Guild Wars 2

maddoctor.2738:

Astralporing.1957:

Sarrs.4831:

Astralporing.1957:

You are missing a point. GW2 is not a sushi bar. It’s a hamburger joint. Those people that started to ask for out of place food, and complain that what they get is poor quality? We call them Raiders here.

I think I missed something- who’s complaining about quality?

Raiders (well, would-be raiders then) did, when they said the game is too easy and needs to be more challenging.

Actually those “Raiders”, if you call that instance content runners, were asking for new dungeons and fractals for nearly 2 years. That Anet decided to release Raids, instead of what was actually requested is their fault, not the fault of “Raiders”. If we had 4 new dungeons, one for each HoT zone, and 4-5 new Fractals, I don’t think those “Raiders” would ask for Raids.

You haven’t seen raid cdi, i guess? People in it weren’t mostly interested in dungeons. They wanted specifically Raids.
Yes, they were a tiny minority and shouldn’t have been listened to, i agree. But they have been listened to, which created the problem we have now.
Yes, i’d also prefer Anet to forget about raids and put that effort into dungeons and fractals instead. On the other hand, taking away an already existing content from people is never nice, so an alternate solution (like easy mode raids) that gives me some new content (and access to legendary armor) without taking it away from others seems to me to be a reasonable compromise.

Astralporing.1957:

You haven’t seen raid cdi, i guess? People in it weren’t mostly interested in dungeons. They wanted specifically Raids.

…Could that be because posting about dungeons in a raid CDI would have been offtopic and either people were sensible enough not to bark up the wrong tree in that thread, or the thread was pruned because it’s a CDI thread and CDI threads are very actively moderated?

Astralporing.1957:

You haven’t seen raid cdi, i guess? People in it weren’t mostly interested in dungeons. They wanted specifically Raids.

Sarrs.4831 answered this one.

Yes, i’d also prefer Anet to forget about raids and put that effort into dungeons and fractals instead.

It’s too late for that. They neglected them for 2 whole years, they probably thought going back and adding a couple new fractals and dungeons won’t help build trust again. So they added something completely new, that will of course draw dungeon/fractal runners, something more impactful than any dungeon.

Now if they had never neglected instanced content for 2 years… we wouldn’t be having Raids, or this discussion, now.

I’m not a native speaker so I’ll try my best to make it short.

I’ve read quite a lot from this thread. There are bunch of ppl here that have a mindset “Raid’s are for me, go skritt urself if you can’t do them”. This is quite horrible to be honest. I don’t mind raids being hard, with exclusive loot and achievements. There are gamers that like hard content and they should be rewarded for their effort. What I don’t understand is why is there so much anger in them. Nobody wants to take this game mode from You. What a lot of “casuals” want is to experiance the STORY that is within this content.

Should I be on forums screaming at hardcore players to stop playing Core Game because it’s to easy for them and they should not be able to play the Personal Story because it has not Hard Mode"? Is that fair?

This game was somewhat “casual” from the start. It’s only natural it should build up from that, evolve. Harder content should be build upon easier one but people should not be devided by things like story or lore.

Let us at least play a “Story Mode”. Speaking for myself. I don’t need a Legendary Armor nor Achievements. What I want is to see the content, this new map, new NPC’s, their dialogues and what is the story behind it all. Lore that connects to GW1.

So much hard work was put in all of this but there are plenty of ppl new and old, that play this game from beta, that can’t experiance it at all because they don’t or are unable to and can’t dedicate themselves to beat this content.

This was loger then I expected. Sorry for my english. Have a nice watch.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5IUm-Dt60U

Sithis.3564:

This game was “casual” from the start.

No it wasn’t. At least not the “easy mode” type of casual.

Sithis.3564:

I’ve read quite a lot from this thread. There are bunch of ppl here that have a mindset “Raid’s are for me, go skritt urself if you can’t do them”. This is quite horrible to be honest. I don’t mind raids being hard, with exclusive loot and achievements. There are gamers that like hard content and they should be rewarded for their effort. What I don’t understand is why is there so much anger in them. Nobody wants to take this game mode from You. What a lot of “casuals” want is to experiance the STORY that is within this content.
Should I be on forums screaming at hardcore players to stop playing Core Game because it’s to easy for them and they should not be able to play the Personal Story because it has not Hard Mode"? Is that fair?
This game was “casual” from the start. It’s only natural it should build up from that.

Let us at least play a “Story Mode”. Speaking for myself. I don’t need a Legendary Armor nor Achievements. What I want is to see the content, this new map, new NPC’s, their dialogues and what is the story behind it all. Story that connects to GW1.

So much hard work was put in all of this but there are plenty of ppl new and old, that play this game from beta, that can’t experiance it at all because they don’t or are unable to and can’t dedicate themselves to beat this content.

Look I’m all for an easy mode, but painting the ones that oppose it as if they only say : ’’Raid’s are for me, go skritt urself if you can’t do them’’ is dishonest. It only prove that you either don’t understand their reasons, you only read part of their post or only picked that one that are really saying what you say, which are in minority.

Most people that oppose it are against because they saw the exact same type of idea in other game and this screw up the raid there so they are anxious that anet (which have a huge record of behin the worst when it come to reward balance) will screw it up pretty good. Especially when you see company like Blizzard that screw it up, a company that most people view as bigger, with more experience and in general better at designing than Anet.

A couple of quick points on what you said.

1) You just want to see the story, but that’s not the point of most people that argue for an easy mode. You are one of the few that just want that. Some want to be able to do it in a group of 5, other in solo, other want to just have an easy raid but with still most mechanics, some want all the same reward, other want everything except Legendary armor, other want just Legendary armor.

2) There is no story in Raids. Well not true, there is a story, but it come in really really small dose. Better look at a video like those of Wooden Potatoes. I understood way more about the story with his video than doing the raid.

3) This game was was for everybody casual AND hardcore from that beginning. If you really want to push it, as a guild officer I see a lot more of hardcore players staying in the game, while most casual come and go.

I took the word in an apostrophe and there is no mention of easy mode, not a single one, anywhere in my post and I’m not painting everyone bad. Like I said, a “bunch”

1. There were plenty of hard to get items and achievements from the start. I agree there are a lot of “I want this I want that” people. From my perspective the thing that should always be for everyone, is the story and lore.
2. Why do I have to use YouTube, when I paid for a game I like and want to experiance content myself.
3. I agree that this game should be for everyone. However there are these casuals that come and go because there is nothing for them to do. Achievements and doing Tarir 100 times for 4 months is not something that everyone likes to do.

Anet will never please everyone, it’s impossible. What they can do is take all these feedback and try to make a change for better.

Sithis.3564:

I took the word in an apostrophe and there is no mention of easy mode, not a single one, anywhere in my post and I’m not painting everyone bad. Like I said, a “bunch”

1. There were plenty of hard to get items and achievements from the start. I agree there are a lot of “I want this I want that” people. From my perspective the thing that should always be for everyone, is the story and lore.
2. Why do I have to use YouTube, when I paid for a game I like and want to experiance content myself.
3. I agree that this game should be for everyone. However there are these casuals that come and go because there is nothing for them to do. Achievements and doing Tarir 100 times for 4 months is not something that everyone likes to do.

Anet will never please everyone, it’s impossible. What they can do is take all these feedback and try to make a change for better.

Arah has more story and lore, and there’s no easy mode there. Same with the other dungeons.

Stacking in one place 99% is called hard? Granted Arah is not that easy but I never said anything about easy mode, not once. Don’t compare dungeon difficulty with raids. There are different mechanics and skills, most of all, time you need to spend and prep to get it done. Plus the size of a group.

Hell, if you compare dungeons with raids answer me this.

Why and for who were raids even created? You just said there are hard dungeons.

Sithis.3564:

Stacking in one place 99% is called hard? Granted Arah is not that easy but I never said anything about easy mode, not once. Don’t compare dungeon difficulty with raids. There are different mechanics and skills, most of all, time you need to spend and prep to get it done. Plus the size of a group.

Hell, if you compare dungeons with raids answer me this.

Why and for who were raids even created? You just said there are hard dungeons.

Sorry, I assumed you wanted an easy mode, as this thread is about difficulty settings.

I was responding to your argument about lore. Other hard content in this game has lore elements tied to it. (And, in my opinion, there’s not much lore in the raid wings, especially wing 1).

Obviously, raids fill a different niche than dungeon and fractals. Yes, they are harder and require more organization. That doesn’t mean we need an easy mode.

And, dungeons were hard towards the beginning of the game because no one knew what to do. Now they do. Raids are getting there. I consistently get full wing 1 kills in pugs. I beat sloth for the first time in a pug last week, and did it again yesterday. Bandit trio is the easiest raid boss. I’ve yet to beat matthias in a pug, but I know it’ll happen eventually.

Sithis.3564:

Stacking in one place 99% is called hard? Granted Arah is not that easy

It is. The main problem with it is that it requires the most time.

Absurdo.8309:

And, dungeons were hard towards the beginning of the game because no one knew what to do.

And they became easier later because they were nerfed. Several times. Do you want the same happening to Raids?

Astralporing.1957:

Sithis.3564:

Stacking in one place 99% is called hard? Granted Arah is not that easy

It is. The main problem with it is that it requires the most time.

Absurdo.8309:

And, dungeons were hard towards the beginning of the game because no one knew what to do.

And they became easier later because they were nerfed. Several times. Do you want the same happening to Raids?

Nothing needs to be nerfed, we will get difficulty settings instead.

Just waiting for Gaile to get the “green light” to make her announcement.

Astralporing.1957:

TexZero.7910:

….And you think people playing raids aren’t equally if not more invested in the game than yourself. This is a very enlightening development.

No, he is simply pointing out, that the raiders are too small a subset of the community to sustain that game.
Also, yeah, hardcores are far more likely to use gold to gems exchange than buy gems for cash

Missing the point…..

Why is this one person suddenly any more relevant than any other ?
Why is this groups need (to have content changed to their whim) suddenly more necessary to do at the expense of others ?
and Why does the gem store have anything to do with this to begin with ?

If your entire argument is money talks, then please take it and leave as that’s never been a valid reason for changing content.

TexZero.7910:

Why is this one person suddenly any more relevant than any other ?

This one person isn’t.

TexZero.7910:

Why is this groups need (to have content changed to their whim) suddenly more necessary to do at the expense of others ?

Maybe because this group is much, much bigger, and them getting disappointed is going to hurt the game way more?

TexZero.7910:

and Why does the gem store have anything to do with this to begin with ?

Because it’s the main source of funding for the game, bigger than box purchases.

TexZero.7910:

If your entire argument is money talks, then please take it and leave as that’s never been a valid reason for changing content.

I sincerely doubt Anet’s in this for charity. Of course money talks, it’s business after all.

Astralporing.1957:

TexZero.7910:

Why is this one person suddenly any more relevant than any other ?

This one person isn’t.

TexZero.7910:

Why is this groups need (to have content changed to their whim) suddenly more necessary to do at the expense of others ?

Maybe because this group is much, much bigger, and them getting disappointed is going to hurt the game way more?

TexZero.7910:

and Why does the gem store have anything to do with this to begin with ?

Because it’s the main source of funding for the game, bigger than box purchases.

TexZero.7910:

If your entire argument is money talks, then please take it and leave as that’s never been a valid reason for changing content.

I sincerely doubt Anet’s in this for charity. Of course money talks, it’s business after all.

Except that the absurdly baseless claim was made by one person. That their money is somehow more valuable than someone else.

Maybe said one group, should just do the content then ? Or realize that there’s other content already out there for them to do, since by the admission of the person making such baseless statements they don’t care about raiding. There’s been at no point a valid reason for any attempts at a new mode of raiding that makes it worths the time or investment to even begin to attract the so called “bigger” group of people who are only after one thing, Legendary Armor.

I agree the gemstore funds the game, and i reiterate what makes your purchase any more valuable than anyone else ?

Yes, Anet is a business. It was their business decision to make content that had unique rewards tied to it. Those rewards push players to go above and beyond the rest of the content. PvP has a unique backpiece, Fractals has a unique backpiece, WvW will likely have one as well. PvE has every other skin imaginable, and Raids have a unique armorset, and weapon skins.

So why not go play the content as its part of the business model.

TexZero.7910:

Astralporing.1957:

TexZero.7910:

Why is this one person suddenly any more relevant than any other ?

This one person isn’t.

TexZero.7910:

Why is this groups need (to have content changed to their whim) suddenly more necessary to do at the expense of others ?

Maybe because this group is much, much bigger, and them getting disappointed is going to hurt the game way more?

TexZero.7910:

and Why does the gem store have anything to do with this to begin with ?

Because it’s the main source of funding for the game, bigger than box purchases.

TexZero.7910:

If your entire argument is money talks, then please take it and leave as that’s never been a valid reason for changing content.

I sincerely doubt Anet’s in this for charity. Of course money talks, it’s business after all.

Except that the absurdly baseless claim was made by one person. That their money is somehow more valuable than someone else.

Maybe said one group, should just do the content then ? Or realize that there’s other content already out there for them to do, since by the admission of the person making such baseless statements they don’t care about raiding. There’s been at no point a valid reason for any attempts at a new mode of raiding that makes it worths the time or investment to even begin to attract the so called “bigger” group of people who are only after one thing, Legendary Armor.

I agree the gemstore funds the game, and i reiterate what makes your purchase any more valuable than anyone else ?

Yes, Anet is a business. It was their business decision to make content that had unique rewards tied to it. Those rewards push players to go above and beyond the rest of the content. PvP has a unique backpiece, Fractals has a unique backpiece, WvW will likely have one as well. PvE has every other skin imaginable, and Raids have a unique armorset, and weapon skins.

So why not go play the content as its part of the business model.

Just wondering Tex, you seem very anti difficulty setting for some reason and keep sticking to your mindset of raids needing to be purely “exclusive only” content, but that mindset drastically changes when it comes to economy related stuff.

You on the legendary weapon process…
“Instead of starting from the ground up and making the entire process something achievable by even the casual crowd, they’ve actually gone and pushed it into a very niche grind centric crowd.”

It’s very interesting how players are voicing the same sentiments about raids, but you seem to use more of a noninclusive attitude toward providing options for the casual crowd… Mind you, my suggestion also adds upward scaling too…

So I’ll leave some words of your wisdom to help put aside that anti casual raid mentality…

“It’s that sorta mentality that prevents progress from actually being made and the game from being fun for everyone and not the minority that hoard gold like skirtts hoard junk.”

“Yes it met it’s target goals, but in doing so it failed the average player base drastically and turns people away from actively playing the game. I’m saying this as a player who is a part of several large guilds and the same sentiments can be heard from a vast majority of anyone who is not new to the game.”

1) You just want to see the story, but that’s not the point of most people that argue for an easy mode. You are one of the few that just want that. Some want to be able to do it in a group of 5, other in solo, other want to just have an easy raid but with still most mechanics, some want all the same reward, other want everything except Legendary armor, other want just Legendary armor.

I haven’t yet heard one person ask for them to be five-man or solo for their own benefit. So far, the only people I’ve heard suggest 5-man or solo are the ones who would actually prefer raids be left completely alone, and are pushing for a 5-man version instead of the ten-man easy mode raid that people actually want. I’m not sure why, exactly, but it’s basically not coming from the side that actually wants a change.

Arah has more story and lore, and there’s no easy mode there. Same with the other dungeons.

It’s also far more achievable than the current raid wings.

Obviously, raids fill a different niche than dungeon and fractals. Yes, they are harder and require more organization. That doesn’t mean we need an easy mode.

So the “point” you are making is that yes, raids are harder than other content, but that other content does not need an easy mode, so neither does raids? That’s silly. Raids need an easy mode because it is harder than that other content. The entire point of an easy mode is to bring the difficulty wall a bit closer to the previous content. And it’s not like they haven’t included “easy modes” before, SAB had three difficulties, Fractals has 3-5 different difficulties for each map, many Story chapters have two difficulty modes, etc.

Raids might not require an easy mode for you, but other players are reporting that they would benefit from an easy mode, so who are you to tell them they are wrong?

Swagger.1459:

TexZero.7910:

Astralporing.1957:

TexZero.7910:

Why is this one person suddenly any more relevant than any other ?

This one person isn’t.

TexZero.7910:

Why is this groups need (to have content changed to their whim) suddenly more necessary to do at the expense of others ?

Maybe because this group is much, much bigger, and them getting disappointed is going to hurt the game way more?

TexZero.7910:

and Why does the gem store have anything to do with this to begin with ?

Because it’s the main source of funding for the game, bigger than box purchases.

TexZero.7910:

If your entire argument is money talks, then please take it and leave as that’s never been a valid reason for changing content.

I sincerely doubt Anet’s in this for charity. Of course money talks, it’s business after all.

Except that the absurdly baseless claim was made by one person. That their money is somehow more valuable than someone else.

Maybe said one group, should just do the content then ? Or realize that there’s other content already out there for them to do, since by the admission of the person making such baseless statements they don’t care about raiding. There’s been at no point a valid reason for any attempts at a new mode of raiding that makes it worths the time or investment to even begin to attract the so called “bigger” group of people who are only after one thing, Legendary Armor.

I agree the gemstore funds the game, and i reiterate what makes your purchase any more valuable than anyone else ?

Yes, Anet is a business. It was their business decision to make content that had unique rewards tied to it. Those rewards push players to go above and beyond the rest of the content. PvP has a unique backpiece, Fractals has a unique backpiece, WvW will likely have one as well. PvE has every other skin imaginable, and Raids have a unique armorset, and weapon skins.

So why not go play the content as its part of the business model.

Just wondering Tex, you seem very anti difficulty setting for some reason and keep sticking to your mindset of raids needing to be purely “exclusive only” content, but that mindset drastically changes when it comes to economy related stuff.

You on the legendary weapon process…
“Instead of starting from the ground up and making the entire process something achievable by even the casual crowd, they’ve actually gone and pushed it into a very niche grind centric crowd.”

It’s very interesting how players are voicing the same sentiments about raids, but you seem to use more of a noninclusive attitude toward providing options for the casual crowd… Mind you, my suggestion also adds upward scaling too…

So I’ll leave some words of your wisdom to help put aside that anti casual raid mentality…

“It’s that sorta mentality that prevents progress from actually being made and the game from being fun for everyone and not the minority that hoard gold like skirtts hoard junk.”

“Yes it met it’s target goals, but in doing so it failed the average player base drastically and turns people away from actively playing the game. I’m saying this as a player who is a part of several large guilds and the same sentiments can be heard from a vast majority of anyone who is not new to the game.”

Since you love to use my words completely out of context let me say exactly what i’ve been saying.

This portion is completely off topic… “Amalgamated Gemstones” which is the entire thing you’re referencing are bunk. Everyone can acknowledge that at the current rate the are not a sustainable market. Anet themselves even acknowledged this in their AMA.

Now that we’ve covered the off topic nonsense. Lets get back to raids.

Raids filled the whole in the game that was non-zerg, group content that was challenging and appropriately rewarding. Guess what was also acknowledged in the AMA, that raid participation is higher than in any other mmo and there’s no plans for an easy mode. The only plan is to do something for LFG.

You want to hazard a guess as to why they won’t be touching the difficulty ? It might have something to do with the remaining 98% of content out there. Heck, it might even have something to do with raids being designed around being challenging.

You know what they will never do ? Remove the unique raid rewards from the raids to cater to the people who actively refuse to participate in the content. And why should they, not like they’re handing out the Ascension or Ad Infinitum to people who don’t fractal and don’t PvP. So why, should anyone who doesn’t raid feel entitled to the Envoy Armor ?

Sometimes, as an adult you just have to accept the fact that not everything is fair and not everything is for everyone. Raids just aren’t for you, they never were and changing that experience so you can feel whole is an insult to the raid development team.

Ohoni.6057:

See, I told y’all that eventually they were going to merge this into a completely unhelpful superthread of nonsense.

There was no question in my mind … it was the same topic. You’re thread really didn’t add anything to the discussion that was already going on.

Ohoni.6057:

Arah has more story and lore, and there’s no easy mode there. Same with the other dungeons.

It’s also far more achievable than the current raid wings.

Obviously, raids fill a different niche than dungeon and fractals. Yes, they are harder and require more organization. That doesn’t mean we need an easy mode.

So the “point” you are making is that yes, raids are harder than other content, but that other content does not need an easy mode, so neither does raids? That’s silly. Raids need an easy mode because it is harder than that other content. The entire point of an easy mode is to bring the difficulty wall a bit closer to the previous content. And it’s not like they haven’t included “easy modes” before, SAB had three difficulties, Fractals has 3-5 different difficulties for each map, many Story chapters have two difficulty modes, etc.

Raids might not require an easy mode for you, but other players are reporting that they would benefit from an easy mode, so who are you to tell them they are wrong?

I would argue that Arah 3 months after release had the same difficulty as raids do currently. And I don’t think pugs, trying it for the first time, could beat it after a couple of tries, which seems to be the difficulty level you want for easy mode. Heck, people still bought arah runs 3 years after release. It was either too hard for them or took too long to complete.

Yes, fractals have scalable difficulty. That’s the gimmick in fractals. It was designed that way, and is unique in that respect. Other content was not designed that way. And the rewards for fractals are not balanced, as everyone just runs swamp, duo, and daily. Doesn’t really give me confidence anet could balance rewards for easy mode raids.

I know we disagree on first principles on this issue. You think that all content should be beatable by the lowest common denominator. I think designing easy modes for all content is a waste of developer resources, as there is tons of easy content to enjoy.

All content requires a certain minimum skill level to complete. Yes, the bar for raids is higher than most other content. But I don’t think that’s a bad thing. It’s good to have goals to strive for. For some, it’s beating difficult content. And if you can’t cross that bar, you can still have fun in GW2. There’s plenty of content for all skill levels.

I know that I’ll probably never reach legendary in pvp. But I don’t ask anet to lower that bar just for me. Others find that challenge fun. I let them have their fun. It seems selfish to demand that all content be beatable at my skill level.

I would argue that Arah 3 months after release had the same difficulty as raids do currently.

People keep saying “dungeons used to be hard, but then people learned to play them and now they’re easier because of that.”

On the face of that, it is true, but not in a way that applies linearly to raids. For one thing, early on, players did not know how to play the game. They did not understand various synergies of basic gameplay mechanics and abilities. It took many months for players to fully understand what they were capable of, and once they did, content became easier.

That is a non-factor here, since we’ve all had plenty of time to learn how to play the game in a general sense, how to use each classes’ abilities. It is unlikely that we will see any great revelations along those lines, so that is one element on which raids will not become automatically easier over time.

Then there’s the fact that the game did have power creep over that first year. Early dungeons often had people going in at minimum level rather than at 80, in armor that includes some rares rather than full exotic, and then of course they started adding Ascended gear into the mix. A team with full exotic and several Ascended pieces in it would be much more successful than one with a mix of rares and exotics, even assuming equal skill.

Now, will there be new tactics developed to make these bosses easier? Perhaps, but at this point I doubt there will be any major revelations that haven’t already been worked out. The raids might become slightly easier over time, especially for true pugs, since the average level of encounter-specific experience will rise, but in practical terms they really won’t get that much easier on their own.

All content requires a certain minimum skill level to complete. Yes, the bar for raids is higher than most other content. But I don’t think that’s a bad thing. It’s good to have goals to strive for.

This is not a goal that most players want to strive for. They can either pass it, or not pass it, there is no try. I wish you could understand that. If they added easy mode, players who want to “strive” for that difficult bar could always continue to do so. The only difference easy mode would bring is that players who DON’T want to strive for that bar aren’t required to.

Ohoni.6057:

This is not a goal that most players want to strive for. They can either pass it, or not pass it, there is no try. I wish you could understand that.

Who are you to speak for most ?

Let alone to say they cannot try…..

Ohoni.6057:

I would argue that Arah 3 months after release had the same difficulty as raids do currently.

People keep saying “dungeons used to be hard, but then people learned to play them and now they’re easier because of that.”

On the face of that, it is true, but not in a way that applies linearly to raids. For one thing, early on, players did not know how to play the game. They did not understand various synergies of basic gameplay mechanics and abilities. It took many months for players to fully understand what they were capable of, and once they did, content became easier.

That is a non-factor here, since we’ve all had plenty of time to learn how to play the game in a general sense, how to use each classes’ abilities. It is unlikely that we will see any great revelations along those lines, so that is one element on which raids will not become automatically easier over time.

Then there’s the fact that the game did have power creep over that first year. Early dungeons often had people going in at minimum level rather than at 80, in armor that includes some rares rather than full exotic, and then of course they started adding Ascended gear into the mix. A team with full exotic and several Ascended pieces in it would be much more successful than one with a mix of rares and exotics, even assuming equal skill.

Now, will there be new tactics developed to make these bosses easier? Perhaps, but at this point I doubt there will be any major revelations that haven’t already been worked out. The raids might become slightly easier over time, especially for true pugs, since the average level of encounter-specific experience will rise, but in practical terms they really won’t get that much easier on their own.

All content requires a certain minimum skill level to complete. Yes, the bar for raids is higher than most other content. But I don’t think that’s a bad thing. It’s good to have goals to strive for.

This is not a goal that most players want to strive for. They can either pass it, or not pass it, there is no try. I wish you could understand that. If they added easy mode, players who want to “strive” for that difficult bar could always continue to do so. The only difference easy mode would bring is that players who DON’T want to strive for that bar aren’t required to.

Yes, there was some power creep, but that’s not why it got easier, at least in my experience. Otherwise, you wouldn’t see people buying arah. It got easier because people knew what to do. And that’s exactly what I’m seeing with raids. The first couple of weeks with wing 1 were difficult. Now, wing 1 is a cakewalk (for geared and experienced players). I full clear with pugs in about 2 hours. I’m starting to see the same with sloth. I wasn’t able to beat it the first week in pugs, but I did in week 2, and this week as well.

I completely understand that not everyone strives for difficult content. Great! There’s plenty of not difficult content to do. That doesn’t mean that every single piece of difficult content gets an easy mode. Especially when it’s unclear whether the content will remain difficult in the long run.

TexZero.7910:

Swagger.1459:

TexZero.7910:

Astralporing.1957:

TexZero.7910:

Why is this one person suddenly any more relevant than any other ?

This one person isn’t.

TexZero.7910:

Why is this groups need (to have content changed to their whim) suddenly more necessary to do at the expense of others ?

Maybe because this group is much, much bigger, and them getting disappointed is going to hurt the game way more?

TexZero.7910:

and Why does the gem store have anything to do with this to begin with ?

Because it’s the main source of funding for the game, bigger than box purchases.

TexZero.7910:

If your entire argument is money talks, then please take it and leave as that’s never been a valid reason for changing content.

I sincerely doubt Anet’s in this for charity. Of course money talks, it’s business after all.

Except that the absurdly baseless claim was made by one person. That their money is somehow more valuable than someone else.

Maybe said one group, should just do the content then ? Or realize that there’s other content already out there for them to do, since by the admission of the person making such baseless statements they don’t care about raiding. There’s been at no point a valid reason for any attempts at a new mode of raiding that makes it worths the time or investment to even begin to attract the so called “bigger” group of people who are only after one thing, Legendary Armor.

I agree the gemstore funds the game, and i reiterate what makes your purchase any more valuable than anyone else ?

Yes, Anet is a business. It was their business decision to make content that had unique rewards tied to it. Those rewards push players to go above and beyond the rest of the content. PvP has a unique backpiece, Fractals has a unique backpiece, WvW will likely have one as well. PvE has every other skin imaginable, and Raids have a unique armorset, and weapon skins.

So why not go play the content as its part of the business model.

Just wondering Tex, you seem very anti difficulty setting for some reason and keep sticking to your mindset of raids needing to be purely “exclusive only” content, but that mindset drastically changes when it comes to economy related stuff.

You on the legendary weapon process…
“Instead of starting from the ground up and making the entire process something achievable by even the casual crowd, they’ve actually gone and pushed it into a very niche grind centric crowd.”

It’s very interesting how players are voicing the same sentiments about raids, but you seem to use more of a noninclusive attitude toward providing options for the casual crowd… Mind you, my suggestion also adds upward scaling too…

So I’ll leave some words of your wisdom to help put aside that anti casual raid mentality…

“It’s that sorta mentality that prevents progress from actually being made and the game from being fun for everyone and not the minority that hoard gold like skirtts hoard junk.”

“Yes it met it’s target goals, but in doing so it failed the average player base drastically and turns people away from actively playing the game. I’m saying this as a player who is a part of several large guilds and the same sentiments can be heard from a vast majority of anyone who is not new to the game.”

Since you love to use my words completely out of context let me say exactly what i’ve been saying.

This portion is completely off topic… “Amalgamated Gemstones” which is the entire thing you’re referencing are bunk. Everyone can acknowledge that at the current rate the are not a sustainable market. Anet themselves even acknowledged this in their AMA.

Now that we’ve covered the off topic nonsense. Lets get back to raids.

Raids filled the whole in the game that was non-zerg, group content that was challenging and appropriately rewarding. Guess what was also acknowledged in the AMA, that raid participation is higher than in any other mmo and there’s no plans for an easy mode. The only plan is to do something for LFG.

You want to hazard a guess as to why they won’t be touching the difficulty ? It might have something to do with the remaining 98% of content out there. Heck, it might even have something to do with raids being designed around being challenging.

You know what they will never do ? Remove the unique raid rewards from the raids to cater to the people who actively refuse to participate in the content. And why should they, not like they’re handing out the Ascension or Ad Infinitum to people who don’t fractal and don’t PvP. So why, should anyone who doesn’t raid feel entitled to the Envoy Armor ?

Sometimes, as an adult you just have to accept the fact that not everything is fair and not everything is for everyone. Raids just aren’t for you, they never were and changing that experience so you can feel whole is an insult to the raid development team.

It’s completely within context. There is one area of the game that you want to be more casual friendly. So, like you, there are players who want an area of the game to be more casual friendly…

Your post history clearly shows your dislike for the way the economy has been handled and I can present your own quotes if you wish… There are players who do not like the way raids have been introduced… Same same.

You’re not going to deflect on this one.

Swagger.1459:

TexZero.7910:

Swagger.1459:

TexZero.7910:

Astralporing.1957:

TexZero.7910:

Why is this one person suddenly any more relevant than any other ?

This one person isn’t.

TexZero.7910:

Why is this groups need (to have content changed to their whim) suddenly more necessary to do at the expense of others ?

Maybe because this group is much, much bigger, and them getting disappointed is going to hurt the game way more?

TexZero.7910:

and Why does the gem store have anything to do with this to begin with ?

Because it’s the main source of funding for the game, bigger than box purchases.

TexZero.7910:

If your entire argument is money talks, then please take it and leave as that’s never been a valid reason for changing content.

I sincerely doubt Anet’s in this for charity. Of course money talks, it’s business after all.

Except that the absurdly baseless claim was made by one person. That their money is somehow more valuable than someone else.

Maybe said one group, should just do the content then ? Or realize that there’s other content already out there for them to do, since by the admission of the person making such baseless statements they don’t care about raiding. There’s been at no point a valid reason for any attempts at a new mode of raiding that makes it worths the time or investment to even begin to attract the so called “bigger” group of people who are only after one thing, Legendary Armor.

I agree the gemstore funds the game, and i reiterate what makes your purchase any more valuable than anyone else ?

Yes, Anet is a business. It was their business decision to make content that had unique rewards tied to it. Those rewards push players to go above and beyond the rest of the content. PvP has a unique backpiece, Fractals has a unique backpiece, WvW will likely have one as well. PvE has every other skin imaginable, and Raids have a unique armorset, and weapon skins.

So why not go play the content as its part of the business model.

Just wondering Tex, you seem very anti difficulty setting for some reason and keep sticking to your mindset of raids needing to be purely “exclusive only” content, but that mindset drastically changes when it comes to economy related stuff.

You on the legendary weapon process…
“Instead of starting from the ground up and making the entire process something achievable by even the casual crowd, they’ve actually gone and pushed it into a very niche grind centric crowd.”

It’s very interesting how players are voicing the same sentiments about raids, but you seem to use more of a noninclusive attitude toward providing options for the casual crowd… Mind you, my suggestion also adds upward scaling too…

So I’ll leave some words of your wisdom to help put aside that anti casual raid mentality…

“It’s that sorta mentality that prevents progress from actually being made and the game from being fun for everyone and not the minority that hoard gold like skirtts hoard junk.”

“Yes it met it’s target goals, but in doing so it failed the average player base drastically and turns people away from actively playing the game. I’m saying this as a player who is a part of several large guilds and the same sentiments can be heard from a vast majority of anyone who is not new to the game.”

Since you love to use my words completely out of context let me say exactly what i’ve been saying.

This portion is completely off topic… “Amalgamated Gemstones” which is the entire thing you’re referencing are bunk. Everyone can acknowledge that at the current rate the are not a sustainable market. Anet themselves even acknowledged this in their AMA.

Now that we’ve covered the off topic nonsense. Lets get back to raids.

Raids filled the whole in the game that was non-zerg, group content that was challenging and appropriately rewarding. Guess what was also acknowledged in the AMA, that raid participation is higher than in any other mmo and there’s no plans for an easy mode. The only plan is to do something for LFG.

You want to hazard a guess as to why they won’t be touching the difficulty ? It might have something to do with the remaining 98% of content out there. Heck, it might even have something to do with raids being designed around being challenging.

You know what they will never do ? Remove the unique raid rewards from the raids to cater to the people who actively refuse to participate in the content. And why should they, not like they’re handing out the Ascension or Ad Infinitum to people who don’t fractal and don’t PvP. So why, should anyone who doesn’t raid feel entitled to the Envoy Armor ?

Sometimes, as an adult you just have to accept the fact that not everything is fair and not everything is for everyone. Raids just aren’t for you, they never were and changing that experience so you can feel whole is an insult to the raid development team.

It’s completely within context. There is one area of the game that you want to be more casual friendly. So, like you, there are players who want an area of the game to be more casual friendly…

Your post history clearly shows your dislike for the way the economy has been handled and I can present your own quotes if you wish… There are players who do not like the way raids have been introduced… Same same.

You’re not going to deflect on this one.

Which is still out of context as the economy has no bearing on the discussion.

But it’s okay, Anet has agreed with what i’ve stated now twice. Once about Amalgamated Gemstones, and about Raiding. I’d say i’m batting 1000, while you’re at 0.

So please bring on the out of context quotes which i’ve already defend once.

Who are you to speak for most ?

Let alone to say they cannot try…..

Previous experiences in the game back me up. What’s worked, what hasn’t worked, what gets played and what doesn’t. Like it or not this is a casual game for casual players. Difficulty is accepted so long as it does not get in the way, but the more intrusive difficulty becomes, the more it is rejected by the GW2 players.

The first couple of weeks with wing 1 were difficult. Now, wing 1 is a cakewalk (for geared and experienced players). I full clear with pugs in about 2 hours. I’m starting to see the same with sloth. I wasn’t able to beat it the first week in pugs, but I did in week 2, and this week as well.

It is still not likely to be easy for a poorly geared and inexperienced team any time soon, and that is what I’ve been asking for.

I completely understand that not everyone strives for difficult content. Great! There’s plenty of not difficult content to do. That doesn’t mean that every single piece of difficult content gets an easy mode.

But why not? If it opens the content up to thousands more players, gives them more to do, allows the content to be enjoyed by more people, why is that not a good thing? It would be far less effort than creating the raids in the first place, and benefit far more players, it should be a no-brainer.

Raids = Play and be rewarded.
Sitting there playing spreadsheet wars = being rewarded for playing not the game, but the market.

Look, I totally agree with you about the marketplace, it’s a mess and you should not be able to win at “spreadsheet wars,” but raiding is no different. It’s still an activity that benefits a small niche at a much higher rate than the general population. All the same arguments apply, you just don’t want that to be the case because you like when the niche that is being benefited is one that you happen to belong to.

It is still not likely to be easy for a poorly geared and inexperienced team any time soon, and that is what I’ve been asking for.

and the problem is what? yeah, not raids. the problem is, that unlike in gw1, you cannot easily get the bis gear and also some runes are not that cheap either.

things that i don’t like for a long time. yet alone that i had to pay like 200g for the right sigil on my chronomancer.

but thats not the problem of raids. thats the problem of the economy / game to get gear out equal to all players.

…and how does raiding benefit the small population? once upon in the time you get a good drop and yeah there is some gold at the start of the week, but on the other hand i have to spend like 100g in a week because i raid like every day, because i find it fun.

yeah, thats also a problem of the game and not of raids.

some people should just accept one thing. raidcontent was always about stuff wich was harder to beat. it was that little garden wich hardcore player have, where they can let out all their experience and play to their fullest.
it would completly destroy the purpose of it. yeah, i don’t want have an easy mode where all players can get the same stuff (and even when it would be less) as players wich rly get into it.

i want that players wich go into that content are interested in beating it and use their brain and also their gaming experience to play to their fullest.
there should be no easy mode. not that raiders can feel special, just that this no brain stuff ends and that there is good groupcontent where you have to play together be successful together.

how many people quit gw2 because it gets boring? its broing because not much group content (even for casuals).
most of the time you don’t play together, you just play with some people arround you. like strolling arround the city and seeing people without interacting with them.

yes, thats most of the content in gw2. you got a vista…who cares. you defeated the jungle worm….who cares. you defeated tequatl….WHO CARES?
nobody cares. nobody cares about eachother…you just play along and thats it.

raids are the only group content where it does matter what you play, how you play and that you can give advice to people. where you have to play something wich doesn’t benefit you, but most of the group.
you rly play together in raids and not alone. your group cares about you.

thats something you don’t have in most of the content…the more it gets “casual” and the more it gets towards “need no brainz”, the more you play alone.

yeah, you can hit up with friends. you can talk to eachother on teamspeak and do stuff together. but you don’t really play together, you just play alongside of each other. there is absolutly no need that you play together.

PLS NO EASY MODE.
pls play more together in content where it matters to play together.

some people should just accept one thing. raidcontent was always about stuff wich was harder to beat. it was that little garden wich hardcore player have, where they can let out all their experience and play to their fullest.
it would completly destroy the purpose of it. yeah, i don’t want have an easy mode where all players can get the same stuff (and even when it would be less) as players wich rly get into it.

And easy mode would have zero impact on the hard mode version. All the same reasons to play hard mode would continue to exist intact.

how many people quit gw2 because it gets boring? its broing because not much group content (even for casuals).

To some, perhaps. Group content does not make or break GW2 though, GW2 lives or dies based on open world content. GW2’s great strength, the reason so many people chose it over more recent games like Wildstar or SWTOR or ESO, is because of how easy it is to play with other people, without having to negotiate contracts beforehand. I’m in a place. Someone else is also in the place. Does he want to help me? We’re both in the same place, doing the same thing, and can in no way harm each other, of course he wants to help me. I don’t need to invite him to a party, we can just kill the same mobs in the same place and succeed together. That’s what GW2 does better than their competition, and that’s what they always need to keep in focus. The “dungeon” style stuff, anyone can do that and other games tend to do it better, so if people are really all about dungeon stuff, GW2 isn’t likely to be the best game for them, and that’s fine, but the casual "drop-in/drop-out concept needs to be reflected in every game mode, it should not be hard to find people to help you out, and when you find them, they should not make your experience worse.

helping? most of the time i am strolling arround in the open world, i see players wich play totally kitten the whole time.
they are no help, they are a burden.

how many times did this event in hot fail where you have to break the vinetooth. how many times did those players already bring down mordremoth in dragons stand, but fail at the same time this event over and over.
how many times are we like 5 at some of the wyverns in hot and 2 people keep dying to nothing, while the rest does the whole work?

and kitten, those open world guys are kittening toxic. last time i did dragon stand, i did like every event and rly helped out…i tried my best, just like in raids. after wie killed the boss in the towers, i went afk…visible to all on top where the boss died.
holy kitten that mapchat. all people slacking arround, playing “play how i want i don’t care about others” builds with stats on the armor so they do absolutly no dmg but can tank everything, getting carried by a few in the mob and then this mapchat.
you probably got insulted by 4 other people in dungeons (not that it is okay), because they where toxic right? ever got insulted by a whole map? completly new level.

guess i was at fault since i had to go afk for some time. as long as you are in the zerk, your slacking will be unseen…but dare you go afk! thats getting carried.
like all these guys standing arround and waiting for the boss, without hitting any mobs in silverwastes at vinewrath. probably all hate them, but no one ever speaks up.

but back to topic. open world content has zero impact at raids. people can play it without problems. and hoestly, i don’t see the game breaking apart from 2 maps now and maybe 3 somewhen in the future, wich is not really filled with story content, just because some people can’t kill the bosses in those maps.
gear yourself up, adapt, get some friends in and do it. easy as that.

it is really good en refreshing that at least at one point, you have to sozialize and hit up with players.

remeber fractals? remeber how nearly no one in a pug says hi or something like that along the lines. and how they just leave without any words. its nearly like the open world stuff. most people are there silent, too. just some fish swimming along with other fishies.
thats not really social.

remeber fractals? remeber how nearly no one in a pug says hi or something like that along the lines. and how they just leave without any words. its nearly like the open world stuff. most people are there silent, too. just some fish swimming along with other fishies.
thats not really social.

Maybe not, but it is the experience that GW2 players are looking for, what made the game a success in competition with other MMOs. GW2 lives or dies on the “play around others, not locked into others” philosophy that distinguishes it from most previous MMOs, where other players can kill-steal and are otherwise more hindrance than help unless you formally group with them.

Ohoni.6057:

remeber fractals? remeber how nearly no one in a pug says hi or something like that along the lines. and how they just leave without any words. its nearly like the open world stuff. most people are there silent, too. just some fish swimming along with other fishies.
thats not really social.

Maybe not, but it is the experience that GW2 players are looking for, what made the game a success in competition with other MMOs. GW2 lives or dies on the “play around others, not locked into others” philosophy that distinguishes it from most previous MMOs, where other players can kill-steal and are otherwise more hindrance than help unless you formally group with them.

Yes. In the open world.

Yes. In the open world.

Yes, and the more that other content fits with that philosophical concept, the more harmonious the entire game is. When certain aspects clash with that concept, it causes disharmony, as you can see here.

Obviously raids require a certain number of people and no more than a certain number of people, so it can’t just be an open “whoever shows up, go for it” situation, but philosophically it should be similar to the other content, in that you put out an LFG, and whoever shows up, they are more likely to improve your odds than reduce them.

IMO there is nothing inherently wrong with making an “easy-mode” for raids, but if they were to do it correctly it would take far more resources than the raid team has (and GW2 should be willing to spend as an MMO that is focused less on raids than most). So here are my non-viable thoughts on a way to create a good version of easy-mode which Anet doesn’t have the resources for.

Accessibility: Raids require 10 people unless you want to cripple yourself on purpose. This in and of itself is a large hurdle for most people as playing organizer/waiting for a group to me made can be a huge hassle. Particularly, for people with an inconsistent schedule. Fixing Raid LFG will help a little, but I would suggest Anet make raids scale from 8-12 people. The mechanics themselves would need to scale based on the # of players (which would make this very hard to balance well), but would be a very good step in making raids more user-friendly as you can bring friends and don’t feel as pressured if you need to go.

Difficulty: I’m seeing a lot of suggestions for difficulty that range from either destroy the whole point of raids being challenging (get hit by Sabetha’s flame wall and survive), to things that just wouldn’t work (medal system based on timer only works on VG and maybe to a lesser extent Sabetha). IMO the punishment for failing mechanics should be the same, but the pressure from these mechanics should be reduced. This should not be faceroll, it should still be a challenge to complete, albeit a much easier one (I haven’t played WoW in a long time, but I guess it would be closer to early normal mode/flex compared to something like LFR)

Example of potential VG changes:
- Green Circles: Need 2 players to stand in them (group of 8-9). Need 3 players to stand in them (group 10-11). Need 4 players to stand in them (group of 12)
- Blue Circles: Teleport players a max of 1600 Range
- Red Orbs: Damage reduced by 30%, despawn faster
- Defiance Bar: Lower amount of CC needed, scales based on players
- Platform Lighting: Increase the time in which no platforms are lit (the transition).

Similarly, mechanics can be changed on all bosses; Gorseval; orb spawn rate, charged souls base speed, ghosts summoned. Sabetha; cannon spawn time, delay before flame wall fires, etc.

However, doing this would also take an enormous amount of time and is even harder considering Anet doesn’t have a PTR to test difficulty balancing for the general populace.

Rewards: Rewards need to be balanced in such a way that people won’t just abandon one version for the other. Unlike other games which have a very apparent gear treadmill (give different item levels), it becomes very difficult to balance the rewards of different difficulties. Suggestions have ranges from 0 rewards and just story (this is a complete waste of development resources as people would run it once and be done) to reduced magnetite shard reward from bosses (this is somewhat more viable, but may deincentivize normal mode running). I would suggest making it so you can’t get any raid specific rewards as drops (normal ascended chests may be fine), but you do unlock the vendor to actually be able to buy boss-specific items for shards. The shards would need to be capped at about 50 (and boss rewards 50% less on kill). You should get replacement parts for the Legendary Armor collection with every other part of the crafting process being the same. The replacement parts would make it so your end skin visually looks like the precursor but with legendary stats. This could then be upgraded once you have the real collection completed.

As I said before though, I don’t think any of this would really work since the developmental resources simply aren’t there. But in contrast, I don’t think Anet should just create a difficulty that isn’t well thought out. That said, the stats, not skin for raid legendary armor at least should available elsewhere (make it so you can craft a worse looking version for same cost without going to raids, or add new armor to different content)

I think before we can really discuss difficulty, first we need to establish if raids are in fact intended to be End-Game Content.

STIHL.2489:

I think before we can really discuss difficulty, first we need to establish if raids are in fact intended to be End-Game Content.

I think they are intended to be just one type of End-Game Content for PvE.

I do think Fractals make up a separate other side.

Honestly let’s be real, think of a lot of the long-term goals, don’t they are all up making Legendaries in one regard or another? From any part of the game?

GoldenTruth.2853:

Accessibility: Raids require 10 people unless you want to cripple yourself on purpose. This in and of itself is a large hurdle for most people as playing organizer/waiting for a group to me made can be a huge hassle. Particularly, for people with an inconsistent schedule. Fixing Raid LFG will help a little, but I would suggest Anet make raids scale from 8-12 people. The mechanics themselves would need to scale based on the # of players (which would make this very hard to balance well), but would be a very good step in making raids more user-friendly as you can bring friends and don’t feel as pressured if you need to go.

I was thinking they should make it scale up to like, 20. Bigger raids actually help a lot when it comes to improving accessibility because you don’t need to swap to alts to bring utility, you can just natively fit whatever your raid group is.

Accessibility: Raids require 10 people unless you want to cripple yourself on purpose. This in and of itself is a large hurdle for most people as playing organizer/waiting for a group to me made can be a huge hassle. Particularly, for people with an inconsistent schedule. Fixing Raid LFG will help a little, but I would suggest Anet make raids scale from 8-12 people. The mechanics themselves would need to scale based on the # of players (which would make this very hard to balance well), but would be a very good step in making raids more user-friendly as you can bring friends and don’t feel as pressured if you need to go.

I don’t think this is necessary. As you say it would add a lot of work. I don’t think there’s too much trouble finding ten people, especially not once they have an LFG that can directly stack up ten people at once, the problem is that you need to find ten GOOD people who know what they’re doing or the whole thing is moot. If the content is flexible enough that you don’t need ten great players, you can make due with five or so really solid players and another five “meh” players and it’ll still work out, forming a ten-man party will be no drama.

IMO the punishment for failing mechanics should be the same, but the pressure from these mechanics should be reduced. This should not be faceroll, it should still be a challenge to complete, albeit a much easier one (I haven’t played WoW in a long time, but I guess it would be closer to early normal mode/flex compared to something like LFR)

The punishment is the part that NEEDS to go though. The challenge factor of the actual mechanics do not bother me, it’s the consequences of failing them that does. I’m far more likely to succeed at something when I know that I’m allowed to screw it up, than if I feel that screwing it up is a big deal. I have no interest in them making the mechanics “simpler,” like making her flame wall smaller or slower, or making VG’s green circles only require one person in it, or similar cop-outs. I want the conditions for “passing” that element to remain identical in as many cases as possible, I just want the consequences of failure to be noticeable, but survivable.

Basically, you’re describing a system that would take WAY more work, and which nobody actually wants because it does not solve the problems people actually have with the existing system.

I think before we can really discuss difficulty, first we need to establish if raids are in fact intended to be End-Game Content.

This is GW2, all content is end-game content.

STIHL.2489:

I think before we can really discuss difficulty, first we need to establish if raids are in fact intended to be End-Game Content.

Sure, here you go

“Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns™, introduces the ultimate challenge: our first raid, which is made up of three distinct raid wings. Raids are 10-player, instanced, elite dungeon content that’s a challenge unlike anything we’ve previously released in Guild Wars 2. These raids are meant to put you and your teammates to the test and challenge you to grow your skills as Guild Wars 2 players. Raids are our answer to what skilled PvE players have to look forward to at endgame—the ultimate test to overcome and defeat.”

https://heartofthorns.guildwars2.com/game/raids

Seems pretty clear cut that raids are intended to be both challenging and end-game content.

Sarrs.4831:

GoldenTruth.2853:

Accessibility: Raids require 10 people unless you want to cripple yourself on purpose. This in and of itself is a large hurdle for most people as playing organizer/waiting for a group to me made can be a huge hassle. Particularly, for people with an inconsistent schedule. Fixing Raid LFG will help a little, but I would suggest Anet make raids scale from 8-12 people. The mechanics themselves would need to scale based on the # of players (which would make this very hard to balance well), but would be a very good step in making raids more user-friendly as you can bring friends and don’t feel as pressured if you need to go.

I was thinking they should make it scale up to like, 20. Bigger raids actually help a lot when it comes to improving accessibility because you don’t need to swap to alts to bring utility, you can just natively fit whatever your raid group is.

Well ideally it would be 8-15, that way you could form/split a raid group with any number above 8.

I don’t think this is necessary. As you say it would add a lot of work. I don’t think there’s too much trouble finding ten people, especially not once they have an LFG that can directly stack up ten people at once, the problem is that you need to find ten GOOD people who know what they’re doing or the whole thing is moot. If the content is flexible enough that you don’t need ten great players, you can make due with five or so really solid players and another five “meh” players and it’ll still work out, forming a ten-man party will be no drama.

Eh, I think that this is very important to allow for people without dedicated groups who want to raid but have inconsistent schedules find groups. When the group number is adaptive players don’t need to feel pressured to choose between irl things and the fear of losing a spot if they can’t show up.

The punishment is the part that NEEDS to go though. The challenge factor of the actual mechanics do not bother me, it’s the consequences of failing them that does. I’m far more likely to succeed at something when I know that I’m allowed to screw it up, than if I feel that screwing it up is a big deal. I have no interest in them making the mechanics “simpler,” like making her flame wall smaller or slower, or making VG’s green circles only require one person in it, or similar cop-outs. I want the conditions for “passing” that element to remain identical in as many cases as possible, I just want the consequences of failure to be noticeable, but survivable.

Without similar punishments mechanics will be completely ignored. They would become tank and spank fights and you would end up with easy-mode not even acting as a training session. Making the mechanics easier to execute, but punishing is the only real way to combat this. Nerfing raids to the point of pointlessness can be seen in WoW’s LFR, something that many people feel greatly harmed the game.

Basically, you’re describing a system that would take WAY more work, and which nobody actually wants because it does not solve the problems people actually have with the existing system.

I know it would take too much work. That’s why I think that they probably can’t create a good easy-mode, as all the suggestions I’ve seen here simply don’t work well, and would just be a short-term band-aid that would harm one of the two hypothetical difficulty modes.

Eh, I think that this is very important to allow for people without dedicated groups who want to raid but have inconsistent schedules find groups. When the group number is adaptive players don’t need to feel pressured to choose between irl things and the fear of losing a spot if they can’t show up.

Perhaps, but if failure is less of a concern, and the LFG system is better, then people could drop out and be filled with pug players without too much disruption.

Without similar punishments mechanics will be completely ignored.

As I’ve said to Doc, sure, some people will ignore them, that’s fine. But if you don’t want to ignore them, you don’t have to. This is better than having a mechanic that plays entirely differently than the real thing, such that mastering it is meaningless to the final version, and if the punishments remain the same then you’re leaving the worst part in. It’s like someone comes to you and says “these hot wings are too spicy,” and your response is “ok, we’ll take out the chicken, but leave in the exact same amount of spice. Enjoy.”

Making the mechanics easier to execute, but punishing is the only real way to combat this.

If the mechanics are different then they would be entirely worthless.

I know it would take too much work. That’s why I think that they probably can’t create a good easy-mode, as all the suggestions I’ve seen here simply don’t work well, and would just be a short-term band-aid that would harm one of the two hypothetical difficulty modes.

Except the one that I suggested on page 3, which would be relatively fast and easy to implement, AND be the best overall permanent solution.

As I’ve said to Doc, sure, some people will ignore them, that’s fine. But if you don’t want to ignore them, you don’t have to. This is better than having a mechanic that plays entirely differently than the real thing, such that mastering it is meaningless to the final version, and if the punishments remain the same then you’re leaving the worst part in. It’s like someone comes to you and says “these hot wings are too spicy,” and your response is “ok, we’ll take out the chicken, but leave in the exact same amount of spice. Enjoy.”

If people were doing easy mode why would anyone do the mechanics if they could just ignore them O_o. When was the last time anyone killed Firestorm first in the Molten Duo fractal when everyone had the achievement. Heck, I don’t even know half the dungeon mechanics that I regularly ran because they were so menial they didn’t matter. Just get on a cannon a press 2, that’s why Zhaitan was such a great boss right :P

Your analogy is wrong, as the mechanics are easier to execute (the boss is easier). I gave you less spicy chicken, but it still has a little kick to it. On the other hand your chicken has no flavor since there is literally nothing distinguishing boss X from boss Y if mechanics can be ignored. Think over the long-term, people will almost always go for quick and efficient rewards when content isn’t new (see dungeons, swamp fractals, etc). 1 month after easy mode would release with your ideas it no one would even attempt mechanics.

If the mechanics are different then they would be entirely worthless.

I said easier to execute not different. The essence of the mechanics would be the same. People still go in the green circle, just if 2 people miss it by accident it isn’t a wipe and you can keep going. But at the same time people need to at least attempt to do the mechanics. Nerfing damage to the point of not even doing the mechanics would truly make them entirely worthless

Except the one that I suggested on page 3, which would be relatively fast and easy to implement, AND be the best overall permanent solution.

As shown above your “easy mode” is essentially making all bosses WoW’s LFR. This mode is extremely controversial with many people touting it as one of the major mistakes Blizzard made. I’m sure some people can find some merit to it, but based on the essence of what Anet is trying to accomplish with raids (and HoT in general) I don’t think they would purposefully sabotage their own work and efforts to make mobs more than just meatbags.

If the mechanics can be completely ignored without real repercussions THEN the mechanics would be entirely worthless.

If people were doing easy mode why would anyone do the mechanics if they could just ignore them O_o.

I don’t care to repeat it, go reread the last few posts in the “are raids a good idea” thread. The TL;DR of it is that if they WANT to do the mechanics, they can, if they don’t want to, they don’t have to. It’s none of your business either way.

I said easier to execute not different. The essence of the mechanics would be the same.

No. If, for example, Sabetha’s flame wall were slower or had more of a tell, then a player who practices to master in in easy mode would go into hard mode and have to start from scratch, because his timing would be entirely off. Meanwhile a new player would still have a terrible time with Sabetha on easy mode because the flame wall would still kill him.

If, instead, the flame wall behaved identically in both modes, but were survivable in easy mode, then a player who mastered avoiding it in easy mode could apply those same skills 1:1 in hard mode.

People still go in the green circle, just if 2 people miss it by accident it isn’t a wipe and you can keep going. But at the same time people need to at least attempt to do the mechanics. Nerfing damage to the point of not even doing the mechanics would truly make them entirely worthless

People who are going to do the bare minimum are going to do the bare minimum. If people would ignore the green circle in my version of easy mode, then they would only bother sending 2-3 people at them rather than 3-4 in your mode.

As shown above your “easy mode” is essentially making all bosses WoW’s LFR. This mode is extremely controversial with many people touting it as one of the major mistakes Blizzard made.

And others believing it’s the only thing that kept WoW alive. GW2 is far more a “LFR” game than not.

If the mechanics can be completely ignored without real repercussions THEN the mechanics would be entirely worthless.

You shouldn’t be able to ignore them completely, there should be ramifications, just not so immediately lethal as many of them are. They should be trouble enough that people will want to avoid them, just not so deadly that failing to avoid them immediately leads to a reset. It should be no less challenging that other non-raid content, just less challenging than the current raids are.

TexZero.7910:

Zzzz this argument has no merit when the first one to bring up raids was Anet themselves in this CDI https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/cdi/CDI-Guilds-Raiding/first

This is factually incorrect. There were numerous requests/demands for/discussion of raids by posters long before that CDI and long before ANet said anything about including raids. You’d be better served to focus on Anet’s placing of exclusive skins in dungeons, their original raid substitute, which was first discussed by them back before launch.

I don’t care to repeat it, go reread the last few posts in the “are raids a good idea” thread. The TL;DR of it is that if they WANT to do the mechanics, they can, if they don’t want to, they don’t have to. It’s none of your business either way.

Kind of mean towards the end there, but uh, okay, but over the long-term prior evidence in this game has shown that people won’t do the mechanics when content is older, and simply put, why should they place resources in a mode that isn’t really any different than a world boss.

No. If, for example, Sabetha’s flame wall were slower or had more of a tell, then a player who practices to master in in easy mode would go into hard mode and have to start from scratch, because his timing would be entirely off. Meanwhile a new player would still have a terrible time with Sabetha on easy mode because the flame wall would still kill him.

If, instead, the flame wall behaved identically in both modes, but were survivable in easy mode, then a player who mastered avoiding it in easy mode could apply those same skills 1:1 in hard mode.

Start from scratch? They are learning to do the mechanics in easy mode that will ease them into hard mode if they so choose. We both like analogies so here is one; I take a math class which goes over basic algebra (easy mode). I still need to put in some effort, but honestly it isn’t very difficult. If I so choose I take the next class which teaches more difficult algebra but the basic rules are the same (hard mode). Did I learn nothing from the prior class? No it actually helped me understand the basics. so I could do better on the harder class than I would of without the easier one. Your example is closer to just taking the harder algebra right off the bat, but the grading is on a curve that even if you don’t study or even know basic algebra you still get an A.

Also would the person even know the mechanics if he just did it in easy mode. If everyone else does it without the mechanics won’t he just take for granted that VG’s green circle is something that can’t be blocked, or the cannons at Sabetha simply can’t be destroyed. I’d feel bad for the person who thinks he has a grasp on raids after easy mode only to wake up to the fact he doesn’t even understand 1/2 of what is going on.

People who are going to do the bare minimum are going to do the bare minimum. If people would ignore the green circle in my version of easy mode, then they would only bother sending 2-3 people at them rather than 3-4 in your mode.

So you agree that no one will do the mechanics if they aren’t relevant? After all why should they stand in green circles if they aren’t scary, wouldn’t that single guy actually doing the mechanics look silly, after all he is making this boss fight take longer.

In my mode, they may start out sending less people, but what happens when someone misses the green circles and they all wipe? Simple, they add extra people to go to green to decrease the buffer for failure. After all, my suggestions also have boss hp decrease so it isn’t like the timer is going to be a large hindrance to them. Current groups usually already bring a +1 for green circles, bringing a +2 would be a easy solution for easy-mode groups, and even if not more experienced players could be the ones doing it.[/quote]

You shouldn’t be able to ignore them completely, there should be ramifications, just not so immediately lethal as many of them are. They should be trouble enough that people will want to avoid them, just not so deadly that failing to avoid them immediately leads to a reset. It should be no less challenging that other non-raid content, just less challenging than the current raids are.

We are trying to reach the same goals, but approaching it at different ways. I want to ease them into what they should be doing, and have them actually execute it. Then if they so choose, refine it in hard mode once comfortable. You want to land them into a hard mode boss fight where players can choose to ignore mechanics or not. I think you underestimate just how much they could nerf mechanics while still making them relevant. We will go with VG since that’s a pretty basic boss which most people know.

There are 3 main issues when faced with an inexperienced VG group.

1. The bosses HP may be too high when people don’t know their optimal rotations. Boss HP is nerfed, easy fix (I think you agree with this one too).

2. Someone misses the green circles, or goes down on the way there causing their to not be enough people. By reducing the required number the team is more open to choosing how they want to approach this; do they send their 2 best players? do they send 4 players to be safe at the cost of some dps? The point is everyone still needs to be aware of the mechanics and think about how they should be approached, but with 4 people paying attention (2 extra in this example) chances are you wont fail.

3. The lit up floor. This is the real killer, when in conjunction with the green circles players will end up with a bad green causing a wipe. My solution, make it so there is more of a downtime between the lit floor transition. The tank still needs to learn the basics of kiting, the players still need to understand the concept of bad greens (even when they aren’t as punished by it). But at the same time, it is much easier to not die. Honestly I would even have the damage reduced by some extent (just not enough that they could be completely ignored). This is opposed to dropping them off in the middle of what would be a difficult boss fight and telling them that even if they do a bad job, and know they did a bad job they can still go home a winner.

But whatever, like I said I know Anet can’t provide the easy-mode I want. I just don’t want to see an easy-mode devolve into these basic tank and spanks encounters when they can keep the mechanics that make them unique, and just refine those mechanics. I fear that if the damage on these mechanics were simply reduced groups would simply go with a 2 healer meta where everything could in fact be ignored without worry, and mechanics aren’t understood even by people willing to learn. After all, when was the last time someone explained the mechanics of low level bloomhunger to a new person beyond “whack him with your weapon”. At some point I would question why even make an easy mode for raids when resources could be put in making better content to fit these players, preferably also being an avenue that could provide something like legendary armor.

@GoldenTruth welcome to the “trying to have conversation with Ohoni” thread. Anyway, spoiler: Ohoni doesn’t exactly want an “easier raid so more people can play it” nor he wants “easier raid so people can do the harder raid”. What he wants is a raid that he can easily completes that gives the same type of reward as the current raid.

LegACy.1296:

@GoldenTruth welcome to the “trying to have conversation with Ohoni” thread. Anyway, spoiler: Ohoni doesn’t exactly want an “easier raid so more people can play it” nor he wants “easier raid so people can do the harder raid”. What he wants is a raid that he can easily completes that gives the same type of reward as the current raid.

Yep. He’s done this on the legendary PvP wings and now he’s doing it on raid rewards. He isn’t actually interested in the health of raiding or the game, just the sugar rush of getting free stuff.

Actually I’m curious about something. All this talk about difficulty settings in Raids, 13 pages, and still there is nothing about how that actual “easy mode”, only vague things like “tweak values” or “scale damage”. Of course we don’t know the actual data/math involved so we can’t say “instead of 1000 hp, let’s make it 900”.

Reducing damage by half makes things easier, but reducing damage by 10% is also making it easier (comparatively). So, honest question to all of you asking for an “easy mode”: How easy do you want this easy mode?

maddoctor.2738:

Reducing damage by half makes things easier, but reducing damage by 10% is also making it easier (comparatively). So, honest question to all of you asking for an “easy mode”: How easy do you want this easy mode?

If there’s going to be another mode for the sake of ‘letting the casuals see the content’, then an easy mode as presented won’t suffice. A fixed 10-man mode will either not have enough rewards to encourage people to regularly run it, or it will be so rewarding that it is not worth running hard mode.

Kind of mean towards the end there, but uh, okay, but over the long-term prior evidence in this game has shown that people won’t do the mechanics when content is older, and simply put, why should they place resources in a mode that isn’t really any different than a world boss.

I didn’t intend it to be mean, but rather direct. If people choose to circumvent mechanics, then so long as it doesn’t give them unintended advantage, that’s their own business. No harm done. Since the easy mode would be intended to be more forgiving and less rewarding, circumventing certain mechanics would not be harming anything, but leaving them as otherwise identical to the originals means that if a player chooses NOT to circumvent them, they would provide an identical training example as the original.

Start from scratch? They are learning to do the mechanics in easy mode that will ease them into hard mode if they so choose.

Only if the mechanics are the same. If you change the timing or tells of the mechanics then learning to overcome the easy version would provide almost no benefit on the hard.

Also would the person even know the mechanics if he just did it in easy mode. If everyone else does it without the mechanics won’t he just take for granted that VG’s green circle is something that can’t be blocked, or the cannons at Sabetha simply can’t be destroyed. I’d feel bad for the person who thinks he has a grasp on raids after easy mode only to wake up to the fact he doesn’t even understand 1/2 of what is going on.

There will always be incompetent players, and a player who thinks that way is likely the same person who would currently enter a hard mode raid expecting to clear it easily, so no change there. Any reasonably competent player would research raids before going in, and would know exactly what the differences are between the easy and hard versions, so if he is training with the goal of mastering hard mode, he would play it as if it were hard mode, just with reduced penalties if he screws it up, allowing him to continue to the next task, rather than having to redo it repeatedly.

So you agree that no one will do the mechanics if they aren’t relevant?

No, which is why that’s not what I said. What I believe is that SOME people will ignore as many mechanics as they can get away with, because their goal is simply to clear easy mode as quickly as possible, while OTHER players will treat every mechanic seriously, because their goal is to use it as training for the hard mode. Different people, different goals, different outcomes, entirely up to them if they are given the choice.

And as I told Doc, it would be disrespectful to not be on the same page as the rest of the party, just as with people running dungeons who care about the story and keep stopping to watch the cinematics when the rest of the group wants to speed clear. This is nothing new, however. Groups should advertise in LFG “Easy mode speed clear” or “easy mode hard training,” and of course guild/friendly groups should get on the same page as well.

2. Someone misses the green circles, or goes down on the way there causing their to not be enough people. By reducing the required number the team is more open to choosing how they want to approach this; do they send their 2 best players? do they send 4 players to be safe at the cost of some dps? The point is everyone still needs to be aware of the mechanics and think about how they should be approached, but with 4 people paying attention (2 extra in this example) chances are you wont fail.

But then whatever strategy they want to use will go out the window when they move up to hard mode, because they will need a higher minimum of people. With the same minimum, you need the exact same people and the exact same strategy if your goal is to cancel the attack. The only difference is that in hard mode, it’ll wipe almost all players, in easy mode, it’ll have a reduced effect, either enough damage that some players are likely to get downed (not at full health, super-glassy, etc.), or maybe full damage but only to five targets, something that is threatening, but recoverable. If a group can perfectly execute this strategy in easy mode, then they can perfectly execute this element in hard mode using the exact same strategy.

3. The lit up floor. This is the real killer, when in conjunction with the green circles players will end up with a bad green causing a wipe. My solution, make it so there is more of a downtime between the lit floor transition. The tank still needs to learn the basics of kiting, the players still need to understand the concept of bad greens (even when they aren’t as punished by it). But at the same time, it is much easier to not die. Honestly I would even have the damage reduced by some extent (just not enough that they could be completely ignored). This is opposed to dropping them off in the middle of what would be a difficult boss fight and telling them that even if they do a bad job, and know they did a bad job they can still go home a winner.

But again, the pacing and movement patterns they get used to in easy mode would be totally thrown out the window in hard mode. Whereas instead, if the colored floors did more minor damage, allowing you to tough them out if you wanted, then they would be more forgiving of screw-ups, but at the same time, if your goal is to perfect your patterns, then you would know that ever time you touched color it was you messing up, and needing improvement.

Sarrs.4831:

If there’s going to be another mode for the sake of ‘letting the casuals see the content’, then an easy mode as presented won’t suffice. A fixed 10-man mode will either not have enough rewards to encourage people to regularly run it, or it will be so rewarding that it is not worth running hard mode.

Exactly why I’m asking about it. I want to see opinions on the subject. There are three possible outcomes:

A) The “easy mode” is just perfect for everyone, nobody complains any more. Rejoice! That has the same probability of happening as an alien invasion.

B) The “easy mode” is stupidly easy, so every single player in the game can do it. Rejoice? The rewards would need a really heavy balancing in that case, nearly making the easy mode offer zero rewards. Or just turn it into chest farm 2. Horrible solution too

C) The “easy mode” is good for some part of the playerbase. Now even more people are running Raids, but the casuals are still not happy. We have 2 options from here:

C1) Start nerfing “easy mode” until we reach point B. Rebalance rewards every single time. Development hell

C2) Create an “easier than easy mode”, then “a lot easier than easy mode”, then “even easier than a lot easier than easy mode” and so on, until one of these difficulties reaches point B. Development hell

I think the question could be rephrased with: Can the developers “win” by adding an easy mode? Or we’ll enter an endless loop of easier mode requests?