Guild Wars 2

There seem to be some insistent requests that raids be made easier and more accessible. However, there are also many problems with implementing easy-mode or tiered raids that would still give hardcore raiders the same sense of accomplishment and exclusivity that comes with their efforts. Implementing different raid modes also has the additional drawback of requiring scarce developer attention.

One solution is to implement a raid buff weekend. The basic idea is this: for one weekend every month, give a flat bonus such as 10% outgoing damage bonus or 10% incoming damage reduction in a specific raid wing. The actual buffs and numbers are negotiable. They should be strong enough to make a difference for those who make minor mistakes but not enough to guarantee victory for those who do not know the mechanics. The schedule is also negotiable. Developers can announce and schedule the weekends and/or wings at their own discretion similar to other promotional modifiers.

Implementing raid buff weekends has several benefits. The first is promoting raid content. By concentrating the buff in a limited window, it encourages weekend gamers and non-raiders to try it out, focusing interest into a limited time frame and making it easier to find groups. Another is to give a second chance to those who got stuck on a boss. By placing the buff window at the end of the raid week, it encourages those who struggled with raid content earlier in the week to return for a rematch. Most importantly, it puts an end to any arguments that the devs are not addressing the perceived inaccessibility of raids and makes a clear statement that the raids themselves will not be altered.

This solution has a several advantages over altering the raids themselves. It maintains the prestige of regular raiding by clearly designating raid buffs as limited-time, promotional content. It also keeps things easy for the developers by repurposing existing promotional mechanisms and not requiring new content. By putting control into the hands of the developers, this mechanism also allows them to fine-tune the buffs and promote the content they want promoted.

I am all for bonus weekends in general.
1) dungeon weekend
2) fractal weekend
3) pvp weekend
4) raid weekend
5) activity weekend

Raven.1793:

Most importantly, it puts an end to any arguments that the devs are not addressing the perceived inaccessibility of raids and makes a clear statement that the raids themselves will not be altered.

Devs did adress it in the Stronghold of the Faithful. Players provided a lot of feedback stating that Slothosor was to hard to be a 1st boss of the raid wing. Not too hard overall but too hard to be a 1st boss. So in the Stronghold of the Faithful they delivered easier bosses at the begining. Siege the Stronghold does not even feel like a real boss encounter, but fine it is a first encounter and it has a lot of interesting mechanics. Then Keep Construct, which is a very forgiving boss. He doesn’t deal a lot of damage. Plus a lot of the damage can be easily mitigated. The only difficulty here are ghosts which can’t connect. Using WSAD to keep them away is not hard. Xera is much harder than those two bosses, but still not as hard as Matthias.

All in all devs do listen too feedback, but they are not going to add tones of modes no one will play except they they will provide raids with the growing difficulty. Like the Stronghold.

This is probably the most sensible idea of implementing easy-mode raids and opening raiding to a broader community. I’m curious how would this turn out and I’d frankly love to see this in game in some form or another.
+1 to the OP

-1
This seems to be a stupid idea catering to lazy people who do not want to invest in getting into raids.

Tarasicodissa.7084:

This is probably the most sensible idea of implementing easy-mode raids and opening raiding to a broader community. I’m curious how would this turn out and I’d frankly love to see this in game in some form or another.
+1 to the OP

Yup, certainly the most reasonable and cool as a promotion.

Thing is as many have pointed out time and again, the wins/losses aren’t a matter of DPS or just passive damage intake usually, it’s about handling the mechanics correctly and having a decent knowledge and ability in your role. Even with 10% less damage intake, sitting in poison on sloth, or having a green in a damage panel on VG might still result in a wipe. But, it’d maybe at least give a little hope to those who are scared or just barely unable to keep up with the raids.

Assic.2746:

Raven.1793:

Most importantly, it puts an end to any arguments that the devs are not addressing the perceived inaccessibility of raids and makes a clear statement that the raids themselves will not be altered.

Devs did adress it in the Stronghold of the Faithful. Players provided a lot of feedback stating that Slothosor was to hard to be a 1st boss of the raid wing. Not too hard overall but too hard to be a 1st boss. So in the Stronghold of the Faithful they delivered easier bosses at the begining. Siege the Stronghold does not even feel like a real boss encounter, but fine it is a first encounter and it has a lot of interesting mechanics. Then Keep Construct, which is a very forgiving boss. He doesn’t deal a lot of damage. Plus a lot of the damage can be easily mitigated. The only difficulty here are ghosts which can’t connect. Using WSAD to keep them away is not hard. Xera is much harder than those two bosses, but still not as hard as Matthias.

All in all devs do listen too feedback, but they are not going to add tones of modes no one will play except they they will provide raids with the growing difficulty. Like the Stronghold.

A lot of the raiding community feels this was a mistake though. W3 isn’t nearly as fun as the other 2 wings. Xera was the endboss of the whole raid, the last boss in the last wing and she’s such a wimp… IDK I expected more.