Guild Wars 2

As someone who raids multiple time during the week the fact that the raid team consistently brings in new content is something I really appreciate.
Hope you guys won’t stop with the next wing and keep bringing more quality raid content as fast as possible

While they do a good job, this is probably the last set-piece we’ll see concerning Raids for a very long time….

I wouldn’t expect Raid 2 to happen for at least 6 months if not longer.

Well, other games just release one or two full raids every 6 months. Nothing special here, imo.

TexZero.7910:

While they do a good job, this is probably the last set-piece we’ll see concerning Raids for a very long time….

I wouldn’t expect Raid 2 to happen for at least 6 months if not longer.

If ever.

While the raid team does a great job, I have a feeling that Arenanet will be moving away from raid content design. It just doesn’t attract enough players compared to the ressources it consumes.

Best result would be a new raid per future expansions but I doubt new raids will get added outside of those.

Cyninja.2954:

TexZero.7910:

While they do a good job, this is probably the last set-piece we’ll see concerning Raids for a very long time….

I wouldn’t expect Raid 2 to happen for at least 6 months if not longer.

If ever.

While the raid team does a great job, I have a feeling that Arenanet will be moving away from raid content design. It just doesn’t attract enough players compared to the ressources it consumes.

Best result would be a new raid per future expansions but I doubt new raids will get added outside of those.

Where does this idea come from? Last we heard the raid team was only 5 people and that anet said in thier amas “raids attracted more people than they had been suspecting.” In a reddit survey, over 70% of the respondents had tried spirit vale and 30% intended to keep raiding?

Massively overperforming for a 5 man team.

DrEckers.2039:

In a reddit survey, over 70% of the respondents had tried spirit vale and 30% intended to keep raiding?

Erm, not exactly. Yes, that’s true, that almost 80% had tried spirit vale. Out of 2362 participants. On Reddit, the place where people too casual to raid haven’t generally had a chance to even see that survey. But even if we pass over the fact that the polled group was hardly representative for the community, out of this 2362 participants only 162 said they will continue raiding. The 30% value comes from most of the participants not even bothering to answer that question. Which in itself is telling.

Which, by the way, was even addressed by the survey’s author in the very post you linked.

Cyninja.2954:

While the raid team does a great job, I have a feeling that Arenanet will be moving away from raid content design. It just doesn’t attract enough players compared to the ressources it consumes.

Best result would be a new raid per future expansions but I doubt new raids will get added outside of those.

That is pure speculation. We honestly never waited more than 5 minutes to find a pick-up when our raid squad is not full, every time someone being full geared and some basic knowledge (at least) of the encounter.
On top of this, raids are permanent addition in the game so the ratio resources/raid activity is not really something one can calculate now.

That said, it is not clear now if Anet ever intended to have more than one full raid for this expansion. Maybe, as you said, there will be one raid per expansion but we don’t know how often they intend to release new expansions.

TexZero.7910:

While they do a good job, this is probably the last set-piece we’ll see concerning Raids for a very long time….

I wouldn’t expect Raid 2 to happen for at least 6 months if not longer.

I think raid 2 will come with the next xpac

• New Content
• High Quality
• Consistent Schedule
• Minimal Delays

Great stuff, let’s hope this culture can spill over into other parts of the game =P

Cyninja.2954:

While the raid team does a great job, I have a feeling that Arenanet will be moving away from raid content design. It just doesn’t attract enough players compared to the ressources it consumes.

Best result would be a new raid per future expansions but I doubt new raids will get added outside of those.

I don’t have exact figures, but internally to ANet the raid team is lauded and praised for being a massive success. I am under the impression that there will absolutely be more raids, potentially even very soon as a component of LS3 (they said this was a possibility, so no guarantees).

Astralporing.1957:

DrEckers.2039:

In a reddit survey, over 70% of the respondents had tried spirit vale and 30% intended to keep raiding?

Erm, not exactly. Yes, that’s true, that almost 80% had tried spirit vale. Out of 2362 participants. On Reddit, the place where people too casual to raid haven’t generally had a chance to even see that survey. But even if we pass over the fact that the polled group was hardly representative for the community, out of this 2362 participants only 162 said they will continue raiding. The 30% value comes from most of the participants not even bothering to answer that question. Which in itself is telling.

Which, by the way, was even addressed by the survey’s author in the very post you linked.

I agree. But my point is that all evidence we have at this point is that the raids have been a success in GW2. Rising dusk just confirmed that anet feels the same internally in the above comment.

I can understand if there are groups of people who indvidually dislike raids. But when those people claim raids need to be dropped due to lack of participation, the onus is on them to provide equal to or greater evidence than what we already have in terms of surveys (flawed as they may be) and anet employee comments for raids being participated in above anet’s expectations.

I have to agree,

Raids have been a massive addition to the game for both me an my guild.

They demand and give a greater depth of pve game-play and mechanics that is the GW2 combat system. This has been great end game content to have to master these things, get outside your comfort zone and try something different with builds and classes to be effective in.

As for the guild. They are something to rise to the challenge of and have been the content which the community has rallied together to achieve and accomplish for others.

From what I understand the Raid team is the smallest development team. I recall reading around 5-6 people. That is very effective considering how large other teams are and how much success such a small team has had.

Very fine work. Looking forward to seeing more raids.

Rising Dusk.2408:

I don’t have exact figures, but internally to ANet the raid team is lauded and praised for being a massive success. I am under the impression that there will absolutely be more raids, potentially even very soon as a component of LS3 (they said this was a possibility, so no guarantees).

So last new fractal/dungeon content was 3 years ago, but they are trying to push raids instead. “Great” news.

Just wait till the next new big thing. Raids will be dropped just like dungeons and fractals. They’ll tell us 6 months after development ceases.

Phil.8901:

TexZero.7910:

While they do a good job, this is probably the last set-piece we’ll see concerning Raids for a very long time….

I wouldn’t expect Raid 2 to happen for at least 6 months if not longer.

I think raid 2 will come with the next xpac

Either that or as i guessed every 6 months or longer. It’s sad because raids are great.
But color me jaded because if they can’t keep 4 people working on legendaries, i don’t know how they can justify 5 on raids… So another indefinite suspension of the project may happen.

TexZero.7910:

Phil.8901:

TexZero.7910:

While they do a good job, this is probably the last set-piece we’ll see concerning Raids for a very long time….

I wouldn’t expect Raid 2 to happen for at least 6 months if not longer.

I think raid 2 will come with the next xpac

Either that or as i guessed every 6 months or longer. It’s sad because raids are great.
But color me jaded because if they can’t keep 4 people working on legendaries, i don’t know how they can justify 5 on raids… So another indefinite suspension of the project may happen.

Personnally, I think that yes, they will keep the 5 people on raids. It is much easier to do that simply because creating legendaries cater to all types of players and will therefore inherently take more time to produce and cost more resources for all to enjoy. In raids developers have more freedom imo because they don’t need to take into account all players and don’t need to make adjustements to how events spawn to complete a collection tied to crafting a legendary. They create raids from the grounds up, except maybe for inclusion of lore from GW1, hence why it is consistent.

flog.3485:

TexZero.7910:

Phil.8901:

TexZero.7910:

While they do a good job, this is probably the last set-piece we’ll see concerning Raids for a very long time….

I wouldn’t expect Raid 2 to happen for at least 6 months if not longer.

I think raid 2 will come with the next xpac

Either that or as i guessed every 6 months or longer. It’s sad because raids are great.
But color me jaded because if they can’t keep 4 people working on legendaries, i don’t know how they can justify 5 on raids… So another indefinite suspension of the project may happen.

Personnally, I think that yes, they will keep the 5 people on raids. It is much easier to do that simply because creating legendaries cater to all types of players and will therefore inherently take more time to produce and cost more resources for all to enjoy. In raids developers have more freedom imo because they don’t need to take into account all players and don’t need to make adjustements to how events spawn to complete a collection tied to crafting a legendary. They create raids from the grounds up, except maybe for inclusion of lore from GW1, hence why it is consistent.

Agree to disagree. The scope may be narrower, but it’s about resource allocation at that point. If the teams are as swamped as lead to believe (assuming nothing has changed), then it’s a real hard sell to say 4 isn’t okay here and 5 is okay there.

At the end of the day it’s ultimately upto Mo since it’s his vision of the games direction we are getting.

potentially even very soon as a component of LS3 (they said this was a possibility, so no guarantees).

No. Please! Anything but that! I’m waitin on LS3. I’m waiting for the content I like! I’m fed on enforced partying content like sPvP raid and dungeons! Hell I know I’m a minority but please don’t exclude me this much!

TexZero.7910:

flog.3485:

TexZero.7910:

Phil.8901:

TexZero.7910:

While they do a good job, this is probably the last set-piece we’ll see concerning Raids for a very long time….

I wouldn’t expect Raid 2 to happen for at least 6 months if not longer.

I think raid 2 will come with the next xpac

Either that or as i guessed every 6 months or longer. It’s sad because raids are great.
But color me jaded because if they can’t keep 4 people working on legendaries, i don’t know how they can justify 5 on raids… So another indefinite suspension of the project may happen.

Personnally, I think that yes, they will keep the 5 people on raids. It is much easier to do that simply because creating legendaries cater to all types of players and will therefore inherently take more time to produce and cost more resources for all to enjoy. In raids developers have more freedom imo because they don’t need to take into account all players and don’t need to make adjustements to how events spawn to complete a collection tied to crafting a legendary. They create raids from the grounds up, except maybe for inclusion of lore from GW1, hence why it is consistent.

Agree to disagree. The scope may be narrower, but it’s about resource allocation at that point. If the teams are as swamped as lead to believe (assuming nothing has changed), then it’s a real hard sell to say 4 isn’t okay here and 5 is okay there.

At the end of the day it’s ultimately upto Mo since it’s his vision of the games direction we are getting.

Well I guess we need to agree to disagree. You are right, at the end of the day, Mo will decide. I am just being an optimistic whereas you are rather pessimistic

Gaile Gray.6029:

Hey guys,

I just want to point out that Rising Dusk is giving his opinion of what may take place in the future. Maybe even a “wish list” for Raids.

Our forum specialists are not privy to confidential information such as forward-looking, unannounced plans. They represent our forum members, and they do it well. Their perspective is of particular value because they are looking at the game as you do — as members of the player community. To keep that clear perspective, we don’t expose them to internal testing, NDA-bound info, private/internal communications, or that sort of thing.

I wanted to make this clear so that no one is under the mis-impression that there has been a “leak” or that our specialist is “dropping hints” about future raids based on private internal communications. They are simply sharing their thoughts and opinions, which is perfectly fine.

On a personal note, the guilds I belong to are really enjoying raids, and several members have said, as Mireles Lore mentioned, that the new content is reinvigorating their gaming.

Yeah, I noticed this getting traction on Reddit suddenly and made a very nearly identical comment to yours there after being struck with massive paranoia that I may have misspoken or something.

Hopefully no one took this the wrong way!

Upon release: LFR Stronghold of the Faithful. Must be experienced. Ping 250 insights.

ellesee.8297:

Upon release: LFR Stronghold of the Faithful. Must be experienced. Ping 250 insights.

Yep, this is the main reason I can’t do any raid right now. My 1 legendary insight isn’t worth <tuturuuuu>.

Rising Dusk.2408:

Gaile Gray.6029:

Hey guys,

I just want to point out that Rising Dusk is giving his opinion of what may take place in the future. Maybe even a “wish list” for Raids.

Our forum specialists are not privy to confidential information such as forward-looking, unannounced plans. They represent our forum members, and they do it well. Their perspective is of particular value because they are looking at the game as you do — as members of the player community. To keep that clear perspective, we don’t expose them to internal testing, NDA-bound info, private/internal communications, or that sort of thing.

I wanted to make this clear so that no one is under the mis-impression that there has been a “leak” or that our specialist is “dropping hints” about future raids based on private internal communications. They are simply sharing their thoughts and opinions, which is perfectly fine.

On a personal note, the guilds I belong to are really enjoying raids, and several members have said, as Mireles Lore mentioned, that the new content is reinvigorating their gaming.

Yeah, I noticed this getting traction on Reddit suddenly and made a very nearly identical comment to yours there after being struck with massive paranoia that I may have misspoken or something.

Hopefully no one took this the wrong way!

Your Forum Specialist privileges are revoked and you’ll be taken out back and shot shortly

I’m happy that people are enjoying raids – and I’m having fun in them myself – but many of us came to GW2 to get away from raid heavy communities like those in WoW. We want content that we can do in large groups – or in small chunks of time with small groups.

GW2 was the perfect game for people like us – one that focused on the community as a whole and that provided content designed to bring that community together in new and fun ways. And, just as importantly, one that was continually trying to give us something new to do in large groups. It can still be fun for us, but the past year has been disheartening and portentous of moving closer and closer to the models used by those games we left to come here.

A raid every now and then is fine, but ANet – if you’re listening – you need to get your focus back on what made end game in GW2 different from all of those raid focused games out there. Get back to new ways of bringing the larger community together to have fun on a regular basis. To me, that means laying off of raids for a while – at least until you can prove that you can balance developmental resources in better ways.

The heart and soul of GW2 isn’t in a 10 player instance – it’s out where every player lives and breathes in your game. Since September of last year, that part of the game has been slowly stagnating. You need to fix that – which probably means moving the focus away from raids for the foreseeable future..

Guild missions. Open world dynamic events. New maps. New collection events. New jumping puzzles. Creative ways to do things together in the world. These are the things my guild – and the guilds we play alongside ( altogether numbering several hundred active players) – are waiting (not so) patiently for.

Cyninja.2954:

While the raid team does a great job, I have a feeling that Arenanet will be moving away from raid content design. It just doesn’t attract enough players compared to the ressources it consumes.

I sure hope so. At some point ANET needs to realize that following the wildstar approach isn’t the best idea. Build content for the majority of players, not just the relatively small number that actually do raids.

Arnath.2319:

Rising Dusk.2408:

Cyninja.2954:

While the raid team does a great job, I have a feeling that Arenanet will be moving away from raid content design. It just doesn’t attract enough players compared to the ressources it consumes.

Best result would be a new raid per future expansions but I doubt new raids will get added outside of those.

I don’t have exact figures, but internally to ANet the raid team is lauded and praised for being a massive success. I am under the impression that there will absolutely be more raids, potentially even very soon as a component of LS3 (they said this was a possibility, so no guarantees).

This is a very dangerous and unprofessional comment to make.

When you deliberately destroy all other game modes, starve them for content, then produce content purely for Raids and Raids only of course it will look like a success!

Raids have been the most destructive most toxic, most soul destroying thing Anet have ever done.

In what way? As far as I know the raid team is a 5/6 man team. If that is true, they are getting INCREDIBLE value out of them for what they are actually delivering. No reason to not keep doing raids if this is the level of what they can do in the time they are given.

I think that new raids will come with expansions. Having said that, once third wing is out of the way I expect ls3 and fractals to be full steam ahead.

Blaeys.3102:

I’m happy that people are enjoying raids – and I’m having fun in them myself – but many of us came to GW2 to get away from raid heavy communities like those in WoW. We want content that we can do in large groups – or in small chunks of time with small groups.

GW2 was the perfect game for people like us – one that focused on the community as a whole and that provided content designed to bring that community together in new and fun ways. And, just as importantly, one that was continually trying to give us something new to do in large groups. It can still be fun for us, but the past year has been disheartening and portentous of moving closer and closer to the models used by those games we left to come here.

A raid every now and then is fine, but ANet – if you’re listening – you need to get your focus back on what made end game in GW2 different from all of those raid focused games out there. Get back to new ways of bringing the larger community together to have fun on a regular basis. To me, that means laying off of raids for a while – at least until you can prove that you can balance developmental resources in better ways.

The heart and soul of GW2 isn’t in a 10 player instance – it’s out where every player lives and breathes in your game. Since September of last year, that part of the game has been slowly stagnating. You need to fix that – which probably means moving the focus away from raids for the foreseeable future..

Guild missions. Open world dynamic events. New maps. New collection events. New jumping puzzles. Creative ways to do things together in the world. These are the things my guild – and the guilds we play alongside ( altogether numbering several hundred active players) – are waiting (not so) patiently for.

I don’t think that you realize and appreciate how much work was put into the 4 HoT map versus the work that was put into the raids. Those 4 maps are insanely complex with ton of events and place to explore. The difference is that most players skip through all that open world content without realizing how much they are missing while the raiders try and enjoy every single part of the raids. We redo the same events endlessly because we enjoy them.

The raid content that we have right now would maybe represent 1/4 of verdant brink from my point of view. You should go back on those maps and take the time to visit every little thing. I discover new things everytime I visit them or see things in different way. You talked about JP for example. Well those maps are giant jumping puzzle if you decide to. Did you need to have a chest with a garbage at the end to have fun when you were a kid?.

Blaeys.3102:

I’m happy that people are enjoying raids – and I’m having fun in them myself – but many of us came to GW2 to get away from raid heavy communities like those in WoW. We want content that we can do in large groups – or in small chunks of time with small groups.

GW2 was the perfect game for people like us – one that focused on the community as a whole and that provided content designed to bring that community together in new and fun ways. And, just as importantly, one that was continually trying to give us something new to do in large groups. It can still be fun for us, but the past year has been disheartening and portentous of moving closer and closer to the models used by those games we left to come here.

A raid every now and then is fine, but ANet – if you’re listening – you need to get your focus back on what made end game in GW2 different from all of those raid focused games out there. Get back to new ways of bringing the larger community together to have fun on a regular basis. To me, that means laying off of raids for a while – at least until you can prove that you can balance developmental resources in better ways.

The heart and soul of GW2 isn’t in a 10 player instance – it’s out where every player lives and breathes in your game. Since September of last year, that part of the game has been slowly stagnating. You need to fix that – which probably means moving the focus away from raids for the foreseeable future..

Guild missions. Open world dynamic events. New maps. New collection events. New jumping puzzles. Creative ways to do things together in the world. These are the things my guild – and the guilds we play alongside ( altogether numbering several hundred active players) – are waiting (not so) patiently for.

It’s ridiculous to blame the content drought on the raid team. If you look at all the trouble they went through to make HoT playable for the casual masses or their re-re-redesign of certain content (fractals). “A raid now and then” is exactly how it is now already.

cranos.5913:

It’s ridiculous to blame the content drought on the raid team.

I’m not blaming the content drought on a raid team. I’m saying that the game that puts too heavy emphasis on raids (regardless if it’s intentional, or just an unintended byproduct of raid team being way better at their job than everyone else) is not the game lot of us came here to play. And raids are pushed out as “the” content. The fact that we got nearly a year now without any new content but raid would be enough to tell us that. Them receiving special recognition in the form of legendary armor (a type of gear that is not available anywhere else) is just a cherry on top, but it also points out to this not being completely unintended.

Just as Blaeys says, what we need is more content that brings the gw2 community together. Not one that divides it.

Astralporing.1957:

cranos.5913:

It’s ridiculous to blame the content drought on the raid team.

I’m not blaming the content drought on a raid team. I’m saying that the game that puts too heavy emphasis on raids (regardless if it’s intentional, or just an unintended byproduct of raid team being way better at their job than everyone else) is not the game lot of us came here to play. And raids are pushed out as “the” content. The fact that we got nearly a year now without any new content but raid would be enough to tell us that. Them receiving special recognition in the form of legendary armor (a type of gear that is not available anywhere else) is just a cherry on top, but it also points out to this not being completely unintended.

Just as Blaeys says, what we need is more content that brings the gw2 community together. Not one that divides it.

My point is that it’s because of factors that have nothing to do with raids. With a lot of stuff fixed and LS3 around the corner it should be resolved pretty soon now. There’s no need to blame raid content for past bad design decisions of totally different content.

Arnath.2319:

So who is to blame for this content drought? Someone has to take responsibility for the longest content drought in MMO history.

If the Raid team is not using up the resources delaying content the other 99% of players will enjoy then what is?

How is it the smallest dev team is capable of producing the greatest amount of content for this one game mode in the past few months than any other game mode in the past 3 years?

We have had one new Fractal in the history of this game, and if we are lucky we will get one more this year… one… only one, meanwhile we already have THREE raids!

Someone is to blame, mistakes are happening and the devs need to address it before even more people leave this game.

Is it not obvious looking back? They spent an awful lot of time designing new systems and fixing the way HoT works, reducing both difficulty and grind. As for fractals… Well for some reason they completely overhauled it 3 times. And then there’s the fact at least a 3rd of the studio is already working on the next xpac.

You’re also painting a wrong picture here. The wings were largely done before HoT came out, as at the very least wing 1 and 2 were raid tested by DnT back in the day. They did not create a whole raid wing in just the few months between the release of the different wings. Just because they were fairly smart about pacing the releases doesn’t mean other content has been dropped or postponed in favour of raids.

Now they finally fixed this stuff you should see more fractal overhauls like they did with cliffside and prob at least one of the new fractals this summer as well as LS3.

Blaeys.3102:

I’m happy that people are enjoying raids – and I’m having fun in them myself – but many of us came to GW2 to get away from raid heavy communities like those in WoW. We want content that we can do in large groups – or in small chunks of time with small groups.

GW2 was the perfect game for people like us – one that focused on the community as a whole and that provided content designed to bring that community together in new and fun ways. And, just as importantly, one that was continually trying to give us something new to do in large groups. It can still be fun for us, but the past year has been disheartening and portentous of moving closer and closer to the models used by those games we left to come here.

A raid every now and then is fine, but ANet – if you’re listening – you need to get your focus back on what made end game in GW2 different from all of those raid focused games out there. Get back to new ways of bringing the larger community together to have fun on a regular basis. To me, that means laying off of raids for a while – at least until you can prove that you can balance developmental resources in better ways.

The heart and soul of GW2 isn’t in a 10 player instance – it’s out where every player lives and breathes in your game. Since September of last year, that part of the game has been slowly stagnating. You need to fix that – which probably means moving the focus away from raids for the foreseeable future..

Guild missions. Open world dynamic events. New maps. New collection events. New jumping puzzles. Creative ways to do things together in the world. These are the things my guild – and the guilds we play alongside ( altogether numbering several hundred active players) – are waiting (not so) patiently for.

That kind of content is far and away favoured by ArenaNet. Almost every single release since launch has included open world content like the things you described – Southsun, Tequatl, Tower of Nightmares, Silverwastes, Dry Top, Marionette, Crown Pavilion, Labyrinthine Cliffs and almost the entirety of HoT was open world zerging stuff. The list of new open world content is quite extensive and far surpasses three raid wings or even eight dungeons.

Guild Wars 2 launched with a mix of PvP, WvW and PvE which included dungeons, personal story and open world (with a handful of bosses). While the core game had a bit of a balance, development has consistently favoured open world zerging events. Anyone who feels like ArenaNet hasn’t done enough for open world players lately needs to have a look at what HoT included (and remember that the April patch involved almost the entire company working on that same open world content with polish).

For as long as GW2 caters exclusive or even primarily to open world content it isn’t focusing on the community as a whole, it is focusing on a specific group of people who like a specific thing. There are other players who like other things and some of those players like raids. There hasn’t been a single instanced group content update prior to raids since 2013, there have been several big updates to the open world including two maps in 2014 and four maps in the expansion.

You mention balancing resources better, well raiders didn’t get to raid during HoT’s launch and raiding was an advertised feature of the expansion. So while you got to play through four maps and do several big boss zergs, raiders had to wait months for three raid wings. ArenaNet isn’t doing a bunch of special stuff for raid players – they are delivering content that was promised with an expansion purchased almost a year ago.

I too would like new maps or other new things to do, but I also realise that the kind of content you talk about gets the lion’s share of attention from ArenaNet. Three raid wings isn’t a big deal and it has nothing to do with the delay on Season 3.

I bet the same guys complaining about raids being hard/not being their content/whatever reason will complain about the LS3 and how bad/hard/bugged/boring this type of content is.
And afterwards the mourning will be even bigger because the next new content takes eons to be released. ^^

Ask yourself: Does any story mission from tutorial to the end of HoT story has any high replay value?
Rhetorical question, I know, and that’s why I am personally very very very satisfied with raids being in the game.

I can only suspect that the reason other content seems slow is because the next expansion will be a lot larger than HOT. Stung by criticism of “only 4 maps” and HOT in general, I expect the next expansion to blow HOT out of the water. I feel that ANET themselves, feel they have something to prove. The 6 people that are doing the raids are overdelivering if u examine manpower vs output. Raids are end level content keeping hardcore player retention. There is nothing else in the game that satisfies those players so the value they are getting from raids vs the amount of people being used to make them is delivering from a cost and time perspective.

Sounds like it’s all hands on deck.

Mitch.4781:

I can only suspect that the reason other content seems slow is because the next expansion will be a lot larger than HOT. Stung by criticism of “only 4 maps” and HOT in general, I expect the next expansion to blow HOT out of the water.

Considering that HoT was done by using the strength of the whole dev team, while putting everything else on hold, while the next expac will be a result of the work of the part of the team (which didn’t really get any bigger), while the rest work on other things, i’m not so hopeful.

cranos.5913:

My point is that it’s because of factors that have nothing to do with raids.

Not true. While you’re right that raids did not cause the content drought, the decision to push them during that very drought, while at the same time constantly reminding us how wonderful and important they are, was a really bad one.

If you set up a feast meant for a small minority, where everyone else around starves, the feast itself is not to blame, nor is the cause of that famine, but it will still cause riots. Especially if you will keep mentioning to everyone how wonderful that food on the tables is.

cranos.5913:

With a lot of stuff fixed and LS3 around the corner it should be resolved pretty soon now. There’s no need to blame raid content for past bad design decisions of totally different content.

Again, i don’t blame raid content for those decisions. I’m saying that there were a ton of bad decisions that were associated with raids. And shoving them into everyone’s face during that content drought was definitely the biggest of them all.

Gaile Gray.6029:

On a personal note, the guilds I belong to are really enjoying raids, and several members have said, as Mireles Lore mentioned, that the new content is reinvigorating their gaming.

Raid has been the thing who has made me come back to the game, buy hot and keep playing from its release till now.

Same as the majoirity of my friends (i’m a veteran as them).

You can bring my thx to raid team, and pls let them keep release some other content like this

First thanks Gaile for the clarification before the rumor mill gets out of hand.

Second, since many people seem to take my opinion as criticism, on the contrary. Personally I love the stuff the raid team has done so far. I’m just a realist as far as what my expectations are.

Would it be great for raiders when we had regular new raids added to the game next to other content? Absolutely. I do believe though that 1 raid per expansion will be the best possible case scenario for this.

Raids require balance not only from a design perspective but also from an economic one etc.

Raid 1 (wind 1-3) is part of the legendary armor process and offer some unique skins.
Raid 2 could have some more unique skins and maybe another legendary armor path.
Raid 3 could have… and now we’ve hit a wall. The not increasing item cap in GW2 makes it more challenging to offer rewards which fit inside the game theme and design.

That is on top of all the design problems (how hard should the raids be?), the amount of playerbase the raid reaches and which part of the story the raid fits into.

This does not cover possible design or goal changes of future raids. For example making them easier, yet shorter so a higher part of the population can participate or might be interested (dungeons 2.0 for example). Not saying saying this will come, but throwing ideas out as to how more raids could fit into the game.

Astralporing.1957:

Again, i don’t blame raid content for those decisions. I’m saying that there were a ton of bad decisions that were associated with raids. And shoving them into everyone’s face during that content drought was definitely the biggest of them all.

Ehh haters gonna hate. You’re talking about this nonsense every other raid thread anyway.

Cyninja.2954:

First thanks Gaile for the clarification before the rumor mill gets out of hand.

Second, since many people seem to take my opinion as criticism, on the contrary. Personally I love the stuff the raid team has done so far. I’m just a realist as far as what my expectations are.

Would it be great for raiders when we had regular new raids added to the game next to other content? Absolutely. I do believe though that 1 raid per expansion will be the best possible case scenario for this.

Raids require balance not only from a design perspective but also from an economic one etc.

Raid 1 (wind 1-3) is part of the legendary armor process and offer some unique skins.
Raid 2 could have some more unique skins and maybe another legendary armor path.
Raid 3 could have… and now we’ve hit a wall. The not increasing item cap in GW2 makes it more challenging to offer rewards which fit inside the game theme and design.

That is on top of all the design problems (how hard should the raids be?), the amount of playerbase the raid reaches and which part of the story the raid fits into.

This does not cover possible design or goal changes of future raids. For example making them easier, yet shorter so a higher part of the population can participate or might be interested (dungeons 2.0 for example). Not saying saying this will come, but throwing ideas out as to how more raids could fit into the game.

Well idk if they’ll postpone it till the next xpac but they’re definitely not sitting still. From Linsey Murdock on reddit:

I’m very proud of my designers working on Raids! Them and all the artists, programmers, QA, and other support staff working on Raids have been killing it, for sure. We just wrapped Raid 3 and have not shut down the team. I’m stupid excited about the stuff they are working on next. It gets me all goose-bumpy whenever we talk about it.

The raid team has done a great job so far delivering varied bosses and mechanics. I absolutely love the difficulty level – raids are neither too hard nor too easy to complete. I really hope there will be more of them in the future after wing 3, cause this is one of the best pieces of content that we got in GW2. Keep up the great work guys!

And BTW maybe just the loot could be better and I don’t mean the drops themselves but the skins and stuff that you can obtain for tokens. Since Gorseval finally dropped me a Ghostly Infusion and I bought full ascended viper’s armor I don’t really have anything to do with tokens anymore maybe aside from getting more ascended armors for some of my alts. I’d love to see more cool skins.

In what way? As far as I know the raid team is a 5/6 man team.

Wait, is there anyone that really believes that? It can be 6 people planning the strats but a raid needs people to do the art, the models, the maps, the new weapons and armour, all the sound effects and textures… is there music written for them too? Not sure on that one. I find it hard to believe all those concept and environment and model and sound artists are counted in those six people anet said are working on raids. Yeah right…

Vanth.5439:

In what way? As far as I know the raid team is a 5/6 man team.

Wait, is there anyone that really believes that? It can be 6 people planning the strats but a raid needs people to do the art, the models, the maps, the new weapons and armour, all the sound effects and textures… is there music written for them too? Not sure on that one. I find it hard to believe all those concept and environment and model and sound artists are counted in those six people anet said are working on raids. Yeah right…

Yes, we believe that.

Ye great job,just a shame most of the players will never play it or see it.

Vanth.5439:

In what way? As far as I know the raid team is a 5/6 man team.

Wait, is there anyone that really believes that? It can be 6 people planning the strats but a raid needs people to do the art, the models, the maps, the new weapons and armour, all the sound effects and textures… is there music written for them too? Not sure on that one. I find it hard to believe all those concept and environment and model and sound artists are counted in those six people anet said are working on raids. Yeah right…

Have you ever stop to think that the same thing apply to “ls team” or any other content-related-team of the game? xD

Coder, musician, graphic designer duty is to work across every contents of the game, you can’t count them as a part of the “raid team” because they work with every other team of the game (including ls). And Viceversa.

Raid team = people fully busied to work JUST over raid = 6, that is a really small number compared to the good quality of the raid content and to the number of people enjoying it.

aelfwe.4239:

Vanth.5439:

In what way? As far as I know the raid team is a 5/6 man team.

Wait, is there anyone that really believes that? It can be 6 people planning the strats but a raid needs people to do the art, the models, the maps, the new weapons and armour, all the sound effects and textures… is there music written for them too? Not sure on that one. I find it hard to believe all those concept and environment and model and sound artists are counted in those six people anet said are working on raids. Yeah right…

Have you ever stop to think that the same thing apply to “ls team” or any other content-related-team of the game? xD

Coder, musician, graphic designer duty is to work across every contents of the game, you can’t count them as a part of the “raid team” because they work with every other team of the game (including ls). And Viceversa.

Raid team = people fully busied to work JUST over raid = 6, that is a really small number compared to the good quality of the raid content and to the number of people enjoying it.

I think what Vanth was trying to say was that the assumption of only 5-6 people working on raid content is ludicrous. The developer ressources are far higher. That is a direct counter argument to earlier:

DrEckers.2039:

Cyninja.2954:

TexZero.7910:

While they do a good job, this is probably the last set-piece we’ll see concerning Raids for a very long time….

I wouldn’t expect Raid 2 to happen for at least 6 months if not longer.

If ever.

While the raid team does a great job, I have a feeling that Arenanet will be moving away from raid content design. It just doesn’t attract enough players compared to the ressources it consumes.

Best result would be a new raid per future expansions but I doubt new raids will get added outside of those.

Where does this idea come from? Last we heard the raid team was only 5 people and that anet said in thier amas “raids attracted more people than they had been suspecting.” In a reddit survey, over 70% of the respondents had tried spirit vale and 30% intended to keep raiding?

Massively overperforming for a 5 man team.

So no, it’s not massively overperforming (though they are doing a fine job) and it’s also not far fetched to assume that ressources going to the raid team (art, design, balance, etc.) wise are in competition with other areas of the game which require those ressources (Living Story, maps, fractals, etc.).

I believe the point Vanth was making or the question raised is:

- are the ressources spent on raid design productive enough to keep arenanet devoting them

A question only Arenanet has an answer to and will understandibly not share.

aelfwe.4239:

Have you ever stop to think that the same thing apply to “ls team” or any other content-related-team of the game? xD

I know, but people often use that number to justify months of no other content other than raids…. since, you know, “only 6 people work on raids anyway” :\

Cyninja.2954:

I think what Vanth was trying to say was that the assumption of only 5-6 people working on raid content is ludicrous. The developer ressources are far higher.

So no, it’s not massively overperforming (though they are doing a fine job) and it’s also not far fetched to assume that ressources going to the raid team (art, design, balance, etc.) wise are in competition with other areas of the game which require those ressources (Living Story, maps, fractals, etc.).

exactly.

I think what people are trying to say is that with only 5-6 people specifically 100% dedicated to raids, which includes the designers and also an effects and creature artist, they’ve managed to do great things. Teams like the sound team certainly contribute to raids with new music, and Bobby Stein from storytelling is very heavily involved as well, but it’s not nearly as massive an undertaking as, say, the Living World teams. In that context I think the raids team is doing an awesome job.

Imo raids are the best content so far.
And to all moaners…could you please explain how spreading conspiracy theories about the raid team size will make GW2 better?

Astralporing.1957:

DrEckers.2039:

In a reddit survey, over 70% of the respondents had tried spirit vale and 30% intended to keep raiding?

Erm, not exactly. Yes, that’s true, that almost 80% had tried spirit vale. Out of 2362 participants. On Reddit, the place where people too casual to raid haven’t generally had a chance to even see that survey. But even if we pass over the fact that the polled group was hardly representative for the community, out of this 2362 participants only 162 said they will continue raiding. The 30% value comes from most of the participants not even bothering to answer that question. Which in itself is telling.

No, that’s incorrect. Only 162 said they plan to try out raiding in the future (not that they will continue) because that question was only asked of the people who said they did not try Spirit Vale.

Of 2362 respondents,
1034 had beaten every SV boss
839 had tried SV but not beaten every boss
162 had not tried SV but planned to try it or another raid in the future
185 had not tried SV and were unsure of trying raiding in the future
142 had not tried SV and had no plans to ever try raiding

Also do note that I am not disputing the fact that the pool of people kittenponded in the first place is biased.

edit: Anet filters are top tier
people who <filter spacer> responded