Guild Wars 2

fixing the forum bugs

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?

I’ve equated it in the past to around Fractal ~20. I mean, I’m flexible on the exact details, a little harder or easier than I might like, so long as it’s within the ballpark. My goal would be that if a group went in, of reasonably competent players, in full exotics of not-completely-ridiculous builds (like a Nomads DPSer or whatever), and they had all watched/read strategy guides to the raid beforehand so they had a basic idea of what they were meant to do, then that group would be able to clear each raid boss as they came to it with less than ten wipes each. Ideally less than three if they were really on the ball.

A team of skilled players who were already familiar with the raid, in either mode, would be able to clear each boss with no more than 1-2 wipes, assuming they were actually trying. I would like to avoid “cheese tactic” options that allow you to just face-tank and press 1, so I do not want things reduced to the level where you don’t even need to pay attention, just that you can afford to mess up occasionally.

maddoctor.2738:

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

I don’t know, I’m looking at it from a different point of view. I see two possible outcomes:

1. The mode is too rewarding and nobody ever has a reason to go up to hard mode. This is bad for obvious reasons.
2. The mode is not rewarding enough and once everyone’s had a short-term fill of the content, seen all the shinies and all the bosses, nobody goes back and it’s impossible for new or returning players to get back into it. This may even invalidate the hard mode, because the mode is still providing one form of the reward (seeing the story), and then there’s still no reason not to go up to hard mode.

And there isn’t a third bowl of porridge. Under the fixed group size model in a game without ilvl, there isn’t a bowl of porridge that’s just right.

I look at it through this lens because we’ve already seen how the reward balancing dance works in GW2 with dungeons.

maddoctor.2738:

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?

Firstly, the developers can’t win because they’ve already won. Raids are exceeding their target participation rate.

Secondly, yes, you’re right. If they DO add an easy mode, they do risk falling into a progressive nerfing cycle.

1. The mode is too rewarding and nobody ever has a reason to go up to hard mode. This is bad for obvious reasons.
2. The mode is not rewarding enough and once everyone’s had a short-term fill of the content, seen all the shinies and all the bosses, nobody goes back and it’s impossible for new or returning players to get back into it. This may even invalidate the hard mode, because the mode is still providing one form of the reward (seeing the story), and then there’s still no reason not to go up to hard mode.

The way I see it, there will have to be three different groups of people, there is no good outcome in which everyone ends up in the same place.

1. Players who like hard mode. They will play hard mode first, conquer it before easy mode even comes out, and when easy mode is available, might speed clear it for bonus weekly reward, but won’t care about it much.

2. Players who know hard mode will never be for them. They will be content to speed clear Easy mode once per week, and never attempt to move up. They will get reduced rewards, and take much longer to reach any of their loot goals, but that’s fine by them, and should be fine by you because they aren’t hurting anyone.

3. Players who are intimidated and/or frustrated by hard mode, perhaps tried it a few times before easy mode came out but never got that far and do not care to keep trying as it is, but hope one day to master it. They can perform in Easy mode as if it were Hard mode, to try and master the personal and team skills needed in the Hard mode, but in a lower pressure, lower stress environment. Ideally people from this group will eventually graduate into the first group, that’s their goal, but some will slip into the second group too, and either is perfectly fine, because again, they are doing what they want to do and it’s none of your business either way.

The rewards should be good enough so that those who can do Hard mode would never want to give it up for just Easy mode (at least not so long as they’re still serious about the raid itself), and good enough that players on Easy mode would want to move up if at all possible for them, but the Easy mode rewards not so bad that they are worthless, or don’t provide a viable path to eventually getting the good stuff through Easy mode alone.

Ohoni.6057:

The rewards should be good enough so that those who can do Hard mode would never want to give it up for just Easy mode (at least not so long as they’re still serious about the raid itself), and good enough that players on Easy mode would want to move up if at all possible for them, but the Easy mode rewards not so bad that they are worthless, or don’t provide a viable path to eventually getting the good stuff through Easy mode alone.

Fairy talk.

Give me a precise model.

Well, in my original proposal, it was 1/3 the Magnetite for winning, none for failure, and looking over the Vale Guardian boss chest as an example, I would say:

25s instead of 2g (gold reward is more a token than necessary)
no guild hall trophy fragments (no need for frills)
one “Insight fragment” (1/3 of an Insight)
The Legendary armor crafting collection unlock
and a 10% chance of getting any of the rare drops (ie if it’s 10% in hard, it’d be 1% in easy)

I’m more flexible on the rare drops than anything else on that list, but I still think that would be fair and balanced.

Also, to carry that over to the Legendary Collection, you would need to use the Living Crystal after three separate easy mode kills to get a full Infused Crystal. The Easy mode boss chest would not contain an Energy Crystal, but rather an “Energy Crystal Fragment” where you’d need to combine three to get a full one. Perhaps not all the requirements would have to be harder in Easy mode, but rather some are identical, while others take WAY longer, so that on balance it basically ends up taking more clears to pass the hurdle. The best method here would depend on what would take the least time to implement, so it’s impossible to say for certain from the outside.

Keep in mind that these would all be on weekly lock-out and separate from the hard mode raid rewards, so hard mode players could get both, and even if a player could beat easy mode faster and easier than hard, he couldn’t, say, do it three times and get equivalent reward to a hard mode player doing it once in the same time-span, since it would take him at least three weeks to do this, in which time the hard mode raider could clear his own raid three times AND the easy mode three times if he liked.

Also keep in mind that there would be a reasonable period of a month or two after each raid is released before the easy mode would be available, so anyone that really has any claim on hard mode would have plenty of time with it before anyone would have a shot at easy mode.

And what are the VG mechanics changes and retunes in the easy mode?

Let’s not worry too much about specific numbers for legendary progression since we don’t have the full track known yet. Would you say 1/3rd the “normal” rate would be a fair approximation of the target?

What about achievement eligibility? Full eligibility? No eligibility? Some achievements eligible but some (like the one where you’re not allowed to die) locked to normal mode?

And what are the VG mechanics changes and retunes in the easy mode?

Again, flexible, but my proposal is that his HP be reduced by around 10, maybe 20%, subject to tuning, so that players in full mis-matched Exotic would be equivalent in DPS to players in full min-maxed Ascended gear.

The green circle damage would be reduced to perhaps half as much, such that more players would be likely to survive a failed “catch,” the breakbar during the “fireball spam” phase would be easier to break, and the colored damage fields would have reduced damage such that it would be difficult to heal your way through them indefinitely, but easier to get out of them alive if you fall in somehow.

That seems sufficient to me, but again, the outcome is the goal, not the specifics. All I care about the specifics is that they keep every mechanic the same, that you would have to go through the exact same motions to avoid all negative impacts, but that only those negative impacts are reduced in strength, such that the unsalvagable becomes more of a minor setback.

Would you say 1/3rd the “normal” rate would be a fair approximation of the target?

Yes, give or take. I think 1/3 is fair, I’m definitely not looking for more than that, but I definitely wouldn’t accept some “punitive” model of “so little gain that it’s not even worth bothering.”

What about achievement eligibility? Full eligibility? No eligibility? Some achievements eligible but some (like the one where you’re not allowed to die) locked to normal mode?

None of the “prestige” achievements would apply at all in easy mode. You could accomplish the tasks necessary for Legendary armor or other physical rewards, but nothing that grants a title or just exists to say you did it. If they want to create a separate line of achievements specific to easy mode, that’d be fine, but totally not necessary from my perspective.

Ohoni.6057:

Again, flexible, but my proposal is that his HP be reduced by around 10, maybe 20%, subject to tuning, so that players in full mis-matched Exotic would be equivalent in DPS to players in full min-maxed Ascended gear.

10% pushes it into a comfortable gearing range for people in exotics+rares. 20% pushes it into a comfortable range for people in greens.

Ohoni.6057:

The green circle damage would be reduced to perhaps half as much, such that more players would be likely to survive a failed “catch,”

This is nerfing the mechanic by far too much. You’ve made it ignorable. It doesn’t occur frequently enough to actually knock anyone into the down state, and it’s very easy to recover from the mechanic.

Ohoni.6057:

the breakbar during the “fireball spam” phase would be easier to break,

How much easier? Personally I don’t think the breakbar’s that big a deal but to each their own.

Ohoni.6057:

and the colored damage fields would have reduced damage such that it would be difficult to heal your way through them indefinitely, but easier to get out of them alive if you fall in somehow.

Difficult, but possible? You have to keep in mind that if doing the boss with double or triple healers is viable, people can and will do it. Reducing the boss’s HP drastically increases the amount of leeway you have for healers.

I’m really skeptical of any adjustments to the damage zones seeing as they’re primarily a tank check. Only that person is actually responsible for the mechanic.

Ohoni.6057:

That seems sufficient to me, but again, the outcome is the goal, not the specifics. All I care about the specifics is that they keep every mechanic the same, that you would have to go through the exact same motions to avoid all negative impacts, but that only those negative impacts are reduced in strength, such that the unsalvagable becomes more of a minor setback.

And the minor setbacks become even more minor, or they remain as they are?

Ohoni.6057:

Yes, give or take. I think 1/3 is fair, I’m definitely not looking for more than that, but I definitely wouldn’t accept some “punitive” model of “so little gain that it’s not even worth bothering.”

The thing is we have to look at that “so little gain that it’s not even worth bothering” in the context of the hard mode as well. If you get 1/3rd of the legendary progress in an hour when 3/3rds of the legendary progress would take 10 hours of progression raiding, why bother with progression raiding?

Ohoni.6057:

None of the “prestige” achievements would apply at all in easy mode. You could accomplish the tasks necessary for Legendary armor or other physical rewards, but nothing that grants a title or just exists to say you did it. If they want to create a separate line of achievements specific to easy mode, that’d be fine, but totally not necessary from my perspective.

More pointedly, I’m speaking about the Mastery achievements.

10% pushes it into a comfortable gearing range for people in exotics+rares. 20% pushes it into a comfortable range for people in greens.

Fair enough. The developers are more aware of the specific numbers needed than I am, I was just saying what I wanted my goal to be. I want it so that a team that can barely beat it now in min-maxed Ascended can do just as well in only mis-matched exotics, with a little added cushion so that DPS rotations can be a lot less efficient. The goal wouldn’t be that if they can beat him just under the enraged timer they would be ready to take on hard mode, they would probably need to beat him in under 5-6 minutes to stand any chance at the hard mode, all else aside.

This is nerfing the mechanic by far too much. You’ve made it ignorable. It doesn’t occur frequently enough to actually knock anyone into the down state, and it’s very easy to recover from the mechanic.

Well, the target would be that it would down any player who were not fully healed from other effects (and again, this is for players who would not be super-efficient at staying about 90%), and that remaining players would have to take time out from the other tasks to rez the downed players back up. What would your alternative be, to have the same required actions to “do it right,” but with a more survivable penalty?

Again though, if the result is that players are able to ignore this effect, that wouldn’t be so bad. It’d be better than having the effect cause wipes, and players who intended to use this for training would still be able to do so.

How much easier? Personally I don’t think the breakbar’s that big a deal but to each their own.

Again, I don’t have the hard numbers of exactly how much CC is necessary to break it, and how much a party would typically bring, so it’s hard to say with certainty. This might be an element that’s fine as is, but like with Shatterer, I’d like to have a cushion here for pug situations, where maybe not everyone brings their CC A-game, but it still works out ok. The alternative would be to leave his breakbar alone, but reduce his damage enough that if it takes a while to break, it’s not the end of the world.

Difficult, but possible [to heal through a color field indefinitely]?

I think it’s hard to rule anything out. There are probably ways to heal through the color field right now, if you overload on healers. So my point is, a glassy character should not be able to heal themselves through the field for more than a few seconds, and one healer should not be able to keep the party alive for more than a few seconds than each can keep themselves alive, so a standard party comp should not be able to just “face tank” the fields, but any reduction in their damage would probably allow for edge-case builds that involve overloading heals and being able to facetank it out that way, and fair enough that, it would at least create a market for healer gear, but the target here is just to make it so that players who end up having to spend a few seconds more in the field than is currently possible, could survive the experience.

I’m really skeptical of any adjustments to the damage zones seeing as they’re primarily a tank check. Only that person is actually responsible for the mechanic.

And don’t forget that an inexperienced group would find themselves “blued” into a damage zone from time to time.

And the minor setbacks become even more minor, or they remain as they are?

That would really depend, but from my experience alone, I don’t think it would be necessary. I think the more chip-attacks and that sort of thing could largely be left intact. I might be wrong on that, and maybe reducing the damage of this or that would help, but in lack of testing, I think this is a good place to start.

Again, keep in mind that the goal to all of this is NOT to make it impossible for players to “study to the test,” and build themselves in ways that only work in the Easy mode and get by with some exotic tactics. That’s likely inevitable, but at the same time the benefits to doing so are minimal, because the rewards would be reduced, it should be easy enough to do it “right” that going it “weird” is not a huge advantage, and anything you learned to do there would be pointless in hard mode anyway, so ultimately it’s a plus, because it gives a space for players to experiment with weird combinations in a way that doesn’t hurt anyone.

If you get 1/3rd of the legendary progress in an hour when 3/3rds of the legendary progress would take 10 hours of progression raiding, why bother with progression raiding?

Are you saying it would take 10 hours per week to clear all three raid bosses, once you have it worked out, or that it would take ten hours to learn the mechanics and then you could clear hard mode in roughly 3-4 hours per week?

If you mean that it would be expected to take 10 hours of raiding each week to clear the bosses, well that is just straight up an unreasonable amount of time for the game to be asking. I mean, if you want to do that, go right ahead, but the game should never try to balance around that much time.

If you mean that it might take ten hours to get it down, but then subsequent raids would take around the same amount of time as Easy mode, then I think it’s fair. Remember you’d get a month or two head start, so by the time Easy mode people got started, you should already be working on the “farming it” phase of hard mode. You’d also be getting “pity Magnetite,” so by that point you’d probably have like six months worth of easy-mode magnetite stored up.

So you might have to put more time in up front, but and in your first 3-4 weeks you might make less each week than the Easy Mode people make over their first three weeks, but after that you’d be making three times as much, so you should never fall behind them, and once you get going should skyrocket away from them. Plus, you can always do Easy Mode yourself, in addition to Hard Mode, giving you one more thing you can do in a given week for a reward, and adding their reward to your own.

More pointedly, I’m speaking about the Mastery achievements.

Ah, the four achievements per wing that reward a Mastery Point? I’m kinda torn on that. On the one hand, I don’t particularly mind if we can’t get those from easy mode, and it is only four points. On the other hand, they’ve been pretty stingy about Mastery Points at the top end, I still need to find like 6-7 of them to finish out my last core HoT Mastery and another five if I want the raid masteries so far, so more sources of mastery would be nice. Ultimately I think this is a case where they can leave out the mastery achievements, but for the game as a whole they need some new sources of HoT mastery points (or fix Adventures, but that’s another thing entirely).

I’m going to prune a little for the sake of keeping the post short.

Ohoni.6057:

Fair enough.

So both gear and rotations can be a lot less efficient? That is not going to be accomplished purely through a 10-20% reduction in HP.

Ohoni.6057:

The goal wouldn’t be that if they can beat him just under the enraged timer they would be ready to take on hard mode

Assuming you’re only targeting health tuning. Real tuning, you’d be looking at something in the field of 4 minutes.

Ohoni.6057:

Well, the target would be that it would down any player who were not fully healed from other effects (and again, this is for players who would not be super-efficient at staying about 90%)

This is the status quo, though. It already is “if you have max health and Protection, you will survive a green circle blast”. If you do get downed because you’re below that threshold, you need to get ressed.

Ohoni.6057:

What would your alternative be, to have the same required actions to “do it right,” but with a more survivable penalty?

Don’t have an easy mode for starters. You say you should be doing this mode to practice that mechanic, but the game as it stands does that. You still practice managing the lightning strikes on the current normal mode throughout the entire fight.

Ohoni.6057:

Again though, if the result is that players are able to ignore this effect, that wouldn’t be so bad. It’d be better than having the effect cause wipes, and players who intended to use this for training would still be able to do so.

Ignoring mechanics should never be an option. If a player is ignoring a mechanic then the content is not doing its job.

A better way to create an easy mode is to flat-out strip mechanics instead of massive across-the-board tuning reductions. Instead of every ability dealing half the damage it currently does, remove some of the more basic mechanics. For example, a strategy to make the lightning manageable would be to remove the orb adds. It doesn’t remove the danger of the lightning strikes but it reduces the number of complications needed to overcome the lightning strike.

Ohoni.6057:

Again, I don’t have the hard numbers of exactly how much CC is necessary to break it

This is a raid composition issue, and again, if you reduce the damage you are pushing the mechanic into irrelevance. Though it would be funny to see a raid trying to DPS VG while they are both in a charged zone and being hit with the firestorm. That’d be an interesting failure state.

Ohoni.6057:

I think it’s hard to rule anything out.

No, you need to rule things out. Changes without strict objectives don’t pan out very well.

Ohoni.6057:

There are probably ways to heal through the color field right now, if you overload on healers.

That’s the current mode. You can carry plenty of healers to make your transitions very easy.

Ohoni.6057:

And don’t forget that an inexperienced group would find themselves “blued” into a damage zone from time to time.

If the purpose of this raid difficulty is to teach them, they will very quickly realize that the blue lightning is bad.

Ohoni.6057:

That would really depend, but from my experience alone, I don’t think it would be necessary. I think the more chip-attacks and that sort of thing could largely be left intact. I might be wrong on that, and maybe reducing the damage of this or that would help, but in lack of testing, I think this is a good place to start.

Chip attacks have massive issues in this game because they are very easy to recover from because of the downed state. If you have one guy who gets chipped down, he isn’t going to stay chipped down for very long, and then it takes several chippings for them to re-enter the downed state… Just for them to be chipped down again.

Ohoni.6057:

Again, keep in mind that the goal to all of this is NOT to make it impossible for players to “study to the test,” and build themselves in ways that only work in the Easy mode and get by with some exotic tactics. That’s likely inevitable, but at the same time the benefits to doing so are minimal, because the rewards would be reduced, it should be easy enough to do it “right” that going it “weird” is not a huge advantage, and anything you learned to do there would be pointless in hard mode anyway, so ultimately it’s a plus, because it gives a space for players to experiment with weird combinations in a way that doesn’t hurt anyone.

You’re making an assumption that moving up is the ultimate result of completing the content when from everything I’ve seen and heard it’s incredibly unlikely that people will do that. Easy modes are a prime target for a set of players who, if they had the option, would not enter hard mode at all. This includes people who would otherwise experience hard modes, were easy modes not in the game, and find that they quite enjoy them.

Also, on the topic of ‘learning raids’- this isn’t really the raids’ job. I’ve said it before in one of these threads I don’t remember which since they’re the same bloody thing; learning raids is the dungeons’ job. These raids are not supposed to be where you start; they’re supposed to be towards the end of your bloody slog through dungeons and fractals. Dungeons and fractals have done a terrible job at creating that progression, both on the gearing and learning front.

Ohoni.6057:

Are you saying it would take 10 hours per week to clear all three raid bosses

Ohoni.6057:

If you mean that it would be expected to take 10 hours of raiding each week to clear the bosses

Ohoni.6057:

If you mean that it might take ten hours to get it down, but then subsequent raids would take around the same amount of time as Easy mode

The third one. It’s the progression barrier. Letting people clear the entire raid in an hour, and need to clear the raid three times for reasonable rewards, vs putting them against the progression barrier is how you create a time investment that shunts players out of the ‘real’ mode and into the ‘training wheels’ mode permanently. Human beings do not think rationally about rewards, and 90% of the time if they are presented with steady rewards for 20 minutes of time v large investment of time until first reward, they will not accept the delayed gratification and will go for the easier option.

Ohoni.6057:

So you might have to put more time in up front, but and in your first 3-4 weeks you might make less each week than the Easy Mode people make over their first three weeks, but after that you’d be making three times as much, so you should never fall behind them, and once you get going should skyrocket away from them. Plus, you can always do Easy Mode yourself, in addition to Hard Mode, giving you one more thing you can do in a given week for a reward, and adding their reward to your own.

I want to pull back a little here because we’re going somewhere which is really difficult; the timegating that you’ve suggested on the easy mode. Timegating is very dangerous because content is intended to be timeless in GW2, and having an easy mode that opens “some time down the line” is a big issue (well, at all really, but I needed somewhere to put it). This is why I put forward that rewards issue earlier:

Either the rewards will be so high that progressing into hard mode never happens, or the rewards will be so low that after initial participation boosts, the mode will be abandoned.

As you’ve presented the reward schema it bends both ways. It would be the quickest path for a returning player to access legendary armor… But it gives worse money rewards than dungeons currently do.

See Aetherpath and Fractals of the Swamp for more. Aetherpath may be fun but the rewards are junk, so there’s not much reason to go. The entire range of fractals may be fun, but why would you ever do any Champion fractal other than Swamps, when everything else has lower time efficiency and you still hit your target by doing fractals? Easy mode raids will fall into the same trap: The rewards will be junk, so though they may be fun, there’s no reason to go. But for legendaries, why would you do anything else?

Ohoni.6057:

Ultimately I think this is a case where they can leave out the mastery achievements, but for the game as a whole they need some new sources of HoT mastery points (or fix Adventures, but that’s another thing entirely).

I have no strong feelings one way or the other so idc I guess just wanted to get your feelings.

Players will always take the path of least resistance to get the rewards they want.

There are almost no exceptions to this rule, it is why Silverwastes is farmed, it is why people still are not doing the ‘Map Bonuses’ unless the proper line-up of materials is set in a certain zone (we have had this twice now in Frostgorge), it is why Dungeons were gold-nerfed, albeit they went a little bit too ham on the rewards there. Better idea would have been making the tokens for each dungeon be able to be converted to T6 mats depending on the instance token. Skins or more T6 mats which isn’t quite liquid rewards but still money.

The vast majority of MMO players will take that path of least resistance for what they want. No group is outside this, not even the hardest of the hardcore raiders.

Sykper.6583:

Players will always take the path of least resistance to get the rewards they want.

Path of the least resistance is the path that takes the least time while still being doable.
Reduced rewards in easy mode would be enough to make sure that raiders able to pass the hard mode would still stick to it, as it would offer the better reward/time factor.

Astralporing.1957:

Sykper.6583:

Players will always take the path of least resistance to get the rewards they want.

Path of the least resistance is the path that takes the least time while still being doable.
Reduced rewards in easy mode would be enough to make sure that raiders able to pass the hard mode would still stick to it, as it would offer the better reward/time factor.

Will that “time” count the amount of wipes required to finish the Raid in “hard mode”?

maddoctor.2738:

Astralporing.1957:

Sykper.6583:

Players will always take the path of least resistance to get the rewards they want.

Path of the least resistance is the path that takes the least time while still being doable.
Reduced rewards in easy mode would be enough to make sure that raiders able to pass the hard mode would still stick to it, as it would offer the better reward/time factor.

Will that “time” count the amount of wipes required to finish the Raid in “hard mode”?

No, why? Remember, that one of the uses of the easy mode would be to make people get used to mechanics, and in effect reduce the number of wipes on hard mode tries. Besides, all i have heard to that point is how easy it is to do the raid as it is now as long as you have the skill, so why do you assume a lot of wipes for hardcore players?
Not to mention that wipes are one-time investment. The groups that have the experience do not wipe on the bosses anymore. The best you can do to compensate for that is to not make the easy mode open right away, but unlock it with a few weeks (month at most) delay.

So both gear and rotations can be a lot less efficient? That is not going to be accomplished purely through a 10-20% reduction in HP.

So what amount do you believe would be necessary?

This is the status quo, though. It already is “if you have max health and Protection, you will survive a green circle blast”. If you do get downed because you’re below that threshold, you need to get ressed.

That hadn’t been my experience. The group I was playing with, any time the green circle hit, almost everyone would be on their backs, except me, and that was only because I was a Reaper with auto-shroud at the time. So if you’re right, it would still need to be tuned down a bit from its current level, but would still be a threat to less-than-optimal groups.

Don’t have an easy mode for starters.

Well if you go in with that attitude then you aren’t likely to produce a satisfying easy mode. What if the developers went into the current raids with the attitude “well we can’t make it harder than CoF path 1, obviously”?

You say you should be doing this mode to practice that mechanic, but the game as it stands does that. You still practice managing the lightning strikes on the current normal mode throughout the entire fight.

Sure but in the current mode if you fail you wipe, while in the easy mode, if you fail, you know you failed, and know you should do better next time, but can continue forward.

Ignoring mechanics should never be an option. If a player is ignoring a mechanic then the content is not doing its job.

For hard mode, sure, but easy mode is intended to be easier than hard mode. If you can’t ignore any of the mechanics then it wouldn’t be any easier than hard mode. The entire point of easy mode is that it’s more forgiving, which means that if you do most things right, you can ignore some stuff completely, there’s no real way around that.

A better way to create an easy mode is to flat-out strip mechanics instead of massive across-the-board tuning reductions. Instead of every ability dealing half the damage it currently does, remove some of the more basic mechanics. For example, a strategy to make the lightning manageable would be to remove the orb adds. It doesn’t remove the danger of the lightning strikes but it reduces the number of complications needed to overcome the lightning strike.

But again, that reduces the number of complications needed to overcome the lightning strike. This means that even if the group works out a strategy to correctly manage the green circles every time, it would be worthless in Hard mode, because they would have no strategy for dealing with the red orbs at the same time. All the mechanics need to be included so that a “perfect” run of Easy would be identical to a “perfect” run on Hard, the difference would only be that an imperfect run of easy would be less likely to lead to a reset.

No, you need to rule things out. Changes without strict objectives don’t pan out very well.

But we’re working with imperfect knowledge here, we don’t know for certain which changes would be easier or harder to implement, exactly what the numbers are for various abilities, that sort of thing, so we need to leave some measure of flexibility. I can guess at the best path to reach the intended target, but the target itself is the only thing I can place with any degree of certainty.

That’s the current mode. You can carry plenty of healers to make your transitions very easy.

Sure, but then if you overload on healers you might not be able to do enough DPS to beat the enrage timer, making the whole run pointless anyway. Since easy mode would have looser tolerances, you could stack healers and still have a better chance of meeting the DPS threshold, if that’s how you want to do it.

If the purpose of this raid difficulty is to teach them, they will very quickly realize that the blue lightning is bad.

Yes, and they will realize this in easy mode too, it just won’t lead to them dying, necessarily, and thus leading to a higher chance of the group wiping. Same lesson,l reduced short term consequences. The player doesn’t need to die to learn to not do something.

You’re making an assumption that moving up is the ultimate result of completing the content when from everything I’ve seen and heard it’s incredibly unlikely that people will do that.

I’m making the assumption that some will move up, and that plenty won’t, and that it’s ok whichever they choose to do. It will provide a low-stress training environment for those who choose to move up, and it will provide an easier and more fun weekly activity for those who have no interest in hard mode. Up to each player which he prefers.

Easy modes are a prime target for a set of players who, if they had the option, would not enter hard mode at all. This includes people who would otherwise experience hard modes, were easy modes not in the game, and find that they quite enjoy them.

And that’s fine, let them play easy mode. That latter group though are a complete fantasy. People who might like hard mode, play hard mode.

The third one. It’s the progression barrier. Letting people clear the entire raid in an hour, and need to clear the raid three times for reasonable rewards, vs putting them against the progression barrier is how you create a time investment that shunts players out of the ‘real’ mode and into the ‘training wheels’ mode permanently. Human beings do not think rationally about rewards, and 90% of the time if they are presented with steady rewards for 20 minutes of time v large investment of time until first reward, they will not accept the delayed gratification and will go for the easier option.

If so, that’s their choice, their consequences, not your problem. It will still take them the better part of a year longer to earn the rewards than someone who masters the hard mode raid, and if that isn’t motivation enough to get them into hard mode, then hard mode was never their thing in the first place, and that’s ok.

Remember, “getting everyone into hard mode” is not the goal, should NEVER be the goal. Hard mode is not for every payer and there is no way to make it so that it is without nerfing hard mode into easy mode. Hard mode is there for people that want to do it, easy mode if there for people who don’t, or at least don’t yet.

Timegating is very dangerous because content is intended to be timeless in GW2, and having an easy mode that opens “some time down the line” is a big issue (well, at all really, but I needed somewhere to put it). This is why I put forward that rewards issue earlier:

I think a timegate is important here, because I know there are people who pride themselves on “firsties” and on mastering the raids with minimal advanced notice. If the easy mode launched at the same time as hard, then it would be pretty much stupid not to run easy mode first, learn all the tricks, and then try them on hard mode, see what doesn’t work, refine those tactics on easy, repeat, and would likely lead to beating the raids much faster than the standard progression. It also would allow easy-moders to start collecting rewards faster than hard moders, which is disheartening. Also, from a design perspective, it would allow them to fine tune the hard mode a bit before launching easy mode.

I think that giving hard mode a few months head start would allow the “vanguard” groups to nail the raid “the right way” before easier options become available, allow them to get past that “progression hump” before anyone beats an easy mode raid, and even less successful groups that are still struggling with hard mode when easy mode comes out would have a head start on eventually beating it.

As you’ve presented the reward schema it bends both ways. It would be the quickest path for a returning player to access legendary armor… But it gives worse money rewards than dungeons currently do.

Remember, you can only do these for rewards once per week, so even best case scenario, this isn’t something that would be daily-farmed. Given that easy mode would take many months to earn the magnetite rewards, and that new raids, and new rewards would be added over time, an incoming player could never fully “catch up” to the old through easy mode alone. At best he could pick and choose his goals, to get X, not Y.

And as for the hard mode raiders, once they’ve already earned all the exclusive goodies from hard mode, why would they keep raiding? Up to them, but whatever their reasons it would be no different than the current environment.

Players will always take the path of least resistance to get the rewards they want.

True, but in this case I hope that there is no true “path of least resistance,” at least not as you describe it. There are two paths, a short flight of steep stairs, and a long and winding shallow ramp. Those capable of climbing the stairs can do so and get there faster, those who can’t can use the ramp and get their slower. The ramp is “easier,” but less efficient, which is a very different case to “Silverwaste farming,” which has no real disadvantages aside from boredom.

Ohoni.6057:

That hadn’t been my experience. The group I was playing with, any time the green circle hit, almost everyone would be on their backs, except me, and that was only because I was a Reaper with auto-shroud at the time. So if you’re right, it would still need to be tuned down a bit from its current level, but would still be a threat to less-than-optimal groups.

Distributed Magic (aka: The “green circle”) deals damage in two ways:

• When 4 (or more?) players are standing in the circle, they take a strike of damage. (I think it’s between 3k-4k) This can be reduced through a number of ways such as damage reduction (Protection, Oakheart Salve, etc.), damage absorption (Phantasmal Defender), damage nullification (Endure Pain), invulnerability (Mist Form), blocking, etc.
• If you do not have 4 (non-downed) players in the circle at the time, the entire raid will take 80% of their health in damage. The only way to reduce this damage is by using an invulnerability skill.

Distributed Magic (aka: The “green circle”) deals damage in two ways:

• When 4 (or more?) players are standing in the circle, they take a strike of damage. (I think it’s between 3k-4k) This can be reduced through a number of ways such as damage reduction (Protection, Oakheart Salve, etc.), damage absorption (Phantasmal Defender), damage nullification (Endure Pain), invulnerability (Mist Form), blocking, etc.

• If you do not have 4 (non-downed) players in the circle at the time, everyone will take 80% of their health in damage. The only way to reduce this damage is by using an invulnerability skill.

Ok, so maybe reduce this to 60% per person for Easy mode, or perhaps keep it at 80% but only impact 5/10 players rather than 10/10, so that some get downed but enough stay up to rez them. Really one of the big issues with the raids is how rezzing is often made difficult to impossible. You can’t rez from defeated, and usually if someone does get downed, there is so much going on that stopping to rez them will get you killed too, or at the very least prevent you from performing some other important role (like you’re too busy rezzing to get to the next green circle, causing even more downed).

Rezzing is one of the core features of GW2 gameplay, it should be more of a factor in raid content.

Absolutely agree, raid difficulty settings would do nothing but good for the game, and if you disagree with that, your doing so for selfish reasons: “I want to be part of a super exclusive group that only gets to see the story first hand” is a selfish reason to keep people from experiencing the story. And before you argue against me let me tear apart two “arguments”

1. “Oh but what if a game like dark souls added difficulty settings” Here’s the thing, Dark Souls or games like it are built on the premise of being super difficult games, GW2 IS NOT, we are not asking for free legendary armor or anything, we just want a way to see the story first hand without being forced to play for hours and hours at a time, and no watching a video on youtube is not the same as experiencing it for yourself

2. “People get most of the lore from 3rd parties anyway!” that argument actually reinforces my point, the reason they do so is because Arena-net is terrible at actually conveying their lore through the game, and even when they have good lore (in like raids) guess what? 95% of the playerbase can’t see it even if they wanted to. If you truly love the game and raids you would want people to have access to some of the best story and mechanics in the game right?

GoldenTruth.2853:

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.

Perhaps then what the raid really needs is a hard set Gear Check built in, like Fractals have with Agony Resist.

Right now, they have a semi-soft requirement, with DPS, and Difficulty, but, it might be better for everyone involved if the Raid itself, checked against your gear. But I find soft caps like that dishonest. It gives the illusion that anyone can do it, when that is clearly not the intention of the Encounter Designer.

The easy way to resolve this problem is to put in a hard gear cap, that sets the bare minim of what it needs to even have a chance, and the best way to approach that, is via the Infusions, so, we ensure anyone entering the raid has Ascended gear walking in, but it can’t be Agony, because that is Fractals, it would need to be something unique to the Raid Encounter.

So what we do, is put a vendor in at the Start of the raid that sells a “bane resist” versatile infusions. This players would be able to buy what they need, right there in the raid itself. (Maybe put a vendor in some other key spots, like Right Outside as well)

Then,, as the players finally make to the raid boss themselves, the Raid Boss starts to toss out Banes. This has the effect of kicking the player out of the Raid, and nullify their ability to get back in. IE: Banished from the Raid.

Players would need a 14 Bane Resist to be immune to this effect, at 13 BR they would only offer a 50% chance of protection.

The Boss would randomly trigger the banish effect as the encounter progressed, regardless of how well or poorly the group was doing, so it could go off many times in a single encounter.

This the Raid itself would have a clear set requirement that everyone would need to meet, if they even wanted to have a chance to complete the Raid, and that would be Full Ascended Armor/Trinkets/Weapons.

Anyone with less would run the risk of being Kicked from the group by the Raid Boss, themselves. But this kind of design allows players to know exactly what they need to have walking in, no illusions, no misgivings about what the demands are, you have a clear goal set as to exactly what you will need.

I think that was the largest flaw in their design, if they are going to put this out as the End-Content, then they should have set the bar walking in at “End-game” and not the soft-cap, deceptive way they are doing it now.

STIHL.2489:

Perhaps then what the raid really needs is a hard set Gear Check built in, like Fractals have with Agony Resist.

This doesn’t seem like a good solution to this imaginary problem.

Astralporing.1957:

No, why? Remember, that one of the uses of the easy mode would be to make people get used to mechanics, and in effect reduce the number of wipes on hard mode tries. Besides, all i have heard to that point is how easy it is to do the raid as it is now as long as you have the skill, so why do you assume a lot of wipes for hardcore players?
Not to mention that wipes are one-time investment. The groups that have the experience do not wipe on the bosses anymore. The best you can do to compensate for that is to not make the easy mode open right away, but unlock it with a few weeks (month at most) delay.

And you are completely wrong. An easy mode will make people get used to the mechanics of the easy mode, the effect on the hard mode will be minimal, if there is any at all. Second, the raid mechanics are not only about knowledge and build, but about skill and execution. This means everyone has a chance to wipe, even if they are a pro team. Do you think those clears on youtube happened on their first try? Or do you think they succeed every single time without failing once? Some maybe, but it’s not what’s the most common for raid groups.

Full wipes should be included in the time difference in the rewards. And a lot of them.

STIHL.2489:

Perhaps then what the raid really needs is a hard set Gear Check built in, like Fractals have with Agony Resist.

This is something I always wondered. Raids are above dungeons and fractals in difficulty. They are 10-man content and not 5-man content, they require more preparation, thought and skill. But you still get players with zero experience in GW2 instanced content that want to do Raids, skipping the entire learning process.

What is needed is for the players to get it in their heads that Raids are the next type of content after dungeons and fractals. You can’t go to 10-man content without mastering 5-man content, that should’ve been obvious, but apparently for some it’s not.

And really a player who reaches 80+ Fractals shouldn’t have problems adapting to the Raid mechanics anyway. They should have enough Ascended gear, enough experience, a good build, and so on. Only thing missing is the number of players, and changing how LFG works is a good step forward to making finding more players easier.

And what do they do when they fail? They ask for “difficulty settings” instead of following the learning process as they should. But something like agony isn’t a good solution either for multiple reasons, but one of the highest ones, is it prevents players from using multiple characters in Raids. In Raids composition is KEY, which means the best players use multiple characters with different builds to fill roles, if you needed something like AR to outfit them all, it would cause serious problems.

No. To me it’s more like a player issue. Players themselves need to understand the learning process and do things “in order”.

maddoctor.2738:

No. To me it’s more like a player issue. Players themselves need to understand the learning process and do things “in order”.

It’s partly that, but it can hardly be blamed on raids that dungeons and fractals are not holding up their end of the bargain. Dungeon content has no draw at the moment and fractals of the swamp is, well, swamp

Sarrs.4831:

maddoctor.2738:

No. To me it’s more like a player issue. Players themselves need to understand the learning process and do things “in order”.

It’s partly that, but it can hardly be blamed on raids that dungeons and fractals are not holding up their end of the bargain. Dungeon content has no draw at the moment and fractals of the swamp is, well, swamp

That’s also true. By removing all the incentive from running dungeons, it made it so it’s much harder to find groups for dungeons so they can’t be used as a “practise” run. The swamps of the mists also makes fractals invalid as training for harder content. The sooner they understand that their nerfs to push people into Raids was a bad idea, the better.

The point is that players don’t WANT to “progress” through dungeons and fractals before raids. And that’s fine, there’s no reason that they should have to other than that you would like them to. The solution is to make raids that are fun for these players, not to change these players to be fun for you.

Ohoni.6057:

The point is that players don’t WANT to “progress” through dungeons and fractals before raids. And that’s fine, there’s no reason that they should have to other than that you would like them to. The solution is to make raids that are fun for these players, not to change these players to be fun for you.

Then they should re-evaluate that “point”. Because what Raids are is rather clear:

“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.”

If you don’t like it, that’s not a problem with the content. It’s with you.

It’s pretty ironic, Ohoni, that with all the time you spent on this forum arguing for something that will not happen (or maybe in a far far future) simply because anet doesn’t have enough developpers ressources to fix something that is not broken, you could have succeeded in raid by improving yourself.
But not, you’re so against the idea of improvement that you prefer spending your time here… quite funny actually.

If you don’t like it, that’s not a problem with the content. It’s with you.

You’re half right, the problem is with me. And with a lot of other players. And that makes it a problem with the content, because the players decide whether something is a problem with the content or not. Even if content does exactly what the developers set out for it to do (like the original trait overhaul), if the players decide that this is a thing they don’t want done (like with the original trait overhaul), then it is a Bad Thing, and will need corrective measures. Try to deny the nature of reality all you like, but this is a commercial product and ANet wants to make as many people happy as possible, even if you aren’t one of those many. If they can make everyone happy, they will, but if they can only make most of the people happy, they’ll have to go with the most over the few.

It’s pretty ironic, Ohoni, that with all the time you spent on this forum arguing for something that will not happen (or maybe in a far far future) simply because anet doesn’t have enough developpers ressources to fix something that is not broken, you could have succeeded in raid by improving yourself.
But not, you’re so against the idea of improvement that you prefer spending your time here… quite funny actually.

They just freed up a half-dozen people from doing Legendary quests who could likely take care of Easy Mode Raids in an afternoon, before moving on to other things.

Ohoni.6057:

It’s pretty ironic, Ohoni, that with all the time you spent on this forum arguing for something that will not happen (or maybe in a far far future) simply because anet doesn’t have enough developpers ressources to fix something that is not broken, you could have succeeded in raid by improving yourself.
But not, you’re so against the idea of improvement that you prefer spending your time here… quite funny actually.

They just freed up a half-dozen people from doing Legendary quests who could likely take care of Easy Mode Raids in an afternoon, before moving on to other things.

Why yes, because designing legendaries is indeed equal to making and designing entire instanced content…..

Additionally, no they can’t they have their orders from Mo. It’s not working on some half baked idea you came up with. It’s fixing the real reason you’re complaining, the content drought.

Yeah I would like to pop into the conversation and say that I fully agree with you @Hypairion, Saars, maddoctor. Proposing new content that is just dumbing down mechanics of existing content is clearly not a good solution simply because I would add that great mechanics of gameplay with powerful classes need (and even deserve) challenging content with great encounters. I am by no mean elitist or hardcore nor do I intend to get a legendary armor but I would also say that gw2 core experience was sort of lacking in the sense that incentivization to do stuff in the game such as fractals which would have “prepared” players to play raids

Ohoni.6057:

It’s pretty ironic, Ohoni, that with all the time you spent on this forum arguing for something that will not happen (or maybe in a far far future) simply because anet doesn’t have enough developpers ressources to fix something that is not broken, you could have succeeded in raid by improving yourself.
But not, you’re so against the idea of improvement that you prefer spending your time here… quite funny actually.

They just freed up a half-dozen people from doing Legendary quests who could likely take care of Easy Mode Raids in an afternoon, before moving on to other things.

hmm, so you’re a developper, and you know perfectly what are the ressources needed for easy mode raid?
i remember gaile replying about this, saying that no one can assume how long does it take to developp something.

And pls, just be honest : you don’t care about raid, you only care about legendary armors. Since you’re not good enough to have it, you want easy mode raid so that even you could have it.
i sincerely hope it will never happen, because raids in their current format are the actual pve fun content. And, if ever easy mode raid happen, i just hope legendary armor wont unlock with that :p

Ohoni.6057:

You’re half right, the problem is with me.

The thing is you expect a 1st grader to skip to 6th grade without passing the other grades. Then, instead of going the normal way you request that 6th grade difficulty is nerfed so a 1st grader can follow it.

This is a major issue with the game as a whole. Heart of Thorns introduced a difficulty spike as well, that could’ve been avoided by not removing the “Bridge”, namely LS1. There is absolutely no tutorial to teach players what a breakbar is and how to remove it for example.

I’m not downplaying the need for an “easy mode” nor argue against the need for it. However there are far more important things that need to be done before that. Better tutorial, better in-between content to bridge raids with the open world, better LFG to make grouping easier and so on.

They ARE taking steps to address the LFG issue, they DID say during the AMA that they will be revisiting dungeons due to overwhelming community response (who knows what that means) and they ARE looking to fix swamps of the mists. Those are all higher priority to teach players instanced content, teach them how to play with others, teach them builds, anything they need to start Raiding.

If all this is done and there is still an issue with Raid participation (not denying it, there is a good chance for it) then and only then, the Raid itself can be altered, or different difficulty settings (plural) should be added. But there are far more important steps that will help the game as a whole, than adding an easier Raid now.

@Ohoni “Likely take care of easy raids mode in one afternoon”…….. /facepalm . Dude, the larger playerbase you design content for, the longer it is going to take time to create. Why do you think they have been able to release raids so easily? Why do you think they haven’t been able to commit to their schedule on legendary weapons? Why do you think they switch to an expansion model instead of continuing their massive LW updates? It just proved to become unsustainable with their resources. Sorry for going a bit off topic but I really needed to address that.

Why yes, because designing legendaries is indeed equal to making and designing entire instanced content…..

First, the Legendary" team had less to deal with making the weapons and more to do with making the quests attached to them. They pump out a full set of weapons every 2-6 weeks, so if it had just been about making the weapons themselves we’d have had them all already.

Second, nobody’s talking about “making and designing” anything, we’re talking about an easy mode of the existing raid, all the making and designing is done already. All they would need to do at this point is copy-paste off a second instance, link it into the game using their existing “which path do you want?” UI, and then tweak the numbers and skill affixes of the bosses so that they’re less risky, as detailed many times earlier in the thread. Again, a few hours work, and until I hear a definite contradictory timeline from within ANet, that’s the figure I’m sticking to because I can’t imagine it taking longer.

Additionally, no they can’t they have their orders from Mo. It’s not working on some half baked idea you came up with. It’s fixing the real reason you’re complaining, the content drought.

But we still don’t know how they intend to fix that content drought. They have these three raid wings just sitting around collecting dust, tweaking them to be more useful to the majority of the game’s population would certainly help solve that content drought, similar to Tyria Gliding, and would be a lot faster than designing new content from scratch.

i remember gaile replying about this, saying that no one can assume how long does it take to developp something.

But she also hasn’t gotten back to us yet about how much time it would take to implement something like I proposed, which is as telling as anything.

And pls, just be honest : you don’t care about raid, you only care about legendary armors.

And again, no. I know that’s what you want to believe, but if I said that it would be a lie, because it is not what I believe.

i sincerely hope it will never happen, because raids in their current format are the actual pve fun content. And, if ever easy mode raid happen, i just hope legendary armor wont unlock with that :p

Why, because you only care about the legendary armor, and other people not being able to get it?

Remember, if you enjoy the raids as they are, nobody is trying to take them away from you. You could keep playing them as much as you want, so there’s no reason to cry. All that would change is that other players would have additional options to better suit their tastes.

The thing is you expect a 1st grader to skip to 6th grade without passing the other grades. Then, instead of going the normal way you request that 6th grade difficulty is nerfed so a 1st grader can follow it.

No, I just want easy mode raids. I don’t accept that MMOs should be a grading system. I think that players should be able to play on whatever level they feel comfortable at, and that there is no merit to a player playing at a higher level than he wants to. You seem to believe that players should advance from casual content to difficult. Nothing could be further from the truth. Nobody should do anything they don’t enjoy, and if they don’t enjoy difficult content, there is no merit in them doing so, nobody wins when that happens.

This is a major issue with the game as a whole. Heart of Thorns introduced a difficulty spike as well, that could’ve been avoided by not removing the “Bridge”, namely LS1.

And yet many people who DID LS1 just fine still did not enjoy the difficulty of HoT. Do you think maybe it just comes down to people being different, and some people liking different things than you like? Or will you continue to insist that everyone is identical to you, and that anyone who claims to not enjoy the things you enjoy just haven’t been properly “trained” to enjoy them as much as you do?

I’m not downplaying the need for an “easy mode” nor argue against the need for it. However there are far more important things that need to be done before that. Better tutorial, better in-between content to bridge raids with the open world, better LFG to make grouping easier and so on.

LFG is a whole separate issue, already being worked on by a whole different group of people, and would not solve any of the issues raised here (although it will solve other important issues). It is moot for the purposes of this discussion. As for the other stuff, I see no need for that at all. Just give us the easy mode raids and that will serve as both the “bridge” you suggest for those that need it, AND as “good enough” for those that don’t want your bridge in the first place.

Those are all higher priority to teach players instanced content, teach them how to play with others, teach them builds, anything they need to start Raiding.

But that assumes that “teaching” players is the primary issue. That might be your issue, but it certainly isn’t mine, and since you seem to like the current raids well enough, while I don’t, don’t you think that listening to me for a solution that would make me happy makes more sense than asking you for a solution? I do not need content that “teaches” me better, I need content that I can enjoy.

@Ohoni “Likely take care of easy raids mode in one afternoon”…….. /facepalm . Dude, the larger playerbase you design content for, the longer it is going to take time to create.

That doesn’t make any sense. No, the larger the scope of the project is, the longer it takes. Something that requires art, animation, UI, coding, balancing, etc. adds more work than something that is just a simple database tweak. The project I’m encouraging may sound large “make easier raids,” but given that they have the hard ones already made and can re-use 99.9% of the work put into them to make the easier ones, the scope of the project I’m suggesting is actually very very small.

Ohoni.6057:

No, I just want easy mode raids. I don’t accept that MMOs should be a grading system.

That’s the main flaw with your logic. You can’t accept how video games work (not only MMOs btw). There is always a progression in games, there is a reason why they start easy (with some weird exceptions), and gradually get harder. Most games use a grading system, and especially RPGs. You gradually move on to higher difficulty. How did you miss such a basic game design concept is beyond me. Can’t skip grades in school, can’t skip grades in a game, unless you are exceptionally good (that’s why a hard gate for Raids is dumb, some people are just too awesome/skillful).
Once you accept that simple fact we can finally move forward.

And yet many people who DID LS1 just fine still did not enjoy the difficulty of HoT.

Probably those who forgot LS1 completely, or those who were getting carried, hiding in big blobs during LS1. In other words those who didn’t exactly “play” LS1 content, so they are irrelevant.

LFG is a whole separate issue

The issue is called “Raid accessibility” and fixing LFG is a very good solution to it.

But that assumes that “teaching” players is the primary issue.

There is no assumption, it is the primary issue. You not getting Legendary Armor is not an actual issue, Raid accessibility is.

so, ohoni, if you dont care about legendary armors, you will agree with me that easy mode raids, that teach people raid mecanisms, without too much pressure, but without reward toward legendary armors, is acceptable?

i’m in with this solution. and after, people could try normal mode and use their knowledge to succeed.

That’s the main flaw with your logic. You can’t accept how video games work (not only MMOs btw). There is always a progression in games, there is a reason why they start easy (with some weird exceptions), and gradually get harder.

Nope.

They can have those things, they don’t have to have those things, and are not necessarily lesser if they don’t. A lot of games do have progression, largely a holdover from the old arcade games where the goal was to keep you engaged long enough to hook you, and then inevitably get too hard for you to win so that you had to put another quarter in to try again. A game can have a relatively level difficulty curve throughout, and there’s nothing wrong with that, and nothing wrong with wanting that as a player. Not every player wants to be shoved up to ever higher levels of challenge, some just enjoy playing at their own comfort level throughout, and many games actually have a negative difficulty curve, becoming easier and easier over time, as you outlevel what would have been challenging before your upgrades.

Personally, I like to grow at my own pace, but I never want to feel that any content is barred to be because I haven’t grown enough by someone else’s standards.

Probably those who forgot LS1 completely, or those who were getting carried, hiding in big blobs during LS1. In other words those who didn’t exactly “play” LS1 content, so they are irrelevant.

Nope, you just have your own ideas of how things work, which is only a problem because they happen to be wrong.

The issue is called “Raid accessibility” and fixing LFG is a very good solution to it.

Nope. LFG would help you find a group, but even if they made a perfect LFG system, it would help people find a group, but do nothing to solve the problems they had once that group was formed. It’s like you’re at the top of a straircase, looking down at someone in a wheelchair, and saying “don’t worry, I’ve got this, I see you’re having issues with this staircase, but we certainly don’t need a ramp, because I’ve installed this handy _guardrail!”_

It does increase accessibility in one sense, but in a completely different sense than we’re discussing in this thread.

There is no assumption, it is the primary issue. You not getting Legendary Armor is not an actual issue, Raid accessibility is.

And raid accessibility has nothing to do with teaching, it’s about accepting that some players have no interest in being taught by your methods, and figuring out a solution that would work for those players, rather than ignoring that you methods cannot possibly work for them.

so, ohoni, if you dont care about legendary armors, you will agree with me that easy mode raids, that teach people raid mecanisms, without too much pressure, but without reward toward legendary armors, is acceptable?

I didn’t say that I don’t care about the armor, I said that I do not ONLY care about the armor. I care about BOTH, any solution that does not include both is not a complete solution.

If you say “Ohoni, admit that you only care about rewards,” then I could not do so without lying.

If you say “Ohoni, admit that you only care about the gameplay experience,” then I could not do so without lying.

If you say “Ohoni, admit that you want to experience the gameplay of the raids in a lower risk environment, and ALSO progress towards legendary armor at a slower pace,” then I could honestly respond “yes, which is why that’s what I said about a dozen pages ago, and a dozen times since, and you would already know that if you’d been paying attention.”

Ohoni.6057:

A game can have a relatively level difficulty curve throughout, and there’s nothing wrong with that, and nothing wrong with wanting that as a player.

No a game cannot have a level difficulty curve, unless it’s a boring/uninteresting one. Raids are high up the difficulty curve while other things like core open world is very low, and there is very little in-between. That’s not a problem with the Raid difficulty, it’s a problem when the difficulty spikes up high, without a more gradual progression. If the difficulty curve fills all the gaps properly there won’t be a problem.

Nope, you just have your own ideas of how things work, which is only a problem because they happen to be wrong.

Anyone who actually, actively, participated in LS1 shouldn’t have a single problem with HoT difficulty. Note the word “actively”. Pressing 1 while hiding in big blobs is not active participation.

It does increase accessibility in one sense, but in a completely different sense than we’re discussing in this thread.

It increases accessibility, which is the issue here, and that’s enough. You, not having your legendary armor is not a problem/issue.

No a game cannot have a level difficulty curve, unless it’s a boring/uninteresting one.

Nope.

Fun is a subjective thing, some people enjoy level difficulty curves. I take it you are not one of these people, and therefore a game with a level difficulty curve would not appeal to you, and that’s totally fine, but don’t presume to speak for all people.

Raids are high up the difficulty curve while other things like core open world is very low, and there is very little in-between. That’s not a problem with the Raid difficulty, it’s a problem when the difficulty spikes up high, without a more gradual progression

It’s both. There would be three types of players impacted by that, people who can take the spike, who can learn the skills needed even with the rapid jumpup, then there are people who could potentially enjoy the high end content, but would need to be eased into it, these are the people you advocate for, but there are also people who will NEVER appreciate the higher tier, no matter how gradually and carefully you ease them into it. At some point this last group will just get off the ride if you keep pushing them into more and more difficult areas, no matter how you frame it. These are the people you seem to be incapable okittennowledging.

You can have an ideal difficulty curve and it could still be a problem if it keeps going past the point at which most people do not wish to be. Think of it like mountain climbing. If some people just race up a mountain quickly, they can still make it to the top, they’re fine with that. With other people, they need to pace themselves, and gradually acclimatize to the lower oxygen, but eventually they can make it to the top too. But there are still people who, no matter how they attempt to acclimatize, they cannot become comfortable at those higher altitudes, and the only way they could ever reach the top of that mountain is on some sherpa’s back, and plenty of people don’t want that either. Stop making people climb mountains they don’t want to climb.

Anyone who actually, actively, participated in LS1 shouldn’t have a single problem with HoT difficulty. Note the word “actively”. Pressing 1 while hiding in big blobs is not active participation.

And again, you’re wrong. There was a significant difficulty spike between Scarlet’s army and Mordemoth’s.

It increases accessibility, which is the issue here, and that’s enough. You, not having your legendary armor is not a problem/issue.

It increases accessibility in a way that is completely irrelevant to the needs being addressed in this thread, and has nothing whatsoever to do with this thread, please stop going off topic.

Ohoni.6057:

so, ohoni, if you dont care about legendary armors, you will agree with me that easy mode raids, that teach people raid mecanisms, without too much pressure, but without reward toward legendary armors, is acceptable?

I didn’t say that I don’t care about the armor, I said that I do not ONLY care about the armor. I care about BOTH, any solution that does not include both is not a complete solution.

If you say “Ohoni, admit that you only care about rewards,” then I could not do so without lying.

If you say “Ohoni, admit that you only care about the gameplay experience,” then I could not do so without lying.

If you say “Ohoni, admit that you want to experience the gameplay of the raids in a lower risk environment, and ALSO progress towards legendary armor at a slower pace,” then I could honestly respond “yes, which is why that’s what I said about a dozen pages ago, and a dozen times since, and you would already know that if you’d been paying attention.”

but with your easy mode raid, you don’t want to experience the gameplay of raid. Failure and wipes ARE components of the raid gameplay. You want the raid rewards (i.e. legendary armor) without risk. That’s not something i will agree with.
But i’m happy, after all this topic is theoritical, because anet doesn’t have the man power to do it. Again, isntead of losing time here, you should practice raid.

maddoctor.2738:

Anyone who actually, actively, participated in LS1 shouldn’t have a single problem with HoT difficulty. Note the word “actively”. Pressing 1 while hiding in big blobs is not active participation.

Nah. LS1 mobs were hard-hitting, that’s true, but there was nowhere close to the HoT level of cc spam. You had to get into a whole crowd of aethers for things to really get iffy. And it was aethers specifically – moltens were nowhere close, and toxic alliance kraits didn’t really differ from normal ones.

Ohoni.6057:

Fun is a subjective thing, some people enjoy level difficulty curves. I take it you are not one of these people, and therefore a game with a level difficulty curve would not appeal to you, and that’s totally fine, but don’t presume to speak for all people.

Hey you are the one doing it. This game DOES have a difficulty curve and you want to remove it. Don’t impose your flawed ideas on the game.

It’s both.

If the difficulty curve does its work well then all players will find their point on it and have their own fun. Not every piece needs to be created for everyone (obviously, just like not everyone likes PVP or WVW or jumping puzzles) with a curve without gaps every player will find his own place and have something to do in the game.

And again, you’re wrong. There was a significant difficulty spike between Scarlet’s army and Mordemoth’s.

Not really. Sure Mordremoth’s army is higher difficulty, but not significantly so. But yeah short memory is a big issue.

It increases accessibility in a way that is completely irrelevant to the needs being addressed in this thread, and has nothing whatsoever to do with this thread, please stop going off topic.

It’s not off topic just because you of all people say it. The topic is about increasing accessibility and fixing the LFG (and everything else I posted which you missed) will increase accessibility in a much better overall way than the proposed one of this thread. It does a BETTER job than the one proposed, to solve the same problem. So of course it is ON topic.

The “needs” discussed is YOU getting the Legendary Armor, that’s why you disagree with every other possible way of fixing Raid accessibility. It won’t gift you your Legendary Armor. Just admit it that’s the only reason you argue against any other “proposal”

Scarlet’s Mechanical beasts I would say were in-between the early mordrem and HoT mordrem.

Seriously, they had some pretty nasty mechanics such as self-rezzes, condis and the champion versions were particularly nasty.

Hypairion.9210:

but with your easy mode raid, you don’t want to experience the gameplay of raid. Failure and wipes ARE components of the raid gameplay.

You may like that component, but not everyone agrees with you. And yes, Ohoni is asking for a slightly different gameplay, one he finds enjoyable. I thought that was obvious.

Hypairion.9210:

You want the raid rewards (i.e. legendary armor) without risk.

It’s not a matter of risk. It’s a matter of the raid content as it is now being actively unfun. Yes, due to failure and wipes being the required component of that gameplay.

Hypairion.9210:

That’s not something i will agree with.

Then we are in disagreement.

Hypairion.9210:

But i’m happy, after all this topic is theoritical, because anet doesn’t have the man power to do it.

Yeah. it’s far more likely they will cancel raids altogether. And then nerf them (to make them more accessible) somewhere in the future.

Astralporing.1957:

Hypairion.9210:

but with your easy mode raid, you don’t want to experience the gameplay of raid. Failure and wipes ARE components of the raid gameplay.

You may like that component, but not everyone agrees with you. And yes, Ohoni is asking for a slightly different gameplay, one he finds enjoyable. I thought that was obvious.

Hypairion.9210:

You want the raid rewards (i.e. legendary armor) without risk.

It’s not a matter of risk. It’s a matter of the raid content as it is now being actively unfun. Yes, due to failure and wipes being the required component of that gameplay.

Hypairion.9210:

That’s not something i will agree with.

Then we are in disagreement.

Hypairion.9210:

But i’m happy, after all this topic is theoritical, because anet doesn’t have the man power to do it.

Yeah. it’s far more likely they will cancel raids altogether. And then nerf them (to make them more accessible) somewhere in the future.

Yes sure, cancel the only piece of HOT that is nice, you’re so right :p. You just have to accept that you cannot have everything in this game without effort, that’s all…The only thing i read in a these threads is : i want legendary armor, but i’m not good enough to do actual raid and i dont want to improve and learn my class and raid mecanisms. So pls Anet, nerf raids so that i can spam 1 and be legendary too…