Guild Wars 2

Absurdo.8309:

Same argument, same cast of characters.

Let’s put aside that the original topic, getting rid of enrage timers, has already been addressed. The general consensus is that the timer is generally not the limiting factor for most groups.

So we’re back to easy mode raids, and endless quote sniping.

Apologies for sounding dismissive, but we’ve had this argument several times over. The easy mode raiders can’t stand that a small portion of the game is hard. Despite that there is plenty of easy and medium tier content — open world, world bosses, map events, dungeons, fractals.

Still really haven’t heard a coherent argument against this. All I get is “I must be able to do all the content at my skill level.”

This thread has run its course. Sign me up for locking it.

If you want a reason for not having an easy mode then here is one. A badly done easy mode will shrink the community. To elaborate a community population isn’t static, players are constantly entering and leaving and a stable population is achieved when the rate of players entering the community and the rate leaving are equal. When you add an easy mode pretty much any players entering the community will go through the easy mode first and if the easy mode is done badly theb it can turn away players who might of enjoyed the actual raid.

This is all to say that if they wanted to add an easy mode they would have to do it right and that would take time and effort and there is concern that it would cut into development of other raids.

And let’s not forget that there are ways to make raiding easier via comp such as using that staff tempest healer build that was posted on the reddit a few days ago.

Aceofsppades.6873:

To elaborate a community population isn’t static, players are constantly entering and leaving and a stable population is achieved when the rate of players entering the community and the rate leaving are equal. When you add an easy mode pretty much any players entering the community will go through the easy mode first and if the easy mode is done badly theb it can turn away players who might of enjoyed the actual raid.

This is all to say that if they wanted to add an easy mode they would have to do it right and that would take time and effort and there is concern that it would cut into development of other raids.

Fair points, but, just for the sake of discussion, lets say, now after the new shiny wore off, the raids in their current state are in decline as far as metrics go, since older veteran players leave, and new players come in, so there this this turn over at the end game level as well, and because of the way the loot is set up, these new players feel pressured to do raids for the loot, but because they are new, and thus not as invested into the game as some 4 year vet, the vast majority of them don’t see the value of putting in all this time and effort just to prep for doing a raid, they came to have fun, not spend their game life grinding to prep to have to have fun, which I might add, was an advertised point of GW2.

This situation unfortunately now puts the metrics of the people doing raids in decline and, thus shows a trend of downward spiral where raids will cease to pull the numbers to justify their continued development.

How would you solve that situation, to build the metrics back up, outside of making an “easy mode” raid?

People saying that an easy mode will make raid worst, but you dont see people complaining about level 90+ fractals, or about wanting a Tier 4 chest for doing a level 10 fractal. They know that if they want better rewards they can get better at fractals by doing the lower level ones (instead of dying non stop to level 100 Mai Trin) and then try the higher ones. Now imagine if the only fractals we got was the 90+ ?? People would complain about it.
Nobody wants to get rid of challenges, just to have difficult scales on all modes of the game;
Fractals have 1 – 100, Open world you could say that you have HoT and Pre-HoT, dungeon story mode vs explorable mode, pvp you have ranks. Now raid is the only mode in the entire game that you have only one mode. They could add an easier one and even a more difficult one for the guilds that clear it with 6 people.

STIHL.2489:

Aceofsppades.6873:

To elaborate a community population isn’t static, players are constantly entering and leaving and a stable population is achieved when the rate of players entering the community and the rate leaving are equal. When you add an easy mode pretty much any players entering the community will go through the easy mode first and if the easy mode is done badly theb it can turn away players who might of enjoyed the actual raid.

This is all to say that if they wanted to add an easy mode they would have to do it right and that would take time and effort and there is concern that it would cut into development of other raids.

Fair points, but, just for the sake of discussion, lets say, now after the new shiny wore off, the raids in their current state are in decline as far as metrics go, since older veteran players leave, and new players come in, so there this this turn over at the end game level as well, and because of the way the loot is set up, these new players feel pressured to do raids for the loot, but because they are new, and thus not as invested into the game as some 4 year vet, the vast majority of them don’t see the value of putting in all this time and effort just to prep for doing a raid, they came to have fun, not spend their game life grinding to prep to have to have fun, which I might add, was an advertised point of GW2.

This situation unfortunately now puts the metrics of the people doing raids in decline and, thus shows a trend of downward spiral where raids will cease to pull the numbers to justify their continued development.

How would you solve that situation, to build the metrics back up, outside of making an “easy mode” raid?

The short answer is to make a good easy mode that encourages players to work their way toward the the normal raid.

Now I want to emphasize that that would require a non trivial amount of development effort and it very well could be worth it.

I very much believe that an easy mode if done right could be a purely positive addition to the game.

This doesn’t directly answer your question but I still feel it’s an appropriate response

STIHL.2489:

flog.3485:

Last of all you seem to forget that people do “git Gud” at any JP whatsoever by failing and restarting it many times. It is not because you don’t like it that every other players do the same as you don’t.

No they don’t. In every case of progressive learning, the way someone can ‘git gud’ or ‘lean to play’ is by progressive practice, IE: you Start with Easy Jumping Puzzles, and work your way up progressively harder ones, as your skill and ability increase from practice. It’s been proven many times over to be one of the most ineffective means to learn anything to be put on a difficult challenge and fail time and time again.

Much in the say way you don’t learn to fly a plan by jumping in the kittenpit and giving it your all, and eventuality learn though enough crashes. You don’t learn to drive by being put on the interstate and learning by crashing. You take progressive steps, you start in easy, safe environments, where failing is not as punitive, and you work your way up to harder things, as skill and ability provide. Some people never obtain the skill to do air-to-air combat in a plane, even after thousands of hours flying. Just as many people have driven for 20 some odd years and still don’t have the skill to race in the Indy 500.

But regardless of that factor, progressive learning is the way to learn something like a JP, you don’t simply jump in and there is this magical effect where if you fail enough times you will win. There is no RNG to victory or learning a skill.

Much in the same way you don’t just try to jump into a conversation using a language you do not know, expecting that after you fail to speak it correctly enough times, you will figure it out. You start slow, learn a few words at a time, work someone who understands you are learning, and eventually you can string a sentence together, but that in no way means you will ever become fluent in that language, some people at best become ‘passingly decent’ or ‘good enough’ to be coherent when they speak it, but never fully fluent.

Regardless of what people think, You don’t learn to swim by jumping into the deep end of the pool.

Life and learning simply do not work way, why anyone falls under the illusion that games do, is beyond me.

Dude you are too focused on irl. People can fail, repeat how many times they want until they get something done. I am not implying that everybody does it but I really fail to see how it would not be a (common) practice. Playing a game reminds me a lot of the movie edge of tomorrow btw. I have never been a huge fan of JP, didn’t complete a lot of them yet I was able to complete the one in lions arch after its rework. Sure I failed on many jumps many times but in the end I got it. Why? Because I wanted to complete it. Of course there is no magical effect but practice and the experience gained from that practice exist

Osu.6307:

At some point, probably when hardly anyone does them anymore, the oldest raids will get nerfed to the point where they are completely puggable. Every MMO does it, and I don’t expect gw2 will be any different. It is just such an easy way to open up more content for casual players.

Maybe, but where other games keep shoving new gear and item tiers in players faces thus making old raid rewards obsolete, GW2 has not so far (except the 1 time increase to ascended gear tier).

Maybe they will open up raids and make them easier, but very likely not with the same reward structure. I highly doubt they will leave legendary armor as a reward if they decide to make raids easier.

flog.3485:

STIHL.2489:

flog.3485:

Last of all you seem to forget that people do “git Gud” at any JP whatsoever by failing and restarting it many times. It is not because you don’t like it that every other players do the same as you don’t.

No they don’t. In every case of progressive learning, the way someone can ‘git gud’ or ‘lean to play’ is by progressive practice, IE: you Start with Easy Jumping Puzzles, and work your way up progressively harder ones, as your skill and ability increase from practice. It’s been proven many times over to be one of the most ineffective means to learn anything to be put on a difficult challenge and fail time and time again.

Much in the say way you don’t learn to fly a plan by jumping in the kittenpit and giving it your all, and eventuality learn though enough crashes. You don’t learn to drive by being put on the interstate and learning by crashing. You take progressive steps, you start in easy, safe environments, where failing is not as punitive, and you work your way up to harder things, as skill and ability provide. Some people never obtain the skill to do air-to-air combat in a plane, even after thousands of hours flying. Just as many people have driven for 20 some odd years and still don’t have the skill to race in the Indy 500.

But regardless of that factor, progressive learning is the way to learn something like a JP, you don’t simply jump in and there is this magical effect where if you fail enough times you will win. There is no RNG to victory or learning a skill.

Much in the same way you don’t just try to jump into a conversation using a language you do not know, expecting that after you fail to speak it correctly enough times, you will figure it out. You start slow, learn a few words at a time, work someone who understands you are learning, and eventually you can string a sentence together, but that in no way means you will ever become fluent in that language, some people at best become ‘passingly decent’ or ‘good enough’ to be coherent when they speak it, but never fully fluent.

Regardless of what people think, You don’t learn to swim by jumping into the deep end of the pool.

Life and learning simply do not work way, why anyone falls under the illusion that games do, is beyond me.

Dude you are too focused on irl.

Sorry, it happens when I am forced to live in it.

OnizukaBR.8537:

People saying that an easy mode will make raid worst, but you dont see people complaining about level 90+ fractals, or about wanting a Tier 4 chest for doing a level 10 fractal.

No, but but 1-2 months ago nobody was doing T4 because the reward system was unbalanced. A well done easy/training/entry level raid isn’t a problem. But it’s easy to create a badly unbalance one that give you too much reward for the amount of work, making the actual raid not rewarding enough. Some company that I consider better than Anet did that very mistake with bad consequences and Anet did that mistake not so long ago (and they ain’t that good a balancing reward to begin with).

Fractal at HoT was giving you the same reward in 51 to 100, meaning there was no reason to do a high level reward wise. It’s not some hypothetical stupid argument that could never happen, anet just fixed that mistake 2 months ago. No reason why they couldn’t repeat that same mistake again.

And it’s not just Anet. A lot of people on the forum are asking for it without knowing it. I saw plenty of people asking for the easy mode to ’’just’’ give magnetite shards, without realizing that it’s one of the biggest reward of the raid and that with the cap, it would make no sense to do the normal raid after you capped shard in easy mode.

Could an easy mode be a very good addition? Yes. Could it destroy the current raid if not done correctly? Absolutely yes. And that’s why raiders are anxious about that idea. Because they saw anet did that mistake not so long ago and other company do it as well and it ruined raiding for a long time.

No, but but 1-2 months ago nobody was doing T4 because the reward system was unbalanced. A well done easy/training/entry level raid isn’t a problem. But it’s easy to create a badly unbalance one that give you too much reward for the amount of work, making the actual raid not rewarding enough. Some company that I consider better than Anet did that very mistake with bad consequences and Anet did that mistake not so long ago (and they ain’t that good a balancing reward to begin with).

So what? If people want to do the easier mode then that’s fine too. If people want to do the hard mode then it’ll be there for them. If the balance is off, they can tweak it as they go, but it’s not the end of the world either way.

People keep insisting “if they can’t make it perfect then they shouldn’t even bother!” Well if that’s the standard then they shouldn’t have attempted raids in the first place. Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good, they don’t have to get it perfect, they just have to do the best they can.

And it’s not just Anet. A lot of people on the forum are asking for it without knowing it. I saw plenty of people asking for the easy mode to ’’just’’ give magnetite shards, without realizing that it’s one of the biggest reward of the raid and that with the cap, it would make no sense to do the normal raid after you capped shard in easy mode.

Except that mode players asking for that (myself at the very least), intended it to only give a small amount of magnetite for completing each raid boss in easy mode, and with no shards for failures. This means that a player who fully cleared all six existing bosses in easy mode would only get about as many shards as a better raider could get for clearing VG and like half a Gorseval fight, and then that’s it, he’s done for the week until it resets. If he wants more shards he’d have to pity-grind in hard mode.

It would be designed to be a slow-but-steady progression through the rewards, not a shortcut.

Now eventually there will be like 2-3 dozen bosses, and maybe he could hit the cap by beating a dozen or two of them, but that would take most of his week anyway, so I don’t see why that would be an issue, and even with just hard mode that’s an issue that will have to be dealt with. What would it currently take to hit the cap without any pity-shards? Like how many of the existing bosses, assuming you could do each of them multiple times for full credit? Twelve or so?

Ohoni.6057:

So what? If people want to do the easier mode then that’s fine too. If people want to do the hard mode then it’ll be there for them. If the balance is off, they can tweak it as they go, but it’s not the end of the world either way.

People keep insisting “if they can’t make it perfect then they shouldn’t even bother!” Well if that’s the standard then they shouldn’t have attempted raids in the first place. Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good, they don’t have to get it perfect, they just have to do the best they can.

It’s not about making it perfect. It’s about not making it useless to run high level. Like I said. It was useless to run high level fractal for 5-6 months. They did that mistake in fractal, nothing stopping them from doing the same mistake in raid too. Half a year of raid being useless to run is a pretty big deal.

Ohoni.6057:

Except that mode players asking for that (myself at the very least), intended it to only give a small amount of magnetite for completing each raid boss in easy mode, and with no shards for failures. This means that a player who fully cleared all six existing bosses in easy mode would only get about as many shards as a better raider could get for clearing VG and like half a Gorseval fight, and then that’s it, he’s done for the week until it resets. If he wants more shards he’d have to pity-grind in hard mode.

It would be designed to be a slow-but-steady progression through the rewards, not a shortcut.

Now eventually there will be like 2-3 dozen bosses, and maybe he could hit the cap by beating a dozen or two of them, but that would take most of his week anyway, so I don’t see why that would be an issue, and even with just hard mode that’s an issue that will have to be dealt with. What would it currently take to hit the cap without any pity-shards? Like how many of the existing bosses, assuming you could do each of them multiple times for full credit? Twelve or so?

You can hit the cap in like 4-5 bosses right now. So people will asked themselve. Is it easier to cap by doing easy mode 3-4 times during the week or by doing the normal raid once? Oh of course for veteran team that can do both wing in 1-2 hours, the won’t go into easy mode, but that’s because they already did all the hard work to get there. Easy mode will take 45-60min to complete both wing. If you get as much shards as you said, then you gonna need to complete it 3 times (plus like 2-3 more boss) per week to cap your shards.

So in easy mode it take about 3 hours to reach the shards cap with a success rate of near 100%. How many people have can complete 5 raids boss in 3 hours? Not that many people outside of team. This will completely destroy the pugging community of raid. Nobody will ever pug a raid ever again. There will be team that will do normal raid and pug that do easy mode. Because why take a chance to waste 3 hours in a pug and not getting much kills and not reaching the cap, when you farm easy mode and get the cap in 3 hours guarantee?

If there is an easy mode. They need to stay away from Magnetite shards or change the system before introducing easy mode. Shard already have a problem since it take 5 boss to cap them and in not so long we gonna have 9 boss. 4 of them giving no shards to groups.

They could give different cap to shard in easy mode so you can cap in normal and then do easy mode to cap that one. But they shouldn’t give give shards from easy mode without changing anything else.

It’s not about making it perfect. It’s about not making it useless to run high level. Like I said. It was useless to run high level fractal for 5-6 months.

Some people claim that they enjoy challenging content. Personally I don’t get it, and apparently neither do you, but so long as those people exist, there will always be people who will do the harder version “because it’s there.”

You can hit the cap in like 4-5 bosses right now. So people will asked themselve. Is it easier to cap by doing easy mode 3-4 times during the week or by doing the normal raid once?

Except that wouldn’t be an option. You could do easy mode ONCE. That’s it, wait for next week if you want more. It would be literally impossible to reach the shard cap using only easy mode until they have at least a dozen or more raid bosses to work with (at least if they implement it in the way that players have been asking). Basically, if you can hit the existing cap within 5 bosses, then on easy mode if you did all six bosses you would get maybe 1/3-1/2 of the shards to reach cap, more towards the lower end of that. It would be impossible to gain more shards that week without entering hard mode.

This will completely destroy the pugging community of raid. Nobody will ever pug a raid ever again.

When ANet launched raids, they said that they didn’t want pugs, that raids were not designed for pugs. Even the raiding community, if players complain that they pugged it and failed, retort with “well it’s not for pugs anyway, get a good group together.” So why do people pug in the first place? Because they want to clear the raids, want to work towards the rewards, but don’t have the time or interest in cultivating a single raid group that has to pre-schedule runs and all the baggage involved.

So if they add an easy mode, and players do find that more convenient, and it leads to a decrease in the number of people pugging hard mode, I don’t see that as a bug, I see it as a feature. It’s more players playing how THEY want, even if that might be different than how you want them to play.

If there is an easy mode. They need to stay away from Magnetite shards or change the system before introducing easy mode. Shard already have a problem since it take 5 boss to cap them and in not so long we gonna have 9 boss. 4 of them giving no shards to groups.

Then what alternative would you have for earning magnetite shards for players that don’t want to or cannot deal with the existing raids?

Shard already have a problem since it take 5 boss to cap them and in not so long we gonna have 9 boss. 4 of them giving no shards to groups.

Yes, I noted that, although I hadn’t realized that it was already an issue. They do need to come up with something for that, but it’s not easy-mode’s problem.

They could give different cap to shard in easy mode so you can cap in normal and then do easy mode to cap that one.

I’m not saying that this would be a terrible outcome, it just seems difficult to implement, having two different caps on the same resource. I mean how would you handle a player moving back and forth between the two within a single week? I think it’s best to just limit how many are available to earn, rather than messing with the cap.

I think the idea of ‘easy mode’ raids are a bad idea, but I also think that the way raids were implemented were poorly done, they should have been put in with tiers of increasing difficulty, like pretty much every other PvE game mode. But, in the end, it’s Anet’s game, they can do whatever they like.

Ohoni.6057:

Then what alternative would you have for earning magnetite shards for players that don’t want to or cannot deal with the existing raids?

My alternative is that they don’t get shards. If one wants raid rewards then they have to play the raid.

I’m sure the players are mature enough to understand and not be offended by the notion that they have to raid to get raid rewards.

My alternative is that they don’t get shards.

Then no, you don’t get what you want.

Ohoni.6057:

My alternative is that they don’t get shards.

Then no, you don’t get what you want.

All I’m saying is that I’m sure they’re mature enough to not take personal offence to being expected to raid.

All I’m saying is that I’m sure they’re mature enough to not take personal offence to being expected to raid.

I’m not really sure where offense has anything to do with it, it’s a basic content balance issue. You don’t want to tie rewards that all players would be expect to want, behind content that you can’t reasonably expect all players to want to participate in.

Ohoni.6057:

My alternative is that they don’t get shards.

Then no, you don’t get what you want.

Except the topic starter did want none of the raid rewards naturally. I’m sure the majority of players want legendaries as a reward for doing daillies. Won’t happen cause it matters very little what they want. It is about anet making a good product which nets them a nice amount of profit.

As for the topic, no I do not think training raids are a good idea to spend resources on. People that want to learn raids can do so by actually doing raids, if they dont want stress you can do it with chill people. The second group of players with no intention for raiding simply should not participate in raids why make a training mode for them ? They are better served with new fractals/maps/LS.

Except the topic starter did want none of the raid rewards naturally.

Yeah, there are really three groups at play here, those that are fine with the current set-up and want NO changes, those that are mostly fine with the current set-up but want some sort of hand up into the content that they feel is not currently covered, and those that are completely dissatisfied with the current options and want a complete alternative to ever having to do the current version. People who want option A won’t be satisfied with either of the other two, people who want option C will be unsatisfied with either of the other two, and people who want B would vary between only wanting B, or being fine with B or C. It’s up to ANet to determine how large each group is.

I’m sure the majority of players want legendaries as a reward for doing daillies.

I don’t think that’s true. Some might, but I think the majority recognizes that certain rewards should take a certain amount of work, and if they’re dissatisfied with the existing options, the alternatives would just be other methods of earning it. I think at most the majority of players would only like to see some of the costs/RNG reduced for Legendaries.

People that want to learn raids can do so by actually doing raids, if they dont want stress you can do it with chill people.

Understand, the stress is often purely internal. I play a different game that has something of a “solo raid” element, a high pressure challenge that you need to complete solo if you want access to certain parts of the game. I’ve completed it on a few of my characters at this point, but every time I attempt it on a new character it still makes me physically uncomfortable throughout, even though I am the only one involved. I am just ill-suited to high stress encounters in which failure is a distinct possibility and the result would be having to do the whole mess over again.

The second group of players with no intention for raiding simply should not participate in raids why make a training mode for them ? They are better served with new fractals/maps/LS.

And that would solve at least part of the problem, assuming that new content offers access to the rewards currently only available via raids, but I still think there needs to be an easier version of the actual raid content itself, so that players can experience it without the high pressure risks of failure. You can argue “but that’s not the same thing at all,” and at that point it’s just semantics, if it’s not something you would enjoy, that’s fine, but it is something I would enjoy, and that I feel confident a lot of other players would enjoy, so if it’s “not the same thing” then whatever, doesn’t matter, it is what it is and what it is is something players would enjoy, so make it so.

Thaddeus.4891:

It’s not about making it perfect. It’s about not making it useless to run high level. Like I said. It was useless to run high level fractal for 5-6 months. They did that mistake in fractal, nothing stopping them from doing the same mistake in raid too. Half a year of raid being useless to run is a pretty big deal.

You’re right, they have made a mistake. Notice however how that mistake didn’t really negatively impact Fractal participation at all. If anything, it was the opposite.

Astralporing.1957:

You’re right, they have made a mistake. Notice however how that mistake didn’t really negatively impact Fractal participation at all. If anything, it was the opposite.

You mean in the long term? Yah when they fixed their mistake it was ok. But it took them 5-6 months. All I’m saying, is that people with near zero experience in raid are launching bad idea left and right about magnetite shard. Idea that would be a mistake and would make pugging near impossible for normal raid. If they can pull easy mode off with a good reward balance that won’t hurt the current raid and will instead expand the community by including people that don’t presently raid, then I’m all for it.

All I saying is that people have legitimate reason to don’t want to try or at least be afraid of the possible consequences. There is a lot more ways to screw this up and to succeed.

Ohoni.6057:

Some people claim that they enjoy challenging content. Personally I don’t get it, and apparently neither do you, but so long as those people exist, there will always be people who will do the harder version “because it’s there.”

Oh man, you are so good at that. Making people wanting to stop talking to you.