Guild Wars 2

CorruptEagle.1948:

Story is gated behind ls, story is gated behind dungeons, and story is gated behind raids. But why is it only raids that people get mad about having story gated behind? Just because raids are less popular?

“Raids need a Story Mode / Dungeon Mode / Solo Mode / Easy Mode / Casual Mode” No, they don’t NEED any of this. I think the definition of “need” is a bit different than what you seem to be using it for.

“expecting the other 99% of players to read it on a Wiki or go into a empty stale cleared Raid instance.”

Again, if you want to experience the lore behind raids, then the simple solution is to play raids. If you don’t want to experience the lore enough to play raids, then why do you keep complaining here about wanting to experience the lore?

I can only speak for myself here, but the difference for me is that I neither have to:
a) re-equip
b) learn through practice over and over again in a rather short time. If I fail Arah today and don´t want to do it tomorrow, I just don´t do it and let nobody down. If I abandon my raid quad, 9 other guys have to look for a quick replacement.
c) assemble the same people most of the time
d) spend hours for it
when I want to do a fractal or a dungeon.

Your point is still valid from a certain point of view, but validity is not really the question here. I pretty much guarantee you that people will rather quit than getting forced into raids by default, RPers are a really strange folk. I knew that I personally would quit if the lore of the game would be raid exclusive only or the main canon would suffer under the storyline of raids. As a RL example, I have a rather vast collection of Warhammer 40K miniatures that was quite expansiv but I stopped playing instantly when the Black Crusade came to an end and the story was stopped. Luckily Mr Stein stated that this will not be the case.

I gladly admit that I know next to nothing about programming a computer game.

But don´t you find it strange too when a team of 5 guys produces content like 3 raid wings and a much larger team only manages to churn out a few small events lately, rework a boss and rework an expansion in an admittedly major way? Is it really so implausible that some people think that raids are slowing down the process of all other content from that point of view?

I actually believe Mr Stein when he says that the raid team has no influence on the larger team but I can understand how people can also think the other way.

Yes, I can understand why people think the other way BEFORE anet comes out and says that its not the case. Once anet says this however, many people seem to just accuse anet of lying. IF you really think anet devs are lying to you like that, I think there’s much bigger issues going on than just stuff about raids.

I believe the reasons other content is taking longer is for a couple reasons: 1. the raids started being developed when HoT started being developed, while ls3 started being developed at HoT release. 2. ls3 simply takes more manpower and time

the issue of the raid’s story feeling inaccessible needs to be put to rest.
there are several things anyone can do to access it:

• raid
• post an lfg asking for someone to open a cleared raid instance
• post an lfg asking for someone to open a partially cleared raid instance
• read the wiki (and or ask for someone knowledgable to update it)

you dont actually need to kill the bosses to access the story. what you do need to do is put yourself out there in a fashion that allows you to access the story.

so stop kittening about it being inaccessible.

you are holding yourself back and you need to shift your paradigm.

Arnath.2319:

You are not punished. You just cant have everything.

Players should have the OPTION to do everything.

Right now there is no option for Raids.

There are many guild out there, that are looking for mates to raid. My own guild was one of them. We raid two hours in the evening once or twice a week. If somebody has not time, he can come along next time.
Just look for a nice guild for raiding.
If you do not have two hours per week for raiding… well, then I think it really can’t be helped.

Story is gated behind ls, story is gated behind dungeons, and story is gated behind raids. But why is it only raids that people get mad about having story gated behind? Just because raids are less popular?

Because raids are less accessible. You don’t need to find nine other people to do any of that other content. Those ten people don’t need to come in a specific configuration of classes to run that other content. Those ten people don’t have to be particularly well geared or higher skilled to run that other content.

LS can be soloed, and you can do it with minimal gear and skill. If you really struggle, picking up 1-2 skilled players can easily clear it for you. Dungeons only require 5 people, again with minimal gear and skill required. I ran CMp1 the other day with a bunch of first timers, and myself having forgotten most of what I knew about the place, and we cleared it relatively effortlessly in about a half-hour or less, even though I know we were doing bits of it inefficiently.

Basically, if you want to run that other content, you can, easy as that. If you want to run a raid, there are, no matter how much you insist on downplaying them, a great many difficulties in doing so that cause “just play the raid” an unavailable option to a lot of players.

Again, you personally never have to agree that this is the case, but it IS the case regardless of your beliefs.

BobbyStein.2315:

Siobhan.5273:

Sorry if I went OT, Bobby, I did try to bring it back to the central topic.

I understand why people are passionate about their opinions. I just want to make sure this remains a safe place for intelligent discussion. Thanks for bringing it back on topic.

I did step into the raid with my husband when it first came out and swiftly got my behind handed to me (surprise, surprise!) so this is actually good news to hear.

We wanted to experiment with the narrative design on this raid and also give folks an easy way to catch up on the story. I’m hopeful that this is a good first step.

Trust me, I know what it’s like to get destroyed repeatedly by a raid boss. I’m still learning the ropes and am looking to join a casual raiding guild. I just need to make the time!

For me, here is the problem -

It isn’t about keeping caught up on the story. It is about being part of the story – being an active participant in what happens in the gaming world.

At the same time, I understand the idea of “elite boss should equal elite challenge.” That makes sense.

But, here is where it falls apart – Three and a half years ago, you created an amazing game that took MMOs out of raid instances and into the open world. There really wasn’t an MMO out there like that at the time. The reigning champion – WOW – had some great leveling experiences in open world, but end game was all raiding (and pvp).

After years of experiencing that model, many of us were tired of it. We wanted a place where end game – and the story that went with it – included all of our friends, not just the 9 or 24 we happened to raid with (I’m saying that as someone that led hardcore end game progression raiding for 6+ years – including some world firsts). I know that is EXACTLY why I left World of Warcraft for Guild Wars 2. You were innovating and creating a fun game that was going in a different direction.

In my opinion, raiding – in its current (exclusive) format, cannot be part of the end game narrative and lore without having the game take a MASSIVE step backwards – bringing us right back to the problems that caused many of us to leave those other games in the first place.

That creates a conundrum – which I think is at the heart of why many pro-raiders have issues with posters in these threads. How do you do this while still providing content for highly skilled players to overcome? I sympathize with that issue, but I think you have taken a poor approach to solving it. The answer, imo, is to provide a range of difficulty across all content – through the use of things like fractal levels, challenge motes, hard core achievements and even scaling content. The answer is not to shut off one part of the game and say “this is where the big kids can play.”

Every part of the game should be designed with a range of players in mind. I realize this means more resources and actually getting creative as developers, but you have proven time and again that you know how to do these things.

So – raiding as “elite content” is a bad idea and lazy design (yes – LAZY), but not because there shouldn’t be elite content in the game. There should be elite challenges throughout the game – just as there should be accessibility and more casual experiences throughout the game – and (I don’t care what anyone says), that should include raids.

(and, for the record, I am leading raids successfully in the game – with two separate groups in my guild. I’m just very unhappy with the way raids are manifesting in the game)

Arnath.2319:

BobbyStein.2315:

Please keep the discussions civil and on topic. This thread isn’t for debating “Raids vs. Living World” or “easy mode” but for answering high level questions regarding how raid lore fits into the rest of the game.

Here’s a tidbit for lorehounds and non-raiders, in case you’re curious about Stronghold of the Faithful but are nervous about raiding. You can enter wing 3 and get some lore and story bits right at the beginning. Anyone in a raid squad can do it.

Would love to hear from from raiders and non-raiders after the release is live and people have had a chance to check it out. We value your constructive feedback.

Entering an empty instance to experience the lore is as fun as reading it on a Wiki page.

In no way is this even remotely acceptable.

This is a GAME, we should be playing it, i want to experience the lore in game.

Why did Arena Net stop writing those story posts? Why did the Atlas fail? Because no one likes reading about lore that we should be currently experiencing first hand in game ourselves.

Raids need a Story Mode / Dungeon Mode / Solo Mode / Easy Mode / Casual Mode, whatever you want to call it it does not matter, but there is no point creating content and gating one the greatest GW stories ever written behind Raids and then expecting the other 99% of players to read it on a Wiki or go into a empty stale cleared Raid instance.

What you’re saying is ridiculous. If you want an easy mode just ask for an easy mode. All story bits in raid instances are these notes on the ground that you can read if you wish. The actual fights won’t tell you much if anything at all. It’s as “stale” for raiders as for non-raiders going into a cleared instance, because to actually experience the story… you need to clear the instance.

Furthermore if you want to experience the content I have an easy solution for you: PLAY IT. I’ve played with a competent, good player who can only play with 1 arm and he has no problems, so why should you?

But there are Guilds out there who like to help Players to get into Raids, there are even Guilds whose Main Purpose is to train People for Raids with no LI exclusion and Raids Scheduled everyday, which People can join.

If you want to Raid without any Barrier that Players are throwing around, you should join one of the Raid Training Guilds who are out there. They get quite a few People to Raid and even enjoying it, who would have never done it if these People would have to rely on PuGs.

So yes everyone has the Option to do Raids.

The thing you need to understand, is that for a lot of players, this entire experience is something they want no part of. They don’t want to join a raiding guild, they don’t want to coordinate training runs with them, none of that, at all. They just want to be able to go in, attempt the raid, succeed at the raid on the first night, and either repeat the raid after that or never do it again, whichever appeals to them.

Trying to help players to do the raids as they currently exist is a noble goal, so long as you accept that many players do not WANT to do the raids as they currently exist, they want something different than that.

Ohoni.6057:

But there are Guilds out there who like to help Players to get into Raids, there are even Guilds whose Main Purpose is to train People for Raids with no LI exclusion and Raids Scheduled everyday, which People can join.

If you want to Raid without any Barrier that Players are throwing around, you should join one of the Raid Training Guilds who are out there. They get quite a few People to Raid and even enjoying it, who would have never done it if these People would have to rely on PuGs.

So yes everyone has the Option to do Raids.

The thing you need to understand, is that for a lot of players, this entire experience is something they want no part of. They don’t want to join a raiding guild, they don’t want to coordinate training runs with them, none of that, at all. They just want to be able to go in, attempt the raid, succeed at the raid on the first night, and either repeat the raid after that or never do it again, whichever appeals to them.

Trying to help players to do the raids as they currently exist is a noble goal, so long as you accept that many players do not WANT to do the raids as they currently exist, they want something different than that.

" They just want to be able to go in, attempt the raid, succeed at the raid on the first night, and either repeat the raid after that or never do it again, whichever appeals to them."

Content already exists for you that serves this purpose: fractals and dungeons.

" They just want to be able to go in, attempt the raid, succeed at the raid on the first night, and either repeat the raid after that or never do it again, whichever appeals to them."

Content already exists for you that serves this purpose: fractals and dungeons.

Yes, that content exists, no, that content is not the current raids. Until there is a Forsaken Thicket Dungeon or Fractal, there is absolutely no point in pointing out that Dungeons and Fractals exist.

I’m pointing out dungeons and fractals exist because you keep asking for anet to make raids like dungeons and fractals. Which is 100% pointless because dungeons and fractals already exist.

I’m pointing out dungeons and fractals exist because you keep asking for anet to make raids like dungeons and fractals. Which is 100% pointless because dungeons and fractals already exist.

Yes, but one would think that since I do keep asking, then what I’m asking for might not be what you think I’m asking for. I’m clearly NOT asking for the existing dungeons and fractals, I am aware that they exist, and they do not answer my needs.

It’s like if someone asks for a burger, and you offer them a tofu burger. And they tell you “no, I want an actual burger,” to which you reply, “no, but this has the same nutrients as a real burger and tastes similar, it’s basically the same thing, you don’t need a burger, just eat this tofu burger.” It’s not being helpful because what you’re offering is not what they actually want, even if you you there is no difference.

Your analogy is incorrect.

A correct analogy is. You ask for a burger, and complain that there is tofu burger on the menu, even though they hand you a burger.

That is what you have been asking for.

I bet all folks complaining here in this forums about being excluded from raid lore have neither watched every cutscene in all dungeon story and exploration modes nor would they read the pages laying on the ground in spirit vale & salvation pass. It’s a pretended argument.

Let’s be honest:
- You need to invest very much time to finish a collection in GW2
- You need to invest very much time to build up your asc armor to run fractal level 100
- You’ll need to invest very much time if you are following the world boss train
- You need to invest very much time to complete achievements (some of LS2 & HoT story achievements aren’t made on the fly)
- You need to invest very much time to achieve a good amount of cash (multiloot Tarir, SW, CS or FG train w/e)
and
-You need to invest very much time to go through raids till you can clear them in a comfortable amount of time

Raids aren’t even hard and yesterday, when I was watching the european championship I opened the LFG and found enough very gentle and friendly group announcements in the raid tab over hours! Only a few were neutral or offered with “exp” or a decent amount of LI.

I think the problem of complaining non-raiders lays deeper. And maybe if you don’t want to play that content for whatever reasons, don’t play it. You won’t miss anything important because it was pointed out that the lore is only there on the ground and not told by cinematics or the bosses.

Same thing for me with PvP and WvW. This stuff is not interesting or good enough for me to play it. On the other hand raids are, so I put effort into it although sometimes it is tough to find a decent group on Thursday or later. But hey, none of the above mentioned things like farming for gold are done automatically.

Also, I think a huge chung of players writing here still hasn’t realized that the story isn’t told like in dungeons. And not a single player I’ve met so far has been interested in reading the stuff although they were interested in HoT story. Raids are different, the sidestory is less important than anything else. It’s just there to not simply put boss after boss with some random events.

Your analogy is incorrect.

A correct analogy is. You ask for a burger, and complain that there is tofu burger on the menu, even though they hand you a burger.

That is what you have been asking for.

I’m very sorry. I assumed you would be able to understand the analogy without footnotes, that is entirely my fault. Allow me to provide them.

In the analogy, the “burger” would be a Forsaken Thicket map that is equivalent in difficult to a Dungeon. It would use the same maps and assets as the existing raid, but without the high organization, skill, and gearing checks.

It would obviously not be one of the existing Dungeon or Fractal maps, those would be the “tofu burger” in the analogy, something that is in some ways similar, but clearly distinctly different than what is being requested.

So no, the existing dungeons and fractals would NOT,m and I cannot repeat this often enough, would NOT be the thing that I’m asking for, and never would be. You have offered the suggestion, it has been rejected, move on or you could not pretend that you would not be trolling.

Ohoni.6057:

Your analogy is incorrect.

A correct analogy is. You ask for a burger, and complain that there is tofu burger on the menu, even though they hand you a burger.

That is what you have been asking for.

I’m very sorry. I assumed you would be able to understand the analogy without footnotes, that is entirely my fault. Allow me to provide them.

In the analogy, the “burger” would be a Forsaken Thicket map that is equivalent in difficult to a Dungeon. It would use the same maps and assets as the existing raid, but without the high organization, skill, and gearing checks.

It would obviously not be one of the existing Dungeon or Fractal maps, those would be the “tofu burger” in the analogy, something that is in some ways similar, but clearly distinctly different than what is being requested.

So no, the existing dungeons and fractals would NOT,m and I cannot repeat this often enough, would NOT be the thing that I’m asking for, and never would be. You have offered the suggestion, it has been rejected, move on or you could not pretend that you would not be trolling.

Oh so you’re saying you want a tofu burger that’s CALLED a burger.
Dude message me in game, it’ll be much easier for us to both explain our points. I think we’re talking past each other.

BobbyStein.2315:

We wanted to experiment with the narrative design on this raid and also give folks an easy way to catch up on the story. I’m hopeful that this is a good first step.

Trust me, I know what it’s like to get destroyed repeatedly by a raid boss. I’m still learning the ropes and am looking to join a casual raiding guild. I just need to make the time!

First, I cannot begin to express how much I appreciate your response and the communication, Bobby. It’s refreshing and honestly, as player that has been exceedingly frustrated as of late with that end of things, you’ve shown me some hope that just maybe, there are people listening and more important sometimes, willing to speak with us about issues we might be having with the game. Thank you for taking the time, on the weekend even, to respond to our concerns.

I have a few thoughts on this issue, but it’s super late (I was baking 8 dozen cookies and making bread pudding for hours..) and I have some catching up to do in this thread, but I did want to pop in and say I’m open minded on the issue. I’m listening to you and both sides. Ultimately, I just want to experience the story without the time requirements/gear grinds raiding has always required of me previously.

Oh so you’re saying you want a tofu burger that’s CALLED a burger.

No no, I want ground beef, fried up and put in a bun. You are offering me something different than that and calling it a burger, and I’m telling you that this is not what I asked for.

Dude message me in game, it’ll be much easier for us to both explain our points. I think we’re talking past each other.

No, I’m being perfectly clear, you are just ignoring what I am saying, and I have no interest in talking to you in-game.

I’m starting to wonder if there’s a single person complaining about raids that isn’t a Bernie Sanders fan. Anyone? Genuinely curious.

I voted Hillary, but to each his own.

Ohoni.6057:

Oh so you’re saying you want a tofu burger that’s CALLED a burger.

No no, I want ground beef, fried up and put in a bun. You are offering me something different than that and calling it a burger, and I’m telling you that this is not what I asked for.

Dude message me in game, it’ll be much easier for us to both explain our points. I think we’re talking past each other.

No, I’m being perfectly clear, you are just ignoring what I am saying, and I have no interest in talking to you in-game.

I’m starting to wonder if there’s a single person complaining about raids that isn’t a Bernie Sanders fan. Anyone? Genuinely curious.

I voted Hillary, but to each his own.

Dude I really want to have a real conversation with you but I cant keep responding to giant walls of text with many inaccuracies, if you actually want open discussion please let me use some kind of forum with you that is an instant message.

And yes you’re being clear, you want a tofu burger that is a regular burger at the same time. You want to have your cake and eat it too.

I’m not debating, I am discussing the topic in an open forum. I have no interest in convincing you of anything, and you have no interest in being convinced of anything but your own position, so I don’t see what practical purpose 1 to 1 conversation could provide. Discussing the topic in a public forum, on the other have, lays out the strengths and weaknesses of both sides, and other people can judge for themselves which side appears more reasonable.

“you have no interest in being convinced of anything but your own position” Yes I very much do. Unlike some people cough cough I am open to new ideas. Now if you want to accuse me of not being open to new ideas because your ideas haven’t caught on with me, well, your ideas are bad so that’s why.

If you want it to be in a public forum I am 110% willing to post our entire conversation here on the forum when we finish it. The practical purpose is so that we can have a real time conversation, in which both of us seem a bit more human to each other, and so that I can respond to each of your points individually, and not have to shift through a massive wall of text, and then 3 post later you make another massive wall of text with the same exact points as before which I now have to debunk a second, third, fourth time. The point of another forum is so that we don’t talk past each other, you know that I don’t understand what you mean by some of your points, and I know you don’t know what I mean, so another forum will help with that.

So again, what reason is there to not have a discussion with me? It seems you are not the one open to new ideas.

“you have no interest in being convinced of anything but your own position” Yes I very much do. Unlike some people cough cough I am open to new ideas.

Ok, then explain to me under what circumstances you would agree that players should have access to a more casual version of the Forsaken Thicket raid. NOT one of the existing Dungeons, NOT one of the existing Fractals, and NOT just “getting good” at playing the current raid, an actual altered version of the existing experience that would use the same environment and encounters, just toned down to a more casual level. That is what I am asking for, and if we are “talking past each other” then it is only because you refuse to engage on that point, and instead talk around it by suggesting solutions that I have already expressly ruled out as not being applicable.

If you’re actually willing to change your position, what would the circumstances need to be to achieve that?

The practical purpose is so that we can have a real time conversation, in which both of us seem a bit more human to each other, and so that I can respond to each of your points individually, and not have to shift through a massive wall of text, and then 3 post later you make another massive wall of text with the same exact points as before which I now have to debunk a second, third, fourth time.

If you listened the first time, I wouldn’t have to repeat myself. I don’t see that improving in chat-log format. We’ve been having pretty direct 1-1 conversation for the last few posts, and yet you appeared completely incapable of following even a very simple analogy. I won’t assume that this was deliberate on your part, but regardless of the reasons it indicates that a reasonable conversation would not be possible.

Poe’s Law, man.

BobbyStein.2315:

• Output from the raids team isn’t coming at the expense of other projects in development. Raids are made independently of Living World. We do communicate regularly with that team (and we share some resources and assets in both directions) but neither team prevents the other from doing its job.

It’s still the case though that any of your scarce development resources used to produce raid content played by only a small fraction of players .. in ALL MMOs raiders are small minorities, I see no reason to think GW2 is different .. means less content for the majority who are non-raiders; move the raid devs. to non-raid work and we’d get more non-raid content for the majority, thus this comment of yours is simply not true.

Case in point: had you not dedicated devs to the raids then no doubt LS3 could have been completed by now and played by vastly more than will ever step foot inside non-cleared raid instances!

Kraggy.4169:

BobbyStein.2315:

• Output from the raids team isn’t coming at the expense of other projects in development. Raids are made independently of Living World. We do communicate regularly with that team (and we share some resources and assets in both directions) but neither team prevents the other from doing its job.

It’s still the case though that any of your scarce development resources used to produce raid content played by only a small fraction of players .. in ALL MMOs raiders are small minorities, I see no reason to think GW2 is different .. means less content for the majority who are non-raiders; move the raid devs. to non-raid work and we’d get more non-raid content for the majority, thus this comment of yours is simply not true.

Case in point: had you not dedicated devs to the raids then no doubt LS3 could have been completed by now and played by vastly more than will ever step foot inside non-cleared raid instances!

As someone pointed out before, and since you clearly don’t understand how coding works. There is a well know Law of coding that states that after a certain point, if you add more developers to a project, the time it takes to complete becomes longer.

Ohoni.6057:

Poe’s Law, man.

I could say exactly the same about all of your posts.

I guess the main difference between us is that I’m more open to different ideas, since it doesn’t seem you want to hear ideas different from yours, just speak your own.

Kraggy.4169:

Case in point: had you not dedicated devs to the raids then no doubt LS3 could have been completed by now and played by vastly more than will ever step foot inside non-cleared raid instances!

Yes, because 5 people working full time on raids are holding back all the other remaining development teams from getting any work done in time. /sarcasm

I could say exactly the same about all of your posts.

I guess the main difference between us is that I’m more open to different ideas, since it doesn’t seem you want to hear ideas different from yours, just speak your own.

You just said that you spent half the previous discussion pretending to be a fool. That is not engaging in an honest discussion of ideas. Look, you can agree or disagree with my positions, if you don’t think there should be a casual raid then just say so, but pretending that you have a mental blindspot to the entire concept does not help anyone or anything.

Yes, because 5 people working full time on raids are holding back all the other remaining development teams from getting any work done in time. /sarcasm

To address you and Eagle’s point on this, let’s say that they intend LWs3 (or at least the amount that they intend to launch in rapid order) to consist of one additional map and a half dozen story missions. It’s a fair point to say that if you took the raid team and just dissolved them into the existing team, that might not result in that one map and six story missions coming out any faster.

However, since the raid team was capable of producing three small maps that are each the scale of 2-3 story missions (aside from the cinematic dialog sequences), it would be unreasonable to insist that if this team were not working on raids, that there is NO benefit they could have provided to the open world content of the game. If instead of creating the raids, they had focused that time on building Forsaken Thicket as an open world explorable map with various world boss encounters, then there would have been a lot more content available to non-raiding players resulting from equivalent amounts of developer time and effort.

If the argument proves true that the raid team could not possibly have sped up the existing LWs3 launch, then at the very least they could have increased the quantity of content that it would entail.

I doubt making explorable maps is the bottleneck for LW3 and more other open world content, scripting/designing large scale open world events/encounters seems much more likely, and those would take a different skill-set and design approach then the small scale and linear bosses/encounters that the raid team specialises in.

Sure, adding them might contribute, but is unlikely speed up the release of the content you crave to any meaningful degree, if the increased number of people working on it doesn’t slow it all down because more time needs to be used to coordinate.

Could we please burry the discussion about “raidteam stealing our content”?
I suppose (I might be wrong, but I doubt it) that no one of you can imagine the effort and time, that is needed to make raids or LS-stuff. There might be a big difference in there.
I’m thankfull for raids. Without them, me and most of my guild would not play GW2 at the moment. I can understand, that people, who don’t raid, can’t wait for new content (I’m waiting for it myself). But when I understand it right, this thread here is more about people, who are afraid of missing out the lore and story of the raids.

“you spent half the previous discussion pretending to be a fool.” Nononono, I spent half the previous discussion making fun of you, and by the fact that it went over your head I’d say it was a great success.

Again, that’s what Poe’s Law means, that when someone expresses a position that is incredibly foolish, one cannot assume that they are being false in that position, because there genuinely are people that foolish out there. If someone says something on the Internet, I cannot assume they’re simply trolling, particularly on a forum where trolling is expressly prohibited.

How am I pretending to have a mental blindspot? I’m literally saying that I’d rather discuss it in a more reasonable format so that we don’t talk past each other like we have been.

You kept insisting upon the idea that existing dungeons and fractals could be substituted for a casual raid, despite repeated clarifications that this would not work. After the very first response to this, you were left with two, and ONLY two reasonable responses. Either A. Agree that there should be a casual raid, or B. Disagree with that idea, but continuing to offer solutions that have already been rejected as unsatisfactory is just not moving the ball forward.

I doubt making explorable maps is the bottleneck for LW3 and more other open world content, scripting/designing large scale open world events/encounters seems much more likely, and those would take a different skill-set and design approach then the small scale and linear bosses/encounters that the raid team specialises in.

But again, if the raid team had spent the same amount of time and effort crafting content EXACTLY like the raid, but scaled to be for more casual players, then those casual players would have more content available than if those developers spent the time making raids. Again, we agree that it’s possible they could not have sped up the existing LWs3 plans, but it’s preposterous to argue that from a casual player’s perspective there couldn’t have been better uses of their time.

Ohoni.6057:

But again, if the raid team had spent the same amount of time and effort crafting content EXACTLY like the raid, but scaled to be for more casual players, then those casual players would have more content available than if those developers spent the time making raids. Again, we agree that it’s possible they could not have sped up the existing LWs3 plans, but it’s preposterous to argue that from a casual player’s perspective there couldn’t have been better uses of their time.

Ohoni, you are missing the point that the one raid that belongs to HoT hasn’t been released before the coming Tuesday. It’s like we would have had 1 HoT map every 2 months. So raiders were in the disadvantage to not having content they wanted as a whole from the start! On the contrary all the open world fans got 4 maps + fractal revamp, legendary collections and much more since the day of release.

Also, the team was hired to design raids – these were open positions people could apply for. It’s not that they took other designers out of their current jobs. Even if there is much overlapping in informatics or at least game design. Those guys are not there to give the usual vanilla content. They are specialists in what they are doing at best.

And still I don’t see any valid argument for an ease mode. Raids are not that hard. Players are not excluded from a lore like in dungeons because the raid story is not implemented to experience a storyline, it’s all about fighting the bosses and if you want, you can read the stuff on the ground which nearly nobody is doing inside.

If you folks get an easy mode, I want to have an easy mode for legendaries as well so I can craft them in maybe 30 minutes from 0 on. Or I want to have all achievements done in let’s say 10 minutes per achievement, so that I can have all other PvE, PvP and WvW achievements at the end of the next week maybe?
—> That’s the level we are moving on right now!

Ohoni, you are missing the point that the one raid that belongs to HoT hasn’t been released before the coming Tuesday. It’s like we would have had 1 HoT map every 2 months. So raiders were in the disadvantage to not having content they wanted as a whole from the start! On the contrary all the open world fans got 4 maps + fractal revamp, legendary collections and much more since the day of release.

Yes, but they could have been adding additional content over the past eight months, instead of adding the raid content that only raid players can enjoy.

Also, the team was hired to design raids – these were open positions people could apply for. It’s not that they took other designers out of their current jobs.

Were they? I assumed they were shifted from other positions. In any case, they still could have put these folks to work on more casual content, and I bet they would have knocked it out of the park.

And still I don’t see any valid argument for an ease mode. Raids are not that hard.

Frankly, you don’t get to judge. Are they not that hard for you? Maybe, and it’s fine for you to say so. Are they not that hard for me? You can have zero valid opinion on that. If I say they are too hard for me then you just have to accept that as true, and if you want to have an opinion on it, then you’re limited to whether you care that it’s too hard for me or not.

It isn’t really even difficulty that’s the major factor, at least not for me, it’s the massive inconvenience of it all. That you need a relatively large team of people who all need to be relatively good at their roles, and if any one of them screws up then chances are you have to start all over again. That may be fine by you, but it will never be fine by me, and again, you don’t get a say in that.

If you folks get an easy mode, I want to have an easy mode for legendaries as well so I can craft them in maybe 30 minutes from 0 on.

I don’t think this is a reasonable position, but you’re entitled to hold it.

Ohoni.6057:

It isn’t really even difficulty that’s the major factor, at least not for me, it’s the massive inconvenience of it all.

I don’t think this is a reasonable position, but you’re entitled to hold it.

Ohoni.6057:

Yes, but they could have been adding additional content over the past eight months, instead of adding the raid content that only raid players can enjoy.

No, they couldn’t because there was no content to be released. Raids weren’t ready at launch of HoT that is why we have seen 3 extra releases of the wings.

Ohoni.6057:

Were they? I assumed they were shifted from other positions. In any case, they still could have put these folks to work on more casual content, and I bet they would have knocked it out of the park.

Yes, they were.
http://www.pcgamer.com/arenanet-hiring-designer-for-guild-wars-2-raid-content/

And no, if you are a specialist you shouldn’t be “used” for different things. That is what you call “wasting ressources”. It’s all about business!

Ohoni.6057:

Frankly, you don’t get to judge. Are they not that hard for you? Maybe, and it’s fine for you to say so. Are they not that hard for me? You can have zero valid opinion on that. If I say they are too hard for me then you just have to accept that as true, and if you want to have an opinion on it, then you’re limited to whether you care that it’s too hard for me or not.

Ok, then maybe it’s hard for you now. But it isn’t when you learn to adapt. It’s the same thing people were arguing about Lupicus in Arah being impossible to beat while others had 0 problems, some did decent, others were struggling but get the job done after some attempts. Only the group of players that didn’t even try was still complaining but they got less and less and less. It’s so easy to whine about a problem than to make an effort to eliminate it. Same thing with real life although we are talking about a game here.
And do me a favour. Look at Arah now. Tell me: Where is the challenge? This content is faceroll and groups are only playing it for collections, some tokens or the 5g chest after 8 dungeons but the spirit and the atmosphere has gone after adding the enormous powercreep and also revamp of specializations before HoT. I seriously don’t want raids to become like that soon.

Ohoni.6057:

It isn’t really even difficulty that’s the major factor, at least not for me, it’s the massive inconvenience of it all. That you need a relatively large team of people who all need to be relatively good at their roles, and if any one of them screws up then chances are you have to start all over again. That may be fine by you, but it will never be fine by me, and again, you don’t get a say in that.

The lfg and guilds are your help. There are enough lfgs with groups only looking for 1-2 players to start. When my guild – and we are only 4 raiding ppl atm – are looking for a group we don’t need to spend much time to organize 6 more players. Also you will find enough guilds who are recruiting inexperienced players. Not even training guilds. I see more and more guilds advertising for newer players to raid although they are clearing both wings weekly. That means your overall success will be there, it is virtual guaranteed.

Ohoni.6057:

I don’t think this is a reasonable position, but you’re entitled to hold it.

It’s as reasonable as your position tbh.

actually really cool to hear that they’re adding catchup stuff at the start of the new wing

I was just reading a thread on Reddit about this issue, and this post summed things up quite nicely on why people would like to have the story and lore within the raid available to them through more than just videos, wiki’s and cleared content. I’ll quote it here:

Reddit user Happy_Wave wrote:

They want the experience of being the hero, of engaging with the content and participating in the encounter. All the things you typically do in a computer game.

People are right that the majority of the lore is gleaned from scraps of paper, and truthfully that’s almost the same as reading it on the wiki. You’re taking an interacting story telling medium like a computer game and reducing the experience to reading text.

I think that was very well put.

Siobhan.5273:

I was just reading a thread on Reddit about this issue, and this post summed things up quite nicely on why people would like to have the story and lore within the raid available to them through more than just videos, wiki’s and cleared content. I’ll quote it here:

Reddit user Happy_Wave wrote:

They want the experience of being the hero, of engaging with the content and participating in the encounter. All the things you typically do in a computer game.

People are right that the majority of the lore is gleaned from scraps of paper, and truthfully that’s almost the same as reading it on the wiki. You’re taking an interacting story telling medium like a computer game and reducing the experience to reading text.

I think that was very well put.

Yes but what you need to understand is that all of the parts not on the ground assume that the boss was difficult, and are put in there to make you feel like a kitten, trust me when I say that if you make the bosses either everything you expect to gain from them will not have the original meaning.

No, they couldn’t because there was no content to be released. Raids weren’t ready at launch of HoT that is why we have seen 3 extra releases of the wings.

But my point was, if the small team that had been working on raids, had instead not been working on raids, but had instead been working on content that was nearly identical to raids, but tuned to be for more casual players to enjoy, then every time we had gotten a raid release, we would instead have gotten a more casual-accessible release of equivalent size.

I’m not saying that this is what necessarily should have happened, I’m just pointing out how ridiculous it is to act like raid development was “free,” that there are absolutely no cost to the rest of the game. Nothing is free, everything has a cost, everything that is implemented means that something else wasn’t.

Ok, then maybe it’s hard for you now. But it isn’t when you learn to adapt.

But again, the current raid situation is not one I want to adapt to. Adapting to it would not be fun for me like it seems to be for some of you. I would prefer an alternative. Now it’s up to ANet to decide whether those who would prefer an alternative deserve to get one, but it’s still what I want, what I would enjoy most, either way.

And do me a favour. Look at Arah now. Tell me: Where is the challenge? This content is faceroll and groups are only playing it for collections, some tokens or the 5g chest after 8 dungeons but the spirit and the atmosphere has gone after adding the enormous powercreep and also revamp of specializations before HoT. I seriously don’t want raids to become like that soon.

And I do want them to become that.

Now, where I think we can compromise is that I believe that this easier version should be an alternative, that is, that those who PREFER this easier version would have it available, but that people like you who seem to prefer a more challenging version would still have that version available too, and could choose to play that version instead. To borrow your Arah example, there would be an Arah that’s as easy as the current one, and also a version that would be as hard for you today as you remember it being during launch, and you could decide which you would prefer to do.

The lfg and guilds are your help. There are enough lfgs with groups only looking for 1-2 players to start.

And again, that’s not good enough. Even with the best luck on LFG or in guilds you end up with long stetches of time wasted waiting for a full squad to form and get ready, almost inevitable wipes, restructuring after those wipes, repeat, until maybe you eventually beat it. No thank you. Not interested.

You mentioned Arah. If you can tell me with a straight face that I can log in any time of day, with whatever gear and build I have, find a raid group and complete at least one raid boss in the same time it would take me to log in on an Arah day, find an Arah party and complete one path, then maybe you’re right about it being convenient enough, but in my experience that has not been the case.

I don’t understand why people continue to argue with ohoni, He’s obviously a troll at this point, He alone creates 5+ pages on every raid thread complaining for his easy mode.

Seriously, At release of HOT a entire raid was promised, this raid was separated into 3 separate wings. So yes, our promised raid content will, since HOT release will finally be complete,(only took them 8 months?) YAY. Yet these complainer are honestly being selfish at this point, An small group of devs was hired to work on raids and they have done a wonderful job of providing hard (more medium-ish) content.

Yet here we are, with a few individuals complaining that they can’t do it. That’s simply it. A small part of developers work on raids, we know that. They were hired for raids specifically, we know that. Yet they complain. They need to put themselves past this easy mode, because the more they complain that raiders are selfish for wanting raids, they are only showing that they themselves are selfish because they want all content.

With this I will add my final point, “get good”, honestly raids are not hard. They do not take a lot of time to learn at this point as the meta, mechanics, and strats have all been learned already. You REALLY wanna par take in the raid? buy some freaken exotic berserker gear, find one of the like 4 or 5 training guilds out their (not gonna search for you)(but I have seen 2 on reddit,and LOD has training groups, etc etc). That’s it. you don’t need to be some raider to do raids.

P.S – before anyone adds ‘well it’s a casual MMO, I should get all content even if I have poor player skill/ whatever x reason’. Simple answer is actually no you don’t. This is a MMO, anet has to cater to a wide variety of players to be successful. Before hand anet thought dungeons/fractals would be hard enough. Well it wasn’t, they saw raids as the way to rectify that mistake. AND IT WORKED.

Yes, but you see, Arah is still there. That was the point of CorruptEagle if I am not mistaken. This kind of content is already there multiplied by 8 and multiplied by 3 again (except Arah, there is 1 additional path). There are also fractals that got a revamp, more levels, some other rewards as well.
And to bring that in place: Almost nobody of those fractal players are complaining about raids being too hard and that they want other stuff because fractals and dungeons are too boring for them.
Those who complain are predominantly players that don’t play fractals or dungeons. They just feel excluded from raids (although the reasons are not valid and to taken seriously) and that’s why they are complaining. They know they can play fracs and dungeons. But are they doing it? No, definitely not. It’s just that there is a thing they cannot get into easily and this hurts them.

And that’s why I am strongly against an easy mode. The challenge should stay and there shouldn’t be an alternative as raid’s reputation would decrease.

Additionally, no, nowadays you don’t need to wipe over and over again. The guides are there. 10 minutes of time to watch those, look for the right LFG – be intelligent here – and don’t join the stupid ones. Also, you don’t need to look at the ones with requirements. At weekend there are so many good groups taking randoms with them, let them experience the bosses in 3-5 wipes and then it easily works.

I spent a big amount of time in just observing the LFG this weekend while watching soccer. There were and still are dozens of friendly entries for all kind of players. A clear sign for me that elitism is very little in the scene although some try to convince us of the opposite.

Ohoni,
We understand your point. You have said the same thing for over four pages. Move the raid team elsewhere so that casuals would have gotten the release instead of raiders.

Disregarding how selfish that view is, people have pointed out how wrong you are. To summarize
1) Software development time is not additive. Reshuffling members to new teams does not lead to faster development times.
2) These are specialist member trained in raid developments. Reshuffling them would not cause other content to be magically better as their talents are specific to raids.
3) This thread itself is provided by an anet dev to highlight how the raid team was not stealing resources from other teams.
4) Raids were developed last year concurrently with HoT. Their release dates where actually delayed from their intended release date with HoT last year.

At this point Ohoni, you are a caricature of a casual player who is irrational and unwilling to hear any point of view but your own. You said so yourself. You are actively sabotaging your own viewpoints as people just ignore you for being extremely unreasonable.

I don’t understand why people continue to argue with ohoni, He’s obviously a troll at this point, He alone creates 5+ pages on every raid thread complaining for his easy mode.

Expressing earnest customer feedback until action is taken is not “trolling,” even if you disagree with the position being taken.

They need to put themselves past this easy mode, because the more they complain that raiders are selfish for wanting raids, they are only showing that they themselves are selfish because they want all content.

But we’re pushing for content that everyone can enjoy, while you’re pushing for content that only a few can enjoy. How can we possibly be the more selfish ones?

With this I will add my final point, “get good”, honestly raids are not hard. They do not take a lot of time to learn at this point as the meta, mechanics, and strats have all been learned already. You REALLY wanna par take in the raid? buy some freaken exotic berserker gear, find one of the like 4 or 5 training guilds out their (not gonna search for you)(but I have seen 2 on reddit,and LOD has training groups, etc etc). That’s it. you don’t need to be some raider to do raids.

Yeah, again, your experience is not my experience, I don’t want, your life. I explained what I do want, agree or disagree, but forever give up on the idea of bringing me over to the dark side.

Yes, but you see, Arah is still there. That was the point of CorruptEagle if I am not mistaken. This kind of content is already there multiplied by 8 and multiplied by 3 again (except Arah, there is 1 additional path). There are also fractals that got a revamp, more levels, some other rewards as well.

And if that answer were satisfactory, then why do you think people would still be complaining? Shouldn’t it be apparent that if people are complaining, it would mean that the existing options are not satisfactory?

Some of you guys seem to think that this is a “fit content A into slot B” issue, that so long as we can find [any content of appropriate difficulty] that it could serve as a substitute for a casual version of the raids. That’s nonsense. You can do whatever you want with Arah and it would not be in the slightest relevant to this conversation. What is being requested is a more casual-friendly version of the Forsaken Thicket content. Anything that is not the Fosaken Thicket content clearly has nothing to do with that.

Those who complain are predominantly players that don’t play fractals or dungeons. They just feel excluded from raids (although the reasons are not valid and to taken seriously) and that’s why they are complaining. They know they can play fracs and dungeons. But are they doing it? No, definitely not. It’s just that there is a thing they cannot get into easily and this hurts them.

Yes, exactly.

I’d like to ask people discussing the difficulty and accessibility of raids to start a new topic on the subject so we can keep this thread on track. This thread is about raid narrative and lore, after all.

With that said, thanks for coming to us with this information, Bobby. I appreciate your communication on the subject and clarifying things for people who may have been confused about how the raids fit into the overall lore of Guild Wars 2. I’m glad that my prediction of any potentially crucial lore info from raids being (re)introduced elsewhere now has dev confirmation, as this opens up a lot of possibilities should the events in any future raid(s) also affect events in the open world.

TheLilith.2849:

Oh I want dungeons to be more accessible so I can learn story of explorable paths but nobody wants me in party in my Nommad’s gear and got kicked because I don’t know where to stack or skip in Arah. I don’t have time to learn from youtube because I have 4 children and work 12h/day…

/sarcasm mode off

Even if your statement was sarcastic, ironically enough there’s actually a pretty salient argument buried deep within about dungeons being accessible. Ín my opinion dungeon story modes should be soloable because out of all the instanced group content they’ve provided the most crucial lore to GW2 experience about the adventures and eventually re-bonding of Destiny’s Edge (which includes some huge chunks of character development for each DE member; see for example Caithe finally stepping out of the shadow cast by Faolain, or Logan and Rytlock finally forgiving one another) as well as us confronting (and in a select few cases finishing off) key villains from Personal Story such as Caudecus, Kudu, Faolain and Gaheron who would’ve otherwise remained loose ends in lore.

Thankfully at least Arah story mode is soloable now so people don’t have to team up with others to finish their Personal Story if they don’t want to (as dungeon story modes in general seem to attract less people to them nowadays than explorable paths based on what I’ve seen on LFG over the past few years and even in these past few months after the most recent dungeon rewards revamp).

Because fewer players went to experience the dungeon stories, they missed not only important moments with said villains but also failed to bond with Destiny’s Edge during their trials and tribulations, which hurt the narrative on their side especially for that big payoff later in the Personal Story. Luckily the same is not the case with raid lore thanks to Bobby’s statement that any crucial information learned from raids will be delivered to players via other means in Living World season(s) and whatnot if needed, so the developers have learned their lesson about what lore to gate behind group content and what to keep more accessible to players.

TheLilith.2849:

How raid and non-raid lore will link eachother? We will see in LS3 as raid lore is brand new and there are no back-references (apart ref to GW1).

Actually there are quite a few references to Heart of Thorns, most notably its ending, in the two raid wings that we’ve seen so far. For example, a bandit journal and Squad Leader Bennett reference the fallout of Mordremoth's defeat in Dragon's Stand which agitated the spirits, and players encounter Mordremoth's lifeless vine which further solidifies the fact that Mordremoth is dead and not just faking it. This proves that the events in the raid take place after HoT story and are thus deeply linked to what happened before in the GW2 narrative.

Izithel.6853:

Yup, the only ‘lore’ you might miss by not fighting the actual bosses is some meaningless boss banter to give them some personality and vague hints at what the notes and environment proceed to explain in a crystal clear manner.

I’ve seen quite a few comments like this both here and on Reddit, and I feel I must chime in on this subject which is very dear to my heart as a player interested in Guild Wars 2 lore. I’d argue that people, who don’t play through raid content and only appear after the instance has already been cleared, do miss out on lore. There’s more lore in the raid than just the spoken exposition at the end of Salvation Pass or the written contents of the scattered journals.

The raid team delivers the narrative in many other ways as well as per Guild Wars tradition and have even invented a new, exciting way to do so which is currently exclusive to raids (I hope we’ll see them expand that great narrative concept to other group content like fractals etc. if possible). Allow me to list a few of these:

1) Interaction between raid squad members

This is arguably the most innovative thing in raids narrative-wise and of which Bobby and team should be rightfully proud as it continues from what we’ve seen with HoT when our player characters first spoke in the open world.

Basically player characters in the raid squad comment on what they’re seeing in the raid based on their race. It’s likely even affected by gender and profession as well; it was stated in a guild chat episode about raid narrative, I believe, that the team had taken into consideration making distinctions between players if a raid squad consists of, say, ten female humans as opposed to members from each race.

Sadly we’ve yet to see any recorded ambient dialogue from such “unique” party compositions; I for one would be very curious to see what the banter between, say, a squad of ten male sylvari would be like and if we’d hear the same male voice or slight alterations to tell them apart, and if Bobby and co have truly been crazy awesome enough to actually add all those variables into the dialogue triggers and how many variables actually exist in the data. Maybe that’s a job for that_shaman or other data miners to dig up all those dialogue variables unless Bobby’s kind enough to expand on the ambient dialogue concept here in this thread as I think such a great concept is worth talking about…

Having the player characters banter and make comments based on their race deepens the immersion and makes the characters, well, actual characters who are part of the world and lore of Tyria instead of being mere pixel puppets that we direct to the next objective. Not only that, but there are little touches here and there in the dialogue that further make the characters feel more alive and which people won’t get to experience if they join a cleared instance. Hearing how an asura PC reacts to, say, Slothasor compared to other races, or hearing the PC being embarrassed about being turned into a slubling during battle and telling other squad members never to mention it in discussions again provides some lighthearted moments in what is otherwise a rather dark narrative.

Unfortunately this is the one narrative thing in my list that players would miss out on even if raids were given an easier “solo mode” as I don’t think there’s any feasible way in-game to replicate the banter between player characters or all the race variables therein (e.g. ten female humans) for a single player experience.

2) Storytelling via music

Raid wings have presented us with unique tracks for the bosses which we’ve yet to encounter elsewhere in GW2. Players won’t get to hear these tracks in-game unless they go to raids. As these tracks only play during boss battles, any music lover entering a cleared raid instance will miss out on some pretty interesting musical narrative. Thankfully fans have uploaded these tracks to Youtube (I still wait for Maclaine Diemer to upload the raid tracks with official titles to Anet’s Soundcloud once/if he has the time). However, i’s not quite the same as if you hear the tracks in-game similar to how “Mordremoth” is a lot more exciting while fighting against Mordremoth than hearing it on the soundtrack out of context.

Not only that, but some of the raid tracks may even provide some musical clues similar to how Mordremoth’s Theme was teased in the “Tower of Nightmares” track all the way back in Living World Season 1. For example, the theme accompanying Vale Guardian appears to slyly reference a variation of what I’ve nicknamed the “Tyria Ascendant” motif (we hear the motif e.g. in Auric Basin in the track “Glint’s Legacy”, in sonic battle against Mordremoth’s Theme in the “Mouth of Mordremoth” where we fight for Tyria’s future, and more curiously at the end of the final cinematic of HoT story where we hear both the Tyrian motif and Mordremoth’s Theme playing side by side when something significant happens, which I believe foreshadows events to come in Season 3). The use of a variation of this motif, unless this is Diemer dropping us a musical red herring, could hint towards the Vale Guardians’ original purpose being more benevolent as we only ever hear variations of the “Tyria Ascendant” motif when it’s in relation to Glint’s (a good person) overall plan for the salvation of Tyria (Exalted, the egg, defeating Mordremoth etc.).

3) Bosses

Although the journals do provide some insight into the nature of the bosses encountered in the raid, facing the bosses themselves and keeping an eye out for visual/audio cues also provides further clues which the journals might’ve only hinted at (if at all). Here are some examples:

a) Vale Guardian

Not only the look of this boss but also the music track, as discussed above, provide hints at its origin, shedding light to the mystery of this particular bit of lore.

b) Gorseval

It’s one thing hearing about this abomination and another thing facing it and seeing just what happens when spirits merge together to protect themselves. Gorseval’s lines further give insight into this construct’s psyche and what its goals are, which are only ever hinted at in a roundabout way in the journals.

c) Sabetha and her cronies

During this fight we learn that there’s conflict between Sabetha and some of her minions, and we learn a bit more about Knuckles than the little tidbits some of the journal entries reveal elsewhere in the raid wings.

d) Slothasor

Here we get first hints at the overall connection between the raid and the current open world events. We learn that uncontrolled magic can mutate an ordinary being and turn it into an unstable hybrid monstrosity as seen with how Slothasor was an ordinary sloth which began mutating into a sort of wurm due to proximity to ley energy as seen by its offspring, the "slublings". This ties into what we see in the current ley line events if you let the event fail by allowing the dragon minions to absorb the rampant ley magic and what happens to the champion which emerges as a being called an aberration and which, if not killed within a time limit, ends up collapsing as the magic within it consumes it, which proves that beings unable to hold magic within them will not only undergo drastic physical and psychological changes but eventually perish from the burden of magic.

e) Matthias Gabrel

With Matthias we learn a few things during the fight. We learn that he's a true fanatic as he actually quotes lines spoken by a high-ranking White Mantle member from GW1 as an added bonus to GW1 veteran players, he reveals that our sacrifice will bring "Him" aka his master life, which further gives credibility to the hints we've already found in journals about the existence of this "Him" character who may or may not be Lazarus the Dire. We also see how unstable Matthias's psychology becomes as he's consumed by the magic within the Bloodstone and turns into a hulking abomination for the second phase of the fight just like we've seen happen with Slothasor in the raid and the affected dragon champions in the recent ley line events. This further links him with what happened with Randall Greyston in Arah explorable path 4 where we likewise witnessed an individual being consumed and transformed by the Bloodstone's magic.

All of the above show that a player not encountering/fighting the bosses will miss out not only on cool boss mechanics but also on some lore, some of which may play a key role in future storylines (notably the effect of rampant magic on beings unable to contain it as we’ve seen with the ley line events in the open world recently).

4) Environmental storytelling

As Daniel Dociu, Studio Art Director for Arenanet, has told us time and time again ever since the game’s launch, Guild Wars 2 thrives on what he calls environmental storytelling, i.e. using the environment to enhance the narrative and provide clues which help tie lore stuff into a larger whole. As an example of this, in the open world we have areas in Auric Basin turning more and more golden the more pylons we activate, which gives players actual visual clues of how much they’ve overcome Mordremoth’s corruption and how strong the Exalted have become.

Raids continue this trend by using the environment as a storytelling tool as the locations’ look may change significantly depending on at what point in the raid story you are. For instance, in Salvation Pass players witness strange weather phenomena and only learn gradually that it's all caused by Matthias losing control of Bloodstone magic and that the weird weather only calms down after Matthias has been slain. This kind of information isn’t available in post-battle instances when the environment appears calm, and thus players joining cleared instances miss out on this key reveal that the power of magic not only affects living beings via mutation and strengthening them to absurd levels but also changes and shapes the very environment and weather, which further gives credence to what we learned in Season 2 that too much magic being unleashed into the world without great beings like dragons balancing it will lead to Tyria's destruction, which will be one of the overarching storylines in Season 3 and beyond due to our emphasis going to Glint's child and the fallout of two Elder Dragons' deaths if we don't replace the dragons we've slain.

All of the above points (squad interaction, music, revelations during boss fights, environmental storytelling) thus contribute significantly to the raid narrative and shouldn’t be overlooked as they’re all part of a larger whole that is the raids. To get the most out of the experience lorewise and see all the narrative hints Bobby and company have seeded throughout the raid wings, players need to play through the raids or else they’ll only get a fraction of the overall experience (the stuff that people have posted about before which are journals, lore stuff at the beginning of instances, and the cinematic/NPC exposition at the end of Salvation Pass).

Ohoni,
We understand your point. You have said the same thing for over four pages. Move the raid team elsewhere so that casuals would have gotten the release instead of raiders.

Again, I’m not saying that this is what they should do, I’m just disagreeing with the idea that if they had that it wouldn’t have made a significant difference. I think it’s fine that they had the raid team developing raids for raiders, I think it’s fine that the raids exist in their current form. I just also think that ANet should invest the resources to adapt the existing raids so that they are accessible to the widest possible portion of the players.

1) Software development time is not additive. Reshuffling members to new teams does not lead to faster development times.

Agreed, and I have specifically pointed out as much.

2) These are specialist member trained in raid developments. Reshuffling them would not cause other content to be magically better as their talents are specific to raids.

This is kind of nonsense. They might be better at designing raid content than some other developers, but artists are artists, storytellers are storytellers, the only people on the raid staff who could possibly be said to be “raid specialists” would be the ones designing and balancing the mechanics of the fights themselves, and these same developers could obviously balance that content towards a more casual level if they chose to do so. It’s not like if you set them in front of a project that was not a hardcore raid they would just freeze up.

3) This thread itself is provided by an anet dev to highlight how the raid team was not stealing resources from other teams.

Right, and from a certain perspective that is true, but that perspective is not the only perspective, and from others it is not true. I agree with Mr. stein that simply shuffling the raid team into the LW team would not necessarily have sped up their existing progress on planned LWs3 content, but putting the raid team on developing their own unique content would have resulted in them creating that additional content, there is no doubt about that.

4) Raids were developed last year concurrently with HoT. Their release dates where actually delayed from their intended release date with HoT last year.

True, but not really relevant. The point is that had their time not been spent working on the raids, but rather working on additional more casual-friendly content, then that content would have been releasing on the same delayed schedule as the raids have been, and we would have had two releases of it so far and a third soon to come out. Again, I’m not saying that this is what they should have done, just that they could have, and it would have made a measurable difference, so to argue otherwise is a bit disingenuous.

At this point Ohoni, you are a caricature of a casual player who is irrational and unwilling to hear any point of view but your own. You said so yourself. You are actively sabotaging your own viewpoints as people just ignore you for being extremely unreasonable.

People who choose to ignore me are those already so burrowed into their own conflicting viewpoint that there is no real hope of changing their minds. I don’t see any alternative that would involve actually accomplishing anything.

Kossage.9072:

I’d like to ask people discussing the difficulty and accessibility of raids to start a new topic on the subject so we can keep this thread on track. This thread is about raid narrative and lore, after all.

This will be my final post on this thread until the release of wing 3, but I want to take a moment and thank you for putting forth this great post! I can see that you put some time and research in it and it is good to see that there are people that care as much for lore and how the world works in Tyria as I do! I am a university student and I am a member of a relatively big guild(more than a 100 members), but still not many of us have the time to raid. I was part of our main raiding group and we managed up until now to almost kill Gorseval, good stuff! I appreciate your post even more so because many of the things you mentioned are things I didn’t even know about because of our slow raiding progression

Again, thank you for this and I really hope that many of the arguments that have been raised will be put to rest at some point, I always had faith in ArenaNet and I believe that at some point they will manage to find a middle ground on this debate about lore and accessibility of said lore. For now I will wait to experience that first part of wing 3 and come back here to post a hopefully constructive opinion about the narrative and lore of the raids, until then cheers!

I’ve come to the conclusion that you, Ohoni, will remain angry that there is content that was made which did not cater to you and worst of all, people are actually out there enjoying it.

Remember that GW2 does not require a subscription, there is nothing stopping you from just not playing until the content that you want is released.
Just like nothing is stopping you from playing the content that is there but you your self.

ANET, who have access to all the data, have declared that Raids were a success compared to the amount of resources they put into it and no matter how many essays worth of text you put down here it won’t change their mind.
Your ignorance on how game development works is certainly not helping your case either.

BobbyStein.2315:

• If any lore information from the raids is relevant to storylines in other content, we’ll make sure that information is also available in that other content.

Here you have it lore fans! You won’t miss anything. Important things from raid will find their place in LS3. I wonder if anyone even read it before complaining about raid’s lore accesibility?

If any dev still follows this thread I would like to ask about the Greatsword, a rare drop from Vale Guardian. On the release page this GS has a mark, which looks exactly like the mark in the middle of VG’s zone. Is there any reason why the mark is no longer on the Greatsword? This symbol can’t be seen anywhere else in the raid. I wonder if it’s relevant or is it just a minor detai? From wing 2 we can learn that VG was probably created by the first white mantle members who settled in the jungle and there is someone that knows how to restore him/it. We know a lot about other bosses but VG remains a secret.