Guild Wars 2

People dont want the do raids if it is a mission to qualify for it. People dont want to do raids if the pre-reqs are annoying to accomplish. People want to do raids for two things….a deep quest into the game’s lore, and a really cool environment to explore. GW2’s raids dont really provide enough of those to thing, considering the requirements to even participate in it. I just dont find it interesting. Guys, I know that you’re experimenting….but you desperately NEED a format…..this game’s players are sick and tired of your experiments. You can come up with a format, so come on. This game needs to be at least 70% figured out and steady, while 30% of the game’s resources/time is being used for “experiments”. You did do a good job with raids, but its no where near what it should be. The difficulty isnt whats wrong, its the requirements to participate that are wrong…..also the environment is not very fantastic….except the final boss…THAT was cool.

Raids are the only thing that’s keeping the difficulty-seeking player base interested and logging into GW2 consistently. It may not be an enormous subset of the playerbase, but it’s a significantly vocal and valuable subset. It also gives average-skill players something to work toward in a PvE sense so that there feels like real end-game content.

I hope for me and other people like me that ANet continues developing raids well into future expansions and beyond.

P.S. Assuming that raids are somehow responsible for low revenue numbers is unfounded and ridiculous.

Rising Dusk.2408:

Raids are the only thing that’s keeping the difficulty-seeking player base interested and logging into GW2 consistently. It may not be an enormous subset of the playerbase, but it’s a significantly vocal and valuable subset. It also gives average-skill players something to work toward in a PvE sense so that there feels like real end-game content.

I hope for me and other people like me that ANet continues developing raids well into future expansions and beyond.

P.S. Assuming that raids are somehow responsible for low revenue numbers is unfounded and ridiculous.

of course and me too! that isnt anything close to what i mentioned. The requirements to play it are a mission…..not the actual gameplay.

P.S. Raids arent the reason, its the fact that they solely focused on raids and nothing else.

Adry.7512:

People dont want the do raids if it is a mission to qualify for it. People dont want to do raids if the pre-reqs are annoying to accomplish. People want to do raids for two things….a deep quest into the game’s lore, and a really cool environment to explore. GW2’s raids dont really provide enough of those to thing, considering the requirements to even participate in it. I just dont find it interesting. Guys, I know that you’re experimenting….but you desperately NEED a format…..this game’s players are sick and tired of your experiments. You can come up with a format, so come on. This game needs to be at least 70% figured out and steady, while 30% of the game’s resources/time is being used for “experiments”. You did do a good job with raids, but its no where near what it should be. The difficulty isnt whats wrong, its the requirements to participate that are wrong…..also the environment is not very fantastic….except the final boss…THAT was cool.

No and no. Most raiders do it for the challenge. I know I do, and my entire static as well. In fact if Anet perfectly nailed the two aspects of raiding you claim would make raiding better, but made them far easier, most of us wouldn’t do them.
Secondly, I love the raiding environments, the only place currently on par with them in my mind is Bloodstone Fen which just looks fantastic. All in all, raids are one of the best things about this game, and saying the problem is “requirements” is incredibly vague. Do you mean getting ascended armor? The masteries? Or are you referring to the fact that it’s difficult to get into a group with enough LI/kill proof?

I’m confused. What ‘mission’ is pre-required to ‘play’ raids?

Rising Dusk.2408:

Raids are the only thing that’s keeping the difficulty-seeking player base interested and logging into GW2 consistently. It may not be an enormous subset of the playerbase, but it’s a significantly vocal and valuable subset. It also gives average-skill players something to work toward in a PvE sense so that there feels like real end-game content.

I hope for me and other people like me that ANet continues developing raids well into future expansions and beyond.

P.S. Assuming that raids are somehow responsible for low revenue numbers is unfounded and ridiculous.

I think you are overestimating the importance of a small and vocal group, because at the end of the day, they have little meaning if there’s nobody left to look up to them.

At the same time I don’t believe the addition of raid content is what caused the lower sales. Presumably the sale of HoT recently will up the numbers a bit for at least this quarter, but from what I got from the financial reports, NcSoft wasn’t freaking out over the sales numbers but did want to do something to up the box sales by releasing the next one sooner.

As soon as the next quarter numbers come out chances are they will be up because of the sale on HoT and the trend will be broken. Still, it’s interesting to see that a game like lineage, which is ancient, still does so much better than all of NcSoft’s newer games. Makes you wonder.

The low sales have nothing to do with Raids.

There are a couple other things that the game did poorly and that’s why sales are low.

Look at all the broken promises. Look at the poor quality of HoT.

OP made a point in the original post that there’s nothing wrong with the difficulty. Most here seem to agree, as do I. His complaint seems to be the “pre-raid requirements.” I’m not really sure what those are. I’ve been in the raid (though not killed a single boss) with my guild and I wasn’t required to do anything. The raid leader gave us some guidelines on gearing and builds…but that’s no different than raiding in other games. He may be talking about the requirements to get into PUGs…which, again, is similar to what I’ve seen in other games.

So, I guess I’m not disagreeing with OP at this point but would like to see more discussion on what requirements are standing in the way.

The original post is confusingly written and brings up several topics to discuss in one paragraph, which is why you’re getting multiple topic responses. (The best posts brings up one clear topic to discuss, not a mixture of topics).

“People dont want the do raids if it is a mission to qualify for it. People dont want to do raids if the pre-reqs are annoying to accomplish”
There’s a pre-mission? Presumably you’re talking about getting ascended, although you don’t say it. That’s a player imposed requirement, not an ANet requirement. Considering that people are doing raids in less than ascended, players can find those groups if they don’t want to do the “qualifying mission.”

“People want to do raids for two things….a deep quest into the game’s lore, and a really cool environment to explore.”
You get a cool environment to explore. However asking that they put deep quests of the game’s lore behind a raid play wall is not a good idea. They had enough backlash from putting non essential lore behind the raid play wall. Just because other hard core raiding games do that is no reason for this more casual game to copy cat them.

The lower sales is what you would expect from a content drought for a game that doesn’t have a monthly subscription.

Rising Dusk.2408:

Raids are the only thing that’s keeping the difficulty-seeking player base interested and logging into GW2 consistently. It may not be an enormous subset of the playerbase, but it’s a significantly vocal and valuable subset. It also gives average-skill players something to work toward in a PvE sense so that there feels like real end-game content.

I hope for me and other people like me that ANet continues developing raids well into future expansions and beyond.

P.S. Assuming that raids are somehow responsible for low revenue numbers is unfounded and ridiculous.

Ya right, except you won’t let average player into your group because we haven’t already done raid 100 times. Public groups are out of the question for someone wanting to start raids.

Join a guild raid? Most already have their “core raid team” maybe sometimes they might run a “pitty party” and kill 1 boss with some member who aren’t in the inner circle for charity work, but nothing serious.

This exclusivity is why raids are bad. The average player rarely gets opportunity to experience them because the community ends up artificially blocking them through no fault of their own (they just want easy runs) and it ends up discouraging the average player to the point where they give up trying.

Esquilax.3491:

Rising Dusk.2408:

Raids are the only thing that’s keeping the difficulty-seeking player base interested and logging into GW2 consistently. It may not be an enormous subset of the playerbase, but it’s a significantly vocal and valuable subset. It also gives average-skill players something to work toward in a PvE sense so that there feels like real end-game content.

I hope for me and other people like me that ANet continues developing raids well into future expansions and beyond.

P.S. Assuming that raids are somehow responsible for low revenue numbers is unfounded and ridiculous.

Ya right, except you won’t let average player into your group because we haven’t already done raid 100 times. Public groups are out of the question for someone wanting to start raids.

Join a guild raid? Most already have their “core raid team” maybe sometimes they might run a “pitty party” and kill 1 boss with some member who aren’t in the inner circle for charity work, but nothing serious.

This exclusivity is why raids are bad. The average player rarely gets opportunity to experience them because the community ends up artificially blocking them through no fault of their own (they just want easy runs) and it ends up discouraging the average player to the point where they give up trying.

Create your own raid groups like all of those in established groups already did. Players are well within their rights to have restrictions on their own groups that they created. Just like with the speed run groups for dungeons, if you don’t like their requirements then just create your own group.

Ayrilana.1396:

Esquilax.3491:

Rising Dusk.2408:

Raids are the only thing that’s keeping the difficulty-seeking player base interested and logging into GW2 consistently. It may not be an enormous subset of the playerbase, but it’s a significantly vocal and valuable subset. It also gives average-skill players something to work toward in a PvE sense so that there feels like real end-game content.

I hope for me and other people like me that ANet continues developing raids well into future expansions and beyond.

P.S. Assuming that raids are somehow responsible for low revenue numbers is unfounded and ridiculous.

Ya right, except you won’t let average player into your group because we haven’t already done raid 100 times. Public groups are out of the question for someone wanting to start raids.

Join a guild raid? Most already have their “core raid team” maybe sometimes they might run a “pitty party” and kill 1 boss with some member who aren’t in the inner circle for charity work, but nothing serious.

This exclusivity is why raids are bad. The average player rarely gets opportunity to experience them because the community ends up artificially blocking them through no fault of their own (they just want easy runs) and it ends up discouraging the average player to the point where they give up trying.

Create your own raid groups like all of those in established groups already did. Players are well within their rights to have restrictions on their own groups that they created. Just like with the speed run groups for dungeons, if you don’t like their requirements then just create your own group.

The vast majority of players are not comfortable with being leaders. Especially when they don’t even have experience for the content they are leading yet.

I never even came remotely close to saying you don’t have the right to restrict your groups. Read the last paragraph in my post you quoted.

You post is entirely redundant.

Adry.7512:

P.S. Raids arent the reason, its the fact that they solely focused on raids and nothing else.

Please, tell me more about how a 5-man team working on raids from a studio with several hundred employees is ‘solely focused on raids’.

Esquilax.3491:

Ya right, except you won’t let average player into your group because we haven’t already done raid 100 times. Public groups are out of the question for someone wanting to start raids.

My only personal requirement when I make a pub is that they understand the mechanics well enough to not need them explained. If they are bad players who die repeatedly and consistently fail the mechanics, they’ll be removed from the group after a few failures so it doesn’t affect the entire team too badly. I don’t think anything about that is particularly unfair.

Esquilax.3491:

Join a guild raid? Most already have their “core raid team” maybe sometimes they might run a “pitty party” and kill 1 boss with some member who aren’t in the inner circle for charity work, but nothing serious.

Speaking as a leader of one such guild, you’re absolutely incorrect. I am willing to bring any serious member of the guild to any boss and explain the whole fight and work it through with them. If they’re an extremely bad player and can’t stay alive through anything, well, then we bring them to easier encounters so that they can practice. Obviously if they show no signs of improvement or willingness to improve, I’m not going to keep bringing them. Again, nothing here seems particularly outlandish or unfair to ask of players.

Esquilax.3491:

This exclusivity is why raids are bad.

The perception that all or even a majority of groups are exclusive is what’s bad, as it’s just not true. I see training runs grouping up and learning all of the time and have even helped them out. I personally lead a guild that brings total new raiders into difficult encounters and witness them thrive. The exclusivity is self-imposed; people see groups asking for requirements and then assume that all groups have requirements and then give up. If you’re serious about wanting to be a raider, you can do what we all did back in the day—gear up appropriately, practice a lot with your class on DPS rotations and skill usage, watch a lot of videos, and then get in there and try it!!

Esquilax.3491:

Ayrilana.1396:

Esquilax.3491:

Rising Dusk.2408:

Raids are the only thing that’s keeping the difficulty-seeking player base interested and logging into GW2 consistently. It may not be an enormous subset of the playerbase, but it’s a significantly vocal and valuable subset. It also gives average-skill players something to work toward in a PvE sense so that there feels like real end-game content.

I hope for me and other people like me that ANet continues developing raids well into future expansions and beyond.

P.S. Assuming that raids are somehow responsible for low revenue numbers is unfounded and ridiculous.

Ya right, except you won’t let average player into your group because we haven’t already done raid 100 times. Public groups are out of the question for someone wanting to start raids.

Join a guild raid? Most already have their “core raid team” maybe sometimes they might run a “pitty party” and kill 1 boss with some member who aren’t in the inner circle for charity work, but nothing serious.

This exclusivity is why raids are bad. The average player rarely gets opportunity to experience them because the community ends up artificially blocking them through no fault of their own (they just want easy runs) and it ends up discouraging the average player to the point where they give up trying.

Create your own raid groups like all of those in established groups already did. Players are well within their rights to have restrictions on their own groups that they created. Just like with the speed run groups for dungeons, if you don’t like their requirements then just create your own group.

The vast majority of players are not comfortable with being leaders. Especially when they don’t even have experience for the content they are leading yet.

I never even came remotely close to saying you don’t have the right to restrict your groups. Read the last paragraph in my post you quoted.

You post is entirely redundant.

It’s not redundant. Players can create their own groups if they’re unable to get into existing ones. It doesn’t take much as far as leadership goes. If people are failing to group up because of that reason then it has nothing to do with raids.

Rising Dusk.2408:

Esquilax.3491:

Ya right, except you won’t let average player into your group because we haven’t already done raid 100 times. Public groups are out of the question for someone wanting to start raids.

My only personal requirement when I make a pub is that they understand the mechanics well enough to not need them explained. If they are bad players who die repeatedly and consistently fail the mechanics, they’ll be removed from the group after a few failures so it doesn’t affect the entire team too badly. I don’t think anything about that is particularly unfair.

Esquilax.3491:

Join a guild raid? Most already have their “core raid team” maybe sometimes they might run a “pitty party” and kill 1 boss with some member who aren’t in the inner circle for charity work, but nothing serious.

Speaking as a leader of one such guild, you’re absolutely incorrect. I am willing to bring any serious member of the guild to any boss and explain the whole fight and work it through with them. If they’re an extremely bad player and can’t stay alive through anything, well, then we bring them to easier encounters so that they can practice. Obviously if they show no signs of improvement or willingness to improve, I’m not going to keep bringing them. Again, nothing here seems particularly outlandish or unfair to ask of players.

Esquilax.3491:

This exclusivity is why raids are bad.

The perception that all or even a majority of groups are exclusive is what’s bad, as it’s just not true. I see training runs grouping up and learning all of the time and have even helped them out. I personally lead a guild that brings total new raiders into difficult encounters and witness them thrive. The exclusivity is self-imposed; people see groups asking for requirements and then assume that all groups have requirements and then give up. If you’re serious about wanting to be a raider, you can do what we all did back in the day—gear up appropriately, practice a lot with your class on DPS rotations and skill usage, watch a lot of videos, and then get in there and try it!!

Just because you’re different doesn’t mean everyone is like you, you’re speaking for a minority again

Raids are the only thing why I’ve logged in to the game in the last week. Nothing else is as replayable as that content for me. Sure I like the living story but I’ll do it once and wait for the next release to come in 2 months.

Amineo.8951:

Rising Dusk.2408:

Esquilax.3491:

Ya right, except you won’t let average player into your group because we haven’t already done raid 100 times. Public groups are out of the question for someone wanting to start raids.

My only personal requirement when I make a pub is that they understand the mechanics well enough to not need them explained. If they are bad players who die repeatedly and consistently fail the mechanics, they’ll be removed from the group after a few failures so it doesn’t affect the entire team too badly. I don’t think anything about that is particularly unfair.

Esquilax.3491:

Join a guild raid? Most already have their “core raid team” maybe sometimes they might run a “pitty party” and kill 1 boss with some member who aren’t in the inner circle for charity work, but nothing serious.

Speaking as a leader of one such guild, you’re absolutely incorrect. I am willing to bring any serious member of the guild to any boss and explain the whole fight and work it through with them. If they’re an extremely bad player and can’t stay alive through anything, well, then we bring them to easier encounters so that they can practice. Obviously if they show no signs of improvement or willingness to improve, I’m not going to keep bringing them. Again, nothing here seems particularly outlandish or unfair to ask of players.

Esquilax.3491:

This exclusivity is why raids are bad.

The perception that all or even a majority of groups are exclusive is what’s bad, as it’s just not true. I see training runs grouping up and learning all of the time and have even helped them out. I personally lead a guild that brings total new raiders into difficult encounters and witness them thrive. The exclusivity is self-imposed; people see groups asking for requirements and then assume that all groups have requirements and then give up. If you’re serious about wanting to be a raider, you can do what we all did back in the day—gear up appropriately, practice a lot with your class on DPS rotations and skill usage, watch a lot of videos, and then get in there and try it!!

Just because you’re different doesn’t mean everyone is like you, you’re speaking for a minority again

True not everyone is as nice as people like Dusk, but the community is much more patient and nice than you’d expect reading the forums.

I got back not that long ago, took a few ‘pity parties’ to learn the raids, and then got myself pugging. Not all groups ask for LI. I’ve made myself flexible by having almost every profession ready (no chronotank, just chrono) so I’ve learned most of the roles now too. I still need some practice but I’m getting most of my lockouts weekly and shard cap easily hit.

I guess you just have to take some initiative. Now, I am lucky to have some old friends from back in the dungeon days (many from this forum) which helped me get a few of those pity parties, but the main learning group I ran with I got through the “looking for” area of the forums, it just happened to be lead by an old friend >.<, but there were others that joined at the same time I did that got their training just the same as I did.

Esquilax.3491:

Ya right, except you won’t let average player into your group because we haven’t already done raid 100 times. Public groups are out of the question for someone wanting to start raids.

Join a guild raid? Most already have their “core raid team” maybe sometimes they might run a “pitty party” and kill 1 boss with some member who aren’t in the inner circle for charity work, but nothing serious.

This exclusivity is why raids are bad. The average player rarely gets opportunity to experience them because the community ends up artificially blocking them through no fault of their own (they just want easy runs) and it ends up discouraging the average player to the point where they give up trying.

I have some sympathy for those who are latecomers to instanced content. It’s bad to be behind the eight-ball. It happens in every game that features harder, instanced content. However, if you look at the realities, there are a lot of players whose time is at a premium. Gratifying one such player at the expense of others is not a win-win situation.

There seem to be enough players who complain about this to make up multiple raid teams. Why aren’t these players able to find each other and learn the raids the way the first adopters did? Why aren’t they using the “Looking for…” sub forum to do so? Sure, it’s inconvenient to do so. However, there are consequences to everything, and coming late to the party can mean having to make your own fun rather than depending on others to include you.

Amineo.8951:

Just because you’re different doesn’t mean everyone is like you, you’re speaking for a minority again

While you’re correct that not everyone is like me, there are more doing it that way than people realize. I’ve run as the 10th player in a lot of 9-player groups who are extremely friendly and are willing to help their pals through bosses and to teach them the ropes. Just last night I was in a full pub run of Matthias where 3 people had never killed the boss, had the stuff explained to them, and then we went on to kill it in 6 pulls. That’s better than most experienced runs I get on that boss! Really, my ultimate point is that it’s not as bad as you think. All it takes is a little initiative and dedication and you, too, can be killing everything every week.

Well, that was pretty expected. I believe that current situation will help Anet to understand that making content for minority is not bad (raids are pretty nice content after all), but ignoring vast majority of players is very bad.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Esquilax.3491:

Ya right, except you won’t let average player into your group because we haven’t already done raid 100 times. Public groups are out of the question for someone wanting to start raids.

Join a guild raid? Most already have their “core raid team” maybe sometimes they might run a “pitty party” and kill 1 boss with some member who aren’t in the inner circle for charity work, but nothing serious.

This exclusivity is why raids are bad. The average player rarely gets opportunity to experience them because the community ends up artificially blocking them through no fault of their own (they just want easy runs) and it ends up discouraging the average player to the point where they give up trying.

I have some sympathy for those who are latecomers to instanced content. It’s bad to be behind the eight-ball. It happens in every game that features harder, instanced content. However, if you look at the realities, there are a lot of players whose time is at a premium. Gratifying one such player at the expense of others is not a win-win situation.

There seem to be enough players who complain about this to make up multiple raid teams. Why aren’t these players able to find each other and learn the raids the way the first adopters did? Why aren’t they using the “Looking for…” sub forum to do so? Sure, it’s inconvenient to do so. However, there are consequences to everything, and coming late to the party can mean having to make your own fun rather than depending on others to include you.

Because alot of those players do not want to put in so much effort, they rather lift with more experienced groups.

I have very little sympathy cause I myself am a late adopter, when wing 3 launched I had about 30 LI’s and some of my friends even started later with raiding. Yet none of us experienced much difficulty finding groups.

Ofcourse occassionaly I join a group with 120+ insights and I get kicked, but it isn’t half bad and most of the time groups simply expect you to be chill and know the mechanics.

Rising Dusk.2408:

Raids are the only thing that’s keeping the difficulty-seeking player base interested and logging into GW2 consistently.

and that’s a real shame.

We haven’t had anything that even required a bit of thought while still being reasonable for solo players since the LWS2 achievements. The difficulty in season 3 has been a complete joke so far, fractals are just the same thing over and over, dungeons haven’t even been touched, and open world always has random people come over to help you with event bosses, whether you want it or not.

Let’s not turn this into another discussion about raid difficulty (there are a few threads about that already).

My guess is the OP is upset because raids require (kinda) the completion of the gliding mastery line.

If that is the case, I strongly disagree. Raids are part of the bigger picture – part of endgame – and not meant to stand alone. Requiring something like gliding (and updrafts) is fine, imo.

To the point of whether or not raids are the cause of the downtick in revenue – while I disagree with the current format of raids in the game (I may have mentioned that in a thread or two ), I do not believe raids can be blamed for the issue.

The big culprit is, of course, the content drought, especially in open world. People got used to a release cadence that could not be maintained once expansion development was integrated into the process. The result is less of the game we grew used to during the first few years, and that has disillusioned a lot of people.

Would the removal of raids fix that in any way? Only Anet knows, but I seriously doubt it. However, I do think going the other direction – adding a more casual version of the raids – would give those players more to do during any future droughts and alleviate some of the angst (but, again, that is better discussed in another thread).

Back to topic as a TL;DR – if the OP is referring to mastery requirements in raids, I disagree that it is any issue whatsoever. Raids are part of the endgame, but they are not the standalone endgame.

Blaeys.3102:

Let’s not turn this into another discussion about raid difficulty (there are a few threads about that already).

My guess is the OP is upset because raids require (kinda) the completion of the gliding mastery line.

If that is the case, I strongly disagree. Raids are part of the bigger picture – part of endgame – and not meant to stand alone. Requiring something like gliding (and updrafts) is fine, imo.

To the point of whether or not raids are the cause of the downtick in revenue – while I disagree with the current format of raids in the game (I may have mentioned that in a thread or two ), I do not believe raids can be blamed for the issue.

The big culprit is, of course, the content drought, especially in open world. People got used to a release cadence that could not be maintained once expansion development was integrated into the process. The result is less of the game we grew used to during the first few years, and that has disillusioned a lot of people.

Would the removal of raids fix that in any way? Only Anet knows, but I seriously doubt it. However, I do think going the other direction – adding a more casual version of the raids – would give those players more to do during any future droughts and alleviate some of the angst (but, again, that is better discussed in another thread).

Back to topic as a TL;DR – if the OP is referring to mastery requirements in raids, I disagree that it is any issue whatsoever. Raids are part of the endgame, but they are not the standalone endgame.

I think most raiders are fine with varying raid difficulty (like escort and trio). Or even open world bosses with raids elements (like unbound guardian).

It’s just the duplication of existing raids or rewards that people have a problem with.

I am 100% on board with new living story chapters, open world maps and events, and fractals.

It’s just that when I’m not in the mood for raids (either because I want something easy, or because I only have 15 minutes) I’d rather not play a watered down version of something I’ve already done.

Oh, and agreed 100% that the content drought is the source of any revenue reduction.

Fay.2357:

Adry.7512:

P.S. Raids arent the reason, its the fact that they solely focused on raids and nothing else.

Please, tell me more about how a 5-man team working on raids from a studio with several hundred employees is ‘solely focused on raids’.

I love it when this argument gets cooked up again. The answer is quite easy, just take a look around on the game before the arrival of the fen and tell me what was produced except for the Shatterer Revemp that was not a raid.
Anet corrected HoT because it blew hard in some instances(not talking about hard mobs, that´s a little bit funny). That is an explanation, but not an excuse. Anet runs a business, so it should be their goal to satisfy as many people as possible to keep or win them as customers. I was not very satisfied in the last year or so with GW2 (Please spare me and yourself the question why I am still here and playing, I don´t know the answer.), and numbers now tell me that many people shared my dilema.

The raid supporters are obviously not enough people to have Anet even reach the number they had before HoT and raids were released.
So indeed you can´t draw a direct direction between the decline of money and raids, only Anet can do that. But you can suggest it without saying something far fetched.

I am also pretty sure that the loyal customers in their majority did not react very well on HoT and raids. You can´t call sheep to your farm for years with your green meadows and then suddenly you begin to attract deer by putting small trees instead of meadows at your farm and expect the sheep to stay with you. Many people were looking to escape raids for a reason I guess.

Torolan.5816:

Fay.2357:

Adry.7512:

P.S. Raids arent the reason, its the fact that they solely focused on raids and nothing else.

Please, tell me more about how a 5-man team working on raids from a studio with several hundred employees is ‘solely focused on raids’.

I love it when this argument gets cooked up again. The answer is quite easy, just take a look around on the game before the arrival of the fen and tell me what was produced except for the Shatterer Revemp that was not a raid.
Anet corrected HoT because it blew hard in some instances(not talking about hard mobs, that´s a little bit funny). That is an explanation, but not an excuse. Anet runs a business, so it should be their goal to satisfy as many people as possible to keep or win them as customers. I was not very satisfied in the last year or so with GW2 (Please spare me and yourself the question why I am still here and playing, I don´t know the answer.), and numbers now tell me that many people shared my dilema.

The raid supporters are obviously not enough people to have Anet even reach the number they had before HoT and raids were released.
So indeed you can´t draw a direct direction between the decline of money and raids, only Anet can do that. But you can suggest it without saying something far fetched.

Nothing you just said lends credence to the idea that raids took actual amounts of resources away from other development. It was 5 people in a studio of hundreds, the lack of content released has nothing to do with raids. Also…

Torolan.5816:

I am also pretty sure that the loyal customers in their majority did not react very well on HoT and raids. You can´t call sheep to your farm for years with your green meadows and then suddenly you begin to attract deer by putting small trees instead of meadows at your farm and expect the sheep to stay with you. Many people were looking to escape raids for a reason I guess.

>Mfw the guy arguing with me literally calls himself a sheeple

Fay.2357:

>Mfw the guy arguing with me literally calls himself a sheeple

Nothing I read on the forums will ever be better than this!

Torolan.5816:

I love it when this argument gets cooked up again. The answer is quite easy, just take a look around on the game before the arrival of the fen and tell me what was produced except for the Shatterer Revemp that was not a raid.

Looks around
Looks like episode 1 is to blame for low sales.

I am glad that this amuses you guys. I am not even gonna try to sell me as a pro or just a semipro gamer, because that is why I play GW2. I never opened a metabattle site or something simliar and don´t plan to do such in the future. so I thought it was a quite fitting animal.

Edit:
So ls1 scored the lowest quartal, TheRandomGuy?

Torolan.5816:

I am glad that this amuses you guys. I am not even gonna try to sell me as a pro or just a semipro gamer, because that is why I play GW2. I never opened a metabattle site or something simliar and don´t plan to do such in the future. so I thought it was a quite fitting animal.

Edit:
So ls1 scored the lowest quartal, TheRandomGuy?

Obvious hilarity of an unwitting sheeple analogy aside, your analogy makes no sense anyway. A more valid analogy would be where the farmer purchases new land and creates a grove instead of a meadow. They didn’t remove any content to make space for raids, it’s simply an addition to the game.

Raids should be hard, entirely skill based, but accessable to everyone. Nobody likes gear grind.

ChrizZcE.5981:

Raids should be hard, entirely skill based, but accessable to everyone. Nobody likes gear grind.

So raids should be what they are now. Kind of hard, entirely skill based and acessable to everyone. GW2 is the first game that have raids with 0 gear grind.

OnizukaBR.8537:

ChrizZcE.5981:

Raids should be hard, entirely skill based, but accessable to everyone. Nobody likes gear grind.

So raids should be what they are now. Kind of hard, entirely skill based and acessable to everyone. GW2 is the first game that have raids with 0 gear grind.

good luck finding a raid group with exotic gear or as a thief.

ChrizZcE.5981:

OnizukaBR.8537:

ChrizZcE.5981:

Raids should be hard, entirely skill based, but accessable to everyone. Nobody likes gear grind.

So raids should be what they are now. Kind of hard, entirely skill based and acessable to everyone. GW2 is the first game that have raids with 0 gear grind.

good luck finding a raid group with exotic gear or as a thief.

I already posted in another thread an example of exactly this, i did VG as a condi thief with exotic Carrion. If you want to raid, you raid. The ones that dont try just make excuses like you.

ChrizZcE.5981:

good luck finding a raid group with exotic gear or as a thief.

Almost no group is doing a gear check because it is more important that you are experienced or at least know the encounter. Most kicks are due to people sneaking into groups and fail heavily on mechanics.

Playing thief is another thing but they are viable. I played with thief pugs in Escort, KC, VG, Gorse, Sabetha and Trio. But if you really like to raid just log onto another class and stop persisting on 1 out of 9. Nobody should be stubborn and say: “No, I only play raids if I can play thief.” It’s a team encounter and as a good teamplayer you should bring what is the best for your team.

OnizukaBR.8537:

ChrizZcE.5981:

Raids should be hard, entirely skill based, but accessable to everyone. Nobody likes gear grind.

So raids should be what they are now. Kind of hard, entirely skill based and acessable to everyone. GW2 is the first game that have raids with 0 gear grind.

Not much on the gear grind, but there is a mastery grind

Jerus.4350:

OnizukaBR.8537:

ChrizZcE.5981:

Raids should be hard, entirely skill based, but accessable to everyone. Nobody likes gear grind.

So raids should be what they are now. Kind of hard, entirely skill based and acessable to everyone. GW2 is the first game that have raids with 0 gear grind.

Not much on the gear grind, but there is a mastery grind

Getting updraft is anything but a grind. I think people dont know what grind means anymore and just use it if you have a pre-requisite to something, even if its pre-requisite take little to no time to get.

OnizukaBR.8537:

Jerus.4350:

OnizukaBR.8537:

ChrizZcE.5981:

Raids should be hard, entirely skill based, but accessable to everyone. Nobody likes gear grind.

So raids should be what they are now. Kind of hard, entirely skill based and acessable to everyone. GW2 is the first game that have raids with 0 gear grind.

Not much on the gear grind, but there is a mastery grind

Getting updraft is anything but a grind. I think people dont know what grind means anymore and just use it if you have a pre-requisite to something, even if its pre-requisite take little to no time to get.

I haven’t done Xera yet, was I told wrong and you don’t need leyline gliding? And, the raid masteries sure are handy.

Between that and new stats being superior to old ones for many things… I don’t know, I don’t feel it’s really any better than the old MMO’s I played.

Jerus.4350:

OnizukaBR.8537:

Jerus.4350:

OnizukaBR.8537:

ChrizZcE.5981:

Raids should be hard, entirely skill based, but accessable to everyone. Nobody likes gear grind.

So raids should be what they are now. Kind of hard, entirely skill based and acessable to everyone. GW2 is the first game that have raids with 0 gear grind.

Not much on the gear grind, but there is a mastery grind

Getting updraft is anything but a grind. I think people dont know what grind means anymore and just use it if you have a pre-requisite to something, even if its pre-requisite take little to no time to get.

I haven’t done Xera yet, was I told wrong and you don’t need leyline gliding? And, the raid masteries sure are handy.

Between that and new stats being superior to old ones for many things… I don’t know, I don’t feel it’s really any better than the old MMO’s I played.

Xera is the last boss of the last wing, you can get enough XP for its mastery just by doing wing 1 and wing 2, so yeah no grind at all. Its not like VG needs all the mastery to do. And about the new stats, only condi needs it, power still use the same old stats that you got years ago. So its miles better than any old mmo you played ( in the grind aspect ).
GW2 is literally the only MMO where you can buy the game ( you get a boost to 80 ) and go straight to raid. I could buy a new account boost a thief choose a carrion as gear stats and go raid. Dont even need DD as condi thief dont use it.

OnizukaBR.8537:

Jerus.4350:

OnizukaBR.8537:

Jerus.4350:

OnizukaBR.8537:

ChrizZcE.5981:

Raids should be hard, entirely skill based, but accessable to everyone. Nobody likes gear grind.

So raids should be what they are now. Kind of hard, entirely skill based and acessable to everyone. GW2 is the first game that have raids with 0 gear grind.

Not much on the gear grind, but there is a mastery grind

Getting updraft is anything but a grind. I think people dont know what grind means anymore and just use it if you have a pre-requisite to something, even if its pre-requisite take little to no time to get.

I haven’t done Xera yet, was I told wrong and you don’t need leyline gliding? And, the raid masteries sure are handy.

Between that and new stats being superior to old ones for many things… I don’t know, I don’t feel it’s really any better than the old MMO’s I played.

Xera is the last boss of the last wing, you can get enough XP for its mastery just by doing wing 1 and wing 2, so yeah no grind at all. Its not like VG needs all the mastery to do. And about the new stats, only condi needs it, power still use the same old stats that you got years ago. So its miles better than any old mmo you played ( in the grind aspect ).
GW2 is literally the only MMO where you can buy the game ( you get a boost to 80 ) and go straight to raid. I could buy a new account boost a thief choose a carrion as gear stats and go raid. Dont even need DD as condi thief dont use it.

Ehh, I guess you make a good point in that you can take that 80 boost and do a raid. Just as someone who came back after taking a break before HoT, I’ve felt the same uphill climb to get set back up that I did in any other game I’ve played.

Jerus.4350:

OnizukaBR.8537:

Jerus.4350:

OnizukaBR.8537:

Jerus.4350:

OnizukaBR.8537:

ChrizZcE.5981:

Raids should be hard, entirely skill based, but accessable to everyone. Nobody likes gear grind.

So raids should be what they are now. Kind of hard, entirely skill based and acessable to everyone. GW2 is the first game that have raids with 0 gear grind.

Not much on the gear grind, but there is a mastery grind

Getting updraft is anything but a grind. I think people dont know what grind means anymore and just use it if you have a pre-requisite to something, even if its pre-requisite take little to no time to get.

I haven’t done Xera yet, was I told wrong and you don’t need leyline gliding? And, the raid masteries sure are handy.

Between that and new stats being superior to old ones for many things… I don’t know, I don’t feel it’s really any better than the old MMO’s I played.

Xera is the last boss of the last wing, you can get enough XP for its mastery just by doing wing 1 and wing 2, so yeah no grind at all. Its not like VG needs all the mastery to do. And about the new stats, only condi needs it, power still use the same old stats that you got years ago. So its miles better than any old mmo you played ( in the grind aspect ).
GW2 is literally the only MMO where you can buy the game ( you get a boost to 80 ) and go straight to raid. I could buy a new account boost a thief choose a carrion as gear stats and go raid. Dont even need DD as condi thief dont use it.

Ehh, I guess you make a good point in that you can take that 80 boost and do a raid. Just as someone who came back after taking a break before HoT, I’ve felt the same uphill climb to get set back up that I did in any other game I’ve played.

I dont know what to say, if you can give a real example of other game that you had the same uphill climb, because all the games i know if you stopped for more than a year and come back prepare for months of grinding some kind of token before you are able to raid. And here you can get Elite in 1 day easy and go to raid, and if you had already ascended gear to change for any stats is really easy as you only need 1 recipe ( insignea or inscription). So i really cant see how GW2 have the same uphill.

EQ the intro raids were designed that you could get the group gear (2-3weeks) and start raiding. Or, coming in with last years raid gear was fine, so taking long breaks wasn’t a huge issue (it was pretty normal to take a good 4-5month break at the end of an expansion cycle, and you’d come back for the next expansion missing nothing)

DCUO likewise had group gear lead into raid gear and took about 2-3 weeks to get back up to enter raids, though you could fast track that one with ‘gems’ and it was technically possible to be back and in top tier raid gear within a week, just it’d cost a pretty penny.

In either within a month or two you were in that top tier again.

Of course I could just be flat wrong and it’s more my hatred of the mastery system that makes it feel honestly worse or at least the same.

Jerus.4350:

EQ the intro raids were designed that you could get the group gear (2-3weeks) and start raiding. Or, coming in with last years raid gear was fine, so taking long breaks wasn’t a huge issue (it was pretty normal to take a good 4-5month break at the end of an expansion cycle, and you’d come back for the next expansion missing nothing)

DCUO likewise had group gear lead into raid gear and took about 2-3 weeks to get back up to enter raids, though you could fast track that one with ‘gems’ and it was technically possible to be back and in top tier raid gear within a week, just it’d cost a pretty penny.

In either within a month or two you were in that top tier again.

Of course I could just be flat wrong and it’s more my hatred of the mastery system that makes it feel honestly worse or at least the same.

You say 2-3 weeks as if that were nothing. The release of the Forsaken Thicket wings at their pace was much more forgiving to allow even those who absolutely despised experience grinding, to get the masteries they need over months between the content.

With ascended gear being the apex of stats, there’s not going to be any sort of gear requirement whatsoever in GW2 raiding that requires getting the gear to do so. It ultimately depends on how Arenanet approaches the next raid if they want to slowly increase the Mastery requirements, which is effectively playing the game like we have for years.

I used to really despise gear walls that were far worse in many cases than something like an experience wall which we see with Masteries. It didn’t matter how good you were, your gear effectively nullified any sort of chance you would see the next raid until you got better gear elsewhere.

With the Mastery system? I can do literally anything in the next expansion zones. And somehow that’s supposed to be a barrier? I just can’t understand how people could even consider it a grind, hell I think people are terribly impatient overall in this game.

Torolan.5816:

I love it when this argument gets cooked up again. The answer is quite easy, just take a look around on the game before the arrival of the fen and tell me what was produced except for the Shatterer Revamp that was not a raid.

OK, let’s look at the history of raids v. other content.

Jan. 2015: Raids announced as part of HoT.

Oct 2015: Hot launches with 4 zones, map metas, many boss fights, skins, and some other stuff. This is all persistent PvE.

Nov 2015: First raid wing — 3 boss encounters plus some filler.

Dec 2015: Wintersday, ANet takes a break

Jan 2016: Shatterer Revamp plus gliding in central Tyria

March 2016: Raid Wing 2: 3 more bosses plus filler. At this point HoT’s persistent PvE has been fully functional for months. The raid is only 2/3’s finished.

April 2016: HoT revamp.

June 2016: Raid Wing 3; 3 more bosses plus filler. 8 months after HoT launch, the raid is finally finished. The armor precursors finally appear.

July 2016: LS3 and BSF launch.

So, when I look at the content distribution, I see a massive imbalance in favor of persistent world PvE over the last year and a half. Persistent PvE got a large content infusion sandwiched by two 9 month delays. The raid, meanwhile, was parceled out in dribs and drabs most likely because they had only 5-6 working on it.

If Anet had released Heart of Maguuma in parcels like raids came (a zone every 3-4 months) then the implementation of persistent PvE content would have been very similar to raids. Why didn’t they? I seem to recall many demands from persistent world PvE players for an expansion. You want a scapegoat for content drought? That’s the real one.

The three raid wings were also pretty much complete before HoT even launched. I seems to remember it be stated that the tester guilds had access to all three wings.

Ayrilana.1396:

The three raid wings were also pretty much complete before HoT even launched. I seems to remember it be stated that the tester guilds had access to all three wings.

Yeah, no they weren’t.

Fay.2357:

Ayrilana.1396:

The three raid wings were also pretty much complete before HoT even launched. I seems to remember it be stated that the tester guilds had access to all three wings.

Yeah, no they weren’t.

They were completed to a state that they had players testing them.

They were testing them before HoT launched and had access to all three wings.

Ayrilana.1396:

Fay.2357:

Ayrilana.1396:

The three raid wings were also pretty much complete before HoT even launched. I seems to remember it be stated that the tester guilds had access to all three wings.

Yeah, no they weren’t.

They were completed to a state that they had players testing them.

They were testing them before HoT launched and had access to all three wings.

Yeah, they said ‘three wings under development’, not ‘three finished raid wings’.