Guild Wars 2

Feanor.2358:

Nonsense. You can say dungeons are the abandoned middle ground (which they are), but fractals are getting updates recently. So that’s the obvious middle ground aimed for players who lack the time/dedication to do raids but seek a challenge greater than the completely casual open world. It doesn’t matter if the guild “would have done the two new fractals”. The guilds have done W4, too. It doesn’t mean they stopped playing these. It is impossible to create new content with the speed the players exhaust it, so every content is meant to be replayed over and over again, no matter how casual the target audience for it.

Updates are maintainance, but can’t replace new content (new maps).
GW2 has, since 2012, a severe lack of teamcontent. Not everyone is looking for a challenge. There are casual guilds which simply look for easy content to enjoy together.
GW2 has not much to offer for these groups. Be it friends, family, couples,…
Teamcontent in GW2 boils down to dungeons (not maintained anymore, badly balanced (powercreep)), fractals (2012/2013 content) and raids (hardcorecontent, not meant for casuals). If you spend two weekends you might have already seen every piece of teamcontent GW2 has to offer. That might be ok for a new MMO, but it’s not 2012 anymore. GW2 should have more to offer by now.
(that’s the reason why I said there is only open world or raids and no in between. No new dungeons, not many new fractals, no teamquests or whatever.).

Hardcoreplayers are usually willing to repeat content quite often. Casuals are usually less willing to repeat content often.
To bring up some “example math”: a casual who spends 30 mins a week in dungeons does a path each week. A hardcoreplayer who spends 1 hour a day in dungeons does maybe 6 paths a day and 42 a week. When there are 10 paths available and a casual repeats every path twice it takes him 20 weeks. A hardcoreplayer would have repeated the content 84 times in that timespan.
As you see: the “lack of content” problem shouldn’t be a casual players problem. Hardcoreplayers will always burn through content fast. But they are more willing to repeat content or go for 100% (achievements). When casuals run out of content there is something wrong. Some repetitions are ok. But casuals are not going to repeat the 2 new fractals hundreds of times.

On top of that: a good player can do raids, dungeons and fractals. A not so talented player can only do dungeons and fractals. So the lack of content is a more severe problem for less skilled players.

That’s one of the reason why games usually offer lots of easier and medium difficulty content – and only a small amount of difficult content.
Before HoT members of the dungeon-running scene already complained about a lack of content. Then raids were introduced. The more casual players are more or less stuck in the “pre-HoT” situation, in the same situation as these dungeonrunners were – but two years have passed, so the situation got worse.
I’m not conviced all those raid players would be satisfied with two new fractals (and no raids) since HoT. More casual players are currently in this situation.

A consequence of this is also the missing “learning curve”. Players usually start with easier content, get into more difficult content, improve, go into more difficult content and so on. If a more casual players repeats all dungeons and all fractal maps (not level) maybe 3 times: is he then “raid ready”? Probably not. Especially when he did the dungeons/fractals back in 2012-2013 and has since then only played open world.

It is possible to create content fast. Just have a look at GW1:
Prophecies (2005), which consisted of ~25 storymissions (instanced team content, maybe comparable to dungeon story mode), two elite missions (~comparable to raids), plus hundreds of quests. Then Anet added Sorrow’s Furnace and the “underworld 2”(both “raidlike”). In early 2006 they released factions with 14 storymissions and two new “raidlike” instances. Plus normal maps, quests, new pvp modi,…
In late 2006 they released nightfall (20 storymissions), normal maps, quests, a “raid” with 4-5 maps. In 2007 they released EoTN again with storymissions, maps, quests – and 18 dungeons. In between all of these expansions Anet also introduced an hardmode which basically doubled the content, added new festivals (cantha new year, dragon festival) and more than doubled the content of old events (wintersday, halloween). Yes, GW1 was a simpler game. But not every piece of content needs to be handdrawn by 500 people. I don’t know why Anet is not able/willing to release more simple made content. There are games out there which map editors and everyone can create a crude map in a single day. It’s not impossible to release more than 2 new fractals in 4 years. Anet has created 18 dungeons in a single year for GW1 – plus a lot of other content. I would be very happy about some new copy’n paste dungeons, if we would get maybe 5 new dungeons each year then.
That’s not impossible.

I think Anet simply doesn’t care about more casual teamoriented players, otherwise there would be content. Therefore it doesn’t make much sense to debate easy mode raids, new dungeons and so on. It’s not going to happen.

“Casuals” never asked for teamcontent like the hardcore crew did over years in forums because “casuals” are playing here and there, not following a real plan or big dedication.

“Casuals” were never rly interested into dungeons.

“Casuals” are playing LS3-maps & story once to a week and then abandon it.
That’s for sure no problem but the issue is that you cannot develop enough new content to satisfy ppl. Look at the dev cycle, they need 2-3 months for one map + story.

Jockum.1385:

If a more casual players repeats all dungeons and all fractal maps (not level) maybe 3 times: is he then “raid ready”? Probably not.

You use the tiers to get up to the highest level. Once you have reached it and you don’t die every second a.k.a. you know what you are doing, you are definitely raid-ready for 5-6 bosses per week!

Jockum.1385:

Yes, GW1 was a simpler game.

And that’s the point. It was simpler. I think you have no idea of software developing at all. Seriously!

Raids are not hardcore, maybe some bosses are a little bit hard at the beginning or with bad pugs.
People just need to be more open-minded build an extra gear for raids and use their snowflake builds in the other 99% of the content. I accompanied many new raiders over the last 3 months and the biggest problem was that people didn’t want to change their gear, sometimes the build and proper utility skills. We still have a temp in our extended group that refuses to swap blink because he is using it as an emergency button a.k.a. having no trust into healers. It’s hard to convince those people.

Jockum.1385:

Teamcontent in GW2 boils down to dungeons (not maintained anymore, badly balanced (powercreep)), fractals (2012/2013 content) and raids (hardcorecontent, not meant for casuals). If you spend two weekends you might have already seen every piece of teamcontent GW2 has to offer.

Powercreep shouldn’t be an issue when you’re looking for casual content, should it? And I love how people claim FotM are 2013 content when the last two fractals are very clearly 2016. Not to mention the reworked fractals are also 2016 and the effort to rework a map is very similar to creating a new one.

I get you want more content of specific type, but understand this: creating content is very expensive. Currently ANet are doing an amazing job with launching a LS episode with a whole new map every 2-3 months. That’s nothing short of fantastic. Yeah, it probably isn’t the content you want, but you’re not the only player they have. By the way, lots of open world events are designed for groups. Heck, I’ve even done map completion with friends and it’s exactly casual group content. So wall of texts or no, I don’t agree with your stance.

@Feanor: the effort anets needs to spend doesn’t matter to players. If Anet needs to work 10 years on a single open world players will leave the game. Reworks don’t replace new content.
If Anet adds a new mechanic to VG the raid experience does change – but it can’t replace a new raid. You don’t need to agree with my perspective. As I said: its not going to change anything, even if we would all agree.

@Vinceman:
Casuals rarely ask for anything. They play the game if they enjoy it or leave it if they don’t.

Actually its a very casual thing to play together with your girlfried, wive or friends. There are ofc also many casuals which look for solo content, but teamcontent is also important.

Vinceman.4572:

You use the tiers to get up to the highest level.

That’s actually a bit on the hardcore side already. You have to repeat the same maps (swing the sowrd again and again). People which spend hundreds of hours farming silverwastes probably won’t have a problem with “farming fractal levels”.

Vinceman.4572:

Raids are not hardcore, maybe some bosses are a little bit hard at the beginning or with bad pugs.

You seem to have a strange interpretation of hardcore content. Sure, they could be more difficult. But they are not comparable to story or open world exploring.
Raids are not meant to go in, byob and succeed without knowing mechanics etc.

People just need to be more open-minded build an extra gear for raids

A player who plays maybe an hour a week would have to spend a huge percentage of his ingame time (100% for months probably) to succeed in raids.From a hardcoreplayer perspective it doesn’t matter if you spend two hours farming gold. For a casual this might take him two weeks. For a hardcoreplayer it’s not too bad to spend 10 hours training at a boss, that’s a weekend. He will kill him many times afterwards, so the time spend is worth it.
A casual which wants to kill the boss only once would also have to spend 10 hours of traning (probably even more), which can be months for him. Months of preparations for a single boss kill. That’s pretty hardcore and not worth it for some players.
Casual players have a different perspective.

I had a low AP (~2k) warrior in arah who asked if it is possible to profit from more than one banner at the same time. These players should not need to figure these basics out in arah. If you play together with other people they will help you.
In GW1 I started with a monk and in the early content I was running mostly sword skills. After a while I realised my dps was bad and started to focus more and more on healing. Teamcontent got more difficult, playersize of groups increased – I had to adapt my build step by step. Other players showed me helpful skills, I saw other monks using their skills and so on. When I reached max. level my build was already nearly a metabuild. When I went into the underworld for the first time I had no problems with my class. Just by learning how to play in teamcontent through storycontent.
In GW2 you can run you staffguard through story and open world without even realizing that something is wrong. Nobody will inform you in anonymus open world or solo story. If you start to do dungeons people will tell you. But you shouldn’t have to learn those basics in “challenging content”. You complained about “special” builds in raids? People should have learned elsewhere to use working builds.
Fractals do prepare you, yes. But the amount of content is minimal and old. If you don’t like repeating the same content quite often (farming) fractals alone won’t do the job.

Jockum.1385:

@
A player who plays maybe an hour a week would have to spend a huge percentage of his ingame time (100% for months probably) to succeed in raids.From a hardcoreplayer perspective it doesn’t matter if you spend two hours farming gold. For a casual this might take him two weeks. For a hardcoreplayer it’s not too bad to spend 10 hours training at a boss, that’s a weekend. He will kill him many times afterwards, so the time spend is worth it.
A casual which wants to kill the boss only once would also have to spend 10 hours of traning (probably even more), which can be months for him. Months of preparations for a single boss kill. That’s pretty hardcore and not worth it for some players.
Casual players have a different perspective.

This is just blatantly untrue.

As the casual player you claim yourself to be, im sure you enjoy certain community personalities…Say wooden potatoes for example ?

Here’s a very simplistic zero to raid ready video from him and it didn’t take “Months”. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFPK_A8vosw

I am not a casual player. I just tend to play with some casual players a lot. Most of them probably don’t even know who wooden potatoes is. I personally don’t like 50 min YT videos.

I don’t think WP is a good example. I don’t know how often he plays, but afaik did he do all raids relativly close after release, has reached platinum in PVP some time ago, … he seems to be at least a skilled player.

I was mostly refering to the “training time” needed. Someone in the comments gave the 43 min mark, WP seems to mostly comment on the equipment/preparations needed.
But how many hours does it take to train a group full of “soldier staffguards” until they are able to kill a boss? 5 hours? 10 hours? Thats already 5-10 weeks for some players and I wouldn’t be surprised if some players need way more training.

On top of that: I sometimes made the experience that people forgot my explanations after a week. Sometimes the weather is fine, holidays, whatever – so you skip a week. Two weeks later everything is forgotten.
Also keep in mind that guilds want to play together. So its not a single bad player, its a full group. There are still quite a lot struggling with dungeons or even story.
And actually it’s ok. Raids are not meant to be easy content. The problem is the lack of easier content, not the difficulty of raids.

Jockum.1385:

@Feanor: the effort anets needs to spend doesn’t matter to players.

It should. It would help create more realistic expectations.

Feanor.2358:

It should. It would help create more realistic expectations.

Nah, I don’t have any expectations, it’s Anet.
We are going to see another 4 open world maps expansion, 1 raid and maybe 2 new fractals.

There is already a new fractal in the making process + other old ones to be revamped.

Jockum.1385:

After a while I realised my dps was bad and started to focus more and more on healing. Teamcontent got more difficult, playersize of groups increased – I had to adapt my build step by step.

It’s the same here. If you are not dumb or lazy, you will already realize that your damage is awful when using non-serious/trash builds in dungeons. Most of the typical GW2 players are just not interested in progressing and increased difficulty.
Dungeons have those if you take a proper look, AC P1 & 3 are easier than 2, TA up is easier than fwd, CoF 1 is a joke, while 2 is still easy and 3 a harder one. Then you get to HotW, CoE and finally to Arah.
For new players there is so much to explore and to get better, I don’t think you find a better situation in GW1. Even there are things you have to do over and over again and not as much to explore.

Most of the GW2 players aren’t the people you are describing here. They want to have loot in the first place, “play how they want” and many of the give up after wiping to a boss more than 3 times within 5 minutes and I’m not talking about raids, I’m talking about dungeon bosses.

Vinceman.4572:

It’s the same here. If you are not dumb or lazy, you will already realize that your damage is awful when using non-serious/trash builds in dungeons. Most of the typical GW2 players are just not interested in progressing and increased difficulty.

It would be interesting to know how many people try Raids without ever reaching T4 fractals or without ever running the hardest dungeons.

I’m not sure how to solve this difficulty progression problem. In other MMORPGs it’s your gear that prevents you from running higher difficulty content, you run the easy part, get geared up and experienced, then go to higher difficulty. Here we don’t have that (outside agony in fractals) but some kind of alternative is needed. When the next Raid is released many will rush to run it without even running the previous ones, then complain that it’s hard.

Vinceman.4572:

For new players there is so much to explore and to get better, I don’t think you find a better situation in GW1. Even there are things you have to do over and over again and not as much to explore.

I think the situation in GW1 is way better because there is way more teamcontent, see my comment above. Which means more variety, less repetitions and a not so steep learning curve.

A player can play through story in GW2 without ever playing in a team – in GW1 you have to. In theory it would be better if you start with very easy story teamcontent at maybe level 20. Ofc many people want to play through story solo (see arah story-ending). Consequence is: you have “experienced players” which play GW2 since release, but have barely played in teams and perform bad in teamcontent.

GW2 dungeons were originally quite difficult for unexperienced players. And they are out of order. A player might start with AC, CoF1 is probably easier. CM is more difficult than SE1+3. If a player has done all dungeons maybe 2 times and reached level 30 fractals he might start to think about berserk equipment instead of soldiers. So there is still a long way to go – but the content is lacking at this point. And there is imho also a gap between open world/story and dungeons – but HoT powercreep has softened the gap a lot.

Jockum.1385:

A player can play through story in GW2 without ever playing in a team – in GW1 you have to.

You never had to play as a team for any kind of pve content in GW1. Unless you mean playing solo with the heroes/henchmen that can do the content for you without you actually playing the game.

Vinceman.4572:

There is already a new fractal in the making process + other old ones to be revamped.

Jockum.1385:

After a while I realised my dps was bad and started to focus more and more on healing. Teamcontent got more difficult, playersize of groups increased – I had to adapt my build step by step.

It’s the same here. If you are not dumb or lazy, you will already realize that your damage is awful when using non-serious/trash builds in dungeons. Most of the typical GW2 players are just not interested in progressing and increased difficulty.
Dungeons have those if you take a proper look, AC P1 & 3 are easier than 2, TA up is easier than fwd, CoF 1 is a joke, while 2 is still easy and 3 a harder one. Then you get to HotW, CoE and finally to Arah.
For new players there is so much to explore and to get better, I don’t think you find a better situation in GW1. Even there are things you have to do over and over again and not as much to explore.

Most of the GW2 players aren’t the people you are describing here. They want to have loot in the first place, “play how they want” and many of the give up after wiping to a boss more than 3 times within 5 minutes and I’m not talking about raids, I’m talking about dungeon bosses.

Why no mention of Caudecus’s Manor and Sorrow’s Embrace you dont consider them easy or hard at all?

Jockum.1385:

GW2 dungeons were originally quite difficult for unexperienced players.

They still are.

The situation nowadays is just that people either run in pugs together with experienced level 80 players or come into the game via friends and run the content with them having again experienced level 80 players on their side.
Just join a group of 4 beginners in AC, I did that weeks ago. You will need 20+ more minutes if you don’t explain them or give them hints where to run, fight etc. so I would say that content is still good to let players find out stuff and progress, if, and that’s the key point here, if they want to progress in that way. The game is years old, most people that get into this game now will most likely play with friends and rush to 80 and endgame faster than players have done in the past.

Linken.6345:

Why no mention of Caudecus’s Manor and Sorrow’s Embrace you dont consider them easy or hard at all?

Why should I? Just wanted to make the example clear between easier and harder stuff. No need to list them all because it’s obvious.

@maddoctor: True. But I made the experience that mostly “experienced” players used NPCs. Unexperienced players often lacked important hero-npcs, had not unlocked the necessary skills and didn’t know how to set up a proper build of other classes than their own. Some copied builds – but at this point you’re on the level of a metabattle build user, so an “advanced player”.
For beginners it was usually easier to search for a group, ask their guildmates, etc.
(+op pve skills)

Jockum.1385:

I am not a casual player. I just tend to play with some casual players a lot. Most of them probably don’t even know who wooden potatoes is. I personally don’t like 50 min YT videos.

I don’t think WP is a good example. I don’t know how often he plays, but afaik did he do all raids relativly close after release, has reached platinum in PVP some time ago, … he seems to be at least a skilled player.

I was mostly refering to the “training time” needed. Someone in the comments gave the 43 min mark, WP seems to mostly comment on the equipment/preparations needed.
But how many hours does it take to train a group full of “soldier staffguards” until they are able to kill a boss? 5 hours? 10 hours? Thats already 5-10 weeks for some players and I wouldn’t be surprised if some players need way more training.

On top of that: I sometimes made the experience that people forgot my explanations after a week. Sometimes the weather is fine, holidays, whatever – so you skip a week. Two weeks later everything is forgotten.
Also keep in mind that guilds want to play together. So its not a single bad player, its a full group. There are still quite a lot struggling with dungeons or even story.
And actually it’s ok. Raids are not meant to be easy content. The problem is the lack of easier content, not the difficulty of raids.

Let me give you the TL;DR since you didnt watch it.

Total time for someone who has no investment in GW2 whatsoever to get from 0-80 was 15 hrs. To get “geared” was another ~10hrs. To down the raid bosses consistently with PUGS ~5hrs.

If you somehow think 30hrs for a BRAND NEW player is absurd let me remind you that at the brisk and superbly casual rate of 1hr a day, you’d be raid ready within a month.

Now i challenge to find me someone who is so casual that they literally only invest 1hr a day and expect to raid.

Did he played with other first timers or did he played with PUGs? Thats a difference,
a guildteam can’t be carried by some exp PUGs.

Did he played himself (meaning a very exp player, the normal player is not a platinum pvp player) or did he let a player play which has never played GW2 before?

“Expect to raid” is the wrong term. I said raids are for some players unrealistic because of their “gaming profile”. Not that these players should or could expect to beat the most difficult content in GW2. If such a player complains about a lack of content you can’t come up and say “do raids”. Raiding is unrealistic for many players and that’s ok. The lack of other (team)content isn’t.

Someone originally said raiding isn’t hardcore and described it more as a build and mindset problem. I don’t agree – it’s also a time investment problem. Or a problem of personal skill, some players are very talented others aren’t.

Jockum.1385:

Casuals rarely ask for anything.

Whether that’s true or not is anyone’s guess, and is highly dependent on which of the many definitions of "casual floating around on these boards. However, at least in the history of the official GW2 board, there have been a tremendous amount of asks by posters who self-identified as being casual.

Jockum.1385:

Did he played with other first timers or did he played with PUGs? Thats a difference,
a guildteam can’t be carried by some exp PUGs.

Oh? Strange I recall just this happening for the team I formed in my old guild. A rather experienced pug tanked for us, helped us kill the boss and gave us a lot of valuable advice. By the way, you can’t expect to gather a team of first-timers and make it a static. Some people will dive into it and some will not. You’ll never know until you try it.

Jockum.1385:

The lack of other (team)content isn’t.

Except there’s plenty of other team content. There are group events, there are fractals and dungeons, there are guild missions, there’s PvP and there’s GvG. You can do a lot of things with friends. People aren’t complaining because there isn’t enough team content, people are complaining because they see exclusive rewards they can’t get.

Feanor.2358:

There are group events, there are fractals and dungeons, there are guild missions, there’s PvP and there’s GvG. You can do a lot of things with friends. People aren’t complaining because there isn’t enough team content, people are complaining because they see exclusive rewards they can’t get.

I play with a casual guild more coordinated “once a week” since ~2015 (we all are playing since release together – GW1 since ~ 2010). We ran out of content long ago.
In ~ 2,5 years we got through LS, HoT story and maps, did even some open world event farming, did all dungeons (most more than once. easier ones or some needed for token), played fractals and guildmissions. And we skipped several months, because december is christmas. And summer is summer. Or because next LS episode is in a month, so we can wait for it. So once a week stretches the truth.
Motivation to repeat dungeons or fractals is minimal. Current LS takes 1-2 weeks to finish story and then you can take a 2 months break.
That’s the current situation. We got people which exclusivly log in for guild activities.
And at this point I don’t think GW2 is worth it for those players. We are probably better of playing some kind of coop game instead.

I did with several other guildmembers also dungeons in ~2012-2013. One left for another MMO soon after because he didn’t want to “play a MMO solo”. Heard and read similar opinions from several sides.
For example from my old GW1 alliance. I remember a elderly couple which shortly after released posted a calm and constructive post in the official forums (it got deleted), we had some debates in the ally forums – the couple left for Lotro. The alliance collapsed, roughly 90% stopped playing. Those who kept playing are either “every few months” players, the handful people active in my guild or ~ 30.000 AP players, so the hardcore players. The casual players which have logged in once a week for years to do guildactivities mostly stopped playing very soon after GW2 release. Open world is no replacement for instanced teamcontent – and dungeons were too difficult at that time for many of us.

Life goes on – people marry, get children, have less time for videogames. But such a big loss – and some of those players are still active in other videogames/MMOs?
Ofc we as a alliance were a bunch of players with similar mindsets, so it might be bad luck. But there were also a lot of similar complaints in other public forums, too. So its not that rare.
I also remember a former WoW guild which played a lot of fractals when they were new. After no new content got added they returned to WoW – never saw them online again.
So I’d say people need new content. Open world addresses mostly solo oriented players, and that’s probably the majority. Ok, fine. As I said: either solo open world or raids.

Open world events can be done as a team, sure. Might be ok for some. For me its not really a teamexperience, you can also go in solo and do them with a random zerg/bots. It feels like killing a dragon in skyrim with the help of town guards.
Instanced content allows a more coordinated teamexperience. Tequatl can’t replace dungeons, triple trouble can’t replace raids.

Jockum.1385:

Someone originally said raiding isn’t hardcore and described it more as a build and mindset problem. I don’t agree – it’s also a time investment problem. Or a problem of personal skill, some players are very talented others aren’t.

It isn’t hardcore. It is exactly a build and mindset problem. It’s not a time investment problem, again in less that 1hr a day for a month you could be raid ready. Personal skill…okay seems like a convenient excuse, why would someone who knows they’re bad decide to raid to begin with ?

maddoctor.2738:

Jockum.1385:

A player can play through story in GW2 without ever playing in a team – in GW1 you have to.

You never had to play as a team for any kind of pve content in GW1. Unless you mean playing solo with the heroes/henchmen that can do the content for you without you actually playing the game.

Just out of curiosity, how would you handle the deep solo?

Jockum.1385:

I play with a casual guild more coordinated “once a week” since ~2015 (we all are playing since release together – GW1 since ~ 2010). We ran out of content long ago.

You and your friends having exhausted the group content and group content not being available are two vastly different things.

Yes, we have exhausted the teamcontent. Not because we played so much. Because GW2 has barely teamcontent to offer. The volume of casual teamcontent available in GW2 in 2017 is roughly the same than in 2013. Some new story, two new fractals – minor amounts have been added in those 4 years. I think GW2 is in a very bad shape when it comes to casual teamcontent, and it never was in a good shape. The game feels as GW1 in 2012. 5 years since the last expansion. Well…the comparision is maybe not that bad, GW1 also had its “living story” with war in kryta and so on, which can maybe be compared to HoT-story.

TexZero.7910:

It isn’t hardcore. It is exactly a build and mindset problem. It’s not a time investment problem, again in less that 1hr a day for a month you could be raid ready. Personal skill…okay seems like a convenient excuse, why would someone who knows they’re bad decide to raid to begin with ?

1 hour a day is a very active player. I’ve got guildmates that play 1-2 hours a week. So your month would be 30 weeks for them (half a year).
I orginally spoke of a month of training if you are after 5-10 hours training able to kill a boss. A month were they would spend 100% of their ingame time training raids. Don’t do anything else than slamming their head against the same wall, without getting loot, making no progress on their account. Just for killing a single boss. Probably only once or twice. Not for “farming” raids weekly as active raidguilds.
Would you spend 100% of your ingame time for a whole month farming silverwastes to get access to an open world map for 1-2 days?

I say this, as a requirement, is pretty hardcore. Too hardcore for many players.
For an active raidplayer the math is completly different. He wants to kill the boss each week. He is usually better skilled, equipped, spends more time ingame and so on.
10 hours training? A weekend. Worth it if you want to kill the boss each week. Or if you are looking for a challenge and enjoy the training, instead of wanting to “explore”.
I am not saying that raids should change, don’t get me wrong. I think its healty to have some challenging endgame content. But it’s ridiculus to say raids are not hardcorecontent. They are meant to be challenging hardcore content.

My guild asked me about raids. Not because of loot or whatever. Because they noticed there is content and they thought we could do it, until I explained.
It’s the same as in 2012 when players entered dungeons. Dungeons were originally meant as challenging content, not as “teamcontent for everyone”. The lack of other teamcontent let player enter dungeons which should not have entered them. Which caused a lots of complaints about too difficult dungeons. That’s a “lack of content” problem, its similar as when unfit players “decide to raid”.
It’s not such a big issue, if there is other content available. Which is, to some degree, my point. I personally think Anet has choosen to adress the open world players and the more hardcore teamplayers. I think they choose to ignore the “casual teamoriented players”. You can’t cater to all players, it’s ok.

Playing since launch registers as “much” in my book. Raids wouldn’t help you. If you’re not willing to repeat the same content, you’d exhaust “easy mode” raids in less time you’d exhaust dungeons. But there is no game which will offer new content at the speed players exhaust it. It’s both too expensive and too slow to produce.

Jockum.1385:

But how many hours does it take to train a group full of “soldier staffguards” until they are able to kill a boss? 5 hours? 10 hours?

Two months, ~2 hours per training session, 2-3 training sessions per week, for people that already had working meta builds, and were doing fine in t4 fracs. Might have went faster (possibly significantly faster) if the group was 100% static and there was no shuffling some players in and out though (not everyone can take that much time of constant failing, it’s extremely discouraging).
Just to kill VG.
( after that, gorse took only a week)

@Feanor: Some of them didn’t really played much until we started to play weekly together in ~2015. I also don’t think playing 2,5 years together once a week qualifies as “much”. Don’t know how many hours we played together in 2017. 30? Maybe a bit more or less, dunno. Is that much?

Yes, easymode Raids won’t really help us. But it is possible to create the amounts of content needed – see GW1. I think it’s a matter of tools.
There are games which offer map editors to players in which you can use standardized map pieces and put together a map in a few hours. Some are relativly crude, some a bit more complex.
I am (obviously) not a game dev. Everyone else here probably not, too. But I see no reason why such a tool should be impossible to create for your own devs, when there are for example fsps as timesplitters offering these tools even to players.
Currently you are even able to create “guildhall-SAB-maps” in GW2 as a player.

In theory casual teamcontent doesn’t need to be very complex. GW2 has some quite interesting bosses as kholer which could be recycled. Kholer would be a good final boss for casual teamcontent because you can hardcounter him. For more difficult content this is a problem, but for casual content its perfect. You can either dodge him or make use of reflec, blocks and stabi. So you actually learn to make use of these effects. It doesn’t matter that much if the boss is too easy when you kill him with those effects, it’s casual content not a raid boss (or lupi…).
You could also reuse normal enemies, see uncategorized (ettin).
I don’t know how much work it actually is. But you can cut down a lot (cutscenes, voiceacting, new animations/bosses etc.).

But y, it’s not going to happen. GW2 is a very old game with a probably already relativly small community left. It’s not a good idea to change anything, let it run and don’t invest too much work into it anymore. I wouldn’t be surprised if GW3 is in development since HoT.

While we’re at it can we get a toggle for WvW and PvP where enemy players can’t attack us…?

Jockum.1385:

Yes, we have exhausted the teamcontent. Not because we played so much. Because GW2 has barely teamcontent to offer. The volume of casual teamcontent available in GW2 in 2017 is roughly the same than in 2013. Some new story, two new fractals – minor amounts have been added in those 4 years. I think GW2 is in a very bad shape when it comes to casual teamcontent, and it never was in a good shape. The game feels as GW1 in 2012. 5 years since the last expansion. Well…the comparision is maybe not that bad, GW1 also had its “living story” with war in kryta and so on, which can maybe be compared to HoT-story.

TexZero.7910:

It isn’t hardcore. It is exactly a build and mindset problem. It’s not a time investment problem, again in less that 1hr a day for a month you could be raid ready. Personal skill…okay seems like a convenient excuse, why would someone who knows they’re bad decide to raid to begin with ?

1 hour a day is a very active player. I’ve got guildmates that play 1-2 hours a week. So your month would be 30 weeks for them (half a year).
I orginally spoke of a month of training if you are after 5-10 hours training able to kill a boss. A month were they would spend 100% of their ingame time training raids. Don’t do anything else than slamming their head against the same wall, without getting loot, making no progress on their account. Just for killing a single boss. Probably only once or twice. Not for “farming” raids weekly as active raidguilds.
Would you spend 100% of your ingame time for a whole month farming silverwastes to get access to an open world map for 1-2 days?

I say this, as a requirement, is pretty hardcore. Too hardcore for many players.
For an active raidplayer the math is completly different. He wants to kill the boss each week. He is usually better skilled, equipped, spends more time ingame and so on.
10 hours training? A weekend. Worth it if you want to kill the boss each week. Or if you are looking for a challenge and enjoy the training, instead of wanting to “explore”.
I am not saying that raids should change, don’t get me wrong. I think its healty to have some challenging endgame content. But it’s ridiculus to say raids are not hardcorecontent. They are meant to be challenging hardcore content.

My guild asked me about raids. Not because of loot or whatever. Because they noticed there is content and they thought we could do it, until I explained.
It’s the same as in 2012 when players entered dungeons. Dungeons were originally meant as challenging content, not as “teamcontent for everyone”. The lack of other teamcontent let player enter dungeons which should not have entered them. Which caused a lots of complaints about too difficult dungeons. That’s a “lack of content” problem, its similar as when unfit players “decide to raid”.
It’s not such a big issue, if there is other content available. Which is, to some degree, my point. I personally think Anet has choosen to adress the open world players and the more hardcore teamplayers. I think they choose to ignore the “casual teamoriented players”. You can’t cater to all players, it’s ok.

I dont even anymore.

If 1 hr a day for a month is hardcore, then i have to question what in the other 23 hrs is so important that you still think your 1hr sacrifice means you should be in there with people who are willing to put in that time, when you aren’t.

TexZero.7910:

I dont even anymore.

If 1 hr a day for a month is hardcore, then i have to question what in the other 23 hrs is so important that you still think your 1hr sacrifice means you should be in there with people who are willing to put in that time, when you aren’t.

People in these two camps will never understand each other. Raids are, and have always been, about making a commitment to raids. People who have more to do with their time than play games are used to buying — and playing — games that they can play at their own pace. Most games support that choice because games are leisure activity. Raids are, and have always been, serious business to raiders, and neither raid design nor the raid community are tolerant of an uncommitted play-style.

IndigoSundown.5419:

TexZero.7910:

I dont even anymore.

If 1 hr a day for a month is hardcore, then i have to question what in the other 23 hrs is so important that you still think your 1hr sacrifice means you should be in there with people who are willing to put in that time, when you aren’t.

People in these two camps will never understand each other. Raids are, and have always been, about making a commitment to raids. People who have more to do with their time than play games are used to buying — and playing — games that they can play at their own pace. Most games support that choice because games are leisure activity. Raids are, and have always been, serious business to raiders, and neither raid design nor the raid community are tolerant of an uncommitted play-style.

There’s nothing stopping them from playing the raids though…nor the rest of the game.

The entire point was that a brand new player whose sole focus is raids can do so in around 30 hrs time. If you’re not new, and already have an established character etc…you can drastically reduce that.

Additionally, it’s such a small subset of time that’s actually required to raid that its somehow considered hardcore if you play more than 1hr a day ? Is this real…. like i don’t even at this point. Have facebook games really watered down gaming that much ?

IndigoSundown.5419:

TexZero.7910:

I dont even anymore.

If 1 hr a day for a month is hardcore, then i have to question what in the other 23 hrs is so important that you still think your 1hr sacrifice means you should be in there with people who are willing to put in that time, when you aren’t.

People in these two camps will never understand each other. Raids are, and have always been, about making a commitment to raids. People who have more to do with their time than play games are used to buying — and playing — games that they can play at their own pace. Most games support that choice because games are leisure activity. Raids are, and have always been, serious business to raiders, and neither raid design nor the raid community are tolerant of an uncommitted play-style.

Well, GW2 also supports this choice. The vast majority of the content can be played pretty casually. It just happens to support the other choice, too.

TexZero.7910:

There’s nothing stopping them from playing the raids though…nor the rest of the game.

The entire point was that a brand new player whose sole focus is raids can do so in around 30 hrs time. If you’re not new, and already have an established character etc…you can drastically reduce that.

Additionally, it’s such a small subset of time that’s actually required to raid that its somehow considered hardcore if you play more than 1hr a day ? Is this real…. like i don’t even at this point. Have facebook games really watered down gaming that much ?

What’s stopping people from playing raids is that those who have not committed to raids don’t have the knowledge or desire to start their own groups. So, they want a drop-in experience like we have in open world. People who have committed the time are unlikely to get that mentality and even if they do they’re not going to support it.

30 hours is not a “small subset of time” if one doesn’t play that much. That’s 30 hours dedicated solely to raid prep (I assume most if not all of that is gearing up). That might take 50 or 100 hours of play (or more) for those who like to do other things as well. Add in not playing for several hours a day and that puts you back in the realm of commitment.

And yes, as soon as developers decided they wanted the money from players from non-MMO demographics, MMO game populations have changed dramatically.

Feanor.2358:

Well, GW2 also supports this choice. The vast majority of the content can be played pretty casually. It just happens to support the other choice, too.

Which is why players with a preference for X should stick to content that offers X. However, that is not what other games (or even schools in some places, mores the pity) teach people to expect.

The problem is not going to go away. The solution is people being willing to accept that not all content may be for them. As long as people have the attitude that anything the developer makes has to be for them on their terms, they’re going to complain.

The only thing challenging about raids is finding a raid. After that, the next challenge is providing for expensive foods. You see u know y? this is because you have to kill vale guardian 150 times before you are qualified to kill him 1 more time. it’s the same as passing the PhD exams 150 times before you can be a professor or passing the driving test 150 times before you are allowed at the wheels.

the absence of a good system to allocate for players interested to start raids is also another challenge. i can observe a ton of players who want to raid but are unable to because of how “challenging” it is.

Roxanne.6140:

The only thing challenging about raids is finding a raid. After that, the next challenge is providing for expensive foods. You see u know y? this is because you have to kill vale guardian 150 times before you are qualified to kill him 1 more time. it’s the same as passing the PhD exams 150 times before you can be a professor or passing the driving test 150 times before you are allowed at the wheels.

the absence of a good system to allocate for players interested to start raids is also another challenge. i can observe a ton of players who want to raid but are unable to because of how “challenging” it is.

Oh you mean that artificial barrier because you’re opting to join groups that clearly don’t want you ?

I mean here’s a secret to avoiding that. Form your own group, set your own artificial restrictions.

It worked fine for me and various others, so far has 100% success rate.

Roxanne.6140:

The only thing challenging about raids is finding a raid. After that, the next challenge is providing for expensive foods. You see u know y? this is because you have to kill vale guardian 150 times before you are qualified to kill him 1 more time. it’s the same as passing the PhD exams 150 times before you can be a professor or passing the driving test 150 times before you are allowed at the wheels.

the absence of a good system to allocate for players interested to start raids is also another challenge. i can observe a ton of players who want to raid but are unable to because of how “challenging” it is.

I find this funny because its an exaggeration.
yes there are groups that want to play with exp people, but there is a lot of training runs and guild runs. And after very few kills on a boss if you are good you can easily join any group. But yeah people prefer to claim that you need 10000 kills thats why they cant raid.
While other people that start raiding and put some effort ( its not even that much , ), instead of complaining, are getting kills and reaching that pile of LI really easily.

OnizukaBR.8537:

Roxanne.6140:

The only thing challenging about raids is finding a raid. After that, the next challenge is providing for expensive foods. You see u know y? this is because you have to kill vale guardian 150 times before you are qualified to kill him 1 more time. it’s the same as passing the PhD exams 150 times before you can be a professor or passing the driving test 150 times before you are allowed at the wheels.

the absence of a good system to allocate for players interested to start raids is also another challenge. i can observe a ton of players who want to raid but are unable to because of how “challenging” it is.

-Snip- you can easily join any group. -Snip-

Oh is that why I see a blank screen save for LFGs like “Who am I” on a sunday prime time?

Roxanne.6140:

Oh is that why I see a blank screen save for LFGs like “Who am I” on a sunday prime time?

Don’t even understand what you are trying to tell us.

You have a blank screen in the lfg section?
You have somebody joking around who put up a “Who am I” lfg?

Fact is, there are plenty lfgs around sunday prime time, even before & after. Maybe, but that was explained to you, you are in the wrong subsection. People are not inviting you so you can wait until you are picked up, you have to look for groups actively.

Vinceman.4572:

Fact is, there are plenty lfgs around sunday prime time, even before & after. Maybe, but that was explained to you, you are in the wrong subsection. People are not inviting you so you can wait until you are picked up, you have to look for groups actively.

Well, Roxanne is right here about one thing. Experience and just a few kills won’t make a player “able to join any group”. Most LFM groups won’t even talk with such a player. Unless, possibly, you are a chrono – those seem always in demand and groups are willing to accomodate them more often.
Yes, there will be exceptions – groups that are far more open about getting players – but they are not so common, and there’s always way more interested players than slots in such groups.

In general, if you are new to raiding, you either need a static group, or a lot of luck. Most new players won’t get either.

Astralporing.1957:

Vinceman.4572:

Fact is, there are plenty lfgs around sunday prime time, even before & after. Maybe, but that was explained to you, you are in the wrong subsection. People are not inviting you so you can wait until you are picked up, you have to look for groups actively.

Well, Roxanne is right here about one thing. -Snip-

yes of course. i m right. those new players just dont come here to whine about it, they just go play fractals or FF14

Astralporing.1957:

In general, if you are new to raiding, you either need a static group, or a lot of luck. Most new players won’t get either.

I disagree strongly, you just need to invest time and effort. Luck is on top of that and you can influence it with being nice & gentle to other people, well-prepared (guides, gear etc. pp.) and open-minded.
The most important thing: Be pro-active.

Vinceman.4572:

Astralporing.1957:

In general, if you are new to raiding, you either need a static group, or a lot of luck. Most new players won’t get either.

I disagree strongly, you just need to invest time and effort. Luck is on top of that and you can influence it with being nice & gentle to other people, well-prepared (guides, gear etc. pp.) and open-minded.
The most important thing: Be pro-active.

did you just assume I am not pro-active? did u also assume that the people who find it hard to find raids are not pro-active as well?

Roxanne.6140:

Vinceman.4572:

Astralporing.1957:

In general, if you are new to raiding, you either need a static group, or a lot of luck. Most new players won’t get either.

I disagree strongly, you just need to invest time and effort. Luck is on top of that and you can influence it with being nice & gentle to other people, well-prepared (guides, gear etc. pp.) and open-minded.
The most important thing: Be pro-active.

did you just assume I am not pro-active? did u also assume that the people who find it hard to find raids are not pro-active as well?

No, its actually 100% truth, a lot of players including me started when wing 3 was released, some even after wing 4, and it was not that hard to find group. You may be pro active in other areas of the game or your life, but if you think starting raiding you need a static or 100% lucky them i’m sure you are not pro active in the raiding part of the game.

For those wanting to be proactive in learning how to raid:

• Guild Recruitment, on Reddit — includes raiding guilds and LFGuild.
• The Raides Inn, A Discord Community
• LFGuild on these very forums

• Guides to Bosses
• Directory of Guilds That Teach Raids
• Raid Training in the EU

Roxanne.6140:

did you just assume I am not pro-active? did u also assume that the people who find it hard to find raids are not pro-active as well?

Yes, in the past ~3 months I have met dozens (lot more) of players that got into raids because they actually wanted to. From good old dungeon and experienced fractal runners to very new players with exotic gear only and just a power ps at start or anything related.
Those people had one thing in common: They put in effort and looked around what they could do to get some starter experience.

In my extended static group is a woman from the hotel business, a stressful shift job, and even she managed to get into the group + getting full clears over the week. Of course she is not always present or online but she is sometimes and then asking people actively to run with her. Another guildie hopped onto her twink with 0 LI and she went into training runs without pinging stuff (she has something over 100 LI + precursor armor) or anything else. Within one week she was able to get 5 LI – no help, no shenanigans.
And those are just two examples in my surroundings.

At start you need to have endurance + you won’t get all the kills because you need to learn, practice and look for the few groups without heavy requirements. But after some cycles (= weeks) you will be able to get at least 6-8 bosses down constantly. And from there it is not far away from getting the “hard ones” (for pugs) like Deimos, Xera, Matt.

Get a build that’s accepted in the meta including food and utility, and then join a group without a requirement or better a training run. Most of them are accepting. Ofcourse, finding out if you fit that group and then waiting too long is usually what makes you miss an opportunity. ( I often missed groups just because I was like, “but I dunno the mechanics that well, but I wanna learn, but I dunno if I fit or whether they aren’t trolls But…oh wait its already gone”)

If I find a group I usually keep quiet after the first hello and on the background until a direct question is asked, or some random conversation is going on. (Or if i know the encounter well enough really) If asked to ping some random stuff, ignore the first time they ask, and be honest when they are persistent. (Alot don’t ask twice) And if you know a role to do in the encounter, that’s even better. If asked to fill a role you can’t, just leave yourself.

Sometimes you will get kicked, fair enough people want some experience in the groups. To be fair, I never have been kicked, just by being communicative, and filling a role that was expected of me. Other times they don’t even ask a second time and you’re suddenly in a fairly experienced group. Though it does get noticed if you mess up really bad.

I usually just join groups without a requirement, it’s usually the same people even. I also try to have some sort of a meta build, and knowing the mechanics from the wiki, as well as joining training runs. I just kept joining those until I became alot more comfortable with the mechanics, and then tried to follow them to the best of my ability. Usually sticking to the commander works out.

Then again, I feel like I am generally fast with learning new things and being fairly observant, so that works in my advantage.

But yeah, it’s funny that raids are added for a “vocal minority” before HoT, and when people complain now it’s said Anet shouldn’t listen to another supposed “vocal minority”. In the end, Anet is free to decide if they can and are able to add an easier experience of raids that doesn’t interfere too hugely with the current setup. ( I doubt they want to do that themselves either)

Vinceman.4572:

Yes, in the past ~3 months I have met dozens (lot more) of players that got into raids because they actually wanted to. From good old dungeon and experienced fractal runners to very new players with exotic gear only and just a power ps at start or anything related.
Those people had one thing in common: They put in effort and looked around what they could do to get some starter experience.

The problem is that what you describe in no way guarantees success. Putting that effort and looking around for options does not mean it’s going to bring results. Most people will not make it.

Astralporing.1957:

The problem is that what you describe in no way guarantees success. Putting that effort and looking around for options does not mean it’s going to bring results. Most people will not make it.

I don’t think guaranteed success is something any game needs.

Yeah, guaranteed success is not something that is part of raids, I think, plus it’s not really part of any game. If you don’t try to make it, you will never make it.

The biggest part of raids is falling down and getting up again, and doing it better. Ofcourse, even within raid groups that is a thing that many players are incapable of and/or simply don’t like.

Astralporing.1957:

Vinceman.4572:

Yes, in the past ~3 months I have met dozens (lot more) of players that got into raids because they actually wanted to. From good old dungeon and experienced fractal runners to very new players with exotic gear only and just a power ps at start or anything related.
Those people had one thing in common: They put in effort and looked around what they could do to get some starter experience.

The problem is that what you describe in no way guarantees success. Putting that effort and looking around for options does not mean it’s going to bring results. Most people will not make it.

I can’t think of one thing on this planet that guarantees success.