players!” is also something we talk about. It’s just a much more difficult problem to solve.

Bolded a specific sentence I felt was important to point out.

This is a statement I still don’t understand to this day. It feels like when we asked Arenanet why didn’t we get first person view and they responded something along the line " We feel like first person view wouldn’t be optimal for combat". Or when they introduced different colored commander badges, and they thought the reason it was asked to be implemented was purely cosmetic.

Easy mode isn’t being requested to change this statement you bolded. If raids weren’t a thing in this game, the most difficult content would be nightmare fractal CM , and the fact that this fractal has several difficulty options doesn’t diminish that at all. If we add “Easy mote”s for example for raids that doesn’t suddenly make raids the not “most difficult content in this game”.

Anyway this topic has been discussed a lot, and I doubt it has any affect on Arenanet’s stance on the topic, like in several cases. There are issues with raiding that Arenanet can’t ignore on the long term, but it seems like providing variable difficulties isn’t going to be their solution.

Blaeys.3102:

It is way past time for them to do this.

Every communication we’ve seen from developers in the recent past is hyper focused on raids – from the story to interesting design (which we didnt see for the open world stuff – where is that team and why arent they doing this kind of stuff?).

They are pushing raids harder than we ever expected them to. they obviously want them to be a centerpiece of the game moving forward.

So now they need to decide what kind of player they want to keep in the game. Who do they want to design the game for? It’s hard to remember the last time they did anything for organized groups over 10 people for example (eg guild missions, tequatl style open world bosses, etc).

The next year will be very telling – as will the next expansion. My biggest fear is that we are going the direction of WoW or Wildstar, just without the dev realization regarding how raids need to work regarding the larger game community.

It’s hard to log in right now for a lot of people – and the hyperfocus on raid (no matter how big the team is) in current game promotion is a big part of that (people seeing them boast about things obviously designed for a small percentage of the population).

for open world stuff i could think of 4 maps that were for organised mass player groups but ppl did not like them and so they went away from that not sue how they hyperfocushing on raids when in a spam of a year + we got a raid and a wing and 4 open world maps with asc mats for everyone to enjoy new legendaries (in a really really slow pace) constand refining and new updates to fractals countles bug fixes to all modes and qol chnages. compaired to all that 4 wings in the spam of 1 and something year doesnt seem like an raid centric game to me but yeah i might be missing something.

Raids get alot of atention from the community since they cause a needless fight between the community as to if raids should get a tier system like fractals when they dont need one. Raids are and were advertised as challenging content for those who want to experience that, and yes a fight with no dialogue and a untextured cube for a boss is something that no one would do you need a setting a narative to create a feeling and immerse the player and thats what raids do and thats why ppl love them for.
How come before the expac when they talked in more dpeth for raids nobody said “no we dont want them to be hard make them easy”?. We all knew we would be getting challenging group content and if not for raids thse stories would never get a closure (wing4).

Raids are hard to tune down because its not just the boss that does too much dmg its a mix of mechanics and player cordination that makes them hard yet so rewarding.

The developers made the raids with a set dificulty in mind and said “this isnthe dificulty they should be exoerienced at” that dificulty will provide challenge and the feel of accomplishment and the apriciation for the story they wanted to tell.

On a diff note tho i too want to see open world bosses make a return but who knows maybe in the next expac if its in elona we will be fighting a massive junundu (or w/e the name of tha wurm is xD) but simply because that area of the game is not their main focus that doesnt mean raids get all or the most attention.

Alga.6498:

Hello,

This has been mentioned quite alot but we never have got an actual answer of this.

We have gotten the answer but several peoplease who I consider to be extremely entitled don’t accept final answers on the subject. They are typical forum white knights: they all say that THEY have no issue with finding raid groups they are just looking out for the silent majority. Concern trolling is the term I believe?

Alga.6498:

This has been mentioned quite alot but we never have got an actual answer of this.
Will ANet ever consider and add an Easy mode to Raids for us non-raiders?

We DID get an official answer, take a look:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/A-Plea-for-a-Raid-Story-Mode/first#post6416831

Blaeys.3102:

It is way past time for them to do this.

Every communication we’ve seen from developers in the recent past is hyper focused on raids – from the story to interesting design (which we didnt see for the open world stuff – where is that team and why arent they doing this kind of stuff?).

They are pushing raids harder than we ever expected them to. they obviously want them to be a centerpiece of the game moving forward.

Wow, I feel entirely the opposite. That they spend as little time as possible on Raids, in large part because they don’t have to spend a lot of time on it. There is a lot more communication about PvP seasons and tweaking the nuances of algorithms for progression, for ranking, and things that no one in PvE will ever need to know about. There’s a huge living world, with new maps, and with emergency bug fixes to make achievements doable without failing events.

As for things like developer sessions with Rubi etc, those are based on player requests (as you can see from her introductions). If you want to see more about the topic that interests you, tell Rubi (and tell others who feel the same to tell her).

Instead, my feeling is that parts of the community keep pushing to talk about Raids, because they perceive it as a diversion of resources, as if having Raids in the game somehow took something away from the rest of the game.

Be careful what you’re asking for: Adding “easy mode for Raids” would increase the time spent on Raids substantially, since it’s far easier to design one-size-fits-all encounters. In the long run, this would diminish the total resources available for non-Raids.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Blaeys.3102:

It is way past time for them to do this.

Every communication we’ve seen from developers in the recent past is hyper focused on raids – from the story to interesting design (which we didnt see for the open world stuff – where is that team and why arent they doing this kind of stuff?).

They are pushing raids harder than we ever expected them to. they obviously want them to be a centerpiece of the game moving forward.

Wow, I feel entirely the opposite. That they spend as little time as possible on Raids, in large part because they don’t have to spend a lot of time on it. There is a lot more communication about PvP seasons and tweaking the nuances of algorithms for progression, for ranking, and things that no one in PvE will ever need to know about. There’s a huge living world, with new maps, and with emergency bug fixes to make achievements doable without failing events.

As for things like developer sessions with Rubi etc, those are based on player requests (as you can see from her introductions). If you want to see more about the topic that interests you, tell Rubi (and tell others who feel the same to tell her).

Instead, my feeling is that parts of the community keep pushing to talk about Raids, because they perceive it as a diversion of resources, as if having Raids in the game somehow took something away from the rest of the game.

Be careful what you’re asking for: Adding “easy mode for Raids” would increase the time spent on Raids substantially, since it’s far easier to design one-size-fits-all encounters. In the long run, this would diminish the total resources available for non-Raids.

They proved clearly that they could add an easy mode for raids with little or no effort above what we saw with BOTP. Simply have the regular version be what is behind the challenge mote now and use the mote system to implement story or training motes instead. Not only does it solve the easy mode issue – it gives them freer reins to make the normal mode the difficulty is should be – instead of the half way they did it with BOTP, which doesnt really work for easy moders or hard core raiders either one.

And (this isn’t directed at you) – to those saying that anyone asking for this is entitled or somehow trollish, I say turn that mirror upon yourself. We arent asking to shut the conversation down as some are – we are just advocating for a point of view that is different than yours. That’s it.

If you are just starting raids. I recommend you to start in NA. EU has greater population but your experience cam be rougher there. But it is absolutely possible to start raid now. Never give up

Blaeys.3102:

They proved clearly that they could add an easy mode for raids with little or no effort above what we saw with BOTP. Simply have the regular version be what is behind the challenge mote now and use the mote system to implement story or training motes instead.

On the contrary, I think that proves that it’s harder than it sounds.

The challenge mote is geared to an even narrower subset of the community than is the regular raid. It is always easier to design for smaller groups, especially when you can assume a basic level of expertise.

It is much harder to design for those who don’t already raid, as we can see in, let’s see, every single story instance since the very first dungeon. Even in (some of) the newer instances, when ANet has gone out of its way to let us experience each mechanic separately, people have complained loudly about the instance being too difficult (even discounting the reaction to the final boss for LS3.4). Players in this game come from a remarkably diverse starting place, with a variety of different skill levels.

It is not at all easy to design an easy mode for us all (nor even the simple majority), whereas it can be “easier” to design a harder mode for the hardest core among us.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Blaeys.3102:

They proved clearly that they could add an easy mode for raids with little or no effort above what we saw with BOTP. Simply have the regular version be what is behind the challenge mote now and use the mote system to implement story or training motes instead.

On the contrary, I think that proves that it’s harder than it sounds.

The challenge mote is geared to an even narrower subset of the community than is the regular raid. It is always easier to design for smaller groups, especially when you can assume a basic level of expertise.

I firmly believe that you’re over-complicating it. It is almost always easier to subtract than it is to add something new.

As an example, if they wanted to make Gorseval more difficult, they would design a brand new mechanic to add to the challenge mote. Alternatively, to make it easier, they could probably just do away with the world eater and maybe one other mechanic in the story mote. The second really seems like it would take a lot less development time compared to the first.

Blaeys.3102:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Blaeys.3102:

They proved clearly that they could add an easy mode for raids with little or no effort above what we saw with BOTP. Simply have the regular version be what is behind the challenge mote now and use the mote system to implement story or training motes instead.

On the contrary, I think that proves that it’s harder than it sounds.

The challenge mote is geared to an even narrower subset of the community than is the regular raid. It is always easier to design for smaller groups, especially when you can assume a basic level of expertise.

I firmly believe that you’re over-complicating it. It is almost always easier to subtract than it is to add something new.

As an example, if they wanted to make Gorseval more difficult, they would design a brand new mechanic to add to the challenge mote. Alternatively, to make it easier, they could probably just do away with the world eater and maybe one other mechanic in the story mote. The second really seems like it would take a lot less development time compared to the first.

not really you dont akways need to add mechanics to make it harder they could just make the spirit immunie to imob and that would make the fight much tougher

also on the part of removing world eater that goes against the whole point of the fight that skill makes the fight a dps check if someone goes to easy mode and completes it and the decides he want tomexperience the normal mode he will be treated with a metric kittentone of kitten from ppl because he wont knownhow to dps or what to do in that phase.

its kinda like with fractaks when you ask for exp players to join for lets say urban battleground and you got someone that did the fight last time in t3 and comes he doesnt know kitten about what to do and how to play.

zealex.9410:

also on the part of removing world eater that goes against the whole point of the fight that skill makes the fight a dps check if someone goes to easy mode and completes it and the decides he want tomexperience the normal mode he will be treated with a metric kittentone of kitten from ppl because he wont knownhow to dps or what to do in that phase.

It’s when posters have conflicting opinions on what to use an easier version for, that things get complicated. Some want it to experience the story, others to train for the higher difficulty and others to access the rewards without ever trying the higher difficulty.

I think it’s safe to say that a “story mode” for Raids in a way that removes the most important mechanics won’t be used in any kind of training and that’s why it shouldn’t have any kind of reward like achievement kill awards or legendary insights because those can cause confusion on how someone got them.

If we remove training and those specific raid rewards, a story version to experience the story and the lore of the Raid would be both easy to add and provide access to the story to those who don’t want to Raid. And I call it “easy to add” because most Raid bosses already have an easy version, for example, Vale Guardian from 100% to 66% is the easy version. The question is if something like this is worth adding

maddoctor.2738:

zealex.9410:

also on the part of removing world eater that goes against the whole point of the fight that skill makes the fight a dps check if someone goes to easy mode and completes it and the decides he want tomexperience the normal mode he will be treated with a metric kittentone of kitten from ppl because he wont knownhow to dps or what to do in that phase.

It’s when posters have conflicting opinions on what to use an easier version for, that things get complicated. Some want it to experience the story, others to train for the higher difficulty and others to access the rewards without ever trying the higher difficulty.

I think it’s safe to say that a “story mode” for Raids in a way that removes the most important mechanics won’t be used in any kind of training and that’s why it shouldn’t have any kind of reward like achievement kill awards or legendary insights because those can cause confusion on how someone got them.

If we remove training and those specific raid rewards, a story version to experience the story and the lore of the Raid would be both easy to add and provide access to the story to those who don’t want to Raid. And I call it “easy to add” because most Raid bosses already have an easy version, for example, Vale Guardian from 100% to 66% is the easy version. The question is if something like this is worth adding

i also take it that these ppl would do it once and then be done since they wxoerienced the story it doesnt give aby rewards or acgievement point then why repeat it. Are we sure we want devs to put their few resources on making a 1 time version of the raids?

zealex.9410:

maddoctor.2738:

zealex.9410:

also on the part of removing world eater that goes against the whole point of the fight that skill makes the fight a dps check if someone goes to easy mode and completes it and the decides he want tomexperience the normal mode he will be treated with a metric kittentone of kitten from ppl because he wont knownhow to dps or what to do in that phase.

It’s when posters have conflicting opinions on what to use an easier version for, that things get complicated. Some want it to experience the story, others to train for the higher difficulty and others to access the rewards without ever trying the higher difficulty.

I think it’s safe to say that a “story mode” for Raids in a way that removes the most important mechanics won’t be used in any kind of training and that’s why it shouldn’t have any kind of reward like achievement kill awards or legendary insights because those can cause confusion on how someone got them.

If we remove training and those specific raid rewards, a story version to experience the story and the lore of the Raid would be both easy to add and provide access to the story to those who don’t want to Raid. And I call it “easy to add” because most Raid bosses already have an easy version, for example, Vale Guardian from 100% to 66% is the easy version. The question is if something like this is worth adding

i also take it that these ppl would do it once and then be done since they wxoerienced the story it doesnt give aby rewards or acgievement point then why repeat it. Are we sure we want devs to put their few resources on making a 1 time version of the raids?

Agreed. Of these 3 goals, implementing the first one in the long term is likely a waste of resources. But that’s only when assuming that other goals would not be accomplished at the same time. I don’t think that all of them are mutually exclusive however

Basically, the easy mode needs to be easier, but not too easy. Mechanics should be weakened, but not to the point where they aren’t noticeable. So, not an open world dynamic event/easier dungeon path type of difficulty, but more like aetherpath/arah/ fractal t3/t4 one. At this level rewards can still remain meaningful.

Blaeys.3102:

It is way past time for them to do this.

Every communication we’ve seen from developers in the recent past is hyper focused on raids – from the story to interesting design (which we didnt see for the open world stuff – where is that team and why arent they doing this kind of stuff?).

They are pushing raids harder than we ever expected them to. they obviously want them to be a centerpiece of the game moving forward.

So now they need to decide what kind of player they want to keep in the game. Who do they want to design the game for? It’s hard to remember the last time they did anything for organized groups over 10 people for example (eg guild missions, tequatl style open world bosses, etc).

The next year will be very telling – as will the next expansion. My biggest fear is that we are going the direction of WoW or Wildstar, just without the dev realization regarding how raids need to work regarding the larger game community.

It’s hard to log in right now for a lot of people – and the hyperfocus on raid (no matter how big the team is) in current game promotion is a big part of that (people seeing them boast about things obviously designed for a small percentage of the population).

How is spending around 10% of the live ressources, even less if you consider the whole company hyper-focusing on raids? They don’t push it. People asked for the raid dev interview.

We know you want to turn raids into something meaningful, excactly the route wildstar and wow have gone, but you don’t want ArenaNet do go down that path. Decide. Either raids stay without an easy mode or raids get it and also a lot more development ressources from other departments. There is no reason to waste the small ressource pool to appeal to people that aren’t the target in the first place.

Astralporing.1957

Basically, the easy mode needs to be easier, but not too easy. Mechanics should be weakened, but not to the point where they aren’t noticeable. So, not an open world dynamic event/easier dungeon path type of difficulty, but more like aetherpath/arah/ fractal t3/t4 one. At this level rewards can still remain meaningful.

Arah and Aetherpath are easy since HoT, nothing that would qualify for ‘meaningful rewards’. Neither is T3 difficulty. You could look for the actual rewards that those parts of the game offer and ask if you want to do an easy mode more than once with the same rewards. More would be overtuned.

Astralporing.1957:

zealex.9410:

maddoctor.2738:

zealex.9410:

also on the part of removing world eater that goes against the whole point of the fight that skill makes the fight a dps check if someone goes to easy mode and completes it and the decides he want tomexperience the normal mode he will be treated with a metric kittentone of kitten from ppl because he wont knownhow to dps or what to do in that phase.

It’s when posters have conflicting opinions on what to use an easier version for, that things get complicated. Some want it to experience the story, others to train for the higher difficulty and others to access the rewards without ever trying the higher difficulty.

I think it’s safe to say that a “story mode” for Raids in a way that removes the most important mechanics won’t be used in any kind of training and that’s why it shouldn’t have any kind of reward like achievement kill awards or legendary insights because those can cause confusion on how someone got them.

If we remove training and those specific raid rewards, a story version to experience the story and the lore of the Raid would be both easy to add and provide access to the story to those who don’t want to Raid. And I call it “easy to add” because most Raid bosses already have an easy version, for example, Vale Guardian from 100% to 66% is the easy version. The question is if something like this is worth adding

i also take it that these ppl would do it once and then be done since they wxoerienced the story it doesnt give aby rewards or acgievement point then why repeat it. Are we sure we want devs to put their few resources on making a 1 time version of the raids?

Agreed. Of these 3 goals, implementing the first one in the long term is likely a waste of resources. But that’s only when assuming that other goals would not be accomplished at the same time. I don’t think that all of them are mutually exclusive however

Basically, the easy mode needs to be easier, but not too easy. Mechanics should be weakened, but not to the point where they aren’t noticeable. So, not an open world dynamic event/easier dungeon path type of difficulty, but more like aetherpath/arah/ fractal t3/t4 one. At this level rewards can still remain meaningful.

the example of what easy mode should be like that someone gave here was to have the gotse fight without the worldeater attack…

Astralporing.1957:

zealex.9410:

maddoctor.2738:

zealex.9410:

also on the part of removing world eater that goes against the whole point of the fight that skill makes the fight a dps check if someone goes to easy mode and completes it and the decides he want tomexperience the normal mode he will be treated with a metric kittentone of kitten from ppl because he wont knownhow to dps or what to do in that phase.

It’s when posters have conflicting opinions on what to use an easier version for, that things get complicated. Some want it to experience the story, others to train for the higher difficulty and others to access the rewards without ever trying the higher difficulty.

I think it’s safe to say that a “story mode” for Raids in a way that removes the most important mechanics won’t be used in any kind of training and that’s why it shouldn’t have any kind of reward like achievement kill awards or legendary insights because those can cause confusion on how someone got them.

If we remove training and those specific raid rewards, a story version to experience the story and the lore of the Raid would be both easy to add and provide access to the story to those who don’t want to Raid. And I call it “easy to add” because most Raid bosses already have an easy version, for example, Vale Guardian from 100% to 66% is the easy version. The question is if something like this is worth adding

i also take it that these ppl would do it once and then be done since they wxoerienced the story it doesnt give aby rewards or acgievement point then why repeat it. Are we sure we want devs to put their few resources on making a 1 time version of the raids?

Agreed. Of these 3 goals, implementing the first one in the long term is likely a waste of resources. But that’s only when assuming that other goals would not be accomplished at the same time. I don’t think that all of them are mutually exclusive however

Basically, the easy mode needs to be easier, but not too easy. Mechanics should be weakened, but not to the point where they aren’t noticeable. So, not an open world dynamic event/easier dungeon path type of difficulty, but more like aetherpath/arah/ fractal t3/t4 one. At this level rewards can still remain meaningful.

You already have this…It’s called wing 4. The first 3 bosses aren’t “easy” but they definitely are “easier” than all bosses in wings 1-3 excluding the event bosses.

Astralporing.1957:

Agreed. Of these 3 goals, implementing the first one in the long term is likely a waste of resources.

Yes the goal of “accessing the story” is probably the least useful one in the long term because it leads to the Arah story mode ‘problem’. The only way for a true “story only” mode to work correctly AND stay relevant in the future, is to make it a solo experience. But “Raids” can’t be a solo experience, it won’t be a tweak or a re-balance, but completely new mechanics.

Yet it’s the only goal that we have some developer comment about:

We’re investigating different methods to make the story more accessible.

We already have a developer confirmation that they want Raids to be the hardest content, and I can’t recall them saying at any time that they want to give the Raid rewards through other means. So this leaves us with the more accessible story as the most probable first goal.

zealex.9410:

Are we sure we want devs to put their few resources on making a 1 time version of the raids?

Except you could argue they have done exactly that now with the challenge motes in Bastion. It is a one and done reward situation.

Im not saying that is the answer in a story or training mote (repeatable with VERY minimal reward would be the model I would advocate). Im saying, wouldn’t the effort they put into that challenge mote have been better spent dealing with this issue – while simultaneously making the baseline experience considerably harder than what we see in BOTP.

Also – to all – dont read too much into the Gorseval example. It was a very rough example with little thought put into it. My point is it is possible – and probably possible with minimal effort.

Blaeys.3102:

zealex.9410:

Are we sure we want devs to put their few resources on making a 1 time version of the raids?

Except you could argue they have done exactly that now with the challenge motes in Bastion. It is a one and done reward situation.

I understand your point here, but the nature of the challenge means that even if it’s a 1 time thing, you get a considerable amount of hours out of it. The challenge motes provided me with 10+ hours of gameplay. I’ve spent more time on them than in Ember Bay or Lake Doric. An easy mode would be quick to get through.

I also disagree with the idea of making the challenge motes the regular difficulty for raids and then having an easy mode. I agree that some bosses in BOTP should be a bit harder. But having to clear Samarog and Deimos in CM every week is sth some groups would rly not get behind. I do think CMs should be repeatable for those that can do it but not replace the normal difficulty.

Baseleader.4128:

But having to clear Samarog and Deimos in CM every week is sth some groups would rly not get behind.

Sure. Because they want the difficulty they are comfortable with. The same as the people asking for easy mode.

>The perception that raids are hard come from the raiding community’s inclusive environment.
>The inclusive environment comes from the requirements from the meta
>The current meta excludes a lot of good on paper builds, builds that are affordable, and even entire professions. Gearing up certain professions are more expensive/time consuming than others (gearing a warrior vs. gearing a mesmer)

So basically, profession balance is one of the major contributors as to why raids are hard to get into. If every profession could fit into a role that is affordable, able to acquire in a short amount of time, and can be well utilized in raids, we wouldn’t need an easy mode in the first place.

Raids aren’t meant to be something you can easily run daily, and most guilds dedicated to raids don’t have successful runs weekly.

It’s supposed to be something to spend time with your guild while partaking in a fun and challenging team building activity. Half the fun is just being with some friends and seeing if you can tackle the boss.

This is coming from someone who just started raids earlier this February. I literally just asked people in the Aerodome if they we’re doing training runs and if they could use a beginner… who was a condition necromancer.

Astralporing.1957:

Baseleader.4128:

But having to clear Samarog and Deimos in CM every week is sth some groups would rly not get behind.

Sure. Because they want the difficulty they are comfortable with. The same as the people asking for easy mode.

not entirely the case because these ppl went and did the cm unlike the ppl that ask for easy mode

Coffietire.2783:

If every profession could fit into a role that is affordable, able to acquire in a short amount of time, and can be well utilized in raids, we wouldn’t need an easy mode in the first place.

Except it’s already true that every profession can fit into a role that’s affordable, able to be acquired quickly, and can be utilized effectively in raids.

We know that the best players can finish each encounter with 5-7 people, meaning that there’s at least 30% wiggle room in terms of damage, probably a lot more. The difficulty isn’t due to a problem of build affordability.

The problem is getting 10 people to work cooperatively, with each person understanding their role in the fight and being able to apply what they know at the right time.

It happens that people organizing PUGs are worried enough about all those aspects that they look for a shortcut to filtering out people. Since you can’t tell who knows the mechanics until you’ve invested a lot of time, Commanders tend to exclude people based on a misperception of ‘cooperative’, i.e. folks that come with a non-meta build.

Put another way: 10 skilled people can run non-meta builds and succeed, but 10 inexperienced people probably can’t succeed even running the most optimized builds, not until they learn the encounters.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

We know that the best players can finish each encounter with 5-7 people, meaning that there’s at least 30% wiggle room in terms of damage, probably a lot more.

Only on specific professions. You kind of ignore, that the dps is not equal among classes, and the lowmans generally consist of the same or similar class setups.

Astralporing.1957:

Only on specific professions. You kind of ignore, that the dps is not equal among classes, and the lowmans generally consist of the same or similar class setups.

After the latest patch most of the classes moved together in terms of dps. Overall it is easier to kill bosses now because the variety that has been there before is even more balanced now. Pugs reacting to that with “looking for dps” and not “looking for temp” these days.

The problem of pugs is and almost always was not the dps or the class composition, it’s the ability to get mechanics right and therefore you have to practice.
The video of qT slaying Sabetha in a half of the actual time (4:25 rest out of 9:00 min) underlines this pretty well. If your group is familiar with mechanics you’ll have more than 4 minutes time to get the kill compared to the qT kill. That are roundabout 50%! So without the skill of a hardcore guild in terms of perfect damage or rotations there should be enough time to deal the appropriate dps.

The same goes for other bosses. I joined several Sloth, Matthias and Samarog pugs this week and I must say it was a poor experience. The dps was fine (for pug numbers) but the mechanical execution was a disaster. There’s already a 5 men Samarog video of hT out and I’m still asking myself why people in a 10 men group are not able to react properly to this easy encounter although it’s not their first fight against it…