Currently there are two major issues with Raids that will not be addressed until all 3 wings are available to play.
1. Raid on farm
I have two guilds I run with for raids, both are capable of clearing the 3 bosses within approximately 1 hour 20 minutes and as we improve together it is likely to decrease in time slightly more. This means the night we choose to complete it, whether it be Monday or Tuesday, leaves us very little “Endgame content” to do the rest of the week, but leaves us with a void of shards that we have to go with other players to reach the shard cap, as there is currently no way to reset a boss to fight it again if all 10 members of your core raid group have completed every boss.
Suggested improvements:
a) Hard Mode (Challenge Mode as it’s called in GW2). Hard Mode in GW1 added an extra element of fun and concentrated gameplay, yes, of course eventually even Hard Mode would be on farm, but it should be balanced around best-in-stat, with increased boss HP and damage (Such as green circle will cause a raid wipe instantly, as world eater does, only 3 updrafts on Gorseval, double cannon spawns on Sabetha)
i.e. Hard Mode should not be forgiving at all. 1 mistake, and it’s reset. A Hard Mode clear would also take you beyond Easy Mode shard cap of 100 and increase the cap to 150 or even 200. The above were just simple examples, a raid team should be able to think of better ideas to make the raid harder, introducing new mechanics for example, randomization of the current mechanics so there is a harder pattern to distinguish etc.
b) Eternal clear, even after the title an eternal clear should be rewarding, such as double shard drops on Sabetha (VG would still give 8, Gorseval could be increased to give 15, and sabetha 30 if all 3 bosses were killed in that week with everyone alive at boss death)
In addition to this, if the whole wing is cleared without a single wipe/fail, it should instantly cap the Easy Mode shard level (100), i’ll get more onto shards in my next point later.
c) There is currently NO incentive to help other players finish the raid once all bosses are down and the shard cap is reached. Something needs to be introduced that allows the raid to be played
2. Magnetite Shards
There are alot of topics about this, so I will just list what i’d like to see
Shard cap should be reached instantly if your party completes all 3 bosses without failure. (Sabetha kill would reward the remainder of the cap)
If the above isn’t achieved, then if all 3 bosses are killed the normal “Eternal way” which allows for failure but on success everyone has to be alive, then the bosses should drop extra shards like, 10 / 15 / 30 with 3 / 3 / 3 dropped on the “Trash” events for a total of 64 shards. As this would have had raid wipes, then you would be in the range of maybe 70-80 shards (if failure was below 33% health etc) so it wouldn’t take too much effort to max the cap .
The better you do, the better the rewards should be. Constant wipes and not killing the boss with everyone alive would be as it stands today, 8 / 8 / 15 shards.
Just to clarify, the Hard Mode option should be there as an extra level of difficulty for organised groups that will find the encounter, and rewards, trivial. The current level of difficulty as it stands is a good direction for the game for the majority of players.
I’m sure high-tier players would welcome a “Hard Mode” option, whilst not affecting players who choose to remain to play the raid as it is currently, except for an increased shard cap and a higher percentage of decent loot from chests.
I just want to say though, that the raid is currently my favorite part of the game and they are fun – I want the fun to continue but with the slow release of wings we need something to ensure they don’t become trivial .
TL;DR : Organised groups have Spirit Vale on farm, introduce Hard Mode with more mechanics, more punishing on fail, increased % on ascended loot tables and an increased shard cap on HM with better shard drops for better gameplay.
(edited by Arcane.1526)