Guild Wars 2

Hello everyone, I would like to ask everyone who pays attention to raids what they think about them. This isn’t to complain, but put three things you like and dislike.
Good:
1. Difficulty. I feel the difficulty feels right with the need for coordination.
2. Mechanics. I like needing different groups, and that even though most call for druid they still aren’t needed, and that even a chronomancer can tank.
3 . Size, I like the physical size and the three bosses of the map.

Bad:
1. Timer. I feel adding a timer is a clutch for the developers saying" the content might not be hard enough so lets add a timer to everything".
2. Lack of trash mobs. It feels really empty and should have more mobs to kill that don’t respawn.
3. Lack of story driven events on top of the three bosses, start to finish.

Anyone have opinions? You’re voice will be heard in this thread, I know RD has property of this sub forum but I’d like to gather some feedback as well.

A bit confused…

You mentioned both difficulty and timers yet on a different sections…

Difficulty comes from timer. Without a timer, mistakes would not matter. Gear would not matter. Team communication would matter much less, class comp would not matter.

The only difficult thing about the current raid wing is that you need to kill the boss in a specific amount of time. If timers did not exist, every single guild in the game would have finished the wing in the first day, with 12 players wearing nomad gear.

Good:
1. Difficulty
2. Mechanics
3. Continuing to be updated in the future ( or so they say )

Bad:
1. gold reward could be a little better ( especially with all the food you use for a raid )
2. At least the first boss lacks any dangerous attacks you have to dodge quickly besides the blue circles. The raid bosses require organization and knowing what to do and working as a group, while fractals lack that but instead have fast attacks you have to react to very quickly ( or at least you used to before fractured 2.0 lol ). I think a combination is good, tho not always necessary.
3. reset weekly. Won’t be that big of a problem when more wings come out.

Yelloweyedemon.2860:

Difficulty comes from timer. Without a timer, mistakes would not matter. Gear would not matter. Team communication would matter much less, class comp would not matter..

I always disagree with that. Timer bring some diffulty, not all of them is coming from the timer.

Without the timer, you would still need to bring boon rip, you would still need to make a team of 4 for the lighting circle, you would still need to bring condition to kill the Red Guardian, you would still need to break is bar(or not), you would still need to push seeker out of the way, etc.

Yup the timer put more pressure on the team to bring the difficulty one step higher overall and yes it will be easier without the timer. But not every difficulty in the world come from the timer.

My list is

Good
1) Mechanics
2) Difficulty
3) The diversity between fight, which push diversity in party composition and tactics

Bad
1) Rewards? I’m not sure about this one. For now we are losing money on raid, but as we get better, this might be just fine. I reserve my judgment on that.
2) Weekly Reset? It’s not bad, but it feel too little content for a whole week. This problem won’t be a problem anymore as we get more wings and raid over time.
3) No lobby and LFG make it hard for no reason to form a pug raid group.

To be honest. I don’t find much problem with the raids themselves. It’s usually more stuff around it. A lot of different tactics start to be developped by players and some stats would be nice, but are several times more costly than other for no good reason. A lot of food are becoming popular right now, but several of them had their recipe dropped years ago with no other source in view. These recipe cost are growing higher and higher, making the price grow with it.

I have a small complaint about rewards.

Specifically to do with the magnetide shard cap. The cap is good. The problem is it caps magnetide shards on successful boss kills as well. I feel like the bonus shards from successfully completing a boss should still be granted and should be separate. So if you fail and cap at 105. You can still earn a few extra from succeeding. If you dont succeed then you only get 105 per week. This means players that actually clear the raid can get ahead of those that fail. Right now all players are rewarded almost equally regardless of success or failure. Unless you get lucky and get an ascended or unique item from the boss kills you are rewarded almost the same as someone who just farmed to fail constantly.

This kind of ruins the incentive and cuts the motivation to succeed.

I hopefully cleared up confusion.

I agree reward cap for the shards is lame.

You misunderstood me. I think the cap is necessary. But it should only apply to failed attempts. Successfull kills should reward their weekly magnetide shards on top of the cap.

And the timers are good. They are needed to push you into making sacrifises which make the content harder. They arent even hard timers. So there should be very little complaints about them if you ask me.

I like that every encounter is somehow explained on trash before. The amount of trash is also okay – it’s purpose isn’t really to just slow you down, but more likely to give you warm up and some basic understanding of mechanics.

I think there should be a little bit more pressure on healing and tanking and less on just burning through.

spoj.9672:

I have a small complaint about rewards.

Specifically to do with the magnetide shard cap. The cap is good. The problem is it caps magnetide shards on successful boss kills as well. I feel like the bonus shards from successfully completing a boss should still be granted and should be separate. So if you fail and cap at 105. You can still earn a few extra from succeeding. If you dont succeed then you only get 105 per week. This means players that actually clear the raid can get ahead of those that fail. Right now all players are rewarded almost equally regardless of success of failure. Unless you get lucky and get an ascended or unique item from the boss kills you are rewarded almost the same as someone who just farmed to fail constantly.

This kind of ruins the incentive and cuts the motivation to succeed.

Good idea.

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

spoj.9672:

I have a small complaint about rewards.

Specifically to do with the magnetide shard cap. The cap is good. The problem is it caps magnetide shards on successful boss kills as well. I feel like the bonus shards from successfully completing a boss should still be granted and should be separate. So if you fail and cap at 105. You can still earn a few extra from succeeding. If you dont succeed then you only get 105 per week. This means players that actually clear the raid can get ahead of those that fail. Right now all players are rewarded almost equally regardless of success of failure. Unless you get lucky and get an ascended or unique item from the boss kills you are rewarded almost the same as someone who just farmed to fail constantly.

This kind of ruins the incentive and cuts the motivation to succeed.

Good idea.

This, the reward for killing a boss should not count toward your cap of shards. Any subsequent kills that week however should be effected by your weekly cap.

I have nothing good to say about the raid.

My top three bad in random order…

Boring encounters.

Uninspiring design.

Dead on arrival.

Bad:
1)requires 10 people
2)gimmicky!
3)no rewards!
Good:
1)new content
2)it’s new
3)it provides new stuff to do!

Yelloweyedemon.2860:

Difficulty comes from timer. Without a timer, mistakes would not matter. Gear would not matter. Team communication would matter much less, class comp would not matter.

This is not true. On Gorseval timer doesn’t matter as much as the mechanics. You might have plenty of time left, but you’ll wipe to his one shot and this is the way they should be doing it rather than just simple numbes on clock.

Hey, Riku, if you plan to consolidate this into a report let me know what’s in it so we can coordinate.

Bad:

1) Weekly lockout thus no incentive to help other people once u’ve cleared the wing
2) The loot feels mediocre?
3) 10 people kinda hard to get during some timezones

Good:

1) Requires people to up their game to complete
2) Requires coordination rather than 1111111
3) Rewards purchasable with tokens rather than just pure RNG

Good:
1.) The difficulty (including the timer).
2.) The fact the bosses are large enough to see through all the visual clutter.
3.) The fact I can use raids to gear up my alts. As a fairy class restrictive game mode, it is good that we can gear up our alts. If everyone has a dps, condi dps, and a healer, it is much faster to fill those slots.

Bad:
1.) Stupidly restrictive ascended armor drops. RNGesus chooses the armor class and piece for you. I got a heavy chest from sabetha, needed light boots. Why are we still doing this? An ascended drop should be exciting, not disappointing.
2.) Shard cap limit. I like spoj’s idea that the cap only applies to fails and not to wins.
3.) Bad dc handling. Dc’s

The good

-Difficulty is in a good place from what I’ve seen. Vale Guardian is easy enough to pug, giving access to most of the rewards to players who don’t have guild groups, while gorseval is difficult enough that I doubt it will be pug-able for a while. I am worried that sabetha will be too easy though.

-The fights are actually fun. Dungeons have always been a “do it for the reward” activity for me. With the raid, I’ve already killed the vale guardian 5 times simply because I enjoy the fight.

-The desire for a support role. Even though I run zerker trinkets on my druid, it still feels like I’m running a “healer”. And while I love the lack of a hard-trinity, I’m so glad I can finally play a support role in pve without gimping myself and receiving rage from pugs.

The bad
-Timers. they feel like a generic no-thought way to make the encounter hard. Why not instead put more difficult mechanics so that instead of “kill it before the timer” it’s “kill it before someone makes a mistake”. Like, having to kill the spirits before gorseval finishes the world eater and consumes them is a perfect example of something you should do instead of a timer. minor screw-up? the boss gets 10% extra damage. those add up over time until it becomes too much to bear (this will also put more pressure on the tank/healer, which is something I’d like)

-This isn’t necessarily the fault of the raid, but it’s very difficult to find 10 decent players to play with. I’ve had to stay up til 5am some nights for a good group.

-Drops still being RNG. Maybe this is the lack of my mmo knowledge coming out (GW2 is basically the only mmo I’ve played) but I don’t like the idea of spending 5 hours on a boss and getting 2 blues and a green. Maybe with vale guardian tokens will be good enough due to it’s relatively low difficulty, but with gorseval/sabetha I feel that you should be guaranteed 1 of the “rare” drops (minis, unique ascended weapons, or ascended armor/weapon chests). The tokens are a good alternative, but with the cap, getting a full ascended armor set will take months, no matter how hard you try.

I only tried it once with a pug. I think it’s actually good if you were in an org group with skilled players who all know the fight and who have the gears for their roles. Those who beat it and say the fight is good and difficulty is right, I believe them.

If a casual pug will ever do it, here are some problems I observe:

1. Getting 10 people with long wait time to form the group. The fault tolerance is small, and so is the success rate. The long wait time really is the cause. It includes forming the initial party + someone quit the party when failed and you need to reform the party. Casuals want to login, play something, and out happy no waiting~

2 If you look at lfg, most lfr wants condition/healer/tank. I suspect most pve players have zerker gears only. So yeah some people simply have no gears for those groups. That reduces your chance to join a pug group who already have all zerkers filled.

But again, raid is not designed for casual. So as a casual, I am ok to bypass this content as long as legendary armor (or ascended armor with selectable stats) are obtainable from somewhere else. I am going to hang out with Taimi and see how the repair goes with Scruffy XD.

good
- “hard” content or at least harder than others^^

- need some kind of (at leas low level) coordination

- event-driven – you dont feel like skipping form boss to boss(like dungeons)

bad
- 10 ppl are rly too hard to get for a decent amount of time, also buffs should be full squad (more skill less random more different classes able to take)

- timer -for me just bad design. if ppl can not kill fast they need to better know the mechanics, if they dont, they just need to kill fast

- rewards- daily rewards are ok weekly ones are stupid. This also leads to situations, where some ppl of your guild dont wanna do a boss due to they did it before and just wanna join for next boss, so you need a random or skip bosses. Of course, this aint good teamplay skills within guild, but it happens too often nowdays…

Good
1. The mechanics are mostly really good.
2. Its challenging content that the game really needs.
3. Ghostly Infusion looks amazing and I want it.

Bad
1. RNG (like green circles) has no business being in a raid.
2. Its the first raid wing of a “casual” game, it could be more forgiving.
3. I think the non Ascended rewards could be better.

Can’t think of three things for each. but overall fun experience for me.
Good:
It is indeed challenging content that takes hours to complete
Bad:
Mechanics still not diverse enough. Overall, focus of the player buids is still pretty much dominated by sustained dps. CC is probably the only other factor that is emphasized. Many other utility, health sustain, avoiding damage, condie cleanse, burst damage are all pretty much useless.

Just thinking about it, is the raid difficulty mostly from the timer and gigantic boss health pool?

Let’s assume we also give bosses like Lupi and Mai trin 22m health and put a 7-8 minute timer. Will it be just equally challenging anyway?

Well i say one thing. It’s kind of funny how you can play “challenging group content” class that you don’t even have any idea how to play. People come raids with viper engineers and they have like couple hours of play time and they still do ok. I play revenant and i don’t even have any idea what my staff skill do. I just know that skill 5 is for breakbar. Seems to me that you don’t really need to know anything else than how to dps and dodge. Well viper engineer and glass cannon reve don’t even need to know how to dps because dmg is high even if you play like kitten. Well before second boss you need to read wiki and look what skills make soft cc.

Junkpile.7439:

Well viper engineer and glass cannon reve don’t even need to know how to dps because dmg is high even if you play like kitten

???

Good:

- PvE content that is actually hard and can not be achieved by simply being there on a map
- a more or less well balanced timer that forces people to play well
- actually giving players a reason to work on new gear or improve certain things about their characters

Bad:

- rewards being completely unproportinal to how much effort raids take compared to other well rewarded content pieces
- having a weekly reward system instead of a lockout timer (which would have been bad enough already)
- forcing you to get certain masteries

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

Junkpile.7439:

Well viper engineer and glass cannon reve don’t even need to know how to dps because dmg is high even if you play like kitten

???

Yes even bad engineer does high dps because burning it brokenly op. Sure max dps require some mad compilcated rotation, but you can just smash keyboard and still do more dps than many other classes.

Thaddeus.4891:

Yelloweyedemon.2860:

Difficulty comes from timer. Without a timer, mistakes would not matter. Gear would not matter. Team communication would matter much less, class comp would not matter..

I always disagree with that. Timer bring some diffulty, not all of them is coming from the timer.

Without the timer, you would still need to bring boon rip, you would still need to make a team of 4 for the lighting circle, you would still need to bring condition to kill the Red Guardian, you would still need to break is bar(or not), you would still need to push seeker out of the way, etc.

Yup the timer put more pressure on the team to bring the difficulty one step higher overall and yes it will be easier without the timer. But not every difficulty in the world come from the timer.

Yes, you would still need to know the tactics and yes it would have been harder than dungeons (lol), but still it would be considered very easy content and all their promises about challenging HoT content would fall apart.
You would not need ascended gear, you would not need a good class comp and mistakes would matter a whole lot less if even at all.

I’m sorry but with the current GW2 combat system, PvE content without a system that forces players to do their absolute best is not challenging.

PS: Forgot to mention that all those players who say they dislike the timer, do not realise that it existed on the game for years. You were not able to see numbers going down, but timer was the only reason why you were all wearing zerker gear, skipped 90% of the dungeon mobs, kicked necros from your groups, and wanted/demanded everyone to run meta builds.

Yelloweyedemon.2860:

Yes, you would still need to know the tactics and yes it would have been harder than dungeons (lol), but still it would be considered very easy content and all their promises about challenging HoT content would fall apart.
You would not need ascended gear, you would not need a good class comp and mistakes would matter a whole lot less if even at all.

I’m sorry but with the current GW2 combat system, PvE content without a system that forces players to do their absolute best is not challenging.

I still disagree. Before I continue, I’ll make this clear. I’m ok with the timer and I’m glad that it’s in the raid. That said, I think that there is a lot of other ways than a timer to give challenge. I make a distinction between the timer and timed task. Just like the need to dps isn’t the same thing as a dps check in the fight.

The ligthing Circle have a timer. You need to complete the task before the timer run out of you all get a bit it. I find that mechanic way more interesting than a Overall timer.

The Wall and spirit at Gorseval are dps check, and I find them way more interesing as mechanic that the overall timer that push people to bring max dps.

You see the difference? For exemple. They could have added a dps check to Vale Guardian. For exemple, the seekers each 20second are going toward the Vale Guardian and if they reach him, they boost him. So now you have a timed mechanics with the Ligting Circle and a dps check with the Seekers. You still need a dps composition to be able to do it, which push people to their best, but you don’t have a simple Timer, which to be honest is a cheap, but effective way to bring more challenge to a content.

Seriously, the timer at Gorseval don’t bring any challenge at all. It,s the dps check that do all the job. If you don’t have enough dps, he will do too many big attack for not enough updraft.

Like I said, Timer is an easy way to increase the challenge of something. But it’s not particularly inventive or smart.

Junkpile.7439:

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

Junkpile.7439:

Well viper engineer and glass cannon reve don’t even need to know how to dps because dmg is high even if you play like kitten

???

Yes even bad engineer does high dps because burning it brokenly op. Sure max dps require some mad compilcated rotation, but you can just smash keyboard and still do more dps than many other classes.

Don’t underestimate bad rotations lol

I agree with spoj about the timers. In addition to what he said, the timer plays into ANet’s stated design intent for more challenging content. They wanted, both in the raids and over-world HoT, to encourage more complete use of the game’s available mechanics. If there’s anything that dungeons taught us, it’s that generating high DPS requires both individual performance and use of the game’s team mechanics which maximize DPS potential. Dungeons also should have taught us that most teamwork mechanics can be ignored by players willing to sacrifice speed for less stress.

spoj.9672:

The problem is it caps magnetide shards on successful boss kills as well.

If they did not, i would just get my team and kill VG 4 times per hour and get rich and never need to do craft ascended stuff again.

Maybe (number here) Shards cap on failed attempts, and (indepent number here) cap for successful boss kills.

Riku.4821:

Timer. I feel adding a timer is a clutch for the developers saying" the content might not be hard enough so lets add a timer to everything".

Without a timer i would just get 10 nomads gear party and kill everything in the first try leaving my character on auto attack while i watch TV.

The timer makes people need DPS gear, and that means you need to dodge/survive, absolutely NOTHING can kill you in nomads gear on this first wing, i don’t doubt you can easily kill any enraged boss with 10 Nomads gear party.

harold.3526:

spoj.9672:

The problem is it caps magnetide shards on successful boss kills as well.

If they did not, i would just get my team and kill VG 4 times per hour and get rich and never need to do craft ascended stuff again.

Maybe (number here) Shards cap on failed attempts, and (indepent number here) cap for successful boss kills.

Guess i wasnt clear enough. The boss kill shards are rewarded from the chest. Which is on a weekly cap. But that should be separate from the 105 magnetide shard cap. So for someone who successfully beats the raid and farms it extra. They can get a total of 105 + x per weekly boss kill. I believe its 6 per boss. But im not sure. If so, that means people who are successful should be able to get 123 maximum per week instead of 105. Small difference but i think its important for people who can succeed to be rewarded better than people who just fail.

@Rising, yes I’ll be using this for a report, I’m focusing one for raids and guild halls.

The thing with the timer, yes it works, yes it makes it challenging, and yes it is rewarding to finish phase 1 with just under 7 minutes to spare.
But just like Teq, and the others, the timer is silly. It adds those things, but so could added mechanics. Ones that don’t require dos but high coordination’s.

Also for the token cap. I think they should leave the cap for failing at what it is, but don’t cap beating a boss. I understand what you mean now, spoj

Good:

• Challenging, unique fights

• New builds and roles instead of zerker/sinister only

• People need to work together (adjust builds to match the team comp/boss, communicate on TS)

Bad:

• Lack of proper LFG option
  This really needs to change. It sometimes takes hours (!) to find a group. A lot of people don’t have the time for that so they completely ignore raids.

• Timer
  It makes the fights slightly more challenging but the group usually fails because people don’t dodge or position properly. I would keep the timer but instead of being a group wipe (the reason why PuGs fall apart) it changes the rewards:
  The faster you are, the better the rewards. If you take too long you don’t get any rewards (to prevent face tanking the boss).
  This way more people could complete raids once they can play their profession properly and understand the mechanics of the fight. On the other hand it wouldn’t punish better players because they’d get better rewards. Maybe add some achievements or a leaderboard tied to the timer.

• Rewards
  What spoj.9672 said ( https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/Name-3-things-good-and-bad-about-Raids/first#post5800486 ).

Blackhat.4016:

Good:

• Challenging, unique fights

• New builds and roles instead of zerker/sinister only

• People need to work together (adjust builds to match the team comp/boss, communicate on TS)

Bad:

• Lack of proper LFG option
  This really needs to change. It sometimes takes hours (!) to find a group. A lot of people don’t have the time for that so they completely ignore raids.

• Timer
  It makes the fights slightly more challenging but the group usually fails because people don’t dodge or position properly. I would keep the timer but instead of being a group wipe (the reason why PuGs fall apart) it changes the rewards:
  The faster you are, the better the rewards. If you take too long you don’t get any rewards (to prevent face tanking the boss).
  This way more people could complete raids once they can play their profession properly and understand the mechanics of the fight. On the other hand it wouldn’t punish better players because they’d get better rewards. Maybe add some achievements or a leaderboard tied to the timer.

• Rewards
  What spoj.9672 said ( https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/Name-3-things-good-and-bad-about-Raids/first#post5800486 ).

“* Timer
It makes the fights slightly more challenging but the group usually fails because people don’t dodge or position properly. I would keep the timer but instead of being a group wipe (the reason why PuGs fall apart) it changes the rewards:
The faster you are, the better the rewards. If you take too long you don’t get any rewards (to prevent face tanking the boss).
This way more people could complete raids once they can play their profession properly and understand the mechanics of the fight. On the other hand it wouldn’t punish better players because they’d get better rewards. Maybe add some achievements or a leaderboard tied to the timer.”

Just want to address this in your post. It’s already like how you suggested it to an extent. If you fail, you still get rewards, but if you manage to beat it you get better rewards.

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

Blackhat.4016:

Good:

• Challenging, unique fights

• New builds and roles instead of zerker/sinister only

• People need to work together (adjust builds to match the team comp/boss, communicate on TS)

Bad:

• Lack of proper LFG option
  This really needs to change. It sometimes takes hours (!) to find a group. A lot of people don’t have the time for that so they completely ignore raids.

• Timer
  It makes the fights slightly more challenging but the group usually fails because people don’t dodge or position properly. I would keep the timer but instead of being a group wipe (the reason why PuGs fall apart) it changes the rewards:
  The faster you are, the better the rewards. If you take too long you don’t get any rewards (to prevent face tanking the boss).
  This way more people could complete raids once they can play their profession properly and understand the mechanics of the fight. On the other hand it wouldn’t punish better players because they’d get better rewards. Maybe add some achievements or a leaderboard tied to the timer.

• Rewards
  What spoj.9672 said ( https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/Name-3-things-good-and-bad-about-Raids/first#post5800486 ).

“* Timer
It makes the fights slightly more challenging but the group usually fails because people don’t dodge or position properly. I would keep the timer but instead of being a group wipe (the reason why PuGs fall apart) it changes the rewards:
The faster you are, the better the rewards. If you take too long you don’t get any rewards (to prevent face tanking the boss).
This way more people could complete raids once they can play their profession properly and understand the mechanics of the fight. On the other hand it wouldn’t punish better players because they’d get better rewards. Maybe add some achievements or a leaderboard tied to the timer.”

Just want to address this in your post. It’s already like how you suggested it to an extent. If you fail, you still get rewards, but if you manage to beat it you get better rewards.

Good point. Maybe I should’ve explained this a little more.

The rewards aren’t the important part when it comes to the timer (that’s why the 3rd point is “rewards”). I only mentioned it here because the changed timer shouldn’t punish better players.

The main reason why I want to change this is because there’s no progress for worse PuGs other than farming the weekly shard cap. You won’t get past certain bosses because of those timers and therefore don’t have a chance to experience the entire content/story. This would be very frustrating and give them less incentive to try the next raid. Thinking about it, they would also need to make sure those PuGs could get past the Gorseval DPS breakpoints. Otherwise they’d be stuck there too.

The entire point is to make the raid challenging but possible for a lot of players while rewarding those who do better.

Blackhat.4016:

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

Blackhat.4016:

Good:

• Challenging, unique fights

• New builds and roles instead of zerker/sinister only

• People need to work together (adjust builds to match the team comp/boss, communicate on TS)

Bad:

• Lack of proper LFG option
  This really needs to change. It sometimes takes hours (!) to find a group. A lot of people don’t have the time for that so they completely ignore raids.

• Timer
  It makes the fights slightly more challenging but the group usually fails because people don’t dodge or position properly. I would keep the timer but instead of being a group wipe (the reason why PuGs fall apart) it changes the rewards:
  The faster you are, the better the rewards. If you take too long you don’t get any rewards (to prevent face tanking the boss).
  This way more people could complete raids once they can play their profession properly and understand the mechanics of the fight. On the other hand it wouldn’t punish better players because they’d get better rewards. Maybe add some achievements or a leaderboard tied to the timer.

• Rewards
  What spoj.9672 said ( https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/Name-3-things-good-and-bad-about-Raids/first#post5800486 ).

“* Timer
It makes the fights slightly more challenging but the group usually fails because people don’t dodge or position properly. I would keep the timer but instead of being a group wipe (the reason why PuGs fall apart) it changes the rewards:
The faster you are, the better the rewards. If you take too long you don’t get any rewards (to prevent face tanking the boss).
This way more people could complete raids once they can play their profession properly and understand the mechanics of the fight. On the other hand it wouldn’t punish better players because they’d get better rewards. Maybe add some achievements or a leaderboard tied to the timer.”

Just want to address this in your post. It’s already like how you suggested it to an extent. If you fail, you still get rewards, but if you manage to beat it you get better rewards.

Good point. Maybe I should’ve explained this a little more.

The rewards aren’t the important part when it comes to the timer (that’s why the 3rd point is “rewards”). I only mentioned it here because the changed timer shouldn’t punish better players.

The main reason why I want to change this is because there’s no progress for worse PuGs other than farming the weekly shard cap. You won’t get past certain bosses because of those timers and therefore don’t have a chance to experience the entire content/story. This would be very frustrating and give them less incentive to try the next raid. Thinking about it, they would also need to make sure those PuGs could get past the Gorseval DPS breakpoints. Otherwise they’d be stuck there too.

The entire point is to make the raid challenging but possible for a lot of players while rewarding those who do better.

But that’s what fractals and dungeons are. Anyone can do them, but if you do them faster you get better rewards. Raids are supposed to be there to scratch the itch for those wanting a challenge to beat the boss rather than, how fast can we get the rewards?

Good
1) Difficulty is great. Also really glad that there’s no easy difficulty.
2) Mechanics are really fun. Great diversity in boss fights and I like how the trash works as a sort of intro to the boss mechanics.
3) Glad to see new roles in the meta. I’m especially glad to see healing as finally a worthwhile thing in GW2 now.

Bad
1) Still too much focus on berserker/sinister meta. Out of 10 people, only 2 get to play anything outside of this for any real chance at success and some groups consolidate the healer and tank to put that down to 1.
2) Top end players aren’t challenged enough. My guild is still working on the first boss, but I’d really like to see a boss out there that gives the top end guilds a lot of trouble. I think it helps player morale overall when everyone struggles with raids, even if some players are at a higher level of difficulty on them.
3) Rewards Guilds really need to get a trophy or something for their guild hall when they kill a boss.

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

Blackhat.4016:

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

Blackhat.4016:

Good:

• Challenging, unique fights

• New builds and roles instead of zerker/sinister only

• People need to work together (adjust builds to match the team comp/boss, communicate on TS)

Bad:

• Lack of proper LFG option
  This really needs to change. It sometimes takes hours (!) to find a group. A lot of people don’t have the time for that so they completely ignore raids.

• Timer
  It makes the fights slightly more challenging but the group usually fails because people don’t dodge or position properly. I would keep the timer but instead of being a group wipe (the reason why PuGs fall apart) it changes the rewards:
  The faster you are, the better the rewards. If you take too long you don’t get any rewards (to prevent face tanking the boss).
  This way more people could complete raids once they can play their profession properly and understand the mechanics of the fight. On the other hand it wouldn’t punish better players because they’d get better rewards. Maybe add some achievements or a leaderboard tied to the timer.

• Rewards
  What spoj.9672 said ( https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/Name-3-things-good-and-bad-about-Raids/first#post5800486 ).

“* Timer
It makes the fights slightly more challenging but the group usually fails because people don’t dodge or position properly. I would keep the timer but instead of being a group wipe (the reason why PuGs fall apart) it changes the rewards:
The faster you are, the better the rewards. If you take too long you don’t get any rewards (to prevent face tanking the boss).
This way more people could complete raids once they can play their profession properly and understand the mechanics of the fight. On the other hand it wouldn’t punish better players because they’d get better rewards. Maybe add some achievements or a leaderboard tied to the timer.”

Just want to address this in your post. It’s already like how you suggested it to an extent. If you fail, you still get rewards, but if you manage to beat it you get better rewards.

Good point. Maybe I should’ve explained this a little more.

The rewards aren’t the important part when it comes to the timer (that’s why the 3rd point is “rewards”). I only mentioned it here because the changed timer shouldn’t punish better players.

The main reason why I want to change this is because there’s no progress for worse PuGs other than farming the weekly shard cap. You won’t get past certain bosses because of those timers and therefore don’t have a chance to experience the entire content/story. This would be very frustrating and give them less incentive to try the next raid. Thinking about it, they would also need to make sure those PuGs could get past the Gorseval DPS breakpoints. Otherwise they’d be stuck there too.

The entire point is to make the raid challenging but possible for a lot of players while rewarding those who do better.

But that’s what fractals and dungeons are. Anyone can do them, but if you do them faster you get better rewards. Raids are supposed to be there to scratch the itch for those wanting a challenge to beat the boss rather than, how fast can we get the rewards?

Fractals and Dungeons are pretty much dead atm meaning only raids are left as endgame content. People want to play the new content and get the new rewards (and legendary armor in the long run). Besides that there won’t be any new dungeons anymore but Anet will add new raids in the future.

The changed timer would mean the bosses are still challenging since it doesn’t change the mechanics in the fight. There’s also the time limit for rewards meaning those who can’t beat the boss now don’t get the rewards. They will see other parts of the raid/story though which leads to less frustration and therefore a bigger raiding community.

To sum it up:

It doesn’t change anything for good raiding guilds, gives rewards to those who deserve them and gives worse PuGs the chance to experience the entire content. In the long run it should improve the raiding community.

Good: Red, green, blue.

Bad: Vale & his red, green, blue guys.

I though we just killed them?

Blackhat.4016:

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

Blackhat.4016:

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

Blackhat.4016:

Good:

• Challenging, unique fights

• New builds and roles instead of zerker/sinister only

• People need to work together (adjust builds to match the team comp/boss, communicate on TS)

Bad:

• Lack of proper LFG option
  This really needs to change. It sometimes takes hours (!) to find a group. A lot of people don’t have the time for that so they completely ignore raids.

• Timer
  It makes the fights slightly more challenging but the group usually fails because people don’t dodge or position properly. I would keep the timer but instead of being a group wipe (the reason why PuGs fall apart) it changes the rewards:
  The faster you are, the better the rewards. If you take too long you don’t get any rewards (to prevent face tanking the boss).
  This way more people could complete raids once they can play their profession properly and understand the mechanics of the fight. On the other hand it wouldn’t punish better players because they’d get better rewards. Maybe add some achievements or a leaderboard tied to the timer.

• Rewards
  What spoj.9672 said ( https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/Name-3-things-good-and-bad-about-Raids/first#post5800486 ).

“* Timer
It makes the fights slightly more challenging but the group usually fails because people don’t dodge or position properly. I would keep the timer but instead of being a group wipe (the reason why PuGs fall apart) it changes the rewards:
The faster you are, the better the rewards. If you take too long you don’t get any rewards (to prevent face tanking the boss).
This way more people could complete raids once they can play their profession properly and understand the mechanics of the fight. On the other hand it wouldn’t punish better players because they’d get better rewards. Maybe add some achievements or a leaderboard tied to the timer.”

Just want to address this in your post. It’s already like how you suggested it to an extent. If you fail, you still get rewards, but if you manage to beat it you get better rewards.

Good point. Maybe I should’ve explained this a little more.

The rewards aren’t the important part when it comes to the timer (that’s why the 3rd point is “rewards”). I only mentioned it here because the changed timer shouldn’t punish better players.

The main reason why I want to change this is because there’s no progress for worse PuGs other than farming the weekly shard cap. You won’t get past certain bosses because of those timers and therefore don’t have a chance to experience the entire content/story. This would be very frustrating and give them less incentive to try the next raid. Thinking about it, they would also need to make sure those PuGs could get past the Gorseval DPS breakpoints. Otherwise they’d be stuck there too.

The entire point is to make the raid challenging but possible for a lot of players while rewarding those who do better.

But that’s what fractals and dungeons are. Anyone can do them, but if you do them faster you get better rewards. Raids are supposed to be there to scratch the itch for those wanting a challenge to beat the boss rather than, how fast can we get the rewards?

Fractals and Dungeons are pretty much dead atm meaning only raids are left as endgame content. People want to play the new content and get the new rewards (and legendary armor in the long run). Besides that there won’t be any new dungeons anymore but Anet will add new raids in the future.

The changed timer would mean the bosses are still challenging since it doesn’t change the mechanics in the fight. There’s also the time limit for rewards meaning those who can’t beat the boss now don’t get the rewards. They will see other parts of the raid/story though which leads to less frustration and therefore a bigger raiding community.

To sum it up:

It doesn’t change anything for good raiding guilds, gives rewards to those who deserve them and gives worse PuGs the chance to experience the entire content. In the long run it should improve the raiding community.

I think your idea would be alright if the no rewards timer was equal to the current timers. Oh, and if the title thingy or whatever was only if you do it inside the timer and IDK if there would be anything else. And as for fractals being dead, they are in a pretty sad state but they sade they would continue to update them. And dungeons are dead, but that’s because they give not so good rewards unless you have a experienced group, but in that case those people are normally the people wanting to raid.

1. difficulty
2. different mechanics
3. can’t think of anything else

1. can’t play thief
2. can’t play thief
3. no LFG section for raid

regarding the timer – doesn’t it promote dps over tanking (zerker meta over a more attrition based playstyle)

true, you’ll want condi damage as well as direct damage, but the timer really does rule out a bunch of playstyles, and pushing it towards a viper/zerker meta isn’t much better than the old pure zerker meta.

Gray.9041:

regarding the timer – doesn’t it promote dps over tanking (zerker meta over a more attrition based playstyle)

true, you’ll want condi damage as well as direct damage, but the timer really does rule out a bunch of playstyles, and pushing it towards a viper/zerker meta isn’t much better than the old pure zerker meta.

So you make that seem like a bad thing? The game isn’t going to be 4 nomads just smashing there healing buttons randomly to beat a boss while they take like 2 damage. This is the reason why timers exist, so raids don’t become like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0anv1XswfIc

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

Gray.9041:

regarding the timer – doesn’t it promote dps over tanking (zerker meta over a more attrition based playstyle)

true, you’ll want condi damage as well as direct damage, but the timer really does rule out a bunch of playstyles, and pushing it towards a viper/zerker meta isn’t much better than the old pure zerker meta.

So you make that seem like a bad thing? The game isn’t going to be 4 nomads just smashing there healing buttons randomly to beat a boss while they take like 2 damage. This is the reason why timers exist, so raids don’t become like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0anv1XswfIc

if they can pull that off, then the defensive builds are too strong defensively. but I don’t see why a tankier setup can’t work if balanced right. if I recall, necro was designed to be an attrition-based champ. it’s a reasonable playstyle, why not allow it?

Gray.9041:

regarding the timer – doesn’t it promote dps over tanking (zerker meta over a more attrition based playstyle)

true, you’ll want condi damage as well as direct damage, but the timer really does rule out a bunch of playstyles, and pushing it towards a viper/zerker meta isn’t much better than the old pure zerker meta.

ANet set out to kill the all-berserker glass gear meta, not kill glass gear use. See, what happens is this: ANet creates instanced content that any combo of builds can complete; players use and demand all-glass gear and trivialize the content. That was/is many of the dungeon paths. It would be raids if ANet designed them to be done by any gear works parties. ANet did set out to enforce their soft trinity and it looks like they’ve come close to doing so. One arm of that trinity is damage, and if your goal is to prod players to make maximum use of all mechanics, then you need to prod them to make maximum use of the damage ones as well as everything else.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Gray.9041:

regarding the timer – doesn’t it promote dps over tanking (zerker meta over a more attrition based playstyle)

true, you’ll want condi damage as well as direct damage, but the timer really does rule out a bunch of playstyles, and pushing it towards a viper/zerker meta isn’t much better than the old pure zerker meta.

ANet set out to kill the all-berserker glass gear meta, not kill glass gear use. See, what happens is this: ANet creates instanced content that any combo of builds can complete; players use and demand all-glass gear and trivialize the content. That was/is many of the dungeon paths. It would be raids if ANet designed them to be done by any gear works parties. ANet did set out to enforce their soft trinity and it looks like they’ve come close to doing so. One arm of that trinity is damage, and if your goal is to prod players to make maximum use of all mechanics, then you need to prod them to make maximum use of the damage ones as well as everything else.

I’m not saying make content that any combo of builds can complete, just make some content that requires builds other than straight damage. the massive focus on damage is getting kinda old.

surely it’s possible to find a way to make tankier builds better in certain circumstances, or just shake things up a little.

Gray.9041:

IndigoSundown.5419:

Gray.9041:

regarding the timer – doesn’t it promote dps over tanking (zerker meta over a more attrition based playstyle)

true, you’ll want condi damage as well as direct damage, but the timer really does rule out a bunch of playstyles, and pushing it towards a viper/zerker meta isn’t much better than the old pure zerker meta.

ANet set out to kill the all-berserker glass gear meta, not kill glass gear use. See, what happens is this: ANet creates instanced content that any combo of builds can complete; players use and demand all-glass gear and trivialize the content. That was/is many of the dungeon paths. It would be raids if ANet designed them to be done by any gear works parties. ANet did set out to enforce their soft trinity and it looks like they’ve come close to doing so. One arm of that trinity is damage, and if your goal is to prod players to make maximum use of all mechanics, then you need to prod them to make maximum use of the damage ones as well as everything else.

I’m not saying make content that any combo of builds can complete, just make some content that requires builds other than straight damage. the massive focus on damage is getting kinda old.

surely it’s possible to find a way to make tankier builds better in certain circumstances, or just shake things up a little.

What would you suggest? Off-tanking? Or are you looking for an encounter where everyone wears bulky gear instead of glass? That certainly isn’t going to be a staple, and throwing in an encounter or three … well, that will spread the need to have multiple gear sets to more players. I honestly don’t get this request.

I am finding it difficult to name one thing that is good besides they added new content.
Has potential to be better and get better.

No story driven aspect.
Recycled boss skins, which in any game is a no-no.
Lack of rewards.
No looking for group tool.
feels hastily made and implemented (Because of generic skins/no story angle.)

IndigoSundown.5419:

Gray.9041:

IndigoSundown.5419:

Gray.9041:

regarding the timer – doesn’t it promote dps over tanking (zerker meta over a more attrition based playstyle)

true, you’ll want condi damage as well as direct damage, but the timer really does rule out a bunch of playstyles, and pushing it towards a viper/zerker meta isn’t much better than the old pure zerker meta.

ANet set out to kill the all-berserker glass gear meta, not kill glass gear use. See, what happens is this: ANet creates instanced content that any combo of builds can complete; players use and demand all-glass gear and trivialize the content. That was/is many of the dungeon paths. It would be raids if ANet designed them to be done by any gear works parties. ANet did set out to enforce their soft trinity and it looks like they’ve come close to doing so. One arm of that trinity is damage, and if your goal is to prod players to make maximum use of all mechanics, then you need to prod them to make maximum use of the damage ones as well as everything else.

I’m not saying make content that any combo of builds can complete, just make some content that requires builds other than straight damage. the massive focus on damage is getting kinda old.

surely it’s possible to find a way to make tankier builds better in certain circumstances, or just shake things up a little.

What would you suggest? Off-tanking? Or are you looking for an encounter where everyone wears bulky gear instead of glass? That certainly isn’t going to be a staple, and throwing in an encounter or three … well, that will spread the need to have multiple gear sets to more players. I honestly don’t get this request.

Apart from prince or persia, the last of us and few others I am finding it difficult to name a game where damage is not the main mechanic of how you progress through the game.
The core issue is more to do with how bosses operate. They never really get updated or changed, so once you are familiar with what to expect you can actively defend against it by using evades and invulnerability or blocks. When you have reached this sort of zen, berserker gear becomes the natural choice. To simply make a boss immune to physical damage and feel this is a good step towards gear diversity feels myopic. I sincerely believe the current system of making bosses unshakable etc and giving them 2-3 uber attacks should be addressed. Make bosses far more diverse, rather than adding layers of annoying mechanics to get to them and making them child like but high toughness and HP. If you look at Fractals, the anomaly boss is just straight annoying in the 60 range. Huge HP pool, can’t be knock downed etc..endless amounts of annoying pulls and mobs to get to him, annoying tasks to complete, and when you’re there you get spammed with chill, immobilise and fear constantly and it is all named ‘challenging’ when in fact it is just straight up annoying. I kinda see raids falling more into this area where the bosses are predictable with large doses of annoy factor, rather than well constructed and dynamic where you need to think on your feet because rinse-repeat tactics won’t work. It would require god like coding by anet, but they were the ones that stated they wanted to revolutionize MMO’s to the next level, and that’s how you do it. Make bosses intelligent entities, not HP gods with 2-3 mechanics that they repeat over and over again with a swarm of annoying factors.

CntrlAltDefeat.1465:

IndigoSundown.5419:

Gray.9041:

IndigoSundown.5419:

Gray.9041:

regarding the timer – doesn’t it promote dps over tanking (zerker meta over a more attrition based playstyle)

true, you’ll want condi damage as well as direct damage, but the timer really does rule out a bunch of playstyles, and pushing it towards a viper/zerker meta isn’t much better than the old pure zerker meta.

ANet set out to kill the all-berserker glass gear meta, not kill glass gear use. See, what happens is this: ANet creates instanced content that any combo of builds can complete; players use and demand all-glass gear and trivialize the content. That was/is many of the dungeon paths. It would be raids if ANet designed them to be done by any gear works parties. ANet did set out to enforce their soft trinity and it looks like they’ve come close to doing so. One arm of that trinity is damage, and if your goal is to prod players to make maximum use of all mechanics, then you need to prod them to make maximum use of the damage ones as well as everything else.

I’m not saying make content that any combo of builds can complete, just make some content that requires builds other than straight damage. the massive focus on damage is getting kinda old.

surely it’s possible to find a way to make tankier builds better in certain circumstances, or just shake things up a little.

What would you suggest? Off-tanking? Or are you looking for an encounter where everyone wears bulky gear instead of glass? That certainly isn’t going to be a staple, and throwing in an encounter or three … well, that will spread the need to have multiple gear sets to more players. I honestly don’t get this request.

Apart from prince or persia, the last of us and few others I am finding it difficult to name a game where damage is not the main mechanic of how you progress through the game.
The core issue is more to do with how bosses operate. They never really get updated or changed, so once you are familiar with what to expect you can actively defend against it by using evades and invulnerability or blocks. When you have reached this sort of zen, berserker gear becomes the natural choice. To simply make a boss immune to physical damage and feel this is a good step towards gear diversity feels myopic. I sincerely believe the current system of making bosses unshakable etc and giving them 2-3 uber attacks should be addressed. Make bosses far more diverse, rather than adding layers of annoying mechanics to get to them and making them child like but high toughness and HP. If you look at Fractals, the anomaly boss is just straight annoying in the 60 range. Huge HP pool, can’t be knock downed etc..endless amounts of annoying pulls and mobs to get to him, annoying tasks to complete, and when you’re there you get spammed with chill, immobilise and fear constantly and it is all named ‘challenging’ when in fact it is just straight up annoying. I kinda see raids falling more into this area where the bosses are predictable with large doses of annoy factor, rather than well constructed and dynamic where you need to think on your feet because rinse-repeat tactics won’t work. It would require god like coding by anet, but they were the ones that stated they wanted to revolutionize MMO’s to the next level, and that’s how you do it. Make bosses intelligent entities, not HP gods with 2-3 mechanics that they repeat over and over again with a swarm of annoying factors.

Yeah, that’s a game I’d like to play.