Guild Wars 2

Some say the raids in GW2 is hard. Some say it’s not. So, why not make Easy-Medium-Difficult tiers for the raids?

The hardcores can be more hardcores. Casual players may be able to join the raids just like they do their daily fractals. Of course, it will be naturally more demanding since they need to gather 10 players.

So after the topic of “Easy mode raids”, “Training raids”, “Story mode Raids”. Its the time for the “Fractal like raids” so we can bring the same argument over and over again. Modes should start merging this topics.
If you dont have anything to bring to the table besides the “i want” stop creating topics like this. And do some research and will see a lot of bad reasons why this is not a good idea.

Casual players can and are already clearing bosses. The only ones that actually whine about difficulty are the forum warriors that spend more time here than inside the game.

Catering for players that only wanna cater for themselves is a recipe for failure.

OnizukaBR.8537:

So after the topic of “Easy mode raids”, “Training raids”, “Story mode Raids”. Its the time for the “Fractal like raids” so we can bring the same argument over and over again. Modes should start merging this topics.
If you dont have anything to bring to the table besides the “i want” stop creating topics like this. And do some research and will see a lot of bad reasons why this is not a good idea.

You mean, a lot of good reasons? Because all that he can find against is “we don’t need because I don’t want to/devs must make more raids for me instead of modes for you all/l2p n00bs/who cares about statistics and other games, we don’t need it”.

Rednik.3809:

OnizukaBR.8537:

So after the topic of “Easy mode raids”, “Training raids”, “Story mode Raids”. Its the time for the “Fractal like raids” so we can bring the same argument over and over again. Modes should start merging this topics.
If you dont have anything to bring to the table besides the “i want” stop creating topics like this. And do some research and will see a lot of bad reasons why this is not a good idea.

You mean, a lot of good reasons? Because all that he can find against is “we don’t need because I don’t want to/devs must make more raids for me instead of modes for you all/l2p n00bs/who cares about statistics and other games, we don’t need it”.

Adding tiers or difficulty modes increases the amount of time the devs need to spend on raids, thus diverting resources from elsewhere. Thus fewer raids or fewer changes to fractals (including new ones) or slower release cadence for living world or…

I say this as someone who was against raids being added to the game in the first place, someone who hasn’t cleared a wing, and someone who isn’t likely to get 10 regulars or PUG aids any time in the near future.

Raids are doing exactly what they were intending to do: provide a type of challenging group content for the fraction of the player base that wants it. The vast majority of the game is designed to appeal to the rest of us.

It’d make sense if this was the game’s main endgame, but quite obviously it’s not. I don’t see why the raiding community should have to suffer for this. You people had somewhat of an argument during the content drought but with these quality LS updates that include new maps and new fractals on the horizon quite frankly you have no reason to complain anymore.

Would be a fan of tiers if the first tier started at our currently difficulty level and then went up from there. I for one like raids to be designed for and balanced around raiders.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Adding tiers or difficulty modes increases the amount of time the devs need to spend on raids, thus diverting resources from elsewhere. Thus fewer raids or fewer changes to fractals (including new ones) or slower release cadence for living world or…

And this is something that comes up on every single thread about raid difficulties or story modes or whatever but for some reason nobody ever deals with it. It’s really sad having to type it every single time and still get no response.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Adding tiers or difficulty modes increases the amount of time the devs need to spend on raids, thus diverting resources from elsewhere. Thus fewer raids or fewer changes to fractals (including new ones) or slower release cadence for living world or…

Raid team is not fractal/LS team. And resource-wise 40% of players able to play 1 raid is much better than 10% of players playing 3 raids, though making more difficulties for one raid will certainly take MUCH less resources than making 2 more new raids.
Repeatable content is one of the main reasons that keep players playing the game, and everything that making such content available for more players is good.
P.S. Average % of players with 1 LI on gw2e already fell below 30% and becoming lower and lower every week. So much for raid popularity.

Rednik.3809:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Adding tiers or difficulty modes increases the amount of time the devs need to spend on raids, thus diverting resources from elsewhere. Thus fewer raids or fewer changes to fractals (including new ones) or slower release cadence for living world or…

Raid team is not fractal/LS team. And resource-wise 40% of players able to play 1 raid is much better than 10% of players playing 3 raids, though making more difficulties for one raid will certainly take MUCH less resources than making 2 more new raids.
Repeatable content is one of the main reasons that keep players playing the game, and everything that making such content available for more players is good.
P.S. Average % of players with 1 LI on gw2e already fell below 30% and becoming lower and lower every week. So much for raid popularity.

Where are your proof of that?? You just show that you know a kitten about balance. First of all they have to scratch out mechanics just because it cant translate to easier mode, all the mechanics that they come up with they need to think that will fit the easier mode, so it make it a LOT HARDER, than making two raids without thinking of mechanics fitting all tiers.
Dungeons are a proof that content dies without good reward, easier raids would have bad rewards ( and before you say dungeons are too old, old fractals and maps like SW are too and still played a lot ).
Players that like GW2 and dont like raiding will keep playing for a lot of reasons ( Fractals, LS, Open World, WvWvW ) a lot of repeatable content, raids are too. But you trying to trash it with difficulty raids.

Rednik.3809:

Raid team is not fractal/LS team. And resource-wise 40% of players able to play 1 raid is much better than 10% of players playing 3 raids, though making more difficulties for one raid will certainly take MUCH less resources than making 2 more new raids.

You really don’t get it. 40% of players able to play 1 raid is MUCH worse than 10% of players playing 3 raids, the first means far less raids are produced, and that crowd is dissatisfied and leaves the game. How long do you want to wait for the next Raid just so it has multiple version that can be run by more people? I don’t want to wait at all and why should I wait?

If you want more difficulties they need to be developed by other people. By the open world/LS people probably who should stop producing LS/open world content to work on Raids to make your dream come true.

OnizukaBR.8537:

Where are your proof of that?? You just show that you know a kitten about balance. First of all they have to scratch out mechanics just because it cant translate to easier mode, all the mechanics that they come up with they need to think that will fit the easier mode, so it make it a LOT HARDER, than making two raids without thinking of mechanics fitting all tiers.

Care to name such mechanics?

Dungeons are a proof that content dies without good reward, easier raids would have bad rewards ( and before you say dungeons are too old, old fractals and maps like SW are too and still played a lot ).

That’s why fractals died out, easymode levels 1-50 killed them. Oh wait, they are still alive and most played instanced content in game. Weird.

Players that like GW2 and dont like raiding will keep playing for a lot of reasons ( Fractals, LS, Open World, WvWvW ) a lot of repeatable content, raids are too. But you trying to trash it with difficulty raids.

Care to name repeatable content introduced since HoT? Oh right, few open world zerg farms and one fractal after three years. And raids, but raids are nono, because small group of players wants to have them exclusively for themselves.

Rednik.3809:

Raid team is not fractal/LS team. And resource-wise 40% of players able to play 1 raid is much better than 10% of players playing 3 raids, though making more difficulties for one raid will certainly take MUCH less resources than making 2 more new raids.

Are you a dev hidding among us, to know exactly what can be easily done and what can’t ?

Hypairion.9210:

Rednik.3809:

Raid team is not fractal/LS team. And resource-wise 40% of players able to play 1 raid is much better than 10% of players playing 3 raids, though making more difficulties for one raid will certainly take MUCH less resources than making 2 more new raids.

Are you a dev hidding among us, to know exactly what can be easily done and what can’t ?

The devs have stated multiple times that creating multiple raid variants is a HUGE effort, not only due to simply tweaking the encounters but also making sure the difficulties are just in the right spot, then making sure there’s no bugs popping up…
Heck, even if you aren’t a dev you can figure that out by using common sense

Hypairion.9210:

Are you a dev hidding among us, to know exactly what can be easily done and what can’t ?

Oh, maybe you will name some encounters that require these mythical HUGE efforts to remake instead of simple number tweaks?

Rednik.3809:

Hypairion.9210:

Are you a dev hidding among us, to know exactly what can be easily done and what can’t ?

Oh, maybe you will name some encounters that require these mythical HUGE efforts to remake instead of simple number tweaks?

I can think of some encounters: Vale Guardian, Gorseval, Sabetha, Slothazor, Bandit Trio, Matthias, Escort, Keep Construct and Xera

All these would require HUGE efforts to remake instead of simple number tweaks. I’m not sure about the rest though, someone can help with the others.

Rednik.3809:

Hypairion.9210:

Are you a dev hidding among us, to know exactly what can be easily done and what can’t ?

Oh, maybe you will name some encounters that require these mythical HUGE efforts to remake instead of simple number tweaks?

You’ll always answer with a question when you don’t know the answer ?
Hmm, gorseval, Sabetha to begin with. Probably Slothazor and xera too. But all will need some works, even if you don’t want to hear that. But I’m not a dev, so sure I’m underestimating the necessary work…
And btw, maybe you forget it, but multiple difficulties mean multiple kind of rewards. So all the reward system would need to be reworked with your solution, to accomodate all players.

Rednik.3809:

And resource-wise 40% of players able to play 1 raid is much better than 10% of players playing 3 raids, though making more difficulties for one raid will certainly take MUCH less resources than making 2 more new raids.

And what about those remaining 60% people? Forget about them? Don’t they also have the right to have a difficulty tier made specifically for them, even if it means the other 40% people will have to wait for their raids EVEN more? Where do you draw the line? Or do you just want the devs to make a difficulty to specifically accomodate YOU and don’t care about the rest of the playerbase?

For me personally, whatever they do to raids, I will adapt. Coz that’s what normal players do. Adapt to the game, instead of pressuring devs to adapt the game to them. There is a lot of people playing it, you can’t possibly satisfy all of them. Everyone likes something different. Although good players who spend their time ingame trying to adapt to it and beat the challenge will definitely get more enjoyment out of it than whiny babies QQing on forums how hard the game is and how the devs should rework it to cater specifically to these people.

maddoctor.2738:

I can think of some encounters: Vale Guardian, Gorseval, Sabetha, Slothazor, Bandit Trio, Matthias, Escort, Keep Construct and Xera

All these would require HUGE efforts to remake instead of simple number tweaks. I’m not sure about the rest though, someone can help with the others.

1)-50% floor damage, -33% green circle damage, slower seekers, -20% HP
2)+50% world eater phase length, -33% spirit HP and speed, -33% orb aoe growing speed, +1min to enrage, -33% to breakbar
3)Flamewall damages 50% of max hp per second, -20% hp to Sabetha and all adds, +2s to all bomb mechanics (big bombs, jump bombs, sticky bombs), -25% to all non-npc damage to players (bombs, cannons, turrets), 2 cannons instead of 4 (optional).
4) +2s to volatile poison debuff, bigger mark and louder sound for it, -25% to volatile poison damage and aoe growing speed, -33% all special boss damage abilities, special marks on transform mushroom spawn points, -20% boss HP
5) -20% boss and adds HP, special color marks on special mechanic stuff (oil, hives, cages), special marks on saboteurs.
6) +100% hp on sacrifice victim and +50% on ability length, +2s on poison debuff timer, twice as long hadoken animation, -25% damage on all special boss abilities and mechanics, -10% boss HP.
7) -25% warg speed, -20% mobs HP, mines are instant downstate instead of oneshot, -1 mob on towers
8) -20% HP, -25% projections speed and HP, ley rifts buff 100% damage instead of 75%, fail in green circles deals damage 90% of max HP instead of wipe, -25% damage form rotating AoE and bombs.
9) +50 to derangement stack limit, each destroyed shard is -10, -33% to all bloodstone HP, -33% to breakbar and +33% to breakbar window, +2s to ancient magic & deadly attack window, big mark on player with buff, -20% boss and adds HP.

Here, now you can call it a “Beginners mode”, cut out achievements, all ascended and legendary collection loot and drop to live servers on separate CD.

Rednik.3809:

1)-50% floor damage, -33% green circle damage, slower seekers, -20% HP

So you want it to be regular champion difficulty or something? You want it to be a “regular” press 1 and win kind of encounter? You want players do actually DO the mechanics or ignore them completely? Because with your changes it will be as if there are no mechanics in the Raid bosses at all. Just stand still, spam 1 and win.

maddoctor.2738:

Rednik.3809:

1)-50% floor damage, -33% green circle damage, slower seekers, -20% HP

So you want it to be regular champion difficulty or something? You want it to be a “regular” press 1 and win kind of encounter? You want players do actually DO the mechanics or ignore them completely? Because with your changes it will be as if there are no mechanics in the Raid bosses at all. Just stand still, spam 1 and win.

And even that will be impossible for another big % of players ( as for example swamp T4 is impossible for many players ), while trivialize for another % of players, so it ruined raids and still doesnt catter to all.
Its really clear that rednik doesn’t care to all players, he just want to raids to cather to him and how he thinks the encounter would be fun to him.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Adding tiers or difficulty modes increases the amount of time the devs need to spend on raids, thus diverting resources from elsewhere. Thus fewer raids or fewer changes to fractals (including new ones) or slower release cadence for living world or…

Rednik.3809:

Raid team is not fractal/LS team.

How is that relevant? The resources to create different tiers of raids need to come from somewhere. Either they come from the raid team, slowing development of new raids or they come from some other team.

Rednik.3809:

And resource-wise 40% of players able to play 1 raid is much better than 10% of players playing 3 raids,

In terms of players/content, sure, more people playing one thing is more efficient than fewer playing three things.

But that’s like saying you can make 3 cheap cars for less than a single luxury car. While true, people who want luxury won’t be buying any cheap cars. The target audience for raids is not the 40%, it’s the 10% (although evidence suggests it’s more like 20% or more).

Rednik.3809:

though making more difficulties for one raid will certainly take MUCH less resources than making 2 more new raids.

Likely? Sure. But again, it doesn’t matter, because raids are designed to appeal to those who want a specific sort of challenge.

Rednik.3809:

Repeatable content is one of the main reasons that keep players playing the game, and everything that making such content available for more players is good.

The point you keep missing is that raids are designed to appeal to players who aren’t interested in the content that appeals to everyone else. Most of the game already appeals to most of the people and slowing down raids isn’t going to speed up development in those areas significantly.

Rednik.3809:

P.S. Average % of players with 1 LI on gw2e already fell below 30% and becoming lower and lower every week. So much for raid popularity.

More people are signing up for GW2e every week, so it’s no surprise that the fraction of people who raid is declining. Those who raid were more likely to have signed up sooner. There are other signs that raids are getting more popular, not less.

the tl;dr remains that raids are designed specifically to appeal to that narrow fraction that isn’t tempted by the standard fare in the game. They are successful in large part because they have a specific audience and can cater to that. Any attempt to broaden that appeal will only slow down its development.

That goose just isn’t going to make better, heavier, or shinier golden eggs just because we’re sad that the regular geese stopped laying enough eggs.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

More people are signing up for GW2e every week, so it’s no surprise that the fraction of people who raid is declining. Those who raid were more likely to have signed up sooner. There are other signs that raids are getting more popular, not less.

Also think that more and more People get interested in Raids and quite a lot of them are looking for a Guild where they can Raid with People. Just an Example. I’m Part of a big Raid Training Guild which isn’t accepting new Players now because we can’t accept any more. The Moment we have enough Room for new Players and we open again, we can close the Applications after one Day beause there are a lot of People looking for a Raid Guild and we didn’t really advertise our Guild.

maddoctor.2738:

So you want it to be regular champion difficulty or something? You want it to be a “regular” press 1 and win kind of encounter? You want players do actually DO the mechanics or ignore them completely? Because with your changes it will be as if there are no mechanics in the Raid bosses at all. Just stand still, spam 1 and win.

No, I want to allow players actually learn boss abilities without “exciting” experience of hours of wipes, falling apart groups, “experienced” RLs who have zero idea how to lead but loves their kick button and amazing LFG writing skills, and “raiding” guilds with already formed statics who barely cares to train and lead new players. Because current raiding community is not healthy in any sense, and it’s shrinking due to lack of new blood, regardless of all attempts of people here to lie to themselves. Gw2e numbers are fact, not speculation.
Also, you noticed loot nerf and separate CD part, right?

Rednik.3809:

maddoctor.2738:

So you want it to be regular champion difficulty or something? You want it to be a “regular” press 1 and win kind of encounter? You want players do actually DO the mechanics or ignore them completely? Because with your changes it will be as if there are no mechanics in the Raid bosses at all. Just stand still, spam 1 and win.

No, I want to allow players actually learn boss abilities without “exciting” experience of hours of wipes, falling apart groups, “experienced” RLs who have zero idea how to lead but loves their kick button and amazing LFG writing skills, and “raiding” guilds with already formed statics who barely cares to train and lead new players. Because current raiding community is not healthy in any sense, and it’s shrinking due to lack of new blood, regardless of all attempts of people here to lie to themselves. Gw2e numbers are fact, not speculation.
Also, you noticed loot nerf and separate CD part, right?

I think you had 1 bad experience and is traumatized, because you are taking facts out of your …
There a lot of training raiding guilds out there, lot of players leading and teaching, i never joined voice comm on GW2 before raids, and because of raids i come close to people that are not even in the same guild that i am, and all are nice to each other.
Its a lot easier to find toxic behavior else where in the game.
Raid community is really nice, nicer than fractals for example. Normally the toxic people that join raids are the one that dont like to raid and want 9 other players to catter to him.

Rednik.3809:

No, I want to allow players actually learn boss abilities

No you don’t want that. Nobody will ever learn the boss abilities if you make them so weak that they can take them in the face and ignore them instead of trying to overcome them. Your “nerfs” are just ridiculous.

Especially when some mechanics are 1-shot kills and you want them to either down the player instead of death or deal some damage like 50% of player health, that’s changing the encounter fundamentally and offers nothing at all in learning the encounter. You are asking for completely new encounters, not a nerfed version of them.

lets just all pause and use this post as an added point of emphasis…..

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/What-have-you-done/first#post6358340

A person in here claims fractals (now) are un-fun, too long, and too hard.

When told to use the lower difficulty, they state the following….Why should i?

This is exactly what will occur if you try to tier raids and reward by tier and exactly why it should never happen. Too many people feel entitled to the rewards, without actually trying to learn like every other player before them has, let alone looked into joining training runs/a group/guild etc….

OnizukaBR.8537:

I think you had 1 bad experience and is traumatized, because you are taking facts out of your …

Yeah it is hard to believe people are standing out for something other than self interest. Also if you ask him about his raiding experience I think you’d be surprised, if I had to make a guess, I think he has more than you.

You are free to bring up facts that prove more and more people raid each day, week or month but if you can’t all we have is limited tools like gw2eff.

maddoctor.2738:

No you don’t want that. Nobody will ever learn the boss abilities if you make them so weak that they can take them in the face and ignore them instead of trying to overcome them. Your “nerfs” are just ridiculous.

Are you telling me you are not trying to dodge gorseval’s smash attack just because it isn’t deadly? You don’t care about VG’s blue circles because not avoiding them isn’t going to kill you? You won’t dodge out of KC’s jump attack because it’s damage is moderate and just knocks you down? If you are…. then what is your point?

TexZero.7910:

A person in here claims fractals (now) are un-fun, too long, and too hard.

When told to use the lower difficulty, they state the following….Why should i?

An argument based on one person, I’m sure that’ll get far. If you want to make a point based on this, I’d like to ask you to monitor how many people are actually doing lower tier fractals. At the moment of posting this for example I saw 4 groups for T4 fractals and about 20 for lower ones. If you can prove more people are doing T4s compared to the rest I’d be intrested.

TexZero.7910:

A person in here claims fractals (now) are un-fun, too long, and too hard.

When told to use the lower difficulty, they state the following….Why should i?

Scipio.3204:

An argument based on one person, I’m sure that’ll get far. If you want to make a point based on this, I’d like to ask you to monitor how many people are actually doing lower tier fractals. At the moment of posting this for example I saw 4 groups for T4 fractals and about 20 for lower ones. If you can prove more people are doing T4s compared to the rest I’d be intrested.

First, Tex is illustrating an argument with an example; that’s not the same as basing an argument on a single person’s experience or opinion.

Second, what difference does it make how many people are doing T4 vs T1 fractals? The role of fractals in this game isn’t the same as the role of raids. Fractals exist specifically as small-group, challenging content that offers different tiers of difficulty and rewards. Raids were adding specifically for those that think that fractals aren’t challenging enough.

In effect, offering multiple tiers of raid that are easier than the current mode, would mean diluting the purpose that raids have in the game’s overall design. Raids won’t be better ‘raids’ if they are more like fractals, they’ll just be 10-person fractals.

I’d far prefer that whatever additional resources people think are available to do this…are instead devoted to releasing more fractals and/or more current events, rather than trying to make raids into something they don’t need to be.

And again, I say this as someone who was against adding raids to the game and as someone who has yet to finish a raid wing.

Considering SC just did a 3 man VG you guys have no excuse for not being able to 10 man VG unless your game play is subpar which isn’t an ANet problem but a you problem.

If you want an easier VG just go do unbound guardian because quite frankly if you can’t even do the current VG then you’re just so bad you shouldn’t even be raiding.

Scipio.3204:

Are you telling me you are not trying to dodge gorseval’s smash attack just because it isn’t deadly? You don’t care about VG’s blue circles because not avoiding them isn’t going to kill you? You won’t dodge out of KC’s jump attack because it’s damage is moderate and just knocks you down? If you are…. then what is your point?

There is a big difference between an attack that 1-shot kills you and an attack that deals damage. If an attack 1-shot kills you and then someone for some weird reason wants a nerfed version that it doesn’t, then it’s not the same attack, not the same mechanic, not the same fight at all. I hope it’s simple enough to understand and you don’t want me to paint it next time.

maddoctor.2738:

There is a big difference between an attack that 1-shot kills you and an attack that deals damage. If an attack 1-shot kills you and then someone for some weird reason wants a nerfed version that it doesn’t, then it’s not the same attack, not the same mechanic, not the same fight at all. I hope it’s simple enough to understand and you don’t want me to paint it next time.

Reason is pretty simple – beginners mode is for teaching, and “this is a wipe, start again” is a pretty stupid method to teach anything. Big damage shows everyone “this ability is bad, don’t get hit, mmmkay?”. They will learn that, and will try to avoid.
Pretty obvious. Or maybe you are one of these weird people who not stops touching fire until your hand is completely burned?

Rednik.3809:

maddoctor.2738:

There is a big difference between an attack that 1-shot kills you and an attack that deals damage. If an attack 1-shot kills you and then someone for some weird reason wants a nerfed version that it doesn’t, then it’s not the same attack, not the same mechanic, not the same fight at all. I hope it’s simple enough to understand and you don’t want me to paint it next time.

Reason is pretty simple – beginners mode is for teaching, and “this is a wipe, start again” is a pretty stupid method to teach anything. Big damage shows everyone “this ability is bad, don’t get hit, mmmkay?”. They will learn that, and will try to avoid.
Pretty obvious. Or maybe you are one of these weird people who not stops touching fire until your hand is completely burned?

Kill mechanics force player to learn, because you learn or you dont pass, take green circles for example you have to learn to gather 4 people there or you will die ( one people missing and its not a wipe you may still heal thorugh). Now you saying people that cant learn to go to green circle now that they will kill the party will learn if the green circle does way less damage?
You are joking right? right? Its pretty obvious that these people will just tank through it with heals/vit, will learn nothing and actually be worse at actually raid because you know they completed the other version so they know what they are doing.

OnizukaBR.8537:

Kill mechanics force player to learn, because you learn or you dont pass, take green circles for example you have to learn to gather 4 people there or you will die ( one people missing and its not a wipe you may still heal thorugh). Now you saying people that cant learn to go to green circle now that they will kill the party will learn if the green circle does way less damage?

They will learn how green circle mechanics work, and that it’s dangerous, but without instant wipe for everyone. Because why melee or tank guys should be punished hard with wipe on training run when mistakes was made by ranged group? Purpose of training encounter is learning doing your role, not dying because someone else made mistake once.

You are joking right? right? Its pretty obvious that these people will just tank through it with heals/vit, will learn nothing and actually be worse at actually raid because you know they completed the other version so they know what they are doing.

Again, they will learn what green circles are, how and when they appear in fight and how you must act to counter them. And when they go to normal raid, they only need to know that all mechanics are same but more deadly, so they must pay more attention.

Rednik.3809:

OnizukaBR.8537:

Kill mechanics force player to learn, because you learn or you dont pass, take green circles for example you have to learn to gather 4 people there or you will die ( one people missing and its not a wipe you may still heal thorugh). Now you saying people that cant learn to go to green circle now that they will kill the party will learn if the green circle does way less damage?

They will learn how green circle mechanics work, and that it’s dangerous, but without instant wipe for everyone. Because why melee or tank guys should be punished hard with wipe on training run when mistakes was made by ranged group? Purpose of training encounter is learning doing your role, not dying because someone else made mistake once.

You are joking right? right? Its pretty obvious that these people will just tank through it with heals/vit, will learn nothing and actually be worse at actually raid because you know they completed the other version so they know what they are doing.

Again, they will learn what green circles are, how and when they appear in fight and how you must act to counter them. And when they go to normal raid, they only need to know that all mechanics are same but more deadly, so they must pay more attention.

Green circle is not an instant wipe for everyone.

Why doesn’t the first third of the fight count as a “training mode” for green circles? The boss isn’t moving, and there’s a lot less pressure to get to them.

Edit: Actually, most bosses let you “train” during the first stages of the fight. Several bosses become more difficult because you need to deal with all the mechanics at once.

just consider a lot of ppl doing T4 daylies without being able to play on a decent level (don’t know positioning / skills / traits / slow on using hotkeys / areal awareness /…) but on fotm it doesnt matter, because there is no mechanic at all. Just take a healer and 4 sustaining classes (drid+4nec) and you can just ignore the whole game spamming your keys 1 to 0 and in most cases if someone gets to die its still possible to solo a boss.

on a raid with “levels” ppl will end up doing highest possible lvl due to there must be most reward (elso noone would do it more than once). But here you get screwed up if two or (a bit depending on class) even one person dont know how to move his character (leaving split fields at kc too early,dont go to lightnig at vg ,…)

that been said, i’d still like the idea of old gw “hardmode”. raidwise this could be the actual version and before you can enter it, you (everyone in party!!!!) need to finish it “normal mode” first. in this case normal mode should someway teach the mechanics. Of course, this is not rly needed at all, but as a player doing a lot with pugs, this should be a great way to make shure the ppl your running with at least know the basics. For example on slot:
- poisioned area knocks you back unless slubling
- one random player gets a slubling mark and text displayed “eat mushroom” with big arrow on it and after eating a big line where he need to eat mushrooms to
- one random player gets fixation and message and signs to move the boss around
- one random player gets poision and….

ok, honestly writing all this, i’d feel myself bad needing to do such a “raid”-version first. its like a robot arm comes out your computer and pressing keys for you.

maybe just add some features on training area to play specific boss phases with instant respawn anytime and a lever to disable boss damage (dealt and/or given), so ppl who wanna learn can do it in a “save” environment.

Rising Dusk.2408:

Hypairion.9210:

Sometimes I just wish research fonction work in this forum. This subject was discussed quite à few time already, and nothing new will émerge here. There is almost no story in raids, and make several difficulty modes will be just a waste of dev ressources.

+1

A big part of what makes them able to release the content they do on the schedule they have is because there are no raid modes. If they ever added any other modes, suddenly we’d no longer be getting a reasonable pace of content and that would be the new problem of the week. I firmly believe we do not need nor should they make easier / story / other modes for raids. One mode is perfect.

Rednik.3809:

Reason is pretty simple – beginners mode is for teaching, and “this is a wipe, start again” is a pretty stupid method to teach anything. Big damage shows everyone “this ability is bad, don’t get hit, mmmkay?”. They will learn that, and will try to avoid.

So you create an entire different fight that doesn’t work like the original one. There are so many fights that you must break the breakbars of the bosses or you wipe, if you make those attacks not killing people then there is no training here, just look at the Legendary Wyverns that nobody ever breaks anymore. You think if there was a “hardcore” Wyvern that wiped everyone if you didn’t break it, that all those auto attackers would suddenly become competent and learn that is bad and break it? I seriously doubt that it would ever happen.

You talked about the mechanics of VG, I don’t know about you but the Blue trash mob before VG teaches what happens at the green circles very well. The red one teaches what the seekers do. And the green one teaches what happens if you touch the blue fields. What MORE training do you need for those mechanics?

Now you will say there are more mechanics, like the electrified floor. That’s why each phase of VG is like the previous one plus something new, they are not unique. Your “training” for VG is the trash mobs. Your “training” for the second phase of VG is the first phase of VG. And in the third phase you use your knowledge of the previous phases and add some extra to kill VG.

Vale Guardian is the BEST designed encounter in terms of difficulty and teaching. It has teaching build-in and doesn’t need anything other than that.

Rednik.3809:

And when they go to normal raid, they only need to know that all mechanics are same but more deadly, so they must pay more attention.

An “easier” Raid WOULD NEVER be used for training.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/Suggestion-Raid-Buff-Weekends/first#post6359085

Dropping this here, because it actually sounds reasonable. Many would still fail but there would be the handicap to help learn. Focus the training into specific times as it’d be easier, but not something that should take a ton of development time (hopefully) or change the mechanics just take stress off.

maddoctor.2738:

So you create an entire different fight that doesn’t work like the original one. There are so many fights that you must break the breakbars of the bosses or you wipe, if you make those attacks not killing people then there is no training here, just look at the Legendary Wyverns that nobody ever breaks anymore. You think if there was a “hardcore” Wyvern that wiped everyone if you didn’t break it, that all those auto attackers would suddenly become competent and learn that is bad and break it? I seriously doubt that it would ever happen.

There is absolutely nothing different in encounters except numbers, which are tweaked to create training environment instead of punishing one.

maddoctor.2738:

An “easier” Raid WOULD NEVER be used for training.

Because you said so? If you remember, I already said about all legendary and ascended loot removed, and without them this mode nets you less gold than any openworld farm or dungeon. There is literally no purpose except practice.

maddoctor.2738:

An “easier” Raid WOULD NEVER be used for training.

this.

Even if it would be used for training, players would have to try it multiple times weekly in order to make it worth the development time.
Players would be like “bad reward, already completed it once or twice, no need to do it more often”

The funny thing is:
Making training mode worth its costs would most likely require more training time then completing normal mode

Raids are meant to be challanging. But there is no exclusion. If you dont want to raid in its current form, its not the content to blame.

Players with enough interest will always find a way to complete normal mode.

Lord Darghaz.2314:

Raids are meant to be challanging. But there is no exclusion. If you dont want to raid in its current form, its not the content to blame.

Players with enough interest will always find a way to complete normal mode.

Yeah, this is pretty good motto for raids in 2005. Even for 2008 ones. Too bad that now is 2016.

Rednik.3809:

Lord Darghaz.2314:

Raids are meant to be challanging. But there is no exclusion. If you dont want to raid in its current form, its not the content to blame.

Players with enough interest will always find a way to complete normal mode.

Yeah, this is pretty good motto for raids in 2005. Even for 2008 ones. Too bad that now is 2016.

Because players performed better in “old days” and “new age” people cant play video games in its intended difficulty?
I guess not.

Rednik.3809:

There is absolutely nothing different in encounters except numbers, which are tweaked to create training environment instead of punishing one.

If you add numbers where they do not exist then it’s not the same encounter. Even if a skill hits you for 99.99% of your health instead of defeating you instantly then it’s not the same skill (Flamewall, World Eater etc).

Because you said so? If you remember, I already said about all legendary and ascended loot removed, and without them this mode nets you less gold than any openworld farm or dungeon. There is literally no purpose except practice.

You can practice on the actual thing, especially on bosses like VG which have training build-in to them.

I think the challenge with “tweaking numbers” is there is a fine line between making something less punishing than the current state, and actively teaching players the incorrect mechanic because the punishment is essentially removed.

For example, if you removed the instant defeat from Sabetha’s flame wall, you are actively teaching players that they can ignore it. Either by dodging through it, stacking in a spot and healing through it, etc. I would argue that makes the player WORSE than if they hadn’t done the “training mode Sabetha” at all. For some people breaking bad habits is more challenging that not learning it at all and starting from scratch the right way.

ANET may have the capabilities to determine where that line lives. But is it worth the development cost? Nobody but ANET can answer that but I personally would rather the raid team, fractal team, living story team, etc focus on making more content versus trying to fine tune an “easy mode raid” for a small subset of players.

Again, only ANET knows this, but it would not surprise me if the number of players who want to raid but don’t because they think its too hard or they don’t want to wipe constantly is smaller than both the number of players who do raid, and the number of players who don’t raid and won’t do “easy mode” either.

One thing I just thought of but haven’t really formed a strong opinion on yet is the following. What if “easy mode raid” was the exact same encounter, except that if you wiped the bosses state (aka HP, phase, etc) was maintained? This wouldn’t change the nature of the encounter at all and it could be beaten by anyone if they kept trying because the HP would slowly dwindle down. Champ bag only for loot.

Lord Darghaz.2314:

Because players performed better in “old days” and “new age” people cant play video games in its intended difficulty?

Because after that developers realized that “3% who ever seen Naxxramas” is not worth development resources, and single difficulty model was dropped.

maddoctor.2738:

If you add numbers where they do not exist then it’s not the same encounter. Even if a skill hits you for 99.99% of your health instead of defeating you instantly then it’s not the same skill (Flamewall, World Eater etc).

Only purpose of that change is to teach player to avoid dangerous mechanics without wiping the raid. Instant defeat is bad for that. Instant down may work tho.

maddoctor.2738:

You can practice on the actual thing, especially on bosses like VG which have training build-in to them.

Implementation of that “training” is quite poor and not reflecting actual situation during boss fight.

Rednik.3809:

maddoctor.2738:

You can practice on the actual thing, especially on bosses like VG which have training build-in to them.

Implementation of that “training” is quite poor and not reflecting actual situation during boss fight.

Fighting VG isn’t reflecting the actual situation during the boss fight… but fighting a nerfed VG is.

Only purpose of that change is to teach player to avoid dangerous mechanics without wiping the raid. Instant defeat is bad for that. Instant down may work tho.

There is no teaching in that other than how to abuse the mechanic and defeat it in ways irrelevant to the original one (tanking/healing instead of actually avoiding) that’s what this “nerfed” version will result into. Reading what the raid leader types (or says if on TS or similar voice communication) provides all the relevant info. Flamethrower insta-kills you, avoid it. You don’t need a less damaging version to teach you the normal version insta-kills you.

Like ButterPeanut said. Changing a Kill Mechanic to something thats just doing Damage will not teach Players how to deal with them properly. Sabetha’s Flamewall was a good Example he brought in. Players would find Ways to deal with it but not in the Way you need to deal with it in Normal Mode and it can lead to Habits detrimental for the Normal Mode.
Other Example would be the Mines on Escort ( oh and lol for trying to Nerf an Encounter thats basically a harder Version of an Event ), with your Suggetion you could defuse by the Mines by just walking into them. Just use dodges, Blocks, Distortion or other Means to it. Does it your suggestion teach Players to not run into Mines? No, it teaches them to defuse them by using some Sort of Damage Avoidance and then running into them.

Some other Suggestions doesn’t make any Sense or come from not knowing how the Encounter works and others.. well its hard enough to get 100 Derangement Stacks, for 150 you’d have to work towards it and in that case I would totally Kick that Player.

With these Suggetions, a somewhat competent Druid could heal up most of the Damage resulting in ignoring them. Not a good Way to teach People in doing the Mechanics.

Rednik.3809:

Lord Darghaz.2314:

Because players performed better in “old days” and “new age” people cant play video games in its intended difficulty?

Because after that developers realized that “3% who ever seen Naxxramas” is not worth development resources, and single difficulty model was dropped.

Oh my, again orange and apples, how hard is for you to understand that you cant compare GW2 to that??
The reason there were so little people doing naxxramas has nothing to do with how hard it was. Because you need to grind for months just to have the gear required to pass the dps/tank check, each boss you needed to grind the boss before it to gear. If it was like GW2 that you had the gear necessary the moment you hit max level ( and how popular WoW was back then) i bet you would have 50%+ of the population doing naxxramas. Even a game is super hard (like Dark soul series ) people beat/clear it the first day. WoW months to complete raids have nothing with difficulty, just artificial check that you needed to grind gears for month to beat it, and that was not fun ( see how the first raid legion on the highest difficulty had been beat on first day it was released because you already got the gear for the dps check from mysthic dungeon?)

Rednik.3809:

Lord Darghaz.2314:

Because players performed better in “old days” and “new age” people cant play video games in its intended difficulty?

Because after that developers realized that “3% who ever seen Naxxramas” is not worth development resources, and single difficulty model was dropped.

Oh sry, i didnt notice you were talking about WoW.
Let me give you a hint: requesting Naxxramas training mode will be more successful in WoW forum.
Sorry, was my fallacy to think this topic is about GW2 raids.