Guild Wars 2

Raid, I am very hyped about raid, but after getting my feet wet I see many problem with the current state of raid!
A) no looking for raid group on the group finder! This is just stupid because even WOW allows you to atomically look for people via the Dungeon Finder!
B) the raid mechanic are stupidly easy compared to WOW, as a matter of fact the only difficulty with the raid comes from the enrage timer, I have spend over 30 hours with various pick up group and guild trying to down the very first boss Vail Guardian and we couldn’t do it. Now I am not against hard content, what I am against is only releasing hard content and not having a similar easier difficulty. The great game developer side meier said you need at least two difficulty hard and normal. Now world of warcraft made their raid difficulty correct, they have normal difficulty, heroic and mythic! I mean come on guild war 2 development team how can you kitten this up? And is very simple to have a easier difficulty just give us more time!
Hence I suggest for raid there should be 3 difficulty
Normal enrage timer goes off after 15 minute
Heroic enrage timer goes off after 12 minute
Hard enrage timer goes off after 8 minute
and to make everyone happy each difficulty give different reward, for example on hard difficulty the raid give you more gold and more crafting material for your legendary, and their should be a leader board on who can beat the raid faster!

i don´t want to sound rude or anything, but are you trolling?
or did you never raid in wow? before lfr that is.

if you´ve spent over 30 hours trying, yet still didn´t beat it then it might not be as easy as you think it is?

everyone can run full nomads and start crying because the boss would take 25 mins.

kappa

Yes, plase.

It wouldn’t devaluate the achievement of elitists (as they would do the super mythic heroic raid version, whose legendary armor would be extra shiny), but it would make raids accessible to a much greater audience.

I’d be interested in arguments why this would be a bad idea, as I don’t see any right now.

Edit: Saying that then every noob can beat raids in kitten gear doesn’t count, as they only beat a noob version of the raid.

The “real” raid should be what counts for “real” raiders.

If timer running out is your main problem then something is really wrong with party comp or builds. Or mechanics are not that easy after all.

What it takes is 10 ppl who know what they are doing and putting in quite a few hours’ of practise.

You have played it for 30 hours. As long as you were doing it the right way, you should be good enough to beat the boss. All you need now is 9 other ppl who also know what they are doing.

It is time to be really picky with your teammates. Only group with experienced ppl.

Alternatively, wait for a couple weeks. By then, there will be plenty exp players and it should be much easier to find a competent team.

Keep the current one and add harder version.

“The mechanics are easy”
“we can’t clear it in 8min”

If you can’t clear it in the very generous timeframe of 8min, then the mechanics clearly aren’t easy enough for you.

I thought you said you were gonna quit if it was too hard

IAMANDLOVE.3095:

why do you assume I am not good enough for the new content? And no if it is too difficult for 90% of the people then it must be nerfed, I dont want this game to turn into wow, because as soon as it does thats when I quit!

I think it’s fairly simple why people are for or against it. It’s all about rewards. Add the exclusive rewards to the difficult version and the kittenstorm of people crying they want it too will be bigger than now. Add it to the easy version and the harder raids suddenly become extremely unrewarding and leave ppl wondering “why bother?”.

Your 3 tiers of rewards don’t work, because even if it takes the others longer to make their legendary armor it still devaluates the current rewards, and tbh the rest of the rewards atm aren’t so rewarding to begin with…

Then keep legendary armor in the current raid, and make the rest available in an easy mode raid.

saturn.4810:

Then keep legendary armor in the current raid, and make the rest available in an easy mode raid.

Well they don’t want ascended to be so easy to get either so they’d lower the drop chance to fractal levels (aka you’d never see a drop) and then that one would suddenly be extremely unrewarding and most likely largely unplayed after beating it the first few times which isn’t great resource management.

Not to mention the raid rly isn’t that hard in its current state since it’s already been cleared in the first week.

saturn.4810:

Then keep legendary armor in the current raid, and make the rest available in an easy mode raid.

I think that works! I just want to enjoy the content, don’t really care about the legendary armor!

IAMANDLOVE.3095:

saturn.4810:

Then keep legendary armor in the current raid, and make the rest available in an easy mode raid.

I think that works! I just want to enjoy the content, don’t really care about the legendary armor!

Didn’t you just say the mechanics are stupidly easy? xD

cranos.5913:

saturn.4810:

Then keep legendary armor in the current raid, and make the rest available in an easy mode raid.

Well they don’t want ascended to be so easy to get either so they’d lower the drop chance to fractal levels (aka you’d never see a drop) and then that one would suddenly be extremely unrewarding and most likely largely unplayed after beating it the first few times which isn’t great resource management.

Not to mention the raid rly isn’t that hard in its current state since it’s already been cleared in the first week.

Its only the first wing not the full raid

Its not strictly a difficulty change, but I still think they should add 8 and 12 man versions of the raid content (alongside the 10 man we have now) to ease the actual forming and logistics of raiding. I would even be fine with different tiers offering lesser rewards.

I really hate having to leave people out when we have 11, 12 or 14 people show up.

I would like to see Anet beat it. After watching one of their elite prof dev fail at beating Svanir in the pvp lobby I doubt that they’ve managed to beat it themselves.

NovaanVerdiano.6174:

If you can’t clear it in the very generous timeframe of 8min, then the mechanics clearly aren’t easy enough for you.

This is it!

Most pugs I’ve seen are usually dying before the timer is running out. If you can make it to the end of the time you just have to optimize the team comp or the builds.

From my experience (only beat Vale Guardian so far), if your team is good enough to survive the mechanics, the enrage timer shouldn’t even be an issue. Adding a few minutes to the timer doesn’t really make it any different or less challenging.

IAMANDLOVE.3095:

Raid, I am very hyped about raid, but after getting my feet wet I see many problem with the current state of raid!
A) no looking for raid group on the group finder! This is just stupid because even WOW allows you to atomically look for people via the Dungeon Finder!

You mean the LFR? Sry but LFR Raiding is so easy that you can compare it to Chest Farming in terms of Diffculty and this is something I don’t want here in the Raids.

B) the raid mechanic are stupidly easy compared to WOW, as a matter of fact the only difficulty with the raid comes from the enrage timer, I have spend over 30 hours with various pick up group and guild trying to down the very first boss Vail Guardian and we couldn’t do it. Now I am not against hard content, what I am against is only releasing hard content and not having a similar easier difficulty. The great game developer side meier said you need at least two difficulty hard and normal. Now world of warcraft made their raid difficulty correct, they have normal difficulty, heroic and mythic! I mean come on guild war 2 development team how can you kitten this up? And is very simple to have a easier difficulty just give us more time!
Hence I suggest for raid there should be 3 difficulty
Normal enrage timer goes off after 15 minute
Heroic enrage timer goes off after 12 minute
Hard enrage timer goes off after 8 minute
and to make everyone happy each difficulty give different reward, for example on hard difficulty the raid give you more gold and more crafting material for your legendary, and their should be a leader board on who can beat the raid faster!

Nah the Mechanics aren’t that Easy compared to WoW. First, you never saw Gorseval or Sabetha ( who turns into a Clusterkitten at the End ). Second, for a First Raid Boss, the Vale Guardian is quite Complicated. A Three-Phase Fight with two intermission Phases isn’t something that you expect for a first Boss. It is something that the last Bosses of a Raid normally have.
First Bosses are normally DPS Checks ( And with DPS Check I mean a Boss with just one or two simple Mechanics that aren’t really punishing but with a tight Enrage Timer and high DPS requirement. And judging from what I’ve seen from Raiding and watching Vids, the Bosses here are no DPS Checks themselves. ). Also if the Mechanics are so Easy why is it that you never found a Group that passed the VG? Really, I have seen Mechanics in WoW that are much easier.

And your Suggestion isn’t that good, you just add more Time to the Enrage Timer. Most Groups who fail at the First Boss aren’t failing it because of the Timer, its because of the Mechanics that aren’t executed well at the different Phases.

Using WoW as a means to measure raids in gw2, absolutely atrocious.
If you think the timer is there to make it hard you are sorely mistaken. But considering you blame the timer for the difficulty and not the actual mechanics shows that you have zero relevance to any claims raid related.

But do allow me to explain:
1: during phase 2-3 the tank needs to possition the boss in the correct platform so green circles spawn correctly for green circle group to maintain dmg on the boss. Need to get out blue AoE, need to time CC phase, green circle spawn and AoE platform despawn and position boss accordingly.
2: green circle group needs to work around blue field to avoid teleportation (in green circle), need to slow/knockback red orbs to avoid getting killed, need to maintain awareness of green circle spawns, need to maintain decent damage on the boss.
3: Healer needs awareness where players need healing, most likely is part of green circle group.
4: melee dps got it easy.

You saying that the timer is too short and the mechanics are easy is because your group doesn’t perform well.

I think it is great that there is one difficulty level so they can focus on that and nail it. In wow the PVE endgame is only rading, in gw2 their is so much more ppl can do who don’t have time or skill to raid.

I hope they stick to this concept of raiding being hard. Either deal with it or get out! :-)

Lemme guess, OP, you are runnin Nomad Gear right?

The best solution is just don’t care about raid & the legendary armors.

Please remember most of GW2 upcoming content from now is not for casual players. By now you probably already know that you should continue or stop playing the game.

Altair.8402:

From my experience (only beat Vale Guardian so far), if your team is good enough to survive the mechanics, the enrage timer shouldn’t even be an issue. Adding a few minutes to the timer doesn’t really make it any different or less challenging.

that’s simply not true, with the many groups I joined we have no trouble with the mechanic but in the end it is the enrage timer that killed us, we constantly downed the boss to around 10% health left!

Anet please add a “Dungeonmode” to raids. So we can 5 man it. Also bring back defiance stacks so we can deepfreeze and icebow 4 All time to Slip difficult game mechanics. As reward we only want the same amount of Shards as the normal mode so we can farm thehheck out of it and gain our ascended shinys for free.

REID.1058:

Anet please add a “Dungeonmode” to raids. So we can 5 man it. Also bring back defiance stacks so we can deepfreeze and icebow 4 All time to Slip difficult game mechanics. As reward we only want the same amount of Shards as the normal mode so we can farm thehheck out of it and gain our ascended shinys for free.

I don’t miss metazerkstack icebow 4.

But I’m sure an easy mode could be done without degenerating raids to that.

“easy” difficulty raids are why I left WoW in Cataclysm. Nothing takes the epic feel from a raid like a mindless pug auto-attacking a legendary boss down.

Sure, there were other reasons I left WoW, but seeing a pug roll through Deathwing with hardly any effort killed my interest in raids. The difficulty and feeling of stepping into content that everyone was having difficulty with made them feel special.

if i take the raid as the elite missions in gw1, we can have both normal mode and hard mode. it is the win win for the players

Ronnie Hu.1694:

if i take the raid as the elite missions in gw1, we can have both normal mode and hard mode. it is the win win for the players

Elite Missions are more like dungeons and it’s not a win-win. Look at how the LFR split the community in WoW.

REID.1058:

Anet please add a “Dungeonmode” to raids. So we can 5 man it. Also bring back defiance stacks so we can deepfreeze and icebow 4 All time to Slip difficult game mechanics. As reward we only want the same amount of Shards as the normal mode so we can farm thehheck out of it and gain our ascended shinys for free.

yeh, Sometimes people don’t have time just to join a big raid thats a very good idea, and for the 5 man there should be two difficulties too!

World Bosses and Map meta Events = Easy Raiding..

We don’t need easy mode for regular raiding. Games like WoW with their inability to scale content and primitive architecture benefit more from ez mode raiding.

Setz.9675:

Using WoW as a means to measure raids in gw2, absolutely atrocious.
If you think the timer is there to make it hard you are sorely mistaken. But considering you blame the timer for the difficulty and not the actual mechanics shows that you have zero relevance to any claims raid related.

But do allow me to explain:
1: during phase 2-3 the tank needs to possition the boss in the correct platform so green circles spawn correctly for green circle group to maintain dmg on the boss. Need to get out blue AoE, need to time CC phase, green circle spawn and AoE platform despawn and position boss accordingly.
2: green circle group needs to work around blue field to avoid teleportation (in green circle), need to slow/knockback red orbs to avoid getting killed, need to maintain awareness of green circle spawns, need to maintain decent damage on the boss.
3: Healer needs awareness where players need healing, most likely is part of green circle group.
4: melee dps got it easy.

You saying that the timer is too short and the mechanics are easy is because your group doesn’t perform well.

1 and 2 sound awfully gimmicky to me- but then all they can do is throw in lots of gimmicks and one shot mechanics to counter the lack of a proper trinity, and then add timers to make it ‘hard’.

Most of the ‘difficulty’ so far seems to be learning which gimmick goes where and when, and then making sure you pass the DPS check.

If people are so into legendary armor, if they added raid difficulties, they could change the glow on legendary armor based on what tier raids were done in.

Só we could have ‘not so legendary’ armor skins? Lol

Once upon a time
player A said “raids are too hard”. Player B replied: “No, they are already too easy, you just need to play better.”

To get rid of this neverending discussion you need more than one difficulty.
Lets take a look at some models:

One difficulty: Progress
Two difficulties: Casual, Progress
Three difficulties: Casual, Progress, Cutting Edge
Four difficulties: Tourist, Casual, Progress, Cutting Edge

Tourist mode: Mechanics do nothing
Casual: Mechanics have to be executed, assignments have to be made
Progress: More mechanics, up the numbers
Cutting Edge: Even more mechanics, even higher numbers, almost no room for error

Personally Im not a fan of tourist mode as it can lead to bad play.
The other three modes (Casual, Progress, Cutting Edge) are viable and can also be compressed into two difficulties.

Ongar.8170:

Once upon a time
player A said “raids are too hard”. Player B replied: “No, they are already too easy, you just need to play better.”

To get rid of this neverending discussion you need more than one difficulty.
Lets take a look at some models:

One difficulty: Progress
Two difficulties: Casual, Progress
Three difficulties: Casual, Progress, Cutting Edge
Four difficulties: Tourist, Casual, Progress, Cutting Edge

Tourist mode: Mechanics do nothing
Casual: Mechanics have to be executed, assignments have to be made
Progress: More mechanics, up the numbers
Cutting Edge: Even more mechanics, even higher numbers, almost no room for error

Personally Im not a fan of tourist mode as it can lead to bad play.
The other three modes (Casual, Progress, Cutting Edge) are viable and can also be compressed into two difficulties.

Agree. I don’t think a tourist mode is a good idea at all because what’s the point if there are no mechanics.

I don’t understand why people have such a difficult time accepting tiered difficulty, your achievement at a harder difficulty is not invalidated by someone else doing it on an easier level, especially if the gear drops are different (i.e. no ascended drops or very limited ascended drops in easier tiers). Actively trying to keep content at one difficulty level that locks players out because of skill or time investment is simply selfish. After all, this is a game, why does your fun have to be dependent on someone else failing?

The OP contradicts the kitten out of himself. He says in the same post that the current raid mechanics are easy compared to WoW, then immediately goes on to complain about there not being easier modes offered and begs for easier raids.

???

If an “Easy Mode” were ever added to a raid, the following conditions should be in place:

1. No achievements can be earned on Easy Mode.
2. Rewards (if any) would be severely reduced to 1/25th that of a normal run.

It would allow players to play out the raids story and learn the mechanics but it wouldn’t allow them to ease their way to AP and shinies.

Boysenberry.1869:

If an “Easy Mode” were ever added to a raid, the following conditions should be in place:

1. No achievements can be earned on Easy Mode.
2. Rewards (if any) would be severely reduced to 1/25th that of a normal run.

It would allow players to play out the raids story and learn the mechanics but it wouldn’t allow them to ease their way to AP and shinies.

Completely support this. ArenaNet should enable everyone to see the encounters, environments and the story elements. Hell, it doesn’t even have to have any rewards. Being able to see it is the reward itself.

Thank goodness there is no looking for raid.

Raids are on a weekly set if I recall right. They’re meant to be an organized form of play.

If you put that into some automated PUGing tool, you need to then make it content doable by disorganized PUGs. That means you have to make the challenge bar rather low…

and that then somewhat kills the ability to have a diverse range of content in the game.

LFR has not served WoW well. Just look at how little effort goes into the design of anything outside of their raids now – all other content is more or less dead, and raiding itself ends up a quick burnout because once you’ve seen the content, why bother trying to see the exact same content again at a higher difficulty?

Yes we’ve already lost any new dungeons here it appears, and Fractals don’t seem to be getting the attention I’d desire given what’s occurred with Dungeons… Lets not ALSO lose the open world story content by basically shoving the entire player base into an LFR queue…

Current difficulty – current rewards

Noob difficulty – no access to legendary rewards extreme reduction in drop chance of all other rewards and a 80% less tokens, still can complete story and enjoy content. Mastery track doesn’t unlock.

I’d be okay with that, raids need exclusivity rewards or there is no reason to participate in the time and expenses to clear it.

OneKlicKill.4285:

Current difficulty – current rewards

Noob difficulty – no access to legendary rewards extreme reduction in drop chance of all other rewards and a 80% less tokens, still can complete story and enjoy content. Mastery track doesn’t unlock.

I’d be okay with that, raids need exclusivity rewards or there is no reason to participate in the time and expenses to clear it.

Why not give the Mastery track? It’s not like it gives a huge benefit.

Moreover, I don’t see why there’s a need to limit Legendary armor to the “hardcore” version (except maybe a “shinier” skin for the hardcore).

People that want the challenge will work to complete the hardcore version.

Worst idea ever – leave the game design to game designers. GW2 is chock full of ez mode raids – with champions, world bosses and mega events. Dumbing down your one little raid so that ‘everyone’ can ‘experience the story’ will bring arenanet misery.

All the now happy raiders will play through the ‘practice’ mode and then try the ‘real’ one but those samey victories will be dull. Instead of the joy and happiness that comes from being an elite player.. They will feel none of this.

And worse all the people that want to raid but don’t – they will discover they didn’t really want to raid either.

In short GW2 will lose players – much the way WoW has lost 50% of its population since the addition of LFR. Bad ideas from bad players.. They don’t need that here.

Hume.2876:

Worst idea ever – leave the game design to game designers. GW2 is chock full of ez mode raids – with champions, world bosses and mega events. Dumbing down your one little raid so that ‘everyone’ can ‘experience the story’ will bring arenanet misery.

All the now happy raiders will play through the ‘practice’ mode and then try the ‘real’ one but those samey victories will be dull. Instead of the joy and happiness that comes from being an elite player.. They will feel none of this.

And worse all the people that want to raid but don’t – they will discover they didn’t really want to raid either.

In short GW2 will lose players – much the way WoW has lost 50% of its population since the addition of LFR. Bad ideas from bad players.. They don’t need that here.

I will quote you – Worst idea ever – leave the game design to game designers.

What we are talking about are suggestions. ArenaNet will be the one who will decide in the end.

I would only agree to this if the normal version would be the current one and a harder one was added. People are already killiing the bosses in pugs.

Come on…this game doesn’t really need even more difficult version when does this elitism end? Don’t worry Laraley, there will be new raid wings and it will be difficult again, and pre-organised groups will be the first ones to finish it

Well, I only wish there is something on which, or somewhere where, we can practise on how to handle the new mechanic without time limits…

What does that have to do with elitism…?

NovaanVerdiano.6174:

What does that have to do with elitism…?

He basically said raids are not hard enough because PUG people can get it too… So he demanded even harder content so the ones who beat it can feel special, can feel….elite

Mortifer.2946:

NovaanVerdiano.6174:

What does that have to do with elitism…?

He basically said raids are not hard enough because PUG people can get it too… So he kitten ed even harder content so the ones who beat it can feel special, can feel….elite

He wants a challenge, which is completely fine. He also said that said harder encounters should be in a seperate difficulty without touching the “original” difficulty we have right now, instead of just ramping it up.
The raids in their current state are completely doable by everyone who is willing to improve and invest time into it. It’s great that we finally have content you can’t just roll through.