Guild Wars 2

Kossage.9072:

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.

Actually an interesting point. It’s really worth looking into how story dungeons currently operate since the main mechanical functions they provide are reward track unlocks and unlocking explorable, both things which don’t need to be done more than once.

Personally I’d think it a good move to make these modes single-player, and possibly a formal part of the personal story.

Arnath.2319:

This is still not okay, content is still being denied to 99% of the community. Until Raids are accessible to everyone this problem will never go away.

It is denied to 99% of the community? I didn’t know that only VIPs are able to join and play raids.

Arnath.2319:

They have NEVER said this. Please do not make up facts to prove a point. Early data showed us that Raids have been a failure.

Yes, they said THIS! They are more than pleased about raids.
Also you cannot use gw2efficiency as a valid statistical source because you have no data that a significant part of the playerbase is registered there. Almost all of the known persons I raided with don’t have an account. So, it’s more than questionable that your so called “data” has any value at all.

We can only speculate why you are posting wrong and untrue “facts”
but tyi:
You cannot be taken seriously as an adult if you are continuing writing stuff like that.

Once again typical Raider being abusive when they lost an argument

Apparently dismissing someone’s bullkitten is being abusive.

TheRandomGuy.7246:

If raids are a failure then why your data shows that >30% of players does them from time to time and that around 20% are regular raiders?

You mean, 20% of GW2E users killed 1 boss once for their lifetime/tried to do magnetite farm and then dropped it forever?
And again, this is gw2e users, people who able to at least find what API key is and use it. So we have statistics on minority of not absolutely clueless players, and even these players are mostly ignoring raiding.

Assic.2746:

Arnath.2319:

What data?

https://gw2efficiency.com/account/statistics

Here look at the chart first. It would be easier for you to understand if you would focus on the picture first.

For me it says:

• over 50% of the players registered on gw2 efficiency tried raiding,
• among them there are players that managed to beat a boss or they try really hard to do it (21% of the total amount of accounts),
• among them there are people who managed to beat a lot of the bosses (11% of the total amount of accounts),
• and among them there are people who beat raid bosses week after week consistently (3,5% of the total amount of accounts).

And this is the worst case scenario! Because as Neox said there might be people who had a lot of shards, but they spent it on items.

So you were saying that only 1% of players is raiding. Wrong! Over 21% of players is raiding and over 50% tried or still tries raiding (accoring to data you provided yourself). Which is quite a lot if you divide the game population by the content: WvW/PvP/General PvE (casual; story & map farming)/Fractals/Raids.

Seems pretty accesible to me.

Seconding this.

To add to this Neox and Assic not every player has an account on this site.
This can potentially lead to higher participation numbers than those we currently see.

As we are back at numbers guessing now, let me ask you a question then:
I entered a raid for about 3 times now, the second and third time already kicking and screaming and being shoved into by people, and may have spend around 12 hours or so in them.

Am I a raider now? Would I be one of the thirty percent if I had an account there?

I don´t even dispute that GW2 raids are from my point sadly more accessible than other raids and obviously popular enough to continue them. But 21% of all players seem a little bit too much and I don´t think that the registered people are a cut through the general people of GW2.

Assic.2746:

It’s not like I wrote several times:

over 50% of the players registered on gw2 efficiency tried raiding,

I used Arnath’s own data to show him that he’s misinterpreting it. It doesn’t say that only 1% of all players is raiding. It says that over 50% of players registered on gw2efficiency tried raiding and over 21% has some succeses in raiding. I proved him wrong with his own data. That’s all.

Data explicitly shows that 50% of gw2e users don’t have any shards, so your data means that you have more than 100% of them?
Numbers are not additive, people with more than 249 shards are already included in population with 89+ shards and so on.

Rednik.3809:

Assic.2746:

It’s not like I wrote several times:

over 50% of the players registered on gw2 efficiency tried raiding,

I used Arnath’s own data to show him that he’s misinterpreting it. It doesn’t say that only 1% of all players is raiding. It says that over 50% of players registered on gw2efficiency tried raiding and over 21% has some succeses in raiding. I proved him wrong with his own data. That’s all.

Data explicitly shows that 50% of gw2e users don’t have any shards, so your data means that you have more than 100% of them?
Numbers are not additive, people with more than 249 shards are already included in population with 89+ shards and so on.

You clearly have some problems with reading. It says that:

• 50% of the 100% players registered on gw2 efficiency is raiding,
• 21% of the 100% (not 21% of the 50%) players registered on gw2 efficiency is having some succeses in raiding.

No one adds any percentages. In fact I understand whant you wanted to say: 50% has no shards, 29% has less than 500 shards and 21% has 500 or more shards (in that 21%: 10% has less than a 1000 shards and 11% a 1000 or more and so on).

Assic.2746:

You clearly have some problems with reading. It says that:

• 50% of the 100% players registered on gw2 efficiency is raiding,
• 21% of the 100% (not 21% of the 50%) players registered on gw2 efficiency is having some succeses in raiding.

No one adds any percentages. In fact I understand whant you wanted to say: 50% has no shards, 29% has less than 500 shards and 21% has 500 or more shards (in that 21%: 10% has less than a 1000 shards and 11% a 1000 or more and so on).

I guess it’s clearly not me having problems with reading.

Why even complan about raids? You knew raids where coming with HoT. So why did you bought hot then if your so hard against raids? It was said with the announcements that raids where coming with HoT. The only difference is we get the raids realeased in pieces. Not all at once. There would be sooooooooo much complaining if Anet released only VB for the first 2 months and only then realesad Auric basin.

The raid team isn’t making the raids anymore. The raids where already done for the most part at the realease of HoT or at least at the release of w1. The raid team now is getting out raid specific bugs and finetuning the next raid wing frome what they experience in w1 and w2. why don’t you complain about WvW. There doing huge changes to it. population balance, new rewards tracks and so much more? why aren’t you complaining about pvp? Surely with the new league. There are some dev’s monitoring or keeping an eye on that one? No one would have complained about raids when they would have released w1, w2 and w3 at the same time.

So even if only 5% of the players play raids. If not more then 5% of the resources of Anet goes to raids then you have nothing to complain about. And as long as you don’t have a spy in Anet’s office or Anet doesn’t realease how many resources there spending on what. You cannot complain about raids taking away other content. If raids wouldn’t exist. You would still be waiting for your LS3. and you probably would complain about WvW or something else.

valheru.7891:

Why even complain about raids? You knew raids where coming with HoT. So why did you bought hot then if your so hard against raids?

I think most of them are just mad they can’t get the unique skins and other rewards from raids, not because it’s to hard but simply because they can’t be bothered to invest the time and effort into it like most other people.

The complaints about lore, accessibility and other new pve content being lacking is just a distraction from what they really want: loot.
If the PVP leagues and recent WVW changes had added ways to get more ascended or new legendary gear they would be complaining about that too, make up a bunch of excuses to hide their true intentions (from both themselves and us) and whine that everyone who disagrees with them is just an elitist trying to keep the loot to themselves.

Also sup Valheru.

Izithel.6853:

valheru.7891:

Why even complain about raids? You knew raids where coming with HoT. So why did you bought hot then if your so hard against raids?

I think most of them are just mad they can’t get the unique skins and other rewards from raids, not because it’s to hard but simply because they can’t be bothered to invest the time and effort into it like most other people.

The complaints about lore, accessibility and other new pve content being lacking is just a distraction from what they really want: loot.
If the PVP leagues and recent WVW changes had added ways to get more ascended or new legendary gear they would be complaining about that too, make up a bunch of excuses to hide their true intentions (from both themselves and us) and whine that everyone who disagrees with them is just an elitist trying to keep the loot to themselves.

Also sup Valheru.

I bought it because I bought “HoT, the expansion of GW2”, not “A Raid, featuring HoT”. If your prefered game was overall great and would get an expansion with a bitter pill at the side that you have to swallow, wouldn´t you buy it? I am sadly not one of these guys that is smart or patient enough to wait a year before things get nerfed again.

Torolan.5816:

Izithel.6853:

valheru.7891:

Why even complain about raids? You knew raids where coming with HoT. So why did you bought hot then if your so hard against raids?

I think most of them are just mad they can’t get the unique skins and other rewards from raids, not because it’s to hard but simply because they can’t be bothered to invest the time and effort into it like most other people.

The complaints about lore, accessibility and other new pve content being lacking is just a distraction from what they really want: loot.
If the PVP leagues and recent WVW changes had added ways to get more ascended or new legendary gear they would be complaining about that too, make up a bunch of excuses to hide their true intentions (from both themselves and us) and whine that everyone who disagrees with them is just an elitist trying to keep the loot to themselves.

Also sup Valheru.

I bought it because I bought “HoT, the expansion of GW2”, not “A Raid, featuring HoT”. If your prefered game was overall great and would get an expansion with a bitter pill at the side that you have to swallow, wouldn´t you buy it? I am sadly not one of these guys that is smart or patient enough to wait a year before things get nerfed again.

Try to look at it this way: As soon as Hot releases you go in verdant brink and you stay there for 3 months before you go to auric basin. So you enter auric basin in december, you do the same again so you enter tangled depths in march, you do it again so you enter Dragon stand in June. Oh wait where still june and you already have 4 maps while we have only 3 raids wings. And you have so many events and story’s in all those maps. and adventures and meta events that weren’t easy to complete at the start. In 9 months we only had 9 bosses with a minor event in between. I think that seems fair no?

When your calculating the % of players raiding how do you factor in the people buying regular runs because thats there only way to get legendary Armour. At 1000g or 2k ecto for a clear of both wings its expensive yes.But anet created a very lucrative business when they locked legendary behind raids.

BobbyStein.2315:

I just wanted to call out your thoughtful and informative post. You’re exactly right. A person can get pretty much all of the optional and supplementary lore by exploring a cleared raid instance. They will miss out on character interactions, enemy dialog, and player commentary that would be triggered during fights, however.

We try to structure the cleared raid instance experience to still convey all the most important bits of the narrative. If we’re not meeting that expectation, then we’ll have to look at ways to improve this. You’ve all given us some great feedback for consideration. Thanks for that.

I am still of the opinion that there’s nothing wrong with the story being delivered through gameplay. That’s what players that enjoy storytelling in a game expect out of it in the first place. Storytelling in gaming is not only about written text or cutscenes, it’s also about putting ourselves inside it and interacting with it. Giving the tools for people to check the lore on a cleared instance is a nice extra, but it’s as interesting as asking them to read a movie’s summary on the internet instead of downright watching the movie and experiencing it first hand, don’t you think?

The inherent flaw with storytelling in raids is that it wants to appeal to two distinct audiences. That’s why a story mode is a simple and elegant solution, and possibly better than forcing the narrative designers to sacrifice storytelling through gameplay for the sake of “lorehounds”. I know that you’re sick of this talk by now, and that there may be plenty of background problems with it (for example, the raid team may not have enough people or time to implement such a feature), but I’m just defending my position.

BobbyStein.2315:

I just wanted to call out your thoughtful and informative post. You’re exactly right. A person can get pretty much all of the optional and supplementary lore by exploring a cleared raid instance. They will miss out on character interactions, enemy dialog, and player commentary that would be triggered during fights, however.

We try to structure the cleared raid instance experience to still convey all the most important bits of the narrative. If we’re not meeting that expectation, then we’ll have to look at ways to improve this. You’ve all given us some great feedback for consideration. Thanks for that.

People want to be active participants in the story – not tourists invited in after the action is over.

Yes, raids should offer a very difficult experience, but imo, so should fractals, living story, jumping puzzles, even world bosses (using instanced fights accessed via the guild event banner scribes make) – pretty much the entire game. At the same time, those game modes should offer accessibility to those less than hardcore players as well (and so should raids).

IMO, GW2 should have taken a different approach in designing raids. Every other part of this game is innovative to the point of brilliance – showcasing your teams’ amazing brand of game design and ability to take MMOs to the next level (outside of raids, GW2 is the best designed MMO of all time, imo).

With raids, Anet chose the vanilla cookie cutter approach instead (even after dozens of people offered other options and asked for more during the CDI with Chris Whitesides), and that is, imo, sad.

I am glad you see that there is an issue here that goes deeper than just “come in after and see.” That is promising and, as always, I appreciate the high level of participation you and the team take in community outreach.

eldrin.6471:

When your calculating the % of players raiding how do you factor in the people buying regular runs because thats there only way to get legendary Armour. At 1000g or 2k ecto for a clear of both wings its expensive yes.But anet created a very lucrative business when they locked legendary behind raids.

Lolwhat. Full eternal was like 200g, full clear for 2 wings was 500, and that was shortly after wing 2 launch, when not everyone put raids on farm and price was considered too expensive.

valheru.7891:

Torolan.5816:

Izithel.6853:

valheru.7891:

Why even complain about raids? You knew raids where coming with HoT. So why did you bought hot then if your so hard against raids?

I think most of them are just mad they can’t get the unique skins and other rewards from raids, not because it’s to hard but simply because they can’t be bothered to invest the time and effort into it like most other people.

The complaints about lore, accessibility and other new pve content being lacking is just a distraction from what they really want: loot.
If the PVP leagues and recent WVW changes had added ways to get more ascended or new legendary gear they would be complaining about that too, make up a bunch of excuses to hide their true intentions (from both themselves and us) and whine that everyone who disagrees with them is just an elitist trying to keep the loot to themselves.

Also sup Valheru.

I bought it because I bought “HoT, the expansion of GW2”, not “A Raid, featuring HoT”. If your prefered game was overall great and would get an expansion with a bitter pill at the side that you have to swallow, wouldn´t you buy it? I am sadly not one of these guys that is smart or patient enough to wait a year before things get nerfed again.

Try to look at it this way: As soon as Hot releases you go in verdant brink and you stay there for 3 months before you go to auric basin. So you enter auric basin in december, you do the same again so you enter tangled depths in march, you do it again so you enter Dragon stand in June. Oh wait where still june and you already have 4 maps while we have only 3 raids wings. And you have so many events and story’s in all those maps. and adventures and meta events that weren’t easy to complete at the start. In 9 months we only had 9 bosses with a minor event in between. I think that seems fair no?

Yes, it seems fair from a pure numbers point. But how does that help me? It´s like the visit of the weird uncle at the holidays for me with raids, you just hope that he goes away soon or at least talks to some relatives he knows better than you. I mean good for you, but you basically build a roadblock into my favorite game, and I can´t lie good enough to tell people that this does not irk me.

And again, I believe Mr Stein that raids do not steal developing time from other stuff, but it is stealing lore away from me. And it also outright makes me uncomfortable in my chances of ever obtaining legendary armor, but that is another story. And I really hope Mr. Stein is going to properly adress at least the lore issue.

Rednik.3809:

eldrin.6471:

When your calculating the % of players raiding how do you factor in the people buying regular runs because thats there only way to get legendary Armour. At 1000g or 2k ecto for a clear of both wings its expensive yes.But anet created a very lucrative business when they locked legendary behind raids.

Lolwhat. Full eternal was like 200g, full clear for 2 wings was 500, and that was shortly after wing 2 launch, when not everyone put raids on farm and price was considered too expensive.

Mathis and sabitha have always been the most expensive,but if you know anyone selling full clear both wings for 500g i could save a fortune.But in reality there are very few can do all six consistently and they can charge what they like.I did get offerd a bargain once,took them 3 days to kill mathis.

DiogoSilva.7089:

BobbyStein.2315:

I just wanted to call out your thoughtful and informative post. You’re exactly right. A person can get pretty much all of the optional and supplementary lore by exploring a cleared raid instance. They will miss out on character interactions, enemy dialog, and player commentary that would be triggered during fights, however.

We try to structure the cleared raid instance experience to still convey all the most important bits of the narrative. If we’re not meeting that expectation, then we’ll have to look at ways to improve this. You’ve all given us some great feedback for consideration. Thanks for that.

I am still of the opinion that there’s nothing wrong with the story being delivered through gameplay. That’s what players that enjoy storytelling in a game expect out of it in the first place. Storytelling in gaming is not only about written text or cutscenes, it’s also about putting ourselves inside it and interacting with it. Giving the tools for people to check the lore on a cleared instance is a nice extra, but it’s as interesting as asking them to read a movie’s summary on the internet instead of downright watching the movie and experiencing it first hand, don’t you think?

The inherent flaw with storytelling in raids is that it wants to appeal to two distinct audiences. That’s why a story mode is a simple and elegant solution, and possibly better than forcing the narrative designers to sacrifice storytelling through gameplay for the sake of “lorehounds”. I know that you’re sick of this talk by now, and that there may be plenty of background problems with it (for example, the raid team may not have enough people or time to implement such a feature), but I’m just defending my position.

I do appreciate your thoughtful posts.

Still, if raiding is in the minority, then lorehounds, who are not satisfied with a completed raid instance, and who cannot beat the raid, must be even smaller.

Story modes for lore have no replay value. It’s a one and done. Seems like an incredible waste, especially when most of the lore can be gathered through a completed instance.

Torolan.5816:

Yes, it seems fair from a pure numbers point. But how does that help me? It´s like the visit of the weird uncle at the holidays for me with raids, you just hope that he goes away soon or at least talks to some relatives he knows better than you. I mean good for you, but you basically build a roadblock into my favorite game, and I can´t lie good enough to tell people that this does not irk me.

And again, I believe Mr Stein that raids do not steal developing time from other stuff, but it is stealing lore away from me. And it also outright bans me from ever obtaining legendary armor, but that is another story. And I really hope Mr. Stein is going to properly adress at least the lore issue.

I am sure you can find some friendly people in order to experience the whole raid.

Until then, if you need a group, you can contact me ingame and i will try to organize a run for you soon.

Lord Darghaz.2314:

Torolan.5816:

Yes, it seems fair from a pure numbers point. But how does that help me? It´s like the visit of the weird uncle at the holidays for me with raids, you just hope that he goes away soon or at least talks to some relatives he knows better than you. I mean good for you, but you basically build a roadblock into my favorite game, and I can´t lie good enough to tell people that this does not irk me.

And again, I believe Mr Stein that raids do not steal developing time from other stuff, but it is stealing lore away from me. And it also outright bans me from ever obtaining legendary armor, but that is another story. And I really hope Mr. Stein is going to properly adress at least the lore issue.

I am sure you can find some friendly people in order to experience the whole raid.

Until then, if you need a group, you can contact me ingame and i will try to organize a run for you soon.

I appreciate your kind offer, but no thanks. The funny thing is that I actually declined invitations to raid from guild members, but once in a few months they drag me in for training because I am probably stupid or something.^^
I simply have no interest in practice, mastering the techniques or knowing the mechanisms needed to defeat raid content, and I don´t want to be dragged through. A simple little lorebook like after the end of ls1 would actually already fill my need in this matter.

please please just give us raid story mode for lore nerds T_T don’t need any special rewards from raid, i just want to be there and not spoil the hardcore fun with my casual player level(

BobbyStein.2315:

Kossage.9072:

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).

I just wanted to call out your thoughtful and informative post. You’re exactly right. A person can get pretty much all of the optional and supplementary lore by exploring a cleared raid instance. They will miss out on character interactions, enemy dialog, and player commentary that would be triggered during fights, however.

We try to structure the cleared raid instance experience to still convey all the most important bits of the narrative. If we’re not meeting that expectation, then we’ll have to look at ways to improve this. You’ve all given us some great feedback for consideration. Thanks for that.

Entering an empty raid instance to experience lore is unacceptable, this has already been discussed numerous times. This is a game, we want to play and experience the lore.

Telling your players to enter an empty raid wing is just as bad as telling your players to go read a wiki or watch a youtube vid.

It is not fun.

I believe you would prefer it if people actually purchased and played the game? Purchased the HoT expansion?

“GW2 the MMO that there is no point in playing because it’s just as fun as reading a wiki page”

Look at Living World Season 1, why do the devs want to bring it back? Because they know that content matters, they know reading about it from a wiki, or npc is NOT fun.

Until they make Raids accessible to everyone this issue will continue to get worse.

Arnath.2319:

“GW2 the MMO that there is no point in playing because it’s just as fun as reading a wiki page”

Sorry, but GW2 has always been there since the head start. This is because there is nothing in the game that can’t be bought with gold. Gameplay is great but any sense of accomplishment is always watered down once you realized you could of just been a TP baron and done it way faster. So the fact that there is something in the game that almost gets there is nice, but you can always just buy a run through the raids for pretty cheap and you only have to do it once to get the story.

Izithel.6853:

The complaints about lore, accessibility and other new pve content being lacking is just a distraction from what they really want: loot..

Please stop. You don’t know me. I don’t know you. Please don’t presume to know what’ll make me happy. If I simply want pixel gratification (aka: loot) in this game, I know how to get it. I whip out my credit card and use it in the gem store. It’s been a good while since I’ve done that. I want the story, I want the experience. I want the immersion and the emotions and the ride of the lore!

For me, loot is not what this is about. I won’t argue and stomp and trade insults. I won’t beg and plead and “whine” either, I don’t feel I’ve done that at all. I will do what I’ve done for days though and simply not log in until there is content that interests me. I’m happy to wait until things change and if they do, great. If not, that’s okay as well. It’s really not worth slinging mud with people about made up numbers (no one has the numbers but Arena Net and they have not, and likely will not release them) and who is entitled to what content and on what terms. After all, if I’m essentially whittled down to go to the wiki or watch a video for the story, what was the point of buying the expansion? A huge part of this game is the story. If I just wait, WoodenPotatoes will release a slew of videos encompassing everything I’ll ever want to see in the game and it’ll never cost me a dime.

Arnath.2319:

BobbyStein.2315:

Kossage.9072:

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).

I just wanted to call out your thoughtful and informative post. You’re exactly right. A person can get pretty much all of the optional and supplementary lore by exploring a cleared raid instance. They will miss out on character interactions, enemy dialog, and player commentary that would be triggered during fights, however.

We try to structure the cleared raid instance experience to still convey all the most important bits of the narrative. If we’re not meeting that expectation, then we’ll have to look at ways to improve this. You’ve all given us some great feedback for consideration. Thanks for that.

Entering an empty raid instance to experience lore is unacceptable, this has already been discussed numerous times. This is a game, we want to play and experience the lore.

Telling your players to enter an empty raid wing is just as bad as telling your players to go read a wiki or watch a youtube vid.

It is not fun.

I believe you would prefer it if people actually purchased and played the game? Purchased the HoT expansion?

“GW2 the MMO that there is no point in playing because it’s just as fun as reading a wiki page”

Look at Living World Season 1, why do the devs want to bring it back? Because they know that content matters, they know reading about it from a wiki, or npc is NOT fun.

Until they make Raids accessible to everyone this issue will continue to get worse.

I don’t want to sound combative, but let’s think through what you’re asking.

Most of the lore is in the cleared instance. The only “missing” component is minor dialog during the fight and actually fighting the boss.

The thing is, you can experience that right now. Nothing is stopping you from fighting the bosses.

So you have everything you are asking for.

But instead, you want a “story mode” raid. Something that will have no replay value, will require developer resources, and cater to an extremely small segment of the population.

And this isn’t just “likes raids” small. This is a group that meets all of the following criteria:

- Dedicated enough to be interested in lore.
- Can’t beat the raid.
- Is not satisfied with a finished instance
- Is not satisfied with just fighting the boss

It seems like a very minor segment of the population with very demanding requirements. I think everything you already want is in regular mode raids — story mode is not necessary.

Absurdo.8309:

I do appreciate your thoughtful posts.

Still, if raiding is in the minority, then lorehounds, who are not satisfied with a completed raid instance, and who cannot beat the raid, must be even smaller.

Story modes for lore have no replay value. It’s a one and done. Seems like an incredible waste, especially when most of the lore can be gathered through a completed instance.

I see it more like the personal story or the living story chapters.

It’s a one time deal (unless you replay it with different characters), but it would attract the story-driven crowd (and not merely the most dedicated lorehounds, which I agree that they should be a minority – I’m talking instead about your average player that does GW2’s story instances but doesn’t exactly cares about going to the LFG asking for cleared instances) AND give those people something to do while they wait for season 3. In addition to that, it could be a gateway to make people more familiar with the raid mechanics and get them to try the harder version without getting intimidated by the idea.

Killing two birds with one stone.

EDIT:

And this isn’t just “likes raids” small. This is a group that meets all of the following criteria:

- Dedicated enough to be interested in lore.
- Can’t beat the raid.
- Is not satisfied with a finished instance
- Is not satisfied with just fighting the boss

It seems like a very minor segment of the population with very demanding requirements. I think everything you already want is in regular mode raids — story mode is not necessary.

A story mode for raids should be marketed by Anet like part of a living world chapter or anything related to that. It should appeal to everyone that enjoys completing story instances in this game.

If that wouldn’t appeal to enough players, then the concept of living story wouldn’t either.

Also, I doubt that your average non-raider is aware that raids are telling a story potentially relevant to their interests. If more people knew what it was about, then there would probably be more people demanding it, don’t you think?

Most of the lore is in the cleared instance. The only “missing” component is minor dialog during the fight and actually fighting the boss.

Most of the lore is in cleared instance, but all of the experience is in the bosses, experiencing the lore is what we want. I want to play a game, not read about it.

The thing is, you can experience that right now. Nothing is stopping you from fighting the bosses.

We have covered this already. Multiple times. In multiple threads. Over and over and over again.

But instead, you want a “story mode” raid.

I want a Dungeon Mode, exactly the same as raids except dungeon level of difficulty, doable with five players. With slower to acquire rewards or different rewards.

Something that will have no replay value.

No replay value for YOU.
Dungeons are very popular and still see lots of replay to this day.

Will require developer resources.

True, but if the smallest dev team can produce this much content in a few months, taking 1-2 devs from the expansion team (or the cancelled legendary team) to work on scaling the raids down for 5players seems very reasonable to me.

And cater to an extremely small segment of the population.

You mean… just like raids currently do?
Allowing a dungeon mode would open this content to everyone, catering to the overwhelming majority of the population.

Give the story mode its own achievement list (or share most of its achievements with the ones from normal raiding, excluding the prestigious ones), give it a one-time reward like all story instances, make it soloable but scalable like arah’s story path, and you would have something very close to your typical story instance.

It would attract:

• All players who do story instances;
• AP hunters;
• Mastery hunters;
• All players that participate in new, accessible content during patch day because it’s new (aka, the entire playerbase that enjoys living world);

And if they made it more like a dungeon path instead (repeatable), it would further appeal to:

• All dungeon players.

That’s a lot of appeal, isn’t that right?

And the epic raiding mode would still exist as it normally does, on top of all that.

DiogoSilva.7089:

Absurdo.8309:

I do appreciate your thoughtful posts.

Still, if raiding is in the minority, then lorehounds, who are not satisfied with a completed raid instance, and who cannot beat the raid, must be even smaller.

Story modes for lore have no replay value. It’s a one and done. Seems like an incredible waste, especially when most of the lore can be gathered through a completed instance.

I see it more like the personal story or the living story chapters.

It’s a one time deal (unless you replay it with different characters), but it would attract the story-driven crowd (and not merely the most dedicated lorehounds, which I agree that they should be a minority – I’m talking instead about your average player that does GW2’s story instances but doesn’t exactly cares about going to the LFG asking for cleared instances) AND give those people something to do while they wait for season 3. In addition to that, it could be a gateway to make people more familiar with the raid mechanics and get them to try the harder version without getting intimidated by the idea.

Killing two birds with one stone.

EDIT:

And this isn’t just “likes raids” small. This is a group that meets all of the following criteria:

- Dedicated enough to be interested in lore.
- Can’t beat the raid.
- Is not satisfied with a finished instance
- Is not satisfied with just fighting the boss

It seems like a very minor segment of the population with very demanding requirements. I think everything you already want is in regular mode raids — story mode is not necessary.

A story mode for raids should be marketed by Anet like part of a living world chapter or anything related to that. It should appeal to everyone that enjoys completing story instances in this game.

If that wouldn’t appeal to enough players, then the concept of living story wouldn’t either.

Also, I doubt that your average non-raider is aware that raids are telling a story potentially relevant to their interests. If more people knew what it was about, then there would probably be more people demanding it, don’t you think?

I’d rather have a dedicated season 3, than some cobbled together story mode raid.

I don’t think you would be making this argument if there was less of a content drought. And given the time it’s taking to make season 3, let’s have the raid people do raids and the story people do story.

Edit:

DiogoSilva.7089:

Give the story mode its own achievement list (or share most of its achievements with the ones from normal raiding, excluding the prestigious ones), give it a one-time reward like all story instances, make it soloable but scalable like arah’s story path, and you would have something very close to your typical story instance.

It would attract:

• All players who do story instances;
• AP hunters;
• Mastery hunters;
• All players that participate in new, accessible content during patch day because it’s new (aka, the entire playerbase that enjoys living world);

And if they made it more like a dungeon path instead (repeatable), it would further appeal to:

• All dungeon players.

That’s a lot of appeal, isn’t that right?

And the epic raiding mode would still exist as it normally does, on top of all that.

This sounds less like raids, and more a completely different game mode. That is, living story. And it sounds like they’re working on it already.

Arnath.2319:

Most of the lore is in the cleared instance. The only “missing” component is minor dialog during the fight and actually fighting the boss.

Most of the lore is in cleared instance, but all of the experience is in the bosses, experiencing the lore is what we want. I want to play a game, not read about it.

The thing is, you can experience that right now. Nothing is stopping you from fighting the bosses.

We have covered this already. Multiple times. In multiple threads. Over and over and over again.

But instead, you want a “story mode” raid.

I want a Dungeon Mode, exactly the same as raids except dungeon level of difficulty, doable with five players. With slower to acquire rewards or different rewards.

Something that will have no replay value.

No replay value for YOU.
Dungeons are very popular and still see lots of replay to this day.

Will require developer resources.

True, but if the smallest dev team can produce this much content in a few months, taking 1-2 devs from the expansion team (or the cancelled legendary team) to work on scaling the raids down for 5players seems very reasonable to me.

And cater to an extremely small segment of the population.

You mean… just like raids currently do?
Allowing a dungeon mode would open this content to everyone, catering to the overwhelming majority of the population.

It seems like you want less of a lore mode and more of a easy mode raid. Especially since fighting the bosses + finished instance seems to meet your lore criteria.

Easy mode raid is a bit off topic, and I recommend you comment in the plethora of threads on this issue. But, briefly, not all content needs to be complete-able at all skill levels, as long as there is a variety of content to choose from. There’s no easy mode arah explorable, for instance, and that has a lot more lore.

Absurdo.8309:

It seems like you want less of a lore mode and more of a easy mode raid. Especially since fighting the bosses + finished instance seems to meet your lore criteria.

Easy mode raid is a bit off topic, and I recommend you comment in the plethora of threads on this issue. But, briefly, not all content needs to be complete-able at all skill levels, as long as there is a variety of content to choose from. There’s no easy mode arah explorable, for instance, and that has a lot more lore.

Lore mode is easier mode, i seem them exactly the same. There is no reason to make raids soloable. There is no reason to turn raids into a living story instance, or story mode instance like dungeons have.

My problem with raids are both locking out content to players AND locking out lore to players.

Not all content needs to be completed by players, but all players should have the option to complete the content. Raids are currently the only game mode that lock players out for multiple reasons.

You don’t need an easy mode Arah because it is already at an acceptable accessible level. It is easy to get five players together and clear it within a reasonable time.

The idea that players can be part of the story of raids by watching a video, entering a cleared instance or reading a few lines of text is a bit ridiculous.

Players want to experience the game, not watch it from the outside in. At launch, Anet understood this very well – one of the first things every player got to hear their character say was “this is MY story.” And, then, the gameplay and amazing innovation the developers gave us backed that up.

In my opinion, at some point between launch and the current game, that core game ideal has been lost – or at least muddied a little. The development goals seems to be more focused on bringing different kinds of players into the game than on making sure every player gets the best story telling experience possible.

Raids. Living Story. Open World Maps. Fractals. Dynamic Events. Guild Missions. All of these can come together to help the developers tell some pretty amazing stories. And they can all include a range of experiences and difficulties without excluding anyone.

There are ways to design raids that offer both the elite difficulty experience some players really want while still offering a unique experience to the more casual player. This is something many of us have been asking for since the first time a developer mentioned the word raid on these forums (one of the most requested features during the CDI with Chris Whitesides was variable or scaling difficulty – and was even something he promised us would be – at minimum – discussed before raiding became a reality).

Offering a mea culpa of “you can go into a cleared instance” as a tourist after the fact is a poor solution that only illustrates the need for a less intensive raiding experience more than ever.

Arnath.2319:

Most of the lore is in cleared instance, but all of the experience is in the bosses, experiencing the lore is what we want. I want to play a game, not read about it.

Yes but here your talking about experience not lore. And even when not defeating boss 1 you can still be fighting boss 2. Try to find a training run and have a decent build and you have the experience.

Arnath.2319:

I want a Dungeon Mode, exactly the same as raids except dungeon level of difficulty, doable with five players. With slower to acquire rewards or different rewards.

Let’s leave it at LOOOOOOOOOOT!!!!!!!!!

Arnath.2319:

True, but if the smallest dev team can produce this much content in a few months, taking 1-2 devs from the expansion team (or the cancelled legendary team) to work on scaling the raids down for 5players seems very reasonable to me.

There is no small dev team creating this much content in a few months. There is a small dev team fine tuning already existing content to before they release it to the player base

and sometimes more isn’t better. compare creating content with moving a table. The weight of the table is the difficulty or the amount of work to be done. You can carry a small table with 2 persons. But maybe the table is a bit to heavy to carry around with 2 people. So you take 4 people. 4 people will maybe easy carry the table and communicating is going very good because your only with 4 people. Now if you can carry it with 4. Why don’t you take 8 people. Well if the the table isn’t that big. Sure the weight of the table isn’t going to be any problem. But moving around will still be. Because your uncomfortably close to eachother and you need much more coördiantion to move around. So in this case 4 people is better then 8. I’m not sure if this is comparable. But that’s how i think it is to compare to something as easy as that. People with experience in programming games or making content can wrong me. If you don’t have experience then keep silent.

Arnath.2319:

My problem with raids are both locking out content to players AND locking out lore to players.

Their you have it. I think the only valid reason to complain. Not about the bosses being to hard but about some of the rewards. imo viper asc trinkets and other HoT stats should be acquirable through other means as raids. Maybe lock it behind some LS3 achievements (difficult ones because these are strong stats) About lore. again There is almost no lore in fighting the bosses except in experiencing the boss fight. everyone can experience this by having a geared up character and joining traing runs. The rest of the lore is laying on the ground or is worked into the enviroment. So actually every bit of lore is accesable if you want to make an effort if you don’t want to make an effort then let’s explain it with an example.

Arnath.2319:

You don’t need an easy mode Arah because it is already at an acceptable accessible level. It is easy to get five players together and clear it within a reasonable time.

so arah story has an easy mode to be able to do it solo. But the exp paths don’t. If you don’t have friends that can join you but you still want to experience and exp path of arah you need to look for people. But you don’t want to do it with pugs. You want to be able to experience it alone (Someone already noticing some similarity’s?) Then some people will say but arah exp paths are soloable to. But then you need to invest in the right build. You need to invest to look up how everything works and how you can solo arah. Then you need to try it over and over again to finetune your methods. I think your seeing similarity’s no?

And there are other examples. What if i don’t like open world content? But i want to experience the breach of tarir? I need to be extremely lucky or use lfg to get in a good instance to be able to complete the mission? But i don’t want to do it with other people. I want to do it alone! should their be a story instance of the meta event of tarir? no people are going to say. its open world content deal with it that you need a groop. We can say exactly the same. And triple trouble wurm is an even better example. you need an organised groop to be able to do it. Yes the gw2 community on europe does it every day. But then I need to go on ts. Then i need to do a jump to the map. Then i need to be lucky to even get in the map or get lucky that their is still some space left to taxi in the map. All things that recquire preparation to. so what if I don’t want to do this kind of preparation? Should their be a story mode for triple trouble wurm because i want to experience triple trouble wurm? of should I try to do the events with the few people on the map and be happy with failing? If your going to make a story mode for 1 game mode. You need to do it for other to. if your taking things really extreme. why not make a story instance of pvp and WvW? Yes I’m driving this extreme. But if you do it for 1 game mode. Why not for another one too?

Arnath.2319:

Lore mode is easier mode, i seem them exactly the same. There is no reason to make raids soloable. There is no reason to turn raids into a living story instance, or story mode instance like dungeons have.

My problem with raids are both locking out content to players AND locking out lore to players.

Not all content needs to be completed by players, but all players should have the option to complete the content. Raids are currently the only game mode that lock players out for multiple reasons.

You don’t need an easy mode Arah because it is already at an acceptable accessible level. It is easy to get five players together and clear it within a reasonable time.

There is nothing that stops you from entering and completing the raid.
What are the ‘multiple’ reasons aside from ‘I don’t want to commit that much time to complete it’?
That’s not meant to be rude. It is a completly fine argument. But don’t expect any sympathy from raiders with it. You can clear the wings in 45-60min each with experience. You just take longer to clear it if you play raids for 1-2h 1-2 times a week.
If you don’t care about rewards you can also only play one wing each week. 2-4h is enough to learn the encounter and complete a wing a week.

It took over a year if not years for Arah to be that PUG friendly it is now. I have the feeling most players that complain now weren’t here at release.

A 5 man lore-mode with the same rewards as a dungeon story mode would be played once by players while you have to redesign all bosses. Not worth the ressources.

99% of the contents offered from gw2 are 111111fwin!!11! casual friendly.

Raid represent less than 1% of the contents offered from gw2 and they bring fun to that 15% of players that actually feel bored of having just 111111fwin!!11! casual friendly content in pve.

I do not get why in this world having less than 1% of the content of gw2 designed for a specific 15% of players have be an issue.

I feel like players complaining are drama child queens, because there’s no rational reason in “asking to give up over a content because you don’t like it”.

I hope anet to use properly their stats because when people take into account % of people doing an x content, it’s also important to take into consideration how many times that % of people repeat that specific content.

Here is were raid shine and ls start to fade out.

Ls is a content with higher % of player doing it but after you done the achie in it and you helped friends a couple of time, people never do it again and start crying for some more ls.

Raid instead are enjoyed from a lower % of people but that % of people repeat them every week since months. Basically raid are, on their own, the loggin reason for that 10%-15% of people to keep loggin into this game.

Remove them and you are likely goin to lose a huge part of that playerbase (7%. 10%?) because the game don’t offer any other similar kind of content for them.

I know dev already told ls and raid are splitted in different teams and that they are not stealing resources each other. And i know it’s true. And i like both contents.

But people complaining here about raid don’t listen at anything rational, they are like in a middle age witches hunting where the witches are raids.

So it’s better to remark it, 1 more time, don’t listen cryers anet, pls. Give them the ls they want but pls, also, give us raids, so everyone is happy, thx

And for those others who just can’t be satisfated of playing the contents they like, but they pretend to remove\change the single content, like raid, enjoyed from other peoples.. Well Grow up.

First, let’s leave the personal attacks and insults out of this discussion. Forums are the place for people to express opinion and civilly discuss things like this. Calling people cryers, belittling people for enjoying aspects of the game and other such comments drive the discussion off track and are counterproductive to the process.

Second, to the point of this thread – yes, raids can be an effective part of the storytelling process. We see it work in other games.

The reason it works well in other games however is because – in the games that are actually successful – raids are not designed exclusively for small percentages of the player base. Invariably, there are mechanics that allow players of all skill levels to experience (not just visit after a clear) the content.

The most common example is the gear and level treadmill (which, of course, we never want in GW2), which ensures that every player, regardless of playtime commitment can eventually get that experience. Other, more recent and common tools include flex raiding (allowing different sized groups in) and yes, story mode raiding (called LFR raiding in most games).

This is the element missing from GW2 raiding. There is no real provision for those story minded raiders and other players the way there is in those other games. What makes it even worse is that GW2 was the most open and accessible game in terms of experiential storytelling in the industry – prior to raids. Since we all agree that they should never bring treadmills into this game, that leaves variable difficulty levels. And it really needs to happen.

That isn’t crying – it isn’t carebearing – and it isn’t an attempt to take raiding away from harder-core players (and, as you can probably tell, I don’t respond well to the insults designed to derail conversations) – it is a sincere attempt to make the game better by returning some of the accessibility this game is known for and getting it back on track from an experiential story perspective.

And, for the 1000th time, I’m not against hardcore content in the game. I love having the game challenge me. In fact, I would like it if they offered a range from casual to hardcore in EVERY aspect of the game (a hardcore version of Shatterer or Shadow Behemoth accessible via the guild event flag system would be amazing, imo).

The topic here is access to the experiential story (ie, being the protagonist in a fun and engaging narrative). The current raid design limits that access and I feel that is bad for the community as a whole and general flow of the storytelling process.

Blaeys.3102:

First, let’s leave the personal attacks and insults out of this discussion. Forums are the place for people to express opinion and civilly discuss things like this. Calling people cryers, belittling people for enjoying aspects of the game and other such comments drive the discussion off track and are counterproductive to the process.

Sometimes people forget that forum is the internet traslation of a public square.

Now if you go in irl public square and you start to speak to people walking around, you can sort out different result, depending of what you are saying.

For example, if you stop people to speak about helping poor childs you sort out a different reaction compared to what is gonna happen if you stop people yelling that some ant alien are goin to invade the planet earth.

If till now, i wouldn’t have read what i read in this and other threads, i would agree with you.

But that’s not the case.

I’m not calling people “cryers” because they “enjoy different aspect of the game”.

I’m calling them cryers because crying is what they do.

It doesnt mind what people said to them, they always say “NO”.

Example?

Them: Raid stole resource to ls

Dev: That’s not true, raid and ls are different team that do not interfer each other

Them: Yeah but raid got story too and it’s not good to prevent people to enhoy it

Other people: You can do raid to, they’re not so hard, you just need practice

Them: I don’t want to be forced on a content i don’t want to play

Other people: Ok then you can enter a cleared raid and read 99,9% of the story

Them: That’s not the same because we’re going to lose dialogue in fights

Other people: ok then you can go and watch them on youtube

Them: No i don’t want do watch them on youtube i want to watch them it into game

Other people: then go to raid

Them: Nope

Dev: raid story are sideline and everything said in raid related to ls will be told on ls3

Them: i don’t trust you

Rinse and repeat.

Now if this for you isn’t crying but it’s a constructive discussion about raid and related story i think we have a different idea about what a discussion is.

aelfwe.4239:

(see above post)

I just want to have a civil conversation about the topic of the thread without the insults. All they do is turn people away from the forums and make people reticent about posting their thoughts here.

Last week, I was actually tracked down and verbally attacked in game for something I posted here on the forums.

People are starting to become afraid to speak up here because they don’t want to deal with the vitriol and unnecessary namecalling and insults.

This is a topic many of us find important and we really don’t want to see it derailed and closed like some other recent similar threads.

I think you have a cogent argument for your side of this. I disagree with it, but I think you are entitled to making that argument. In fact, I welcome the diatribe.

Back on topic – note that, if you go back and read my post, I did not make any of the statements you use in your example.

Here are my key points:

• Experiential storytelling means the player experiences the content (they are the protagonist).

• Not everyone wants to make the ingame commitment needed to regularly clear raids in their current form.

• Currently, that means those players do not get to be the protagonist for part of their ingame story.

• Other games make provisions for this and it is something that (I believe) Anet should make provisions for as well. I do not think it has to be a major developmental undertaking as well. They could, for instance, just let us take groups of 15-20 into the raid without scaling it up (and, of course, without the more prestigious rewards given to those players taking on the challenge).

• Again, hardcore content has a place in the game and, if anything, it is underutilized. Let the raid team design us a few 100+ level fractals or a face melting instanced version of Shadow Behemoth (again triggered via guild event flags would be awesome). There should be a range of difficulties, but everything story related should be accessible to wider groups.

Most importantly, let’s have the dialogue and refrain from making it personal. Let’s all work to provide a discussion that devs can look to and say – “these players, even though they disagree, are trying to make the game more fun/a better place.”

Blaeys.3102:

The topic here is access to the experiential story (ie, being the protagonist in a fun and engaging narrative). The current raid design limits that access and I feel that is bad for the community as a whole and general flow of the storytelling process.

I agree with you that name calling is not warranted. But I’m somewhat sympathetic — this subform gets some comments that directly contradict dev statements and are so exotic that they border on the ridiculous.

As to the merits of your suggestion, raids are not living story, and they are ill suited to serve the purposes you suggest. Raids need to be hard and repeatable, and living story doesn’t.

And add to varying difficulties, well, you have it. There’s so much easy and medium tier content in this game. And, personally, I’d rather have different content than difficulty levels for everything. If I want easy content I world boss or do cof. If I want medium tier I do fractals. If I want hard I do raids. It would be boring if it was all the same.

And, please, please, actually try a raid. I think you’ll find how little lore there is in the actual boss fights. And, if you can’t beat it, you’ll get the “lore” that only the bravest and skilled were able to challenge these bosses.

Since this kitten with the “I am entitled to have everything handed to me, because i want to know the lore” topic came up i asked myself if ever in GW1 anyone complained that casual player would get locked out of Underworld or DoA by making it too hard and not having a a easy mode (if i remember correctly Normal Mode UW was harder than any story mission on Hard Mode/ ofc not taking speedclears into context)

Hell even freaking Aurora Glade missions gave me shivers every time i had to do it because I (personally) found it very hard and not to mention on Hard Mode.

I personally never saw no complaints of any player that they would get “locked out” of lore…

I guess people have a personal issue with raids in itself, Anet could’ve probably avoided that by simply naming the Raids 10-man dungeons, elite areas, etc..

Absurdo.8309:

Blaeys.3102:

The topic here is access to the experiential story (ie, being the protagonist in a fun and engaging narrative). The current raid design limits that access and I feel that is bad for the community as a whole and general flow of the storytelling process.

I agree with you that name calling is not warranted. But I’m somewhat sympathetic — this subform gets some comments that directly contradict dev statements and are so exotic that they border on the ridiculous.

As to the merits of your suggestion, raids are not living story, and they are ill suited to serve the purposes you suggest. Raids need to be hard and repeatable, and living story doesn’t.

And add to varying difficulties, well, you have it. There’s so much easy and medium tier content in this game. And, personally, I’d rather have different content than difficulty levels for everything. If I want easy content I world boss or do cof. If I want medium tier I do fractals. If I want hard I do raids. It would be boring if it was all the same.

And, please, please, actually try a raid. I think you’ll find how little lore there is in the actual boss fights. And, if you can’t beat it, you’ll get the “lore” that only the bravest and skilled were able to challenge these bosses.

I am raiding (leading groups, actually) – every week – with multiple guild teams. My friends look to me as their guild leader to lead – so I do it. I min-max my chronotank in a mix of commanders/assassins and zerker gear, and I’m very good at playing it.

On top of that, I’m an old school raider. I led progression level raids in WoW (10 and 25 man – even back to 40 man) for more than 6 years. I even led a group with some world first achievements (including one of the hardest ones in the game on Mimiron’s Head in Ulduar).

I understand the appeal of raiding. I understand the appeal of hardcore content.

I also came to GW2 for a different kind of experience. I came here because the developers, at launch, understood the importance of community above all else.

I mentioned that I lead 2 guild groups every week. My guild has more than 100 active members right now. We keep it active through the drought by engaging in weekly open world events, guild missions, guild hall silliness and much more. As part of that, I see the angst and hear the issues of many different kinds of players – most of whom will never post anything on these forums (many because they just don’t want to deal with the vitriol – and many because they are more introverted than I am).

And right now, I see a need for a deeper more inclusive raid experience. I see it not because I am against the current raiding structure (I would continue raiding the current versions even with changes). I see it because I see a vast group of players (my guildees) who are starting to feel left out of the experience (again, key word) of raiding because they choose to play slightly differently than I do.

What it comes down to – in relation to this thread is -if raids are going to be part of the player’s story in GW2, then they need to be designed with that goal in mind. I do not want to lose the harder core experience (in fact, I want it expanded to the rest of the game). I just don’t see it as the most important element in this particular game.

The most important element here is community – and a wider range of raiding experiences would only serve to make the community stronger, imo.

Blaeys.3102:

Absurdo.8309:

Blaeys.3102:

The topic here is access to the experiential story (ie, being the protagonist in a fun and engaging narrative). The current raid design limits that access and I feel that is bad for the community as a whole and general flow of the storytelling process.

I agree with you that name calling is not warranted. But I’m somewhat sympathetic — this subform gets some comments that directly contradict dev statements and are so exotic that they border on the ridiculous.

As to the merits of your suggestion, raids are not living story, and they are ill suited to serve the purposes you suggest. Raids need to be hard and repeatable, and living story doesn’t.

And add to varying difficulties, well, you have it. There’s so much easy and medium tier content in this game. And, personally, I’d rather have different content than difficulty levels for everything. If I want easy content I world boss or do cof. If I want medium tier I do fractals. If I want hard I do raids. It would be boring if it was all the same.

And, please, please, actually try a raid. I think you’ll find how little lore there is in the actual boss fights. And, if you can’t beat it, you’ll get the “lore” that only the bravest and skilled were able to challenge these bosses.

I am raiding (leading groups, actually) – every week – with multiple guild teams. My friends look to me as their guild leader to lead – so I do it. I min-max my chronotank in a mix of commanders/assassins and zerker gear, and I’m very good at playing it.

On top of that, I’m an old school raider. I led progression level raids in WoW (10 and 25 man – even back to 40 man) for more than 6 years. I even led a group with some world first achievements (including one of the hardest ones in the game on Mimiron’s Head in Ulduar).

I understand the appeal of raiding. I understand the appeal of hardcore content.

I also came to GW2 for a different kind of experience. I came here because the developers, at launch, understood the importance of community above all else.

I mentioned that I lead 2 guild groups every week. My guild has more than 100 active members right now. We keep it active through the drought by engaging in weekly open world events, guild missions, guild hall silliness and much more. As part of that, I see the angst and hear the issues of many different kinds of players – most of whom will never post anything on these forums (many because they just don’t want to deal with the vitriol – and many because they are more introverted than I am).

And right now, I see a need for a deeper more inclusive raid experience. I see it not because I am against the current raiding structure (I would continue raiding the current versions even with changes). I see it because I see a vast group of players (my guildees) who are starting to feel left out of the experience (again, key word) of raiding because they choose to play slightly differently than I do.

What it comes down to – in relation to this thread is -if raids are going to be part of the player’s story in GW2, then they need to be designed with that goal in mind. I do not want to lose the harder core experience (in fact, I want it expanded to the rest of the game). I just don’t see it as the most important element in this particular game.

The most important element here is community – and a wider range of raiding experiences would only serve to make the community stronger, imo.

I don’t understand – is your lore argument hypothetical? Or does it actually impact you?

I’m not sure why a wide range of experience has to be through raids, there’s plenty of other content.

And you put anet in a tough position — either they can’t make hard content with lore flavor, or they must design one-off easy modes for everything. I’d rather have those resources but towards something that’s closer to your goals, like living story.

And, for what it’s worth, I think arah has much more lore, was on a similar hard difficulty level, and they never made an easy mode for these. Rather, there was always other easy and medium content, and the main lore story wasn’t that hard.

Absurdo.8309:

I don’t understand – is your lore argument hypothetical? Or does it actually impact you?

I’m not sure why a wide range of experience has to be through raids, there’s plenty of other content.

And you put anet in a tough position — either they can’t make hard content with lore flavor, or they must design one-off easy modes for everything. I’d rather have those resources but towards something that’s closer to your goals, like living story.

And, for what it’s worth, I think arah has much more lore, was on a similar hard difficulty level, and they never made an easy mode for these. Rather, there was always other easy and medium content, and the main lore story wasn’t that hard.

It is most definitely not hypothetical.

My primary enjoyment in this game comes from playing with my friends and my guildees. Guild mission night is my favorite night of the week, even though we haven’t seen new guild missions in more than 3 years now. That content is basically dead – but 30-60 of us still get together every Monday night to do it. It is about community.

Right now, I am experiencing the raid story/experience with a small percentage of that guild – and I’m hearing people I care about lament because they aren’t a part of that experience. You can call it anything you want. I see people who want to be part of the story being left out – people I care about and want to play with.

I respect that this provides a developmental challenge. But, I also see that other games – through a variety of tools – have designed ways to deal with it (flex raiding, for example). That is something Anet could easily (imo) fix – without detracting from the hardcore raiding experience. Once a system is implemented (and Anet is pro at coming up with unique solutions to these kinds of issues), then the ongoing content would be easier to drop in.

I want raiding to be a part of the experiential storytelling in GW2 for years to come. I want there to be that hardcore element in the game that challenges us to the point of bloody eyes.

But, first and foremost, I want a place for the communities (like my guild and our sister guilds) to enjoy playing together regardless of the time we spend specializing our toons. That is the game I came to and experience I bought into almost 4 years ago.

And I want that experience to potentially include the ENTIRE story.

BobbyStein.2315:

Dimitris.3195:

Will post opinion for the next wing soon! Will not probably get far the first day but since there is something at the beginning as well we will have something to talk about Cheers!

We put it in specifically for raiders and lorehounds to catch up with the Forsaken Thicket story. It’s in a safe spot where squad members can explore before the action starts.

Just checked out the aforementioned journal at the beginning of the Stronghold of the Faithful! Unfortunately it is university exam period here and me and my guild won’t be able to attempt the raid just yet

For starters I really like the fact that it is a journal of someone who has seen things from a different perspective from us and the imprisoned pact squad because it gives a sense of doubt about what is going on in the Forsaken Thicket, “was it really Mordremoth’s death that cause this?”, “is it also the case of the mutation of Slothasor?” It gives the feeling that even the Durmand Priory cannot completely explain what has transpired. Second, I really like the fact that you have put info in there that doesn’t necessarily focus only on the happenings of the previous wings (Spirit Vale, Salvation Pass), but that you also put forward theories about the nature of the Bloodstone and magical research, as it also offers that sense of doubt I mentioned before. No cutscene, but still pretty informative, it shows that you have put some thinking into continuing a fan-favorite story from GW1, and connecting it to the lore and narrative of GW2 by bringing references to Mordremoth to the fold etc.

Now what I mentioned before creates a really good investigation sort of plot, it is good to get that sort of information from a journal, but it could be our journal! Our characters trying to solve the secret of the Forsaken Thicket in a way like the Scarlet investigation just before the ending of Season 1 in Divinity’s Reach, maybe it could even give even more meaning to the empty raid, after the bosses are dead. Players killed the bosses? Time to find out what happened to this place called Spirit Vale trying to solve the mystery that will lead us to the great secret of the Stronghold of the Faithful.

yay a new wing….. that i will never play probably……

I’ve copied and pasted an earlier response from another thread here hoping Anet developers would read this.
I will put this out concerning raids (I did them a lot back in WoW, haven’t done much in GW2 since not able to get into a consistent group) but I’m very disappointed with Anet sticking with the same stupid way of doing them (stacking mechanics behind a time-gate in order to make them tough). It’s time for a change in Raids to expand them beyond elitist type game-play by the following suggestions:
1) Change the loot system to be tiered based. You can base it upon the speed the group defeats the boss. This would allow impromptu groups a chance at success for less loot than the hardcore who can squash the boss super fast and get superb loot as a reward. No more stupid time-gate. Problem solved allowing a much larger player base participate , why this hasn’t been implemented for not only raids, but world bosses escapes me. ANET YOU CAN DO THIS!
Next two are wish lists:
1) Make bosses more strategic in nature. Have the boss change their abilities, boon structure, defensive abilities, etc. based upon the class structure of the group of PCs fighting them. This would make raids, world bosses so much more unique for each gameplay for the player base and solve the one big issue of people learning the boss too fast and making it a simple zero-fest thing (like Tequatl now). At first you can do this upfront by noting the class balance of the group going against the boss. This approach can easily be tested through monte-carlo simulations.
2) Make bosses adaptable during the actual fight. Instead of always going through the same phases, have them change their capabilities, attacks, defenses depending on the success of the group going against them. This would introduce new things like for instance, mood of the boss, etc. impacting the fight.
It’s been 20years and why developers haven’t advance beyond linear stack mechanics behind time-gates is extremely disappointing.

curtegg.5216:

I
1) Change the loot system to be tiered based. You can base it upon the speed the group defeats the boss. This would allow impromptu groups a chance at success for less loot than the hardcore who can squash the boss super fast and get superb loot as a reward. No more stupid time-gate. Problem solved allowing a much larger player base participate , why this hasn’t been implemented for not only raids, but world bosses escapes me. ANET YOU CAN DO THIS!

Enrage Timer is not a Problem at Boss Fights. Players have more than enough DPS to kill these Bosses on Time

Next two are wish lists:
1) Make bosses more strategic in nature. Have the boss change their abilities, boon structure, defensive abilities, etc. based upon the class structure of the group of PCs fighting them. This would make raids, world bosses so much more unique for each gameplay for the player base and solve the one big issue of people learning the boss too fast and making it a simple zero-fest thing (like Tequatl now). At first you can do this upfront by noting the class balance of the group going against the boss. This approach can easily be tested through monte-carlo simulations.

Would be Nightmare to Balance, there are quite a few Compositions in Raids only. You would have to Balance everything, what Set Up gets which Abilities etc etc. And knowing Players the Composition would change to the one which is easiest. Too much work for having one Result. The Perfect Group. Which is not what we want

2) Make bosses adaptable during the actual fight. Instead of always going through the same phases, have them change their capabilities, attacks, defenses depending on the success of the group going against them. This would introduce new things like for instance, mood of the boss, etc. impacting the fight.
It’s been 20years and why developers haven’t advance beyond linear stack mechanics behind time-gates is extremely disappointing.

How far should the Boss adapt to the Players? Like a Players? Even if the Bossfight has only a bit of Adaptility, you need to write Proper AI for it and AI Development isn’t easy, its Draining CPU Power and with 10 People fighting a Boss you need something to Adapt to the Group as whole. Its just not practical.