Guild Wars 2

ChrizZcE.5981:

The most skilled players that do the hardest content in the game are always broke while the people that run from chest to chest and hit “F” for hours everyday have the best in slot gear and the coolest looking chars.

It´s nuts.

Do you consider yourself one of the most skilled players? I certainly don’t. But all the skilled players that I know are richer than me.

Thaddeus.4891:

ChrizZcE.5981:

The most skilled players that do the hardest content in the game are always broke while the people that run from chest to chest and hit “F” for hours everyday have the best in slot gear and the coolest looking chars.

It´s nuts.

Do you consider yourself one of the most skilled players? I certainly don’t. But all the skilled players that I know are richer than me.

…and they would be a lot richer if they spent all their time chest farming instead of doing content.

ChrizZcE.5981:

Thaddeus.4891:

ChrizZcE.5981:

The most skilled players that do the hardest content in the game are always broke while the people that run from chest to chest and hit “F” for hours everyday have the best in slot gear and the coolest looking chars.

It´s nuts.

Do you consider yourself one of the most skilled players? I certainly don’t. But all the skilled players that I know are richer than me.

…and they would be a lot richer if they spent all their time chest farming instead of doing content.

umm back then when dungeon tours were thing, guess how many skilled players ran dungeons everyday to accumulate enough gold to make 5~all legendaries plus all the ascended armors/weapons from fractal? Those people who are completing the raid or core members of notable raid guild are the same people that ran dungeons and fractals. Majority of the skilled players in this game have already established a connection through speed running dungeons, and now they have moved onto raid. If you were part of a speed running guild, you would not have much trouble getting ascended armors/weapons since you were invited to run fractals and dungeons daily.

ChrizZcE.5981:

Thaddeus.4891:

ChrizZcE.5981:

The most skilled players that do the hardest content in the game are always broke while the people that run from chest to chest and hit “F” for hours everyday have the best in slot gear and the coolest looking chars.

It´s nuts.

Do you consider yourself one of the most skilled players? I certainly don’t. But all the skilled players that I know are richer than me.

…and they would be a lot richer if they spent all their time chest farming instead of doing content.

chest farming is a bottom of the barrel money making scheme that you do if you dont want to think.

people with skill will use skill to understand a concept to make money, for example, playing the BLT

TheFamster.7806:

ChrizZcE.5981:

Thaddeus.4891:

ChrizZcE.5981:

The most skilled players that do the hardest content in the game are always broke while the people that run from chest to chest and hit “F” for hours everyday have the best in slot gear and the coolest looking chars.

It´s nuts.

Do you consider yourself one of the most skilled players? I certainly don’t. But all the skilled players that I know are richer than me.

…and they would be a lot richer if they spent all their time chest farming instead of doing content.

umm back then when dungeon tours were thing, guess how many skilled players ran dungeons everyday to accumulate enough gold to make 5~all legendaries plus all the ascended armors/weapons from fractal? Those people who are completing the raid or core members of notable raid guild are the same people that ran dungeons and fractals. Majority of the skilled players in this game have already established a connection through speed running dungeons, and now they have moved onto raid. If you were part of a speed running guild, you would not have much trouble getting ascended armors/weapons since you were invited to run fractals and dungeons daily.

Of course they have ascended gear if they run dungeons and fractals everyday for three years. That´s not the point.

The point is that in this game everything is about gold and by far the best way to earn gold is by not playing the game. Someone who only farms the Silvewastes/does TP flipping/ buys gems with cash and converts them to gold will always earn a lot more gold than someone who only does high lvl fractals, PVP/WvW and raids. That is provided both players put in the same amount of hours.

IllegalChocolate.6938:

ChrizZcE.5981:

Thaddeus.4891:

ChrizZcE.5981:

The most skilled players that do the hardest content in the game are always broke while the people that run from chest to chest and hit “F” for hours everyday have the best in slot gear and the coolest looking chars.

It´s nuts.

Do you consider yourself one of the most skilled players? I certainly don’t. But all the skilled players that I know are richer than me.

…and they would be a lot richer if they spent all their time chest farming instead of doing content.

chest farming is a bottom of the barrel money making scheme that you do if you dont want to think.

people with skill will use skill to understand a concept to make money, for example, playing the BLT

i’ve been telling this to every kitten complaining about gold in this game, they never get it. Oh well, more gold for smart people

the best way to earn gold is in fact to play the game.

typical silverwaste event map will yield me around 10 gold. If I do a session of map hopping for say… 50 percentiles and up i can pull down about a hundred gold in a night of play time, (bout 4 hours).

Typical dungeon path yields me around 2 gold per path.

world bosses are around 1 to 5 gold each.

Dragon stand is around 10 gold per full run.

WvW is largely dependant on how active the map is. but my WvW main is fully ascended and elite speced and has only played inside of WvW.

I make money by playing the game. And enjoying it.

the absolute hardest thing for me, is finding a raid/dungeon/fractal group at 2 am.

IllegalChocolate.6938:

Gewd.8125:

It has been a long time, but I don’t remember it ever being as hard. And you are comparing the 1st wing of the GW2 raid to the 6th wing of vanilla wow.

And yes farming equipment was very grindy but at least it wasn’t hard.

and whats so hard about farming gear in GW2? you don’t even need to kill a 40 man boss for it to even be allowed to do other content . You can literally chop trees and mine nodes your way to BiS stats in GW2.

I
Don’t
Understand.
At
ALL

The first couple bosses in Molten Core still required a significant amount of time to learn in comparison to anything spirit vale.

I never said farming ascended gear was hard. I was disproving your claim that vanilla WoW raiding was hard because it took forever to farm equipment for the next wing.

And no, molten core was easy. I remembered that I barely needed to worry about anything, with the tank and healer doing most of the work while I dpsed the boss while watching TV. There might have been one mechanic per boss that everyone had to worry about, but they were easy compared to VG where there are as many as 6 different mechanics sometimes happening at the same time, and needing to coordinate CCs.

For example, Baron Geddon, the only thing I remember about the fight was having 10 entire seconds to move when you became the bomb. Every other mechanic was easily healed or dispelled by 1 person.

Gewd.8125:

IllegalChocolate.6938:

Gewd.8125:

It has been a long time, but I don’t remember it ever being as hard. And you are comparing the 1st wing of the GW2 raid to the 6th wing of vanilla wow.

And yes farming equipment was very grindy but at least it wasn’t hard.

and whats so hard about farming gear in GW2? you don’t even need to kill a 40 man boss for it to even be allowed to do other content . You can literally chop trees and mine nodes your way to BiS stats in GW2.

I
Don’t
Understand.
At
ALL

The first couple bosses in Molten Core still required a significant amount of time to learn in comparison to anything spirit vale.

I never said farming ascended gear was hard. I was disproving your claim that vanilla WoW raiding was hard because it took forever to farm equipment for the next wing.

And no, molten core was easy. I remembered that I barely needed to worry about anything, with the tank and healer doing most of the work while I dpsed the boss while watching TV. There might have been one mechanic per boss that everyone had to worry about, but they were easy compared to VG where there are as many as 6 different mechanics sometimes happening at the same time, and needing to coordinate CCs.

For example, Baron Geddon, the only thing I remember about the fight was having 10 entire seconds to move when you became the bomb. Every other mechanic was easily healed or dispelled by 1 person.

Oh…you were that player in Vanilla. That explains it.

It was a 40-man, but there were quite a few difficult roles to be filled out by a select batch of folks, the rest didn’t really have to do much as you said. In other words, it was probably yourself and a dozen others just doing the dps rotation, the rest really worked on the hard stuff.

It’s sort of why BC went to 25 man raids, to get rid of the filler.

Sykper.6583:

Gewd.8125:

IllegalChocolate.6938:

Gewd.8125:

It has been a long time, but I don’t remember it ever being as hard. And you are comparing the 1st wing of the GW2 raid to the 6th wing of vanilla wow.

And yes farming equipment was very grindy but at least it wasn’t hard.

and whats so hard about farming gear in GW2? you don’t even need to kill a 40 man boss for it to even be allowed to do other content . You can literally chop trees and mine nodes your way to BiS stats in GW2.

I
Don’t
Understand.
At
ALL

The first couple bosses in Molten Core still required a significant amount of time to learn in comparison to anything spirit vale.

I never said farming ascended gear was hard. I was disproving your claim that vanilla WoW raiding was hard because it took forever to farm equipment for the next wing.

And no, molten core was easy. I remembered that I barely needed to worry about anything, with the tank and healer doing most of the work while I dpsed the boss while watching TV. There might have been one mechanic per boss that everyone had to worry about, but they were easy compared to VG where there are as many as 6 different mechanics sometimes happening at the same time, and needing to coordinate CCs.

For example, Baron Geddon, the only thing I remember about the fight was having 10 entire seconds to move when you became the bomb. Every other mechanic was easily healed or dispelled by 1 person.

Oh…you were that player in Vanilla. That explains it.

It was a 40-man, but there were quite a few difficult roles to be filled out by a select batch of folks, the rest didn’t really have to do much as you said. In other words, it was probably yourself and a dozen others just doing the dps rotation, the rest really worked on the hard stuff.

It’s sort of why BC went to 25 man raids, to get rid of the filler.

I could’ve handled the harder roles if it came down to it.

But guess what? I don’t like to be the meatshield occasionally moving the boss or the healer staring at health bars the entire time. And the people at arena.net realized that most people don’t either.

That is why I left for Guild Wars 1, and then Guild Wars 2 where there would be no trinity that allowed tanks and healers to become spoiled brats, being able to demand special treatment and make 39 other people wait for you all day. I’m not sure why anet changed their minds. It seems to me they are randomly trying things to see what will make them more money now even if it goes against their original manifesto.

I also don’t think there’s anything wrong with having easier roles in the raid. I had fun playing with my guild, and we could take our friends that sucked at the game instead of ditching them.

The hardcore mentality that started with BC has led raids down a dark road. At least Blizzard was smart enough to try to alleviate the issue with raid finder and multiple difficulties.

Honestly I don’t think spending this much manpower making content for 1% of the players is sustainable for any MMO except for WoW at its peak. Look at Wildstar for a good example.

I don’t even understand why people are saying raids are impossible for low skilled players.

IT’s not even that hard. On an individual level, it’s pretty easy; the bosses don’t do that much dmg compared to pre-HoT level 50 fractals bosses. It’s making sure everyone does their part right, that’s the hard part, and the fun part.

So yes, casuals can absolutely do this raid. I think some people just want to be spoonfed and/or watch TV while autoattacking on 1. Why bother playing MMO?

It is too hard for most players. This is an observable fact.

I joined a pug yesterday with a few people that supposedly already beat VG.

The tank was pulling too slow and spawning the green circle in aoe fields, and not enough people got on the green circle. And this kept happening for over an hour even though everyone was told after every wipe what they needed to do. And for some reason, they couldn’t do it.

Gewd.8125:

I could’ve handled the harder roles if it came down to it.

But guess what? I don’t like to be the meatshield occasionally moving the boss or the healer staring at health bars the entire time. And the people at arena.net realized that most people don’t either.

That is why I left for Guild Wars 1, and then Guild Wars 2 where there would be no trinity that allowed tanks and healers to become spoiled brats, being able to demand special treatment and make 39 other people wait for you all day. I’m not sure why anet changed their minds. It seems to me they are randomly trying things to see what will make them more money now even if it goes against their original manifesto.

I also don’t think there’s anything wrong with having easier roles in the raid. I had fun playing with my guild, and we could take our friends that sucked at the game instead of ditching them.

The hardcore mentality that started with BC has led raids down a dark road. At least Blizzard was smart enough to try to alleviate the issue with raid finder and multiple difficulties.

Honestly I don’t think spending this much manpower making content for 1% of the players is sustainable for any MMO except for WoW at its peak. Look at Wildstar for a good example.

Always hate it when people think Wildstar broke apart just because of ‘Hardcore Content’. That’s a discussion for another time, anyways, let’s start from the top.

Tanking and Healing were a set, it wasn’t just being a meat-shield as there were particular..I guess ‘Tank-only’ mechanics bosses would occasionally do that would throw you for a spin, and quite a few mechanics called for very precise and proper positioning without accidently getting your damage cleaved. Healing wasn’t just health bars either, especially when you were a ‘Tank’ Healer and you needed to know to coordinate your cooldowns with your tanks, both of you popping the cooldowns during the same intense attack could mean you were flipping on a coin on the next one if the boss could instant-kill your tank and consequently wipe the raid.

I want to say though, that compared to WoW where gear was extremely important to the tanking or healing classes, GW2 has a nice little consolation in how mechanics work out, and giving flexibility to tanks and healers to be more active in encounters. We can argue this constantly, but a tank in GW2 is vastly more damage heavy than any other MMO out there, it’s refreshing.

That’s why I can’t understand your stigma towards GW2 tanks and healers, they are just fundamentally different, its literally a few pieces of gear, maybe a traitline. A greater % of professions can tank compared to other MMOs as well, hell hearing about Chronomancer tanks made me almost float in my chair in happiness. The system is there, and working. If someone can pull off a Daredevil tank, I would be just…beside myself.

As for ‘easier’ roles that naturally comes with the experience, but you have to have a mentality that there were players in your raid having to put more effort in certain encounters. In fact, there were WoW encounters that actually flipped things around and required extremely difficult DPS checks, so roles were often changed about on their difficulty. We see this in GW2 with Gorseval having a nasty timer if you don’t properly dodge slams.

Hardcore Mentality with BC? Did you ever do Karazhan? The first Entry Level Raid in BC for 10 players and it was a blessing of easy, creative, and difficult encounters all mixed together into a lovely little present. It is, by far, one of the best raids out of any MMO, brimming with steadily difficult encounters to introduce players into what BC raids would be like, requiring each player to take more responsibility for their work. BC and quite a few of Vanilla’s Raids worked to engage you instead of you floating between the computer screen and Seinfield. And they made it fun.

It’s disappointing though. Players have step by step been working with the tools they have had with their characters, getting better at the small things like rotations or doing the occasional CC. I don’t see why, there should not be a call for specific content that puts those kind of talents to their limits. Something perhaps to aspire to, but maybe something unattainable to those who won’t actually put the time into them. I thought GW2 was about content for everyone.

It is pretty much universally agreed that Wildstar failed because of overfocus on hardcore content. If you think otherwise you are in some fantasy world by your own. They spent a huge amount of resources on their raids and the rest of the game suffered as a result.

I’m not sure why tanks and healers have a hard time understanding why most people hate them.

In every single MMO there is a shortage of tanks and healers even though you require 2-3x the dps. Does this not tell you that the vast majority of players absolutely hate tanking and healing?

It doesn’t matter how easy it is to get tanking and healing gear, I prefer not to tank or heal even if the equipment cost 0 gold or you try to dress it up to make it sound more interesting than it is. Why is it so interesting to have the boss focus on 1 guy that does no damage while 20 other dps characters beat on it? It is a really stupid concept.

And as a result I have seen in countless games, people waiting the entire day for a single tank or healer. And those spoiled tanks and healers demanding preferential treatment in terms of loot, when everyone else should play, and having people they don’t like kicked.

Gw2 is (or at least was) about content for the majority, not for everyone. And having tanks and healers blocks the fun for the majority.

You
Got
Carried
Through
Raids
Gewd

That’s why it wasn’t hard for you, because you slacked while others had to pick up after you. You didn’t take a leadership position neither did you deal with high administrative stuff to ensure everything was logistically clean for your guild. Now we have content where you have to pull your weight and that’s why its hard for you, because you can’t get others to do your job for you.

Gewd.8125:

It is too hard for most players. This is an observable fact.

I joined a pug yesterday with a few people that supposedly already beat VG.

The tank was pulling too slow and spawning the green circle in aoe fields, and not enough people got on the green circle. And this kept happening for over an hour even though everyone was told after every wipe what they needed to do. And for some reason, they couldn’t do it.

Your expecting people to adapt perfectly within the hour? are you serious? and I thought Nike and the rest of DnT were elitists.

Not even mythic raiders in WoW expect that and that environment can get more toxic fast.

IllegalChocolate.6938:

You
Got
Carried
Through
Raids
Gewd

That’s why it wasn’t hard for you, because you slacked while others had to pick up after you. You didn’t take a leadership position neither did you deal with high administrative stuff to ensure everything was logistically clean for your guild. Now we have content where you have to pull your weight and that’s why its hard for you, because you can’t get others to do your job for you.

Gewd.8125:

It is too hard for most players. This is an observable fact.

I joined a pug yesterday with a few people that supposedly already beat VG.

The tank was pulling too slow and spawning the green circle in aoe fields, and not enough people got on the green circle. And this kept happening for over an hour even though everyone was told after every wipe what they needed to do. And for some reason, they couldn’t do it.

Your expecting people to adapt perfectly within the hour? are you serious? and I thought Nike and the rest of DnT were elitists.

Not even mythic raiders in WoW expect that and that environment can get more toxic fast.

Ok and how does that counter anything I said? I have been arguing that raids should have enough slack so you can carry friends that aren’t very good or being able to use pugs.

There is not much reason for having raids be extremely taxing for everyone in the group, other than for no-lifers to flaunt their raid clears. I also play the game to play an actual game, not to fight the roster boss.

1 hour is quite a bit of time for people who have already done VG. At an average of 5 minutes per attempt, this is 12 attempts….

Raids are casual friendly if the “casual” is:

1) determined
2) level headed (not having kitten fits, which disqualifies a bunch of people in this thread)
3) adaptable
4) skillful/competent
5) geared

5 things for successful causal raids. I feel a self help book brewing. You’re welcome world :-D

Gewd.8125:

IllegalChocolate.6938:

You
Got
Carried
Through
Raids
Gewd

That’s why it wasn’t hard for you, because you slacked while others had to pick up after you. You didn’t take a leadership position neither did you deal with high administrative stuff to ensure everything was logistically clean for your guild. Now we have content where you have to pull your weight and that’s why its hard for you, because you can’t get others to do your job for you.

Gewd.8125:

It is too hard for most players. This is an observable fact.

I joined a pug yesterday with a few people that supposedly already beat VG.

The tank was pulling too slow and spawning the green circle in aoe fields, and not enough people got on the green circle. And this kept happening for over an hour even though everyone was told after every wipe what they needed to do. And for some reason, they couldn’t do it.

Your expecting people to adapt perfectly within the hour? are you serious? and I thought Nike and the rest of DnT were elitists.

Not even mythic raiders in WoW expect that and that environment can get more toxic fast.

Ok and how does that counter anything I said? I have been arguing that raids should have enough slack so you can carry friends that aren’t very good or being able to use pugs.

There is not much reason for having raids be extremely taxing for everyone in the group, other than for no-lifers to flaunt their raid clears.

1 hour is quite a bit of time for people who have already done VG. At an average of 5 minutes per attempt, this is 12 attempts….

It actually does have enough slack for you to carry friends?

I’ve helped teach a group who used literally

0 consumables
run hybrid gear NOT even glass meta dps specs
with a druid who didn’t realize some pets have toughness stats that mess with AI, we spent a couple hours until we found that problem out.
Eventually downing vale guardian
so yes you have slack.

Just because you know what to do doesn’t mean your gonna do it perfectly each time. People are human, we make mistakes, we aren’t robots, that is a part of who we are and you will respect that. If you can’t tolerate the fact that humans are going to be human for a couple hours straight I got a recommendation for you.

Don’t go outside.

I’ve joined quite a few pugs and I can tell you are either lying, or just managed to finish it by luck after 5 hours of wiping.

I would not consider this as having enough slack.

Regardless of whether I am lying or not your clear time expectations is literally the most absurd thing I’ve heard of since the game started.

And you are aware that 5 hours of wiping on your first clear is actually super fast right? People literally spent weeks on their first Vale Guard kill, 5 hours is GODLIKE on first kills.

Your clear time expectations are impossible, it dwarfs even the most elitist I’ve met in WoW: WoD, which is a cesspool. You literally make that place look like hello kitty island adventures in comparison.

100% agree with OP, I find raid to be less about Skill and Gear. Its more about determention and willingness. If you are willing you eventually learn and beat the raid. The only thing stops you from beating the raid is your self. If you are not Willing, you are just not getting through its that simple.

I really enjoyed raiding in the past in MMORPGs like DDO, LOTRO, Tera. I did a few attempt to beat The Spirit Vale. The experience was too gimmicky and arcady for my taste. Felt like i wasnt playing RPG game but some bullet hell arcade instead. I get that GW2 has almost no gear progression so gameplay designed around “twitch skills”, but for me meta events like Siege of Tarir, Chak Gerent and Dragon Stand feel a lot more like raids should be like.

Reading thread like this

really fills me with determination.

I will give raid a try someday.

IllegalChocolate.6938:

And you are aware that 5 hours of wiping on your first clear is actually super fast right? People literally spent weeks on their first Vale Guard kill, 5 hours is GODLIKE on first kills.

…then it is not casual friendly. People willing to spend weeks failing a specific content just to learn how to do it are not casual players.

raids will be casual once mechanics become more common knowledge around the playerbase

Rising Dusk.2408:

I’ve seen a lot of people complain about this from so many perspectives, and I think they are premature complaints being viewed unjustly through the lens of impossibility, like raids have a difficulty barrier insurmountable by normal, casual folk.

I don’t believe that in the slightest, and I say that as a casual…

First of all, my congratulations on beating the VG together with your guild of “casuals”. While I can sympathize with the feeling of accomplishment after such a deed, I cannot help to wonder why you would generalize raid encounters as casual friendly based on a single successful boss kill in a single raid wing. If you were to advertise the VG in such a way, I might be tempted to agree with a few of your points, however, since you generalize, I cannot help to view your post as misleading at best.

That said, let me illustrate why I believe raids are not casual (just to be clear, I’m not saying I actually have a problem with this, I’m simply addressing your claim that they are casual):

1. Gear stats: Looking beyond VG, Gorse can be considered as one huge DPS-check. I would love to hear how your casual guild is progressing against that one. As was already pointed out in this thread, an ascended weapon is something like a 5-ish% damage increase over an exotic one, trinkets add a few more. This is a significant damage-increase with will really matter at bosses like Gorse. The only area where the difference is really small is with the ascended armor (<2% I think?). Lastly, advertising exotic gear for raids based on your druid example is again pretty misleading. I’m fairly sure your druid didn’t get picked primarily for its dps-capabilities.
2. Roles: While several classes can fill several roles, role distribution amongst the participants is nevertheless mandatory. In case of the VG, you need some condi, you need a tank, and so on. Combined with the above point regarding gear stats, if a player cannot fill a specific role, they cannot successfully raid. Simple as that. Maybe we would have to first establish what casual means, but is having 2-3 suitable raid-roles with the corresponding (asc-)gear something you still call casual?
3. Time-investment: You illustrated how you spread your raid-attempts throughout the week, with 1-2 hours here and there. Let me ask you, how much else did your group of casuals do on these evenings? All those extra daily reward chests found across various activities? How do the few shards you get for a wipe at VG compare to all the (daily) rewards you could have gotten from far easier activities instead? They don’t and that’s precisely why it’s not casual-friendly.
4. Rewards: The above point brings me to the actual rewards: So far, every weekly random reward I got from boss kills was complete garbage, aka 1 worthless exotic and a few other items of even lower quality. How do you plan on motivating the casual players to keep doing raids when – as previously illustrated – they can get better rewards elsewhere for the same (or less) time-investment. Legendary-armor? Oh right, that’s for casual players now, is it…
5. Satisfaction: Not exclusive to your post, but something I’ve read over and over again. “Oh we had so much fun wiping”. Great, now that you’ve beaten the encounter and might return for the next weekly reward, let me ask you this: How much fun exactly is it going to be to wipe and wipe again? Because it really doesn’t matter if you yourself figured out the raid mechanics. The raid group is as strong as its weakest link. Meaning that whenever you take a new guildmate with you into the raid, you will immediately notice the overall performance going down the drain. Again, exactly how casual friendly is this?

In conclusion, I believe that raids are clearly aimed at the dedicated player-base with both the skill and time investment at their hands. While VG might be more forgiving than other bosses in some regards, this boss alone doesn’t justify to generalize the raid content as a whole as casual-friendly.

Lastly, I wish to point out that there may be some readers who might mistake your posts to carry some additional weight due to your forum title/role. As a result, they might not bother to look beyond the misleading advertising of your thread (title) and simply take it as hard facts. As such, I would consider it beneficial for the readers if you did indeed take your time with raids beyond a single boss and corresponding kill before you decided to advertise in the way you did now. Thanks for future consideration.

ChrizZcE.5981:

IllegalChocolate.6938:

Gewd.8125:

It has been a long time, but I don’t remember it ever being as hard. And you are comparing the 1st wing of the GW2 raid to the 6th wing of vanilla wow.

And yes farming equipment was very grindy but at least it wasn’t hard.

and whats so hard about farming gear in GW2? you don’t even need to kill a 40 man boss for it to even be allowed to do other content . You can literally chop trees and mine nodes your way to BiS stats in GW2.

I
Don’t
Understand.
At
ALL

The first couple bosses in Molten Core still required a significant amount of time to learn in comparison to anything spirit vale.

That´s the entire problem with the game.

I´d personally rather get my ascended gear by beating challenging content with other people than to spend night after night chopping wood for months on end just to save up enough gold for ascended gear.

The most skilled players that do the hardest content in the game are always broke while the people that run from chest to chest and hit “F” for hours everyday have the best in slot gear and the coolest looking chars.

It´s nuts.

People seem to complain so much about the “exclusitivity” of raids. Imagine by how much that would increase if they were also the most rewarding content.

Gewd.8125:

It is pretty much universally agreed that Wildstar failed because of overfocus on hardcore content. If you think otherwise you are in some fantasy world by your own. They spent a huge amount of resources on their raids and the rest of the game suffered as a result.

The rest of your post is literally role bias, Wildstar had by its design massive issues with its hardcore content.

For instance, instances only gave rewards when the full group did all the encounters at a gold rating, yes, runs were literally graded on performance. A lot of the progression loot was gated behind players playing 100% all the time, which is garbage in any sense. You could have a flawless run, mess up on the final boss for the last few %, get a silver rating and not get anything worthwhile. Doesn’t take a genius to see what that causes, it was just poor reward design.

The second issue, interesting enough was that it wasn’t promoted enough, there were nearly zero advertisements for the game while WoW at the same point was releasing an expansion. That never ends well, so the launch got delayed in tune. Gross, so the appeal was already downhill from the start.

There were also the usual bugs that came with any new MMO, but although the difficulty of content was there, the means behind keeping players around were done poorly.

savacli.8172:

Pandabro.8743:

OP is absolutely correct. Having spent hours on 2/3 bosses they are not that mind bogglingly hard that casual players cannot complete them.

BUT there is a perception that Ascended, or at least 2/3 ascended is required. It’s not a completely unjustified perception either as the 2nd boss is a pretty hard DPS check and having certain Ascended gear will really really help you. Sure it can probably be done with everyone in full exotics but the level of play needed to do that is pretty high and not many can execute on that level so people putting groups together are safer in making the requirement that Ascended gear is required.

The problem with this is that Ascended costs SO kitten MUCH. It’s a huge barrier to entry for new players. It takes months for a new player to get to the level they need to be to even start raids.

This is the biggest problem with raids right now. Difficulty is fine, but so many are being locked out of content simply because of the huge gold sink Ascended is right now.

This spreadsheet breaks down Ascended vs Exotic for those curious about the exact advantage with Power builds.

In other words walking in with Ascended trinkets is about 4% damage increase.
Bringing in an Ascended weapon is another 6% ish.
Armor and all infusions slotted is about another 2% each in damage increase.

So those who have the time and resources for Ascended gear can easily walk in with a boosted 10% in damage over the exotic player. That’s not to say it’s impossible for an exotic team to clear the Raid bosses, but that’s an additional 10% in damage that the exotic team would have to come up with when compared to a similarly skilled team that is in ascended gear.

So a casual player not only needs to get through the initial learning curve, but they may also have a harder time clearing the boss depending on the team’s overall gear quality.

I would say that the 10% bonus from ascended weapons and trinkets is just the first step.

The thing about an organized run, or a run with players familiar with dungeon content is that there are a lot of things that get taken for granted. I would pug run dungeons a lot, and there are several things that just don’t happen as when compared to an organized run. It is interesting to see two all zerker groups engage a boss, and one down the boss twice as fast as the other.

#1: Everyone is not in the optimal gear prefix for their role. During these runs you’ll get plenty of Knights, Soldiers, Cavalier, and condi sets on classes that don’t do good condis. This can cut the teams DPS down 1/3rd of what it would be, but for now lets just consider it 1/6th.

#2: Players are not running the optimum builds. The build can have even more of an influence on DPS than the gear prefix, since builds decide how many buffs you give out, whether they are redundant or not. The difference between a solo build focused on self buffing and a “team build” built around having other dedicated buffers can be huge, so this can easily equate to a 10% DPS drop. Though theoretically it can be much higher.

#3: Players are not running optimum classes. The DPS difference between classes can easily be 20% or higher, but lets just consider that as 10%

#4: Players are not running the optimum sigils and runes. I’m not even sure what these are anymore myself, so I can’t give an exact value. But, lets put it at 5% damage, as many runes give bonuses similar to that.

#5: Players are not running the optimum damage rotations. Again, you’ll be stuck with players who try to range the boss down instead of meleeing, or using the wrong weapons, or spamming the wrong skills at the wrong time. You can consider this a 20% reduction in damage at minimum.

So to keep track, that is 1 × 0.833_ x 0.9 × 0.9 × 0.95 x 0.8 = 0.462 This means that , you’ll end up with a group that does less than half the damage of an organized group. And this is a conservative estimate of the reduction. This all, however, leads to one of the bigger problems:

#6: There’s no feedback on what you’ve done wrong regarding maximizing DPS. Even the notion of DPS is foreign to many players, let alone how to maximize it. You just gotta try again and hope it works. And again. And again… and again… you can come up for an infinite number of excuses that excuse you from being the weak link in the chain.

When I hear something like this:

Misguided.5139:

Great post. The group I am with have spent a total of 9-10 hours on Vale Guardian so far over three nights. You could call us hardcore casuals. The second night we made it to the enrage timer for the first time. The third night we did a much better job getting through the early phases of the fight more regularly and got the boss to 15-20% on our best effort. Really hoping we can get him down this week.

It is a greater discouragement than any “oh, you’ll get it” words you can speak. This here speaks volumes about how unattainable the event really is. You have to hope that your group is going to miraculously self improve somehow, or you can throw your week away.

You guys have a very strange definition of “casual”. The “casual” player doesn’t even comprehend the notion of “DPS”. Damage extends as far as how big a number they can get. The “casual” player does not take initiative: when you give out instructions, they assume someone else will handle it. The “casual” player is used to attending events with masses of other players who will save them, and thus don’t need anything more than the most general of instructions. The “casual” does not have the drive to get together with a group of people to spend a part time job’s worth of time on an event with no end in sight. And no, saying that your random group can do it is not proof of raids being open to casuals. What would be proof is beating the Vale Guardian with 5 minutes left on the clock, or a successful kill with random classes all in knight gear (sans required condi builds).

I do not demand any changes. I only ask that you guys admit that your view is skewed and that raids are not casual friendly. “You” being general here, not necessarily referring to Savacli.

Why can’t people just admit that some contents like pvp, gvg and now raid need some proper gear and traits and some skills in order to play? Even pvp builds need proper amulet+traits in competitive tier to win matches. And since LFG is limited to only 5 people, make a play however you want guild and be done with it. Obviously raid won’t be cleared with pressing 1s and failing to dodge some obviously telegraphed mechanic, hey but at least you can raid.

It seems that “casual” people are complaining about how they can’t raid instead of clearing the raid. Well have someone make a really casual guild for raid, have everyone play whatever they want, and have fun. Raid isn’t the most rewarding content in the game right now and there are very little story that is tied to living story so it doesn’t even matter.

If you want to clear the raid wing, you and the other 9 members need to be dedicated and committed to it. There are videos, guides, and now live streams to help you go through the raid, so stop making excuses and either learn the mechanics of raid and each class, or play other contents. If you think you don’t need ascended gear, why do you think you’ll need even more expensive legendary gear anyway.

It’s time for anet and the community to stop spoonfeeding contents and have people actually learn and take advantage of this great combat system. Oh btw for those who cried out for condition builds to be viable, red guardian from spirit vale is the outcome you wanted. Now instead of just spamming 1s to apply condi, actually learn to apply specific condis at the right time.

Just last Friday my guild pulled together, changed builds, tweaked food items, swapped classes, and finally put down the Vale Guardian with 1 minute left on the clock as probably the most casual guild you can imagine. For context, I was wearing exotic Magi gear on my Druid using cheap sharpening stones with a 2s food item I grabbed off the TP, and fewer than half of our group had ascended gear at all. We were elated.

How did you get those casuals to switch class? The consensus in my guild is that if the raid isn’t doable with no guide, no gear, 3 necro, and 2 thief, well, then raiding just isn’t for them. What classes did you have?

Astralporing.1957:

IllegalChocolate.6938:

And you are aware that 5 hours of wiping on your first clear is actually super fast right? People literally spent weeks on their first Vale Guard kill, 5 hours is GODLIKE on first kills.

…then it is not casual friendly. People willing to spend weeks failing a specific content just to learn how to do it are not casual players.

What is your definition of time spent for a casual player? 5 minutes a week? If two hours on a single day is what you got an entire week, that is still fantastic time for learning raids.

It is funny – and very telling – how these threads quickly turn into insults levied at the two sides more than an actual discussion of the topic.

While they have a place, raids are not casual for two simple reasons -

1. you have to bring people based on their roles/gear/builds rather than who they are (eg friendly players) or their player skill.

2. There is a very high possibility that you will have to exclude friends or others based on the arbitrary requirements of raiding.

I’m not saying these are bad things – they are just the simple realities of raiding and mean that raiding (in its current form) will never be something intended for casual players.

Lalocat.6793:

How did you get those casuals to switch class? The consensus in my guild is that if the raid isn’t doable with no guide, no gear, 3 necro, and 2 thief, well, then raiding just isn’t for them. What classes did you have?

Casual don’t mean one type of exactly similar person. Casual only mean that he spend less time in the game. You got casual that are willing to adapt to tackle a challenge and I would agree that it’s most people.

That said, I think your friend are absolutely right. Raid don’t seem to be for them and it’s not a bad thing. No guide (or a lot of testing by wipe) and no gear isn’t raid at all. It’s dungeon. I killed the first boss with 2 thief and 1 necro and I’m pretty sure we could kill him with 3 Necro and 2 thief. 1 Necro tank, 1 healer, 2 Herald, 2 Viper Reapers, 2 Thiefs, 1 PS Warrior and 1 Condi Engineer. I think it could work for the first boss.

Raid core idea is to push players farther. To test their skill, organisation and tactics. It’s all about wiping the floor like idiot smashing their head into a wall until you can find what is going wrong and finding a solution. That’s what is fun about raid and without that, it’s just not raiding. Without that, there isn’t any difference between dungeons and raids.

IllegalChocolate.6938:

IllegalChocolate.6938:

And you are aware that 5 hours of wiping on your first clear is actually super fast right? People literally spent weeks on their first Vale Guard kill, 5 hours is GODLIKE on first kills.

Astralporing.1957:

…then it is not casual friendly. People willing to spend weeks failing a specific content just to learn how to do it are not casual players.

What is your definition of time spent for a casual player? 5 minutes a week? If two hours on a single day is what you got an entire week, that is still fantastic time for learning raids.

…erm, maybe you should look at your own post first, because when saying “weeks” you definitely didn’t think of 2 hours (remember, as you said 5 hours would be “godlike” in comparison, and we’re talking about averages and not GWAMMs here).

You definitely meant way, way more than those 5 hours, so don’t now pretend otherwise.

And as i’ve said already, that’s not really casual.

Atm raids are ‘doable’ due to might stacking, and auto attack modifiers on classes like revenent sword, and Warrior with 100b rotations, and spike condi damage from burning, mostly from engie.

Engie won’t get nerfed cause it doesn’t see (not that build) pvp play. However: Revenant sword is a huge possibility to get a nerf. What then? The meta class just got hammer down. And be sure of one thing: they will never decrease the hp, or timer from the boss. So every auto attack or might stackign nerf, will make raids harder. Mark my words, february balance patch will screw raids up more then ppl think.

Also why is it, that a burn ranger, is not good for a raid? If everyone plays perfect, it might be doable, but because everyone, misses at least one dodge, or green circle, the dps slows down and ‘overcompensating’ is necessary (doing more dps, then the average hp / seconds you can fight him). Imo if builds like condi ranger are already out of the boot, what is not then?

Thief has always been supported to be lead dps on single targets, but due to how specializations fall out is not the case. Nobody wants a thief in VG raid, unless you are a well known guildie.

Mesmer is only good cause his lack of dps (wich is pretty serious, even worse then condi ranger, GS auto just doesnt cut it), is compensated by giving allies alacrity.

Condi necro, tested myself with a normal build only reaches 4-5k bleeds at best. You need vipers to get to 6k, and ascended or perfect food (read 1g 30 min food) to get 7k. 5k is not enough to have a safe margin. 6k is at least. Wich means pay to win (viper recipe alone cost 15g total, and that is not the armor, AND will only be exotic. Ascended armor is probably into the 600g.

Guardian is only accepted as tank mostly.

The general rule is: either be ultra over the top dps (sinister engie, revenant sword), or overcompensate your weakness with giving allies at least a 10% dps boost (alacrity, druid trait, that on heals allies get damage boost buff, phalanx, revenant facet, etc).

This is not leaving a good place for a lot of builds. Wich is sad. I’m not saying that a settlers builded guy should be able to succeed raids, i know that is not possible. But for instance a rabid exotic necro, (standard build, wich is pretty good at what it does), should also be an option, and it isn’t. They shifted it to ‘viper at least’, wich is troublesome imo.

As for op: you are not casual. If you are casual, you are by far the highest level of the casual community. You know all profession, all builds, all armor sets, you think most casuals do this? nope. Reading forums, give you a way higher understanding (wich makes you automaticly better).

Also it seems your guild is not scared to communicate (a requirement to kill VG). Some guilds just have members that rarely/never use voicecom, but are very nice and friendly players. The problem is those players will have a handicap to the team overall most of time. Especially those casuals who don’t perform perfect rotations or dodges. That level of casual is clearly not in your guild. Wich makes the ‘casual tag’ you give yourself questionable. I’m not saying you are hardcore either. But I would give the op an ‘expert or veteran tag’ (hardcore is still above that).

PS i did beat the VG (never expected it). however: It was NOT with my guild (wich I would say is very casual) but with +1’ing another guild with TS, that posted an LFG, that I joined. While definitely neither hardcore, their will to succeed, their voice operations, their awareness of the timers, and when the move was just so much better, then to expect of base level casuals. One time we got him to 0,5% and died all. But the team was very motivated and we kept going. Then we finally got it right once. (but even the failed attempts were better then those of my ‘casual guild’.

Also it fragments the guilds raids. Rising Dusk probably used officers + best players to try the VG boss. Guess what, add 1-3 ‘true casuals’, and it becomes a lot harder. Mix all officers among two teams (5 officer + 5 casuals), and another like it, and you will have a serious challenge. That is my experience. And my guild (leaders), really want to remain kind to all players, so we don’t say ‘player X, please start playing correctly by dodging blue’, we say it to all ‘people remember to dodge blue’, but the message just doesn’t sink in with some (casual) people. And again, nothing against these people, they are my guildies and friends. But it is what it is.

Admittedly, some of these guildies never read VG guides, or seen Youtube vids probably. But can we force them to it? no. They have the right to be casual. And that’s why I think op is not casual at all (probably read guide 5x, and saw plenty youtube vids).

They should nerf burning dmg about 50%.

Phoebe Ascension.8437:

They shifted it to ‘viper at least’, wich is troublesome imo.

The community will always shift for the best they know. When HoT launched, nobody wanted to see a Condi Warrior. People tested it out and figure out that it was one if not the best dps in the game. People tested Viper and figure out that it was the best. So of course people will always try to get the best. We had the same thing back when dungeon was a thing. It have nothing to do with raid.

Phoebe Ascension.8437:

The general rule is: either be ultra over the top dps (sinister engie, revenant sword), or overcompensate your weakness with giving allies at least a 10% dps boost (alacrity, druid trait, that on heals allies get damage boost buff, phalanx, revenant facet, etc).

This is not leaving a good place for a lot of builds. Wich is sad.

True enough. But that’s because of the balance. Herald, Tempest, Condi Warrior and Engineer, etc. They just all so much DPS while bringing something else to the table. Some build just bring way too much compare to other. But against, that have nothing to do with raid themselves. TBH, the situation isn’t so bad. A lot of new powerful build were tested since HoT. People will hear more and more about them, and people will learn more and more about raid. Over time we gonna see more and more diversity in pugs raids.

A diversity that already exist with good squad honestly. You talk about Thief, Necro and Guardian. Guess what. My group have 1-2 of each and we did just fine at killing Vale Guardian. Gorseval is a bit tricker for us. Too much people get interrupted so dps isn’t pefect and we had to rely more on big dps profession for now.

Astralporing.1957:

IllegalChocolate.6938:

IllegalChocolate.6938:

And you are aware that 5 hours of wiping on your first clear is actually super fast right? People literally spent weeks on their first Vale Guard kill, 5 hours is GODLIKE on first kills.

Astralporing.1957:

…then it is not casual friendly. People willing to spend weeks failing a specific content just to learn how to do it are not casual players.

What is your definition of time spent for a casual player? 5 minutes a week? If two hours on a single day is what you got an entire week, that is still fantastic time for learning raids.

…erm, maybe you should look at your own post first, because when saying “weeks” you definitely didn’t think of 2 hours (remember, as you said 5 hours would be “godlike” in comparison, and we’re talking about averages and not GWAMMs here).

You definitely meant way, way more than those 5 hours, so don’t now pretend otherwise.

And as i’ve said already, that’s not really casual.

Maybe you should reread what i said? 2 hours a week learning content still nets you tokens? Which is still progress?

The biggest reason as to why one of my groups took weeks to down vale guardian alone is because we only have a couple hours on sunday to raid together so yeah my statements are pretty consistent.

Andraus.3874:

Raids are casual friendly if the “casual” is:

1) determined
2) level headed (not having kitten fits, which disqualifies a bunch of people in this thread)
3) adaptable
4) skillful/competent
5) geared

These things are definitely true, but I feel that even being geared isn’t necessarily key. You should absolutely have the right stat combinations for your role, but you can have them in exotic rarity and do just fine!

Satenia.9025:

I would love to hear how your casual guild is progressing against that one. As was already pointed out in this thread, an ascended weapon is something like a 5-ish% damage increase over an exotic one, trinkets add a few more. This is a significant damage-increase with will really matter at bosses like Gorse. The only area where the difference is really small is with the ascended armor (<2% I think?). Lastly, advertising exotic gear for raids based on your druid example is again pretty misleading. I’m fairly sure your druid didn’t get picked primarily for its dps-capabilities.

Only 3 people in our group have full ascended, and the rest are in essentially only ascended trinkets with exotic everything else. Very nearly all of our DPS is running around in exotic gear. Furthermore, with the maybe 3 hours we’ve spent on Gorseval so far we’ve gotten him to 50% health with enough time and updrafts on the clock to finish it. The hardest part for us has been learning tells to dodge the knockdown, mastering the 4-spirit phase transition, and managing to kill the spirits while cleaving down the walls to get to the updraft. Essentially the challenge for us has been the mechanics and not the damage itself thus far. I have no doubt we’ll win in a week or two.

Satenia.9025:

Combined with the above point regarding gear stats, if a player cannot fill a specific role, they cannot successfully raid. Simple as that.

Absolutely. One of the necessary keys to success in a raid is the willingness to change build and class to do what your group needs. If you’re not willing to perform that most basic of team coordination, you definitely will not succeed. Being willing to make those changes doesn’t suddenly make you hardcore, however.

Satenia.9025:

Let me ask you, how much else did your group of casuals do on these evenings? All those extra daily reward chests found across various activities? How do the few shards you get for a wipe at VG compare to all the (daily) rewards you could have gotten from far easier activities instead? They don’t and that’s precisely why it’s not casual-friendly.

Fortunately, with all of our attempts we very nearly cap on magnetite shards weekly, so we feel pretty well-rewarded with ascended thus far. Lots of people got shiny ascendeds and minis from the boss chest, too, so people have felt pretty good about it! I’ll admit that the first couple weeks of learning we were all in the red for gold because we weren’t winning, but we were okay with it because the experience was fun and it felt great doing it with the guild.

Satenia.9025:

So far, every weekly random reward I got from boss kills was complete garbage, aka 1 worthless exotic and a few other items of even lower quality. How do you plan on motivating the casual players to keep doing raids when – as previously illustrated – they can get better rewards elsewhere for the same (or less) time-investment. Legendary-armor? Oh right, that’s for casual players now, is it…

Yeah, I guess we’re playing raids because we enjoy playing hard content together? We’re all working on legendaries, and raids certainly aren’t winning awards for getting us there super quickly, but people are really happy with the exclusive rewards. Everyone who has gotten a mini is using it, people really want the skins, the minis, and then ultimately everyone feels that through magnetite we have a pretty good guaranteed means of earning ascended items (which feels way better than crafting them). About the only slightly annoying thing is the magnetite shard cap, which I’ve seen echoed by lots of players here on the forums. Will definitely feature heavily in my report.

Satenia.9025:

How much fun exactly is it going to be to wipe and wipe again? Because it really doesn’t matter if you yourself figured out the raid mechanics. The raid group is as strong as its weakest link. Meaning that whenever you take a new guildmate with you into the raid, you will immediately notice the overall performance going down the drain. Again, exactly how casual friendly is this?

Well, we beat the VG again last night too, and we brought someone with us who was on a subpar class and who wasn’t with us before. What we found is that he was willing to learn, willing to change build, and open to feedback with a positive attitude. He did fine and ultimately we won again!

I guess my point is that only bring newbies along as far as you can within reason. Maybe don’t bring 4 newbies at once, and definitely keep them in the DPS and non-critical roles so they have room to breath. It doesn’t seem so bad for us,

Satenia.9025:

In conclusion, I believe that raids are clearly aimed at the dedicated player-base with both the skill and time investment at their hands. While VG might be more forgiving than other bosses in some regards, this boss alone doesn’t justify to generalize the raid content as a whole as casual-friendly.

Nothing in Gorseval so far has dissuaded my group.

Satenia.9025:

Lastly, I wish to point out that there may be some readers who might mistake your posts to carry some additional weight due to your forum title/role. As a result, they might not bother to look beyond the misleading advertising of your thread (title) and simply take it as hard facts. As such, I would consider it beneficial for the readers if you did indeed take your time with raids beyond a single boss and corresponding kill before you decided to advertise in the way you did now. Thanks for future consideration.

Regardless of my personal experiences, I have spent an inordinate amount of time studying raids because of my forum specialist role. I firmly believe that casuals can beat the entire raid, and I fully plan to prove it with my guild as we work through the remaining encounters. I think the big thing goes back to the first quote in this post, though—You can’t mistake determination for being hardcore! Casual players, people playing for only a couple of hours a day if even with limited time, can still be dedicated and determined to win. All it takes is the right attitude and I am convinced that any casual group can beat the Spirit Vale.

Rising Dusk.2408:

I’ve seen a lot of people complain about this from so many perspectives, and I think they are premature complaints being viewed unjustly through the lens of impossibility, like raids have a difficulty barrier insurmountable by normal, casual folk.

I don’t believe that in the slightest, and I say that as a casual. Yes, your forum specialist for raids is a filthy casual. I lead a guild of people who do Tequatl nightly as the pinnacle of our group coordination efforts and fewer than 10% of our players have even beaten Arah.

I understand what you’re saying and I agree to an extent. The problem, however, is the community. Far to many people whom participate in raids have this expectation of, “Know what you’re doing, or be kicked” for those of us that are casual players, it isn’t fair.
Casual players can, and are willing to do raids. I cannot stress that enough. The problem, as previously stated, is the unwillingness of people who are willing to teach those new-content players on what to do and when to do it.

Havokak.3450:

I understand what you’re saying and I agree to an extent. The problem, however, is the community. Far to many people whom participate in raids have this expectation of, “Know what you’re doing, or be kicked” for those of us that are casual players, it isn’t fair.
Casual players can, and are willing to do raids. I cannot stress that enough. The problem, as previously stated, is the unwillingness of people who are willing to teach those new-content players on what to do and when to do it.

How is that not fair? We spent hours and hours in the raid trying to figure out tactics and learning the encounter. Of course people don’t want to do that again each and everytime they do a raid with new players that never tried it before.

That’s simple.

1) You are determined to make it work and find a group of people in a similar situation. A LOT of players never or almost never tried raid. Get together a group of 10 pugs, friend or whatever and wipe for 2 to 12 hours like everybody else as you learn the fight. As you are doing that you be able to take 1-2 pieces of ascended gear and then you will be able to go into pretty much any pug group because you worked hard to know the fight. At this point, you too won’t want to take any people. You will want people that know a minimum what they are doing.

2) You wait. More and more people are getting better at raid. A lot of group are starting to find VG easy and won’t mind taking 1 raid noob everytime. In 2-3 months it will be far easier for new players to get into raid.

3) You find a group of players that know the fight and are willing to teach you. Right now it can be harder but a lot of guild are already taking 1 raid noobs each week to teach them. We killed the VG with more than 20 different players of our guild and this number will continue to grow. As time pass, this will be more and more easy as more group will be good enough at the first boss.

Keep in mind that it’s new content even for a lot of hardcore players. My group still struggle at Gorseval and we didn’t even tried Sabetha yet. You can’t expect people to teach and accept new players when they don’t master the content themselves yet.

This is what I don’t understand when people say the raids are “casual friendly”.

How exactly are casuals, let alone new players such as my self, even supposed to get experience to be able to join teams? And that’s ignoring the gear requirement.

Even with the small exception of players that will allow someone to join with exotic, people are more and more requiring people to be experienced to join (from what I’ve personally seen, that is). Even guilds are requiring their members to “register” to even form a team.

I can’t even raid with my own guild (assuming the off chance happens that someone can’t be there) without fear of kittening people off simply because I’ve barely been able to attempt raids (2-2 hour sessions at best). How am I supposed to get better…?

Ertrak.9506:

This is what I don’t understand when people say the raids are “casual friendly”.

How exactly are casuals, let alone new players such as my self, even supposed to get experience to be able to join teams? And that’s ignoring the gear requirement.

Even with the small exception of players that will allow someone to join with exotic, people are more and more requiring people to be experienced to join (from what I’ve personally seen, that is). Even guilds are requiring their members to “register” to even form a team.

I can’t even raid with my own guild (assuming the off chance happens that someone can’t be there) without fear of kittening people off simply because I’ve barely been able to attempt raids (2-2 hour sessions at best). How am I supposed to get better…?

You find laid back people (like me) that want to do it ‘for fun.’ You get to learn (cause we’re learning too), which nets you experience, and you don’t get all the screamy, whiney elitists. Mainly cause we just aren’t that up tight about it. Its a game after all.

Ertrak.9506:

This is what I don’t understand when people say the raids are “casual friendly”.

How exactly are casuals, let alone new players such as my self, even supposed to get experience to be able to join teams? And that’s ignoring the gear requirement.

Even with the small exception of players that will allow someone to join with exotic, people are more and more requiring people to be experienced to join (from what I’ve personally seen, that is). Even guilds are requiring their members to “register” to even form a team.

I can’t even raid with my own guild (assuming the off chance happens that someone can’t be there) without fear of kittening people off simply because I’ve barely been able to attempt raids (2-2 hour sessions at best). How am I supposed to get better…?

First, if your guild refuses to take you along because they haven’t given you the opportunity to learn, I would recommend finding another guild that isn’t so unnecessarily restrictive. I have made it a point in my guild to include everyone who has directly asked me to participate. What we’re doing is trying to train up a core group and then introducing one or two people a little newer to the fights so that they can ramp up and get that experience.

Secondly, what I would recommend you do is the exact same thing I did—Just get together with your friends and try it out, pub the last few slots if you have to and tell people that you’re learning. You’d be surprised how many helpful and skilled players would be happy to come along and help out. Make your own LFGs; that always works in my experience. In my case I had a guild of casual friends who I pulled together and inspired to get involved, and we just trucked through failure after failure until we nailed it. That was really the whole point of this thread; I was hoping to inspire people like me and people like you to keep trying and not give up. I truly do believe that casual players with little time can beat the entirety of this content given sufficient dedication to the cause. You just have to be willing to go outside your comfort zone for the good of the group and you’ll crush it!

Astralporing.1957:

IllegalChocolate.6938:

And you are aware that 5 hours of wiping on your first clear is actually super fast right? People literally spent weeks on their first Vale Guard kill, 5 hours is GODLIKE on first kills.

…then it is not casual friendly. People willing to spend weeks failing a specific content just to learn how to do it are not casual players.

This.

I think it is funny that you keep trying argue with me and only end up weakening your own position. Also, I have already killed VG 5 times, and everyone else in that group said they already cleared it at least once.

Sykper.6583:

Gewd.8125:

It is pretty much universally agreed that Wildstar failed because of overfocus on hardcore content. If you think otherwise you are in some fantasy world by your own. They spent a huge amount of resources on their raids and the rest of the game suffered as a result.

The rest of your post is literally role bias, Wildstar had by its design massive issues with its hardcore content.

For instance, instances only gave rewards when the full group did all the encounters at a gold rating, yes, runs were literally graded on performance. A lot of the progression loot was gated behind players playing 100% all the time, which is garbage in any sense. You could have a flawless run, mess up on the final boss for the last few %, get a silver rating and not get anything worthwhile. Doesn’t take a genius to see what that causes, it was just poor reward design.

The second issue, interesting enough was that it wasn’t promoted enough, there were nearly zero advertisements for the game while WoW at the same point was releasing an expansion. That never ends well, so the launch got delayed in tune. Gross, so the appeal was already downhill from the start.

There were also the usual bugs that came with any new MMO, but although the difficulty of content was there, the means behind keeping players around were done poorly.

Uh what? Did you even play Wildstar?

You were never meant to farm a full set of purple gear from dungeons before you started raiding. They were meant as a rare bonus. Raids were balanced around blue gear, not purple gear. Raids were being cleared with people wearing blues. Raid bosses rewarded purple gear…. And in 1.5 months of release they made it possible to get superbs on bronze and silver.

And getting gold in dungeons appeals to the same type of hardcore player that raids. This was not casual content.

Traditional advertising wouldn’t have done anything. There was already massive amount of hype around the game on Twitch and gaming websites billing it as the WoW killer. Servers had 4 hour queue times on release. There were more than enough players. They all just left after they realized half the effort was spent on raids that they would never be able to clear.

Ertrak.9506:

This is what I don’t understand when people say the raids are “casual friendly”.

How exactly are casuals, let alone new players such as my self, even supposed to get experience to be able to join teams? And that’s ignoring the gear requirement.

Even with the small exception of players that will allow someone to join with exotic, people are more and more requiring people to be experienced to join (from what I’ve personally seen, that is). Even guilds are requiring their members to “register” to even form a team.

I can’t even raid with my own guild (assuming the off chance happens that someone can’t be there) without fear of kittening people off simply because I’ve barely been able to attempt raids (2-2 hour sessions at best). How am I supposed to get better…?

Well do you went through all the dungeon with relatively ease?

Did you reach level 60 in fractal? This can be done with exotic armor and weapons.

Do you have all your ascended trinkets, exotic armor and weapons?

Did you do all that with a good build, gear, runes, etc?

If you did all that, then you are ready for raids, if not then you have some preparation to do.

Gewd.8125:

Astralporing.1957:

IllegalChocolate.6938:

And you are aware that 5 hours of wiping on your first clear is actually super fast right? People literally spent weeks on their first Vale Guard kill, 5 hours is GODLIKE on first kills.

…then it is not casual friendly. People willing to spend weeks failing a specific content just to learn how to do it are not casual players.

This.

I am definitely not in agreement with you two. My friends and I play for a scant few hours a night, sometimes not every night, and over a few weeks with probably 7 hours spent overall we beat a boss. We’re all running exotic items, with as few as 3 of us having ascended loadouts over 50% complete.

This may go back to what Zania was saying earlier: everyone has different definitions of casual. For me, being willing to at least give the effort a serious chance and being dedicated enough to at least coordinate with your team at the most basic level does not make you ‘hardcore’. I certainly feel I fit the ‘casual’ description because I am not rigorous on strategy and belong to the school of thought where “if it works, it’s fine by me”. I laugh with my guildies when people get teleported by VG’s blue circles and get destroyed, and we have an overall fun time of it as opposed to making it a trial. We beat this content, and are actively working to beat further encounters. We’re family people with very little free time, and we managed to pull it off. I think any group like us can do it, too.

There is no universal definition of exactly what “hardcore” or “casual” is, but I think if we had a poll, most people would agree that spending 1+ hours just waiting to play, then wiping for 20+ hours a week to beat 1 boss nowhere near the realm of casual.

It doesn’t matter how unskilled you are or how committed you are to winning. You obviously cared enough to even use sharpening stones, let alone food.

You also had a full guild roster of people who do teq every day. How many casuals even have 10 people they play with every day?

It also doesn’t matter how serious you are. I’ve been in groups with people that raid every day and they joke about screwups.

It seems to me that you are a hardcore player in denial.

There are certainly diverse stretches as to what counts as ‘casual’ or ‘hardcore’, but to seriously say that having ten friends in a video game is hardcore sounds very extreme to me.

There are definitely people who play for ten minutes a week and have no friends, but it doesn’t make sense to design raids for those people. Raids are group content, and group content requires…. well, a group. If you don’t have or want to spend the time to even form a group, let alone coordinate with that group, well then I don’t think anything ANet can do will enable you to play the content.