Guild Wars 2

I suck at pvp and don’t enjoy, but I still don’t think I should be able to get the legendary pvp backpiece. Do I want it? yes. Am I less deserving of it? YES

I won’t try to convince you otherwise, but your stance should not be everyone’s stance. Are you less deserving of it? Of course not. You should still have to work through it some way, but so long as the alternate method is of equal or greater complexity, you would deserve the reward just as much as someone who PvPed for it.

The same goes for raids, you ARE less deserving of it because you never bothered to learn to do it. It’s straight up INSULTING that you think that I am the same amount of deserving as you for something that I kittenING WORKED MY kitten OFF FOR. I don’t have a problem with having a discussion about easy mode raids, my problem is that you and others continue to INSULT ME AND OTHER RAIDERS and demand you get OUR rewards for something EASIER.

It insults me that you believe that you are deserving of superior rewards just because you’re playing a mode that you claim to enjoy. If you don’t enjoy it, then you shouldn’t be playing it. If you do enjoy it, then you have no right to complain about how much work it is. They aren’t your rewards, they are rewards that the devs have chosen to gift to you for jumping through the hoops they’ve laid out. They are free to alter that arrangement at any time.

Up until this latest patch, it cost a ton of money to level Scribing. Now it’s cheaper. Those who leveled scribing under the previous system were not “owed” permanent exclusive access to scribing over those who did not. If and when ANet decides to offer Legendary armor to people other than hard mode raiders, that is what will occur.

Look you can have your easy mode raids, just don’t kittening take my prestige away from it,

Deal.

I will take zero prestige away from you.

Of course, ever since players were allowed to buy their way through hard mode raiding, it has had ZERO prestige, so zero minus zero is zero, and therefore getting Legendary armor via easy mode raiding would not reduce your prestige in any way, so we both win!

As for the ability to make money off of raiding, that’s up to ANet to decide. They seem comfortable with players selling raids, and seem comfortable with players selling infusions for gold, so I don’t see why they would just take that away without offering anything in return. Presumably at least some people would still be interested in buying raids, so some of that income would be staying. As for the rest, they could simply increase the direct loot payout of hard mode to compensate, not in gold, most likely, but perhaps in materials or other tradable items that would make raiders income without causing inflation. I doubt that the number of active raiders would be able to put much of a dent in the economy no matter what they offered.

I want people to come up to me in LA or DR and see me with legendary armor and start asking me questions about raids.

Like they come up to the people who bought runs off you and have equally shiny armor? Telling tales of how badkitten they are? I do think they should keep the titles on the hard mode side, you can use that to show off. Kitten, I’d be open to all sorts of random foppery, World Completion style nametag icons, even a Mentor badge sort of thing, like a little special icon on the map that ONLY people who have cleared the entire first raid could activate. I don’t mind you playing emperor’s new clothes, so long as it doesn’t lock off any armor skins from other players.

I want as many people to experience the fun that is hard mode raids as possible.

But I have experienced the “fun” of hard mode raids, and it turns out that what’s fun for you is not fun for me, and never will be. The same is true for a lot of players.

I’m fine with a system that would force players to at least TRY hard mode raids before being able to access easy mode, so that they would at least have a chance to “enjoy” it, but if people genuinely don’t enjoy hard mode, there’s no reason they should be doing it. As an example of such a system, make it so that you need to buy a “key to easy mode” that costs like 10-15 magnetite or so. That means you’d at minimum have to hit the phase split on Vale Guardian a few times.

And you can ask probably any of them, even the ones that haven’t killed a boss yet, they are happy with the way things are, and they actually want to get better (and are).

And that’s great, hard mode clearly suits them, and can continue to suit them. They wouldn’t be part of your raid guild if it didn’t, but there are a lot of players that would not be happy doing things that way, and this option is for those players, not for those players happy under the current model.

Maybe we should make an easy mode sw where I can actually just afk, but don’t worry, I’ll only get 1 bandit crest every minute, so it takes longer to get bandit crests. It’s fair because it takes longer, that means I put the same amount of effort in right?

I know you’re just being facetious, but let’s pretend you were serious. The reason why that would be bad is that SW is already well below the baseline for content in this game. There is no need for it to get easier, because if you can do any of the content, you can do SW farming already. The reason why raids could benefit from an easier mode is that the current difficulty is well above the baseline difficulty of the game, such that players who can do most of the game’s content cannot do this content, and that leaves them cut out. There should be a version of it that most of the players can do within their own enjoyment level.

And for the record, I’ve gotten a few infractions in the past here, I generally don’t support that, and don’t want to see you banned either.

Ohoni.6057:

An easy mode would not just attract players that wouldn’t run the content at all. It also attracts players that use the path of least resistance if you add the same loot, removing them from the normal raid pool.

If this is true, then these players never belonged to the normal raid pool in the first place, they just didn’t have options before. They were not yours to own.

And there is no learning effect in an easy mode. If they can ignore mechanics there, they will ignore them. If you can’t ignore them there is no point for an easy mode.

Again, just because you can ignore mechanics doesn’t mean you have to. If you’re doing padded sparing, you can choose to completely ignore punches to the face, they will not hurt you either way, but if you go into it intending to improve your combat skills, then you will not ignore them, you’ll avoid getting hit just as in a full contact match, the only difference being that when you fail you don’t get a concussion.

So people who always use the path of least resistance even if they have no trouble clearing higher difficulties don’t belong there?

And people WILL ignore mechanics if they can, just play some rounds of WoWs LFR where you can see it…
There are many negative examples in other games that it won’t work.

You didn’t say that fun was the goal, in which case I would agree.
You said that it would make you happy, but that is not the goal.

Fun makes me happy, at least within the context of the game. As I use them here, the terms are synonymous. “Misdirection” would be engaging in semantic arguments rather than addressing the core points of discussion.

They reward you for things.
Legendary armor rewards you for gettin gud and doing raids.

And there should be alternative ways to earn them if you have no interest in gettin gud and doing raids.

No they’re more deserving than you because they’re clearing the current, harder targets which you aren’t even willing to try.

I’ve tried them, I’ve noted that several times. I just did not at all enjoy the experience, for reasons that I’ve outlined extensively, so I stopped and redirected my effort at making a change to the game.

No, it isn’t a tautology. I’ve given you plenty of reasons why hard content should necessitate unique and/or better rewards. Don’t stretch so far, you’ll pull a muscle.

And I’ve given you better reasons why they should not, for which you’ve had no defense.

I dunno dude. I think I could make some objective assessments on how superior higher stats are. Maybe some empirical testing.

Ok, give it a shot. Prove to me that having higher stats is objectively superior to having the ideal cosmetic appearance. Keep in mind that you’re talking to someone who’s engi was wearing a Rare chestpiece at level 80 for about three years before HoT came out, and didn’t notice.

Oh gosh!
I never thought of that before!
I thought everyone was a perfect clone of me with the same desires and needs and wants!
I have seen the light. Thankyou Ohoni!

Poe’s Law? Because you sort of sound sarcastic there. . . and yet taken literally it lines up 100% with every position you’ve made so far about what is important in the game.

I would leave.
If you think ANet is providing too much content that you don’t like, then leave.
If you think that I am not providing helpful words, then stop responding and/or leave.

ANet can do better, you can do better. You also can leave the thread if you like, but I’m still trying to change the game for the better. They just launched a huge, well received patch, and it wouldn’t have happened if people had not voiced concerns they had with the existing game. To you, it would be better if all those players just quit. To Anet, it was better to put the time in to resolve those concerns. I’m hopeful for the same outcome here.

Oh. Personally when I provide suggestions or feedback I am very careful to ensure that it is my opinions and experiences that I am providing, and that I’m not speaking for everyone else.

Probably a bad idea. They can’t tailor content to what a single player wants. They have to look at the big picture of what is good for the game as a whole.

No, I do this. I killed M Archi for the achievement- not just the mechanical achievement, the actual achievement. I cleared Aetherpath because it was new content and I wanted to do it.

Yes, but my point is, if you’re going for “the achievement” of it, small “a,” then easy mode won’t change anything. I mean, beating easy mode won’t be “the same thing” as beating hard mode. If you want the “achievement” of having beaten hard mode, then you’re still going to have to beat hard mode, even if you’ve already beaten easy mode. Players who care about that sort of thing will see nothing change by the inclusion of easy mode. Anyone who does just beat easy mode and “they’ve done it” is not about hard mode in the first place, and would not likely put forth the effort needed to do so if it were the only option.

Man who is not the target of raids decides which people belong where.

Anyone who would go elsewhere if given the option does not belong where they are. People belong where they WANT to go.

So people who always use the path of least resistance even if they have no trouble clearing higher difficulties don’t belong there?

And people WILL ignore mechanics if they can, just play some rounds of WoWs LFR where you can see it…
There are many negative examples in other games that it won’t work.

Again, if people are happier in easier modes, then that is where they belong. It’s not for you to say that they can’t have easier modes because you’d rather they be stuck in hard mode with you.

Raids give zero prestige? BS, the amount of people that buy raids is so minuscule it barely matters. You KNOW that’s true, stop misleading others and have them think that everyone and their grandma buys raid runs, there’s a very very very small amount of people that do this.

The number that do it is irrelevant. You say that you want to feel like a special snowflake in LA because you have your giant e-codpiece, and fair enough that, but then there’s that guy next to you and he’s also got his fancy e-codpiece that he earned buying raids from you, and he’s equally as fancy. So long as the average player cannot tell the difference between the size of your e-codpieces, you are both equally as prestigious, and since he has accomplished nothing to “earn” his prestige, that means that value of your prestige is also zero. Grats on your accomplishment.

It doesn’t matter that SW aren’t hard, I don’t enjoy SW and I DESERVE the rewards for it, so anet should give me another way to obtain them or else I’ll write thousands of words on the forums complaining about not getting the bio luminescent armor I want even though I don’t like SW!

Make your case if you really care, I just don’t think there’s a lot of merit to it.

1. Raids do not have superior rewards (except some ascended trinkets which I agree should not be gated behind raids).

They are currently the only way to advance Legendary crafting. That is pretty superior to me. They also offer way easier access to Ascended armor than just about any other content, even though the players who can do the raids need this armor the least. Quite a paradox there. Now the gold rewards for raiding might not be particularly impressive, but I’m totally open to that changing if it’s deemed necessary.

2. I don’t deserve the rewards because I like a different mode then you, I deserve them because I’m better at the game then you. I’m good. You’re not. That’s the honest truth.

So? Why does that make you more deserving of anything? You’re playing a game, I’m playing a game, we both deserve to have fun and get the things we want out of it, you’re not more deserving just because you claim to be a better player.

They want to add viper ascended trinkets to LS3, similiar to sinister trinkets in LS2, so the most wanted stat combination from raids won’t be raid only after LS3 hits.

And this fact is mostly relevant only to those who like raids already. Most of the easy-mode raid side of the equation are like “who cares about Viper trinkets?”

Ohoni.6057:

You didn’t say that fun was the goal, in which case I would agree.
You said that it would make you happy, but that is not the goal.

Fun makes me happy, at least within the context of the game. As I use them here, the terms are synonymous. “Misdirection” would be engaging in semantic arguments rather than addressing the core points of discussion.

They reward you for things.
Legendary armor rewards you for gettin gud and doing raids.

And there should be alternative ways to earn them if you have no interest in gettin gud and doing raids.

No they’re more deserving than you because they’re clearing the current, harder targets which you aren’t even willing to try.

I’ve tried them, I’ve noted that several times. I just did not at all enjoy the experience, for reasons that I’ve outlined extensively, so I stopped and redirected my effort at making a change to the game.

No, it isn’t a tautology. I’ve given you plenty of reasons why hard content should necessitate unique and/or better rewards. Don’t stretch so far, you’ll pull a muscle.

And I’ve given you better reasons why they should not, for which you’ve had no defense.

I dunno dude. I think I could make some objective assessments on how superior higher stats are. Maybe some empirical testing.

Ok, give it a shot. Prove to me that having higher stats is objectively superior to having the ideal cosmetic appearance. Keep in mind that you’re talking to someone who’s engi was wearing a Rare chestpiece at level 80 for about three years before HoT came out, and didn’t notice.

Oh gosh!
I never thought of that before!
I thought everyone was a perfect clone of me with the same desires and needs and wants!
I have seen the light. Thankyou Ohoni!

Poe’s Law? Because you sort of sound sarcastic there. . . and yet it lines up 100% with every position you’ve made so far about what is important in the game.

I would leave.
If you think ANet is providing too much content that you don’t like, then leave.
If you think that I am not providing helpful words, then stop responding and/or leave.

ANet can do better, you can do better. You also can leave the thread if you like, but I’m still trying to change the game for the better. They just launched a huge, well received patch, and it wouldn’t have happened if people had not voiced concerns they had with the existing game. To you, it would be better if all those players just quit. To Anet, it was better to put the time in to resolve those concerns. I’m hopeful for the same outcome here.

Oh. Personally when I provide suggestions or feedback I am very careful to ensure that it is my opinions and experiences that I am providing, and that I’m not speaking for everyone else.

Probably a bad idea. They can’t tailor content to what a single player wants. They have to look at the big picture of what is good for the game as a whole.

Yes they can’t and the amount of people who want an easy mode is incredible small on the forums. And your easy mode could reproduced with you and some bots in the same instance.

No, I do this. I killed M Archi for the achievement- not just the mechanical achievement, the actual achievement. I cleared Aetherpath because it was new content and I wanted to do it.

Yes, but my point is, if you’re going for “the achievement” of it, small “a,” then easy mode won’t change anything. I mean, beating easy mode won’t be “the same thing” as beating hard mode. If you want the “achievement” of having beaten hard mode, then you’re still going to have to beat hard mode, even if you’ve already beaten easy mode. Players who care about that sort of thing will see nothing change by the inclusion of easy mode. Anyone who does just beat easy mode and “they’ve done it” is not about hard mode in the first place, and would not likely put forth the effort needed to do so if it were the only option.

If the mechanics are the same or mostly the same it is the same boss fight just with higher numbers and it’s the same thing. Multiple required difficulties just accelerate content burnout without any benefit.

Man who is not the target of raids decides which people belong where.

Anyone who would go elsewhere if given the option does not belong where they are. People belong where they WANT to go.

You should never design a videogame. But it also defeats your whole argument.
If people belong where they want to go, why do we need an easy mode to force people into raiding which clearly don’t want to raid and have no interest in this mode unless it requires zero coordination and personal responsebility which defeats the whole purpose of the entire game mode?

I don’t claim to be a better player, I am a better player. Because I put effort into being a better player. I deserve the reward because I put in that effort.

Maybe “superior” wasn’t the best word for me to use. Legendary armor is a cosmetic and convenience item only, so I’m completely fine with it being gated behind one kind of content. If it gave an advantage over other players, I would not be ok with that.
There’s a good chance they’ll add another set to pvp/wvw/other areas of pve at some point anyways.

“The number that do it is irrelevant”

No, it’s relevant. If 99% of people who have the armor did hard raids for real as opposed to 1% under your plan, my armor will still look more prestigious. You keep trying to say that won’t be the case, but it is.

Yes they can’t and the amount of people who want an easy mode is incredible small on the forums. And your easy mode could reproduced with you and some bots in the same instance.

and the number of players supporting hard mode raiding on the forums is also incredibly small. Again, it’s up to ANet to try to determine how many players they feel would benefit from easy mode, they have better tools for that than I do and nothing I could say would convince them on the numbers. My role here is that if they do decide easy mode is worth pursuing, I’d like to help shape an easy mode that players would actually enjoy.

If the mechanics are the same or mostly the same it is the same boss fight just with higher numbers and it’s the same thing. Multiple required difficulties just accelerate content burnout without any benefit.

Pure subjective assumptions. You have no evidence that the people who only do easy mode and then leave when they finish it would be the ones that would stick around to beat hard mode if given no other option, much less that those players would prefer the hard mode option, given the choice.

If people belong where they want to go, why do we need an easy mode to force people into raiding which clearly don’t want to raid and have no interest in this mode unless it requires zero coordination and personal responsebility which defeats the whole purpose of the entire game mode?

Nobody would be forced to do easy mode if they don’t want to.

I don’t claim to be a better player, I am a better player. Because I put effort into being a better player. I deserve the reward because I put in that effort.

I don’t think there’s evidence of that. You’re a more successful raider than me, certainly, because you have put more effort into it, but that doesn’t mean that you’re “better,” it just means that you play that mode more than I do. I’m not saying that I’m necessarily a better player than you, but I don’t think there’s any reason to believe that I’m not, we just enjoy different aspects of the game. You like raiding how it is, and should be able to continue playing it. I can’t stand raiding in its current form, and would like to see an alternate version that removes the bits I can’t stand.

Maybe “superior” wasn’t the best word for me to use. Legendary armor is a cosmetic and convenience item only, so I’m completely fine with it being gated behind one kind of content.

And Ascended trinkets are purely stat-based and have no cosmetic value, so I’m completely fine with it being gated behind one kind of content. But I feel the exact opposite about Legendary armor, because I’m a different person than you are.

There’s a good chance they’ll add another set to pvp/wvw/other areas of pve at some point anyways.

Perhaps they will, but

1. “at some point” could be very far away indeed, since they didn’t add new Legendary Weapons until three years after launch, still haven’t added the first set of Legendary Armor yet, and gave up on 3/4 of the second Legendary weapon set. Saying “they can get around to adding another set when they get around to it” is basically the same as “never.”

2. If they added new armor with different skins, then that would be new armor with different skins. If I liked the skins on the Envoy armor then the new armor might be worse. You like stats, right? What if they said “Vipers trinkets will only be available via raiding, EVER, but if you do LWs3 you can earn Minstrel trinkets, so basically the same thing, right?” Do you believe that would be a fair situation to both parties? Do you believe that a player who wants Viper stats but doesn’t want to raid should be satisfied with that compromise?

No, it’s relevant. If 99% of people who have the armor did hard raids for real as opposed to 1% under your plan, my armor will still look more prestigious.

But that would still be a lie in 1% of cases, and most people would know that and be skeptical of the other 99%. It’s like with Legendary weapons, I have never viewed them as prestige items, they are just items that people bought, even if most people who have them did put in a lot of work to earn them, there’s no way to tell. Sorry, you’ve been hoist by your own petard on that one. He who lives by selling raids, dies by selling raids.

Ohoni.6057:

Fun makes me happy, at least within the context of the game. As I use them here, the terms are synonymous. “Misdirection” would be engaging in semantic arguments rather than addressing the core points of discussion.

Words are important because words mean things.

If you are going to talk, it is important that you use the right words lest you be misinterpreted.

Like you do. Constantly. All the time. So much so that an innocent bystander might think you were doing it on purpose.

Ohoni.6057:

And there should be alternative ways to earn them if you have no interest in gettin gud and doing raids.

Sure, there should be. I totally agree.

WvW would be a great place for them to introduce Legendary armor.
Hypothetical easy mode raids would not.

Earning the skins? No. Rewards for specific content should remain as specific as is practical.

Ohoni.6057:

I’ve tried them, I’ve noted that several times. I just did not at all enjoy the experience, for reasons that I’ve outlined extensively, so I stopped and redirected my effort at making a change to the game.

I’ve tried making money. I just did not at all enjoy the experience, so I stopped trying to make money and redirected my effort to making a change to the game.

This is just gonna end up with me being poor, y’know?

Ohoni.6057:

And I’ve given you better reasons why they should not, for which you’ve had no defense.

In a world where everything is subjective, how could you possibly present a better reason?

Ohoni.6057:

Ok, give it a shot. Prove to me that having higher stats is objectively superior to having the ideal cosmetic appearance. Keep in mind that you’re talking to someone who’s engi was wearing a Rare chestpiece at level 80 for about three years before HoT came out, and didn’t notice.

Nah, you can look up DPS testing on your own.

Ohoni.6057:

Poe’s Law? Because you sort of sound sarcastic there. . . and yet taken literally it lines up 100% with every position you’ve made so far about what is important in the game.

Ohoni recoils from sarcasm, something he has never seen before. As he has been placed outside of his comfort zone he retreats to what comes naturally; ad hominem arguments.

Ohoni.6057:

ANet can do better, you can do better. You also can leave the thread if you like, but I’m still trying to change the game for the better.

If you’re going to pull this down with your constant subjective arguments, how can you possibly be making the game better for anyone but you?

Ohoni.6057:

They just launched a huge, well received patch, and it wouldn’t have happened if people had not voiced concerns they had with the existing game.

Congratulations, you’ve worked out the value of feedback. You should try taking some sometime.

Ohoni.6057:

To you, it would be better if all those players just quit. To Anet, it was better to put the time in to resolve those concerns. I’m hopeful for the same outcome here.

Uh dude I’ve been consistently telling you that this little raid issue you have is small peas compared to the issues in WvW, the mode which received the lion’s share of changes in this patch. Telling me that I want WvWers to quit is a bad joke.

Ohoni.6057:

Probably a bad idea. They can’t tailor content to what a single player wants. They have to look at the big picture of what is good for the game as a whole.

Completely missing the point.

Ohoni.6057:

Yes, but my point is, if you’re going for “the achievement” of it, small “a,” then easy mode won’t change anything. I mean, beating easy mode won’t be “the same thing” as beating hard mode. If you want the “achievement” of having beaten hard mode, then you’re still going to have to beat hard mode, even if you’ve already beaten easy mode. Players who care about that sort of thing will see nothing change by the inclusion of easy mode. Anyone who does just beat easy mode and “they’ve done it” is not about hard mode in the first place, and would not likely put forth the effort needed to do so if it were the only option.

Okay so we’ve established that the ‘achievement’ of beating hard modes is not the same as the ‘achievement’ of beating easy modes.

Okay okay good.

Now let’s see if we can connect these two ideas and maybe something will appear.

Maybe…

Maybe legendary armor is a reward for achievement in difficult content.

Ohoni.6057:

Anyone who would go elsewhere if given the option does not belong where they are. People belong where they WANT to go.

I agree, and you don’t belong in raids because you don’t want to go there. And I know you don’t want to go to easy mode raids either; as per your own words, you would prefer it if they were completely deleted.

You belong in open world content.

I’ve tried making money. I just did not at all enjoy the experience, so I stopped trying to make money and redirected my effort to making a change to the game.

This is just gonna end up with me being poor, y’know?

Are you talking real world or game? If you mean you do not enjoy earning money in the game, then it would totally be appropriate to perition ANet for a change that you would enjoy more. If it made sense, if enough other players would enjoy that change, they might do it.

If you mean the real world, it doesn’t exactly apply. I mean, the game is entirely controlled by ANet, they are like active gods of Tyria. If you ask them to do something, and they decide to do it, then it happens. You tell them you want twice as many iron nodes, and they decide that’s a good idea, then suddenly twice as many iron nodes exist. However you may feel about religion, it’s clear that we do not have an active god in the real world, and if people demand that twice as much iron exist in the world, that iron will not suddenly appear. You can at least petition government to change things in your favor though, which is close.

In a world where everything is subjective, how could you possibly present a better reason?

Exactly.

Nah, you can look up DPS testing on your own.

DPS testing only tests how quickly you can kill things. Whether “how quickly you can kill things” _matters" is perfectly subjective. You can tell me “I can kill this target in ten seconds in Ascended armor, while it would take me fifteen in Exotic, that means it is better.” My response to that is, “It doesn’t matter whether you killed it in fifteen seconds or ten, it is subjective that you care.”

Ohoni recoils from sarcasm, something he has never seen before. As he has been placed outside of his comfort zone he retreats to what comes naturally; ad hominem arguments.

No, I’m just pointing out that your general responses are not consistent with someone who recognizes that different people can have different, but equally valid, responses to the same stimuli. For example, you do not seem to admit to the fact that there exist people who view skins to be of equal or higher importance than numerical stats.

Uh dude I’ve been consistently telling you that this little raid issue you have is small peas compared to the issues in WvW, the mode which received the lion’s share of changes in this patch. Telling me that I want WvWers to quit is a bad joke.

And yet, that is what you said, that if I was dissatisfied, the appropriate response would not be to push for changes that would improve things, but rather for me to quit.

Maybe legendary armor is a reward for achievement in difficult content.

It currently is, but there’s no reason that it has to be, or should be. People who can’t or don’t want to complete difficult content will want the legendary armor just as much as those who can and will complete the difficult content, so it’s a bit ridiculous to say that some players can have it just because they can and want to complete difficult content, while the other players cannot have it because they can’t or won’t complete that content, right?

And I know you don’t want to go to easy mode raids either; as per your own words, you would prefer it if they were completely deleted.

I didn’t say that. You might be thinking of Torolan? I don’t want them deleted, although if push came to shove, I would prefer they be deleted and the rewards be shifted to other content than for them to remain the only place to earn those rewards. Having easy mode raids is definitely much higher on my preference list though, much higher.

Ohoni.6057:

Yes they can’t and the amount of people who want an easy mode is incredible small on the forums. And your easy mode could reproduced with you and some bots in the same instance.

and the number of players supporting hard mode raiding on the forums is also incredibly small. Again, it’s up to ANet to try to determine how many players they feel would benefit from easy mode, they have better tools for that than I do and nothing I could say would convince them on the numbers. My role here is that if they do decide easy mode is worth pursuing, I’d like to help shape an easy mode that players would actually enjoy.

If the mechanics are the same or mostly the same it is the same boss fight just with higher numbers and it’s the same thing. Multiple required difficulties just accelerate content burnout without any benefit.

Pure subjective assumptions. You have no evidence that the people who only do easy mode and then leave when they finish it would be the ones that would stick around to beat hard mode if given no other option, much less that those players would prefer the hard mode option, given the choice.

If people belong where they want to go, why do we need an easy mode to force people into raiding which clearly don’t want to raid and have no interest in this mode unless it requires zero coordination and personal responsebility which defeats the whole purpose of the entire game mode?

Nobody would be forced to do easy mode if they don’t want to.

Nobody is forced to do normal mode either or this game mode at all and yet you want to alter it for people that aren’t interested.
What about people which find dungeons hard and don’t like PvP, do we need an easy mode for dungeons or an alternate way to aquire dungeon armor/weapons? Or golden fractal weapons?

I don’t claim to be a better player, I am a better player. Because I put effort into being a better player. I deserve the reward because I put in that effort.

I don’t think there’s evidence of that. You’re a more successful raider than me, certainly, because you have put more effort into it, but that doesn’t mean that you’re “better,” it just means that you play that mode more than I do. I’m not saying that I’m necessarily a better player than you, but I don’t think there’s any reason to believe that I’m not, we just enjoy different aspects of the game. You like raiding how it is, and should be able to continue playing it. I can’t stand raiding in its current form, and would like to see an alternate version that removes the bits I can’t stand.

Maybe “superior” wasn’t the best word for me to use. Legendary armor is a cosmetic and convenience item only, so I’m completely fine with it being gated behind one kind of content.

And Ascended trinkets are purely stat-based and have no cosmetic value, so I’m completely fine with it being gated behind one kind of content. But I feel the exact opposite about Legendary armor, because I’m a different person than you are.

There’s a good chance they’ll add another set to pvp/wvw/other areas of pve at some point anyways.

Perhaps they will, but

1. “at some point” could be very far away indeed, since they didn’t add new Legendary Weapons until three years after launch, still haven’t added the first set of Legendary Armor yet, and gave up on 3/4 of the second Legendary weapon set. Saying “they can get around to adding another set when they get around to it” is basically the same as “never.”

2. If they added new armor with different skins, then that would be new armor with different skins. If I liked the skins on the Envoy armor then the new armor might be worse. You like stats, right? What if they said “Vipers trinkets will only be available via raiding, EVER, but if you do LWs3 you can earn Minstrel trinkets, so basically the same thing, right?” Do you believe that would be a fair situation to both parties? Do you believe that a player who wants Viper stats but doesn’t want to raid should be satisfied with that compromise?

They already said, they will add viper trinkets to LS3, just stop your lies.
And the fact that nobody outside of ArenaNet knows the design of the legendary armor and you are still arguing about it proves again that you care more about the item color than the item appearance.
There are many skins that can only obtained via specific game modes or specific areas and yet you only care about a skin noone knows anything about except the item color.

No, it’s relevant. If 99% of people who have the armor did hard raids for real as opposed to 1% under your plan, my armor will still look more prestigious.

But that would still be a lie in 1% of cases, and most people would know that and be skeptical of the other 99%. It’s like with Legendary weapons, I have never viewed them as prestige items, they are just items that people bought, even if most people who have them did put in a lot of work to earn them, there’s no way to tell. Sorry, you’ve been hoist by your own petard on that one. He who lives by selling raids, dies by selling raids.

So I can buy the new legendaries from the TP now? Nice I didn’t know that.
And if you don’t care about prestige only about looks, why are you arguing about an item which only known fact is the item color and not about the ascended skins inside the raid? Maybe you should choose a more believable target.

Ohoni.6057:

Are you talking real world or game? If you mean you do not enjoy earning money in the game, then it would totally be appropriate to perition ANet for a change that you would enjoy more. If it made sense, if enough other players would enjoy that change, they might do it.

If you mean the real world, it doesn’t exactly apply. I mean, the game is entirely controlled by ANet, they are like active gods of Tyria. If you ask them to do something, and they decide to do it, then it happens. You tell them you want twice as many iron nodes, and they decide that’s a good idea, then suddenly twice as many iron nodes exist. However you may feel about religion, it’s clear that we do not have an active god in the real world, and if people demand that twice as much iron exist in the world, that iron will not suddenly appear. You can at least petition government to change things in your favor though, which is close.

That’s not the point, again. If I continuously argue for change without ever actually putting forth the effort to get wealthier, I will never get wealthy. Lead a horse to water, something something.

Ohoni.6057:

Exactly.

Gonna have to bring something more than that if you’re gonna argue the proletariat.

Ohoni.6057:

DPS testing only tests how quickly you can kill things. Whether “how quickly you can kill things” _matters" is perfectly subjective. You can tell me “I can kill this target in ten seconds in Ascended armor, while it would take me fifteen in Exotic, that means it is better.” My response to that is, “It doesn’t matter whether you killed it in fifteen seconds or ten, it is subjective that you care.”

The exact nothing response I expected.

You are free to not care about your character’s ability or output in places that aren’t raids.

Ohoni.6057:

No, I’m just pointing out that your general responses are not consistent with someone who recognizes that different people can have different, but equally valid, responses to the same stimuli. For example, you do not seem to admit to the fact that there exist people who view skins to be of equal or higher importance than numerical stats.

Oh no, I’m certain that people exist who care more about skins than numerical stats.

The problem is; so what? That people want things only means that you’ve developed a strong incentive structure. That you’re here at all is testament to the value of the armor set which doesn’t even exist yet. And keep in mind,

Ohoni.6057:

And yet, that is what you said, that if I was dissatisfied, the appropriate response would not be to push for changes that would improve things, but rather for me to quit.

Look it’s pretty straightforward.
If you go to a steakhouse and they keep serving you something that you don’t want, but you keep going and keep going, they have no incentive to change.
If you want ANet to change what they’re serving, then it may be strategically viable to go somewhere more fitting.

Ohoni.6057:

It currently is, but there’s no reason that it has to be, or should be.

Already told you reasons.

Ohoni.6057:

People who can’t or don’t want to complete difficult content will want the legendary armor just as much as those who can and will complete the difficult content, so it’s a bit ridiculous to say that some players can have it just because they can and want to complete difficult content, while the other players cannot have it because they can’t or won’t complete that content, right?

No it isn’t ridiculous. If you complete the content you get the rewards associated with the content. Whether you want something has no bearing on whether its barriers are fair or not.

Ohoni.6057:

I didn’t say that. You might be thinking of Torolan? I don’t want them deleted, although if push came to shove, I would prefer they be deleted and the rewards be shifted to other content than for them to remain the only place to earn those rewards. Having easy mode raids is definitely much higher on my preference list though, much higher.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/Do-you-think-Raids-in-GW2-were-a-bad-idea/page/25#post6093593

Again, what I’m asking for is the compromise position, with “remove raids entirely” being the non-compromise

Your preferred position is for raids to be removed entirely. Easy modes are your compromise to this position.

When I say I’m better at you at this game, I mean I’m better than you at ANYTHING. Even things you enjoy more than me, I’m better at, because I put the effort into becoming good at PvE in this game. There is nothing in PvE that you can rightfully say you are better at. This isn’t meant to be a bragging thing, just to make a point that you can put effort into becoming good at the game not only for raids, but for any PvE content at all.

I don’t know, I mean it’s possible that this is true, I’m hardly the very best in this game at anything, but I don’t know why you would assume that you’re better, especially at everything there is to do.

Also you say raids need an easy mode because they’re difficult? They aren’t though. I think anet should rename the current raids the easy mode, and then make a harder mode that is hard mode. Then you’d have your easy mode and us hardcore people would have our hardmode.

I don’t see any reason they couldn’t add an additional “nightmare” mode, but obviously just renaming the current raid “easy mode” would not actually satisfy anyone, the goal is to have a mode that is actually easier to clear than the existing one, not just one that is “called” easy mode.

What about people which find dungeons hard and don’t like PvP, do we need an easy mode for dungeons or an alternate way to aquire dungeon armor/weapons? Or golden fractal weapons?

Maybe. If someone wants to make the case of that, they can. It all depends on how many of them there are and how easily that could be accommodated. That’s not my case to make for them though.

They already said, they will add viper trinkets to LS3, just stop your lies.
And the fact that nobody outside of ArenaNet knows the design of the legendary armor and you are still arguing about it proves again that you care more about the item color than the item appearance.

Lol, it wasn’t a lie, I was posing a hypothetical, not claiming that this is what they were doing.

As to the other point, it’s been made before, and my response is the same, that I don’t know for a fact that I will actually like the Envoy armor at all. It’s possible that they will release it and I won’t like it at all and not care. Of course, if that’s true, most raiders will likely be pretty annoyed too. But regardless, the chances are that if it lives up to the standards of other GW2 content, then between the 18 pieces of the armor there will likely be at least a few that I’ll want as part of at least some of my character’s wardrobes, so I’m hedging my bets by planning ahead. I could wait to raise these concerns until it’s fully out, but that would only delay any possible solutions.

There are many skins that can only obtained via specific game modes or specific areas and yet you only care about a skin noone knows anything about except the item color.

I’ve made my case on several of those in the past as well. My stance remains that ALL items in the game should be earnable through either A. minimal effort in a single task, OR B. long term effort in any of several different tasks, but never both at once. If you don’t enjoy a given task then you should never have reason to keep doing it.

So I can buy the new legendaries from the TP now? Nice I didn’t know that.

No, the older ones. Even the new ones are more about money than effort though, being able to afford the various mid-tier pieces.

That’s not the point, again. If I continuously argue for change without ever actually putting forth the effort to get wealthier, I will never get wealthy. Lead a horse to water, something something.

No, but that’s my point, if you continue to argue for change to people who are willing and able to make a change, then you could be wealthy that way. It’s unrealistic when applied to the real world, but less unrealistic when applied to a game world where anything could happen at the developers’ whims. I mean, just the other day every player got an item that raises a character’s level to 80. Do you know how much time it took me to get my Revenent to 80? Like ten whole minutes clicking on level 30 scrolls and level-up books! And my first character took like hundreds of times that long! Things change.

You are free to not care about your character’s ability or output in places that aren’t raids.

And you are free to not care about how your character looks, the point is that it’s ALL purely subjective.

The problem is; so what? That people want things only means that you’ve developed a strong incentive structure. That you’re here at all is testament to the value of the armor set which doesn’t even exist yet. And keep in mind,

Right, but you shouldn’t be incentivizing players to do things that they are not enjoying. You should have just enough incentive to entice players to TRY new content that they are unsure of, and if they do enjoy that content then they can keep playing it to earn that reward, but if they don’t enjoy that content then you don’t WANT them to continue playing it, because then you’re creating a toxic reward grind, which only harms their overall attachment to the game.

It’s like I said with the Ascension backpiece, they can leave in the requirement that you need to earn the Recruit’s Wings of Glory from PvP-only, which would require only getting into Emerald once and anyone can do that with a week or two’s effort, but if they achieve that, and decide that PvP is not for them, then it is best for everyone if they get out of PvP right there, and go do something else with their time, without having to give up entirely on getting the Ascension backpiece.

If you go to a steakhouse and they keep serving you something that you don’t want, but you keep going and keep going, they have no incentive to change.
If you want ANet to change what they’re serving, then it may be strategically viable to go somewhere more fitting.

And judging by ingame populations people have been doing that over the past several months, but given that I used to really enjoy their menu, and could do so again, I would really prefer they just make the adjustments necessary to bring back the old flavors.

No it isn’t ridiculous. If you complete the content you get the rewards associated with the content. Whether you want something has no bearing on whether its barriers are fair or not.

But it would be better for all if the players that want the things can work towards earning the things in a way that they enjoy. If you lock something behind only one type of barrier, then only people who enjoy that type of barrier can get it while having fun, which unnecessarily minimizes the pool of players who can both have the item and have fun.

Your preferred position is for raids to be removed entirely. Easy modes are your compromise to this position.

No, it was the hard-line position, equivalent to “leave hard mode raids the only game in town.” The compromise is the point in the middle of the two. It shouldn’t be to my detriment that I chose the more reasonable position as my starting point in the negotiations.

Okay cool.
Still idk why individual desires have any bearing on anything.

Because the goal is to make the players happy, happy enough that they keep playing, happy enough that they want to spend money on your product even when they don’t technically have to anymore. If player A is made happy by stats, you get him the stats he wants. If player B is made happy by skins, you get him the skins he wants. You make each work for it, because that encourages them to play the game, but you make that work something they enjoy, because if they don’t enjoy it then they will get burnt out by the grind.

Since different players enjoy different rewards, you can’t say “you can only get this one reward from the activity you like,” or “you can only get the reward you want from this one task that you might not enjoy,” because each time you do that you unnecessarily leave people out who could be happier. You have to give players as many options as are feasible for finding their own happiness.

Not necessarily true, you’ve established no negative causal link between player participation and reward models.

If a player ever leaves a game, it is because the reward model was out of sync with the player’s gameplay interests. For example, if a player silverwaste farms because it’s “the most efficient farm,” and then eventually quits because “the game is too boring and grindy,” the problem there was that the game was over-rewarding something that the player found “boring and grindy.” If other activities he did enjoy were competitively rewarding, he could have been doing those instead without feeling it was a waste of time.

An argument still fundamentally born from missing the point of long-term rewards. And I’ve given you plenty of reasons why long-term rewards are a good idea.

And I’ve said just as many times that long term rewards are great. We have zero disagreement on that.

No, I’ve given you a bunch of reasons why keeping players in PvP is a good thing. You’re assuming everyone’s PvPing for the wings despite hating it because that’s your experience.

Have you been to the PvP boards? I’m not remotely the only one. Even the hardcore PvPers are complaining about having to share space with dilettante wing-chasers like me. Keeping players in PvP is only a good thing if those players remotely want to be there. If they don’t, then while they might provide some small benefit to others, they’re harming themselves, and in the long term, the game, by creating a toxic environment.

Psst: If there has been a active user drop, it’s because ANet hadn’t released any content other than the raids since the expansion, and the only reason the raids were released after the expansion was because the team was either running late, or they were planning on a delayed release schedule as is standard.

Raids have not negatively affected the player numbers. In fact, they’re seeing higher than expected player participation and are contributing to player retention.

Yes, HoT was a rousing success. That’s why they completely overhauled the mechanics of how the maps functioned. That’s what you do when things are working perfectly.

This just means that you don’t know what the word compromise means.

It means that I value the best possible outcome for both parties rather than a “compromise” that benefits no one, merely for the sake of compromise.

randomguy.1283:

Astralporing.1957:

randomguy.1283:

Astralporing.1957:

Sarrs.4831:

Astralporing.1957:

Well, it’s instanced so calling it an open world content might be rather misleading.

Point being that there are better formats for the kind of content that you want; dungeons and open world content. They’re better for reasons that’ve been covered in over 40 pages.

You’re right, easy mode raid is not the only way. Unfortunately, at the moment there’s no way available at all, and easy mode raid is something that at the moment is the most likely to happen (seeing as it would require leat amount of resources).
I’m willing to make do with easy mode raids, because waiting for something that would fit me better might be way, way too long for my liking.

Perfect is the enemy of good.

But dungeons already exist?

So? They offer neither the story nor the rewards of the current raid, do they?

Raids offer neither the story nor the rewards of dungeons, what is your point?

That’s precisely my point. If i am after the story and rewards of raids, telling me to do dungeons doesn’t solve anything.

…which you already know, because it has been explained in this thread (and to you personally) several times before.

randomguy.1283:

2. I don’t deserve the rewards because I like a different mode then you, I deserve them because I’m better at the game then you. I’m good. You’re not. That’s the honest truth.

In that case all the best rewards should be removed from PvE (including raids) and put into PvP. Likely gated behind Legendary division or tournament participation. Because, let’s be honest, compared to top PvP players you’re as bad as Ohoni. Maybe worse, since he does pvp and you do not.

The honest truth is that you are not “better at the game”, but merely better at the specific gamemode. One that you enjoy likely because you’re good at it.
There’s nothing about this gamemode however that makes it superior to all others.
In the end the main reason for you to get better rewards is that you enjoy that gamemode and i do not. Ans that’s not a sufficient reason.

Ohoni.6057:

I suck at pvp and don’t enjoy, but I still don’t think I should be able to get the legendary pvp backpiece. Do I want it? yes. Am I less deserving of it? YES

I won’t try to convince you otherwise, but your stance should not be everyone’s stance. Are you less deserving of it? Of course not. You should still have to work through it some way, but so long as the alternate method is of equal or greater complexity, you would deserve the reward just as much as someone who PvPed for it.

The same goes for raids, you ARE less deserving of it because you never bothered to learn to do it. It’s straight up INSULTING that you think that I am the same amount of deserving as you for something that I kittenING WORKED MY kitten OFF FOR. I don’t have a problem with having a discussion about easy mode raids, my problem is that you and others continue to INSULT ME AND OTHER RAIDERS and demand you get OUR rewards for something EASIER.

It insults me that you believe that you are deserving of superior rewards just because you’re playing a mode that you claim to enjoy. If you don’t enjoy it, then you shouldn’t be playing it. If you do enjoy it, then you have no right to complain about how much work it is. They aren’t your rewards, they are rewards that the devs have chosen to gift to you for jumping through the hoops they’ve laid out. They are free to alter that arrangement at any time.

Up until this latest patch, it cost a ton of money to level Scribing. Now it’s cheaper. Those who leveled scribing under the previous system were not “owed” permanent exclusive access to scribing over those who did not. If and when ANet decides to offer Legendary armor to people other than hard mode raiders, that is what will occur.

Look you can have your easy mode raids, just don’t kittening take my prestige away from it,

Deal.

I will take zero prestige away from you.

Of course, ever since players were allowed to buy their way through hard mode raiding, it has had ZERO prestige, so zero minus zero is zero, and therefore getting Legendary armor via easy mode raiding would not reduce your prestige in any way, so we both win!

As for the ability to make money off of raiding, that’s up to ANet to decide. They seem comfortable with players selling raids, and seem comfortable with players selling infusions for gold, so I don’t see why they would just take that away without offering anything in return. Presumably at least some people would still be interested in buying raids, so some of that income would be staying. As for the rest, they could simply increase the direct loot payout of hard mode to compensate, not in gold, most likely, but perhaps in materials or other tradable items that would make raiders income without causing inflation. I doubt that the number of active raiders would be able to put much of a dent in the economy no matter what they offered.

I want people to come up to me in LA or DR and see me with legendary armor and start asking me questions about raids.

Like they come up to the people who bought runs off you and have equally shiny armor? Telling tales of how badkitten they are? I do think they should keep the titles on the hard mode side, you can use that to show off. Kitten, I’d be open to all sorts of random foppery, World Completion style nametag icons, even a Mentor badge sort of thing, like a little special icon on the map that ONLY people who have cleared the entire first raid could activate. I don’t mind you playing emperor’s new clothes, so long as it doesn’t lock off any armor skins from other players.

I want as many people to experience the fun that is hard mode raids as possible.

But I have experienced the “fun” of hard mode raids, and it turns out that what’s fun for you is not fun for me, and never will be. The same is true for a lot of players.

I’m fine with a system that would force players to at least TRY hard mode raids before being able to access easy mode, so that they would at least have a chance to “enjoy” it, but if people genuinely don’t enjoy hard mode, there’s no reason they should be doing it. As an example of such a system, make it so that you need to buy a “key to easy mode” that costs like 10-15 magnetite or so. That means you’d at minimum have to hit the phase split on Vale Guardian a few times.

And you can ask probably any of them, even the ones that haven’t killed a boss yet, they are happy with the way things are, and they actually want to get better (and are).

And that’s great, hard mode clearly suits them, and can continue to suit them. They wouldn’t be part of your raid guild if it didn’t, but there are a lot of players that would not be happy doing things that way, and this option is for those players, not for those players happy under the current model.

Maybe we should make an easy mode sw where I can actually just afk, but don’t worry, I’ll only get 1 bandit crest every minute, so it takes longer to get bandit crests. It’s fair because it takes longer, that means I put the same amount of effort in right?

I know you’re just being facetious, but let’s pretend you were serious. The reason why that would be bad is that SW is already well below the baseline for content in this game. There is no need for it to get easier, because if you can do any of the content, you can do SW farming already. The reason why raids could benefit from an easier mode is that the current difficulty is well above the baseline difficulty of the game, such that players who can do most of the game’s content cannot do this content, and that leaves them cut out. There should be a version of it that most of the players can do within their own enjoyment level.

And for the record, I’ve gotten a few infractions in the past here, I generally don’t support that, and don’t want to see you banned either.

The thing is, some players like having some reward systems based on skill, so not everybody can just grind their way through ( DING DING arenanet hates grind). The reward system you propose is a grindbased one combined with a skilled based one. However you fail to acknowledge that when you push the grind system , you are taking away from the skilled people. The two cannot coexist.

Now a rather large part of the community understands that they cannot put in the effort required for legendary skins. So guess what they don’t go for these time consuming and prestigious skins. This 20 page thread is simply 3 players that cannot get over the fact that they lack the skill and effort to clear raids. You blow up your problem, it is not a problem within the community, most people are perfectly fine with not getting legendary armor, they are perfectly fine with the presence of challenging content. However they are not perfectly fine with not being able to experience the lore and practice raids in an easy mode. People who lack the skill to obtain legendary armor and still want it, guess what they do? They improve over a certain period of time, this is how they slowly acquire their legendary set, just like you wanted.

Now I say people buying raids for ridiculous amounts of gold still is alot more prestigious than being able to get it after spending hours in an easy mode raid. Why don’t you ask the raid community what they find more prestigious? Probably cause you already know the answer, and it is not an answer you can use for your arguments.

Plenty of skins and in game items require you to play specific content, the rewards show that you cleared this content. Since the beginning of GW2 players have been fine with this system. Legendary armor is a specific reward associated with raids, get over it. Whenever I see a player with a HOT legendary or Glorious hero armor, I’m impressed cause I cannot get those skins and get jealous, that experience has value to me and many other players.

Easy mode raids, should have easy mode raid rewards which could be for example less prestigious version of armor as we see with several other sets. If you wan to get a SHARE of the rewards of raids be my guest, but you also need to SHARE in the same efforts.

The thing is, some players like having some reward systems based on skill, so not everybody can just grind their way through ( DING DING arenanet hates grind). The reward system you propose is a grindbased one combined with a skilled based one. However you fail to acknowledge that when you push the grind system , you are taking away from the skilled people. The two cannot coexist.

The skill based system would get you there faster, that’s the advantage. Beyond that, skill-based rewards can be things like titles or stat boosts, but should not lock down important things like skins. The thing about grind is, whether you enjoy it or not, anyone can do it. With skill-based, some people can’t, so you’re locking it out from those people. One person being happy because he has something only 1/10 people have is nice, but it is better for 10/10 people being happy because they all have that thing.

You blow up your problem, it is not a problem within the community, most people are perfectly fine with not getting legendary armor,

Cite.

People who lack the skill to obtain legendary armor and still want it, guess what they do? They improve over a certain period of time, this is how they slowly acquire their legendary set, just like you wanted.

No. Wanting to improve and do the hard content eventually works for some players, but not for all. You can’t forward that as a catch-all solution.

Now I say people buying raids for ridiculous amounts of gold still is alot more prestigious than being able to get it after spending hours in an easy mode raid. Why don’t you ask the raid community what they find more prestigious? Probably cause you already know the answer, and it is not an answer you can use for your arguments.

Yes, I’m sure that the raid community is terribly impressed by people AFKing their way through the raids, and aren’t just saying that because it’s in their economic interests to Sherpa them. That is totally how the world works.

Whenever I see a player with a HOT legendary or Glorious hero armor, I’m impressed cause I cannot get those skins and get jealous, that experience has value to me and many other players.

Well that’s kind of sad, but don’t project those feelings onto others.

Ohoni.6057:

It insults me that you believe that you are deserving of superior rewards just because you’re playing a mode that you claim to enjoy.

Anet is the abiter of who deserves what in GW2, you do X, Y or Z and deserve the rewards for those things – you can literally open a ticket in you do not get the correct reward and they will send it to you.

You, Ohoni, can feel insulted all you like but the fact remains the criteria for deserving have been set and you aparently do not meet them.

You keep trying to make out that there is no true deserving judge, there is and it is Anet. You have failed to meet their standards, you are undeserving.

Anet is the abiter of who deserves what in GW2, you do X, Y or Z and deserve the rewards for those things – you can literally open a ticket in you do not get the correct reward and they will send it to you.

Ok, cool, then when ANet decides that you can earn Legendary armor through some other means, then we can both be happy with their decision.

Astralporing.1957:

randomguy.1283:

Astralporing.1957:

randomguy.1283:

Astralporing.1957:

Sarrs.4831:

Astralporing.1957:

Well, it’s instanced so calling it an open world content might be rather misleading.

Point being that there are better formats for the kind of content that you want; dungeons and open world content. They’re better for reasons that’ve been covered in over 40 pages.

You’re right, easy mode raid is not the only way. Unfortunately, at the moment there’s no way available at all, and easy mode raid is something that at the moment is the most likely to happen (seeing as it would require leat amount of resources).
I’m willing to make do with easy mode raids, because waiting for something that would fit me better might be way, way too long for my liking.

Perfect is the enemy of good.

But dungeons already exist?

So? They offer neither the story nor the rewards of the current raid, do they?

Raids offer neither the story nor the rewards of dungeons, what is your point?

That’s precisely my point. If i am after the story and rewards of raids, telling me to do dungeons doesn’t solve anything.

…which you already know, because it has been explained in this thread (and to you personally) several times before.

randomguy.1283:

2. I don’t deserve the rewards because I like a different mode then you, I deserve them because I’m better at the game then you. I’m good. You’re not. That’s the honest truth.

In that case all the best rewards should be removed from PvE (including raids) and put into PvP. Likely gated behind Legendary division or tournament participation. Because, let’s be honest, compared to top PvP players you’re as bad as Ohoni. Maybe worse, since he does pvp and you do not.

The honest truth is that you are not “better at the game”, but merely better at the specific gamemode. One that you enjoy likely because you’re good at it.
There’s nothing about this gamemode however that makes it superior to all others.
In the end the main reason for you to get better rewards is that you enjoy that gamemode and i do not. Ans that’s not a sufficient reason.

1. That’s precisely MY point. If i am after the story and rewards of dungeons, telling me to do pvp doesn’t solve anything. You’re basically saying that no gamemode can have its own story. Should the HoT story be added to wvw? that’s ridiculous.

2. I’ve already said a million times, billion times, trillion times, anet can go ahead and add legendary armor to pvp/wvw/other areas of pve, completely expected and fine with me, as long as its a different set, so we can all be happy, jeez. READ my posts.

Ohoni.6057:

You blow up your problem, it is not a problem within the community, most people are perfectly fine with not getting legendary armor,

Cite.

How about you start citing all of the “statistics” you’ve made up/used before asking other people to cite theirs?

randomguy.1283:

1. That’s precisely MY point. If i am after the story and rewards of dungeons, telling me to do pvp doesn’t solve anything.

Actually, dungeon rewards at least are now accessible not only through PvP, but also WvW. If you think something else should be extended to other game modes and you have some idea how that might be accomplished, you’re free to ask Anet for it as well. I’ll definitely not be a person telling you that you can’t get it, so why are you telling it to me?

randomguy.1283:

2. I’ve already said a million times, billion times, trillion times, anet can go ahead and add legendary armor to pvp/wvw/other areas of pve, completely expected and fine with me, as long as its a different set, so we can all be happy, jeez. READ my posts.

Sure, and when that happens i will stop complaining about the raid legendary. But we both know this is very unlikely to happen anytime soon (if at all). Practicality suggests that i shouldn’t be asking for things i know aren’t going to happen, but make do with what can be done. And easy raids are that something.

As i said before, perfect is the enemy of good.

What if anet adds a different set of legendary armor to easy mode raids then, same functionality, different set? Would that appease you guys?

I’m really not sure what else to suggest.

I really think your focus on rewards and not fun is a HUGE problem going forward with this idea though.

randomguy.1283:

What if anet adds a different set of legendary armor to easy mode raids then, same functionality, different set? Would that appease you guys?

I’m really not sure what else to suggest.

I really think your focus on rewards and not fun is a HUGE problem going forward with this idea though.

I still don’t see what would be wrong with a no-special reward (i.e. only lootbags, rares, exos and gold) easy raid mode, if that ever comes (and it’s gonna take up a lot of time, no matter what others say… reasons have been mentioned a few pages ago) so that you can practice and then have an easier time in the actual raid. Wanting raid exclusive rewards in easy mode straight off the bat screams laziness on side of those demanding it.

Ohoni.6057:

Anet is the abiter of who deserves what in GW2, you do X, Y or Z and deserve the rewards for those things – you can literally open a ticket in you do not get the correct reward and they will send it to you.

Ok, cool, then when ANet decides that you can earn Legendary armor through some other means, then we can both be happy with their decision.

Aaaw look at you using the word when, so cute. Tell you what, when the red dawn happens and people are queuing for bread you can hand out Legendary Armour codes :P

randomguy.1283:

I really think your focus on rewards and not fun is a HUGE problem going forward with this idea though.

I think this is worth paying attention to. There are two distinct discussions taking place in this thread – first, whether or not there should be an easier option to raiding and, second, should people who put in less effort have the chance to get the same rewards?

My stance is pretty simple. Addressing the reward first, I do believe greater effort should equal a different (not necessarily “better”) reward. Anet has even taken this approach in the past – with minis (Liadri, Aetherpath achievements), unique gear (living story achievements, aetherpath rewards, gold fractal weapons, etc), through standing out competitively (WvW tournament rewards, the PvP Llamas, etc), open world challenges (jumping puzzle titles and rewards) and with time investment (legendary weapons, etc). I do not see why raiding should be any different. Greater effort should be rewarded in some way (that doesn’t involved greater character stats, of course).

The true issue to me is whether or not their should be a more casual way to experience the content (actually doing the fights in some form). I look at this way. The only reason raids are branded as “difficult” content is because Anet originally took that stance.

In its purest form, a raid is just a 10 person instance. That is the sole defining factor of a raid (and I would add that the 10 person part is arbitrary as well, but that would be a different discussion entirely). So, why not take the same approach that they take to the rest of the game? Build it out for everyone – and then address difficulty.

Difficult content shouldn’t be solely confined to raids. And neither should easy content be solely confined to open world or fractals. They have the systems, the developmental knowledge and the motivation to make difficult content in EVERY part of the game.

So, I make this argument – build a game that everyone can play, and then look at how you can add challenge to every part of it. There should be fractal encounters (and even living story chapters) that are every bit as hard as the current raid bosses, just for smaller groups. They could even add open world content, guild missions, etc, that meet that same criteria (and I would argue, in the case of TT, they did in open world).

Now, the counter argument many might have to this is around developmental resources – but Anet themselves have addressed this. They said they want to focus future design on making the game deeper rather than broader (ie, perfecting and adding to the content systems they have in place today).

So, my advice to Anet – when the raid team and the living story team have completed their current projects, have them swap roles. Tell the raid team to come up with a design for the Fractal level 105 swamp end boss that rivals anything they have done for 10 player raids, while telling the story team to develop a toned down version of the raid story for more casual players. I know that is a simplified example and probably wouldn’t work exactly that way, but I think you understand where I’m coming from.

Raiding is just 10 player content. There is no mandate that says it has to be the hardest content in the game. On the flip side, the inverse could just as easily be true of single player or fractal content. There is nothing stopping you from turning up the dial and melting our faces with an optional fractal or story mode instance (fractals would be perfect for this).

So, I don’t see this as a “make raids easier” discussion. I see it as a “spread the love for everyone from casual to hardcore players” to every part of the game discussion.

randomguy.1283:

What if anet adds a different set of legendary armor to easy mode raids then, same functionality, different set? Would that appease you guys?

Most likely. Though again, that’s unlikely to happen. Anet not only canned their legendary team, but also always keeps telling us how new armor sets are so much harder to do than weapons.

randomguy.1283:

I really think your focus on rewards and not fun is a HUGE problem going forward with this idea though.

But i am interested in fun. Raids as they are now are not fun. Easy mode would be so much better.

Astralporing.1957:

But i am interested in fun. Raids as they are now are not fun. Easy mode would be so much better.

You can’t accurately measure fun. What is fun for you is boring for others, and therefore irrelevant to the discussion.

TexZero.7910:

Astralporing.1957:

But i am interested in fun. Raids as they are now are not fun. Easy mode would be so much better.

You can’t accurately measure fun. What is fun for you is boring for others, and therefore irrelevant to the discussion.

Is it fun is really the only important question in a game like this.

And, yes, you are right in that “fun” means different things to different people. That is the whole point behind having raids offer different experiences for different groups of people.

Blaeys.3102:

randomguy.1283:

I really think your focus on rewards and not fun is a HUGE problem going forward with this idea though.

I think this is worth paying attention to. There are two distinct discussions taking place in this thread – first, whether or not there should be an easier option to raiding and, second, should people who put in less effort have the chance to get the same rewards?

My stance is pretty simple. Addressing the reward first, I do believe greater effort should equal a different (not necessarily “better”) reward. Anet has even taken this approach in the past – with minis (Liadri, Aetherpath achievements), unique gear (living story achievements, aetherpath rewards, gold fractal weapons, etc), through standing out competitively (WvW tournament rewards, the PvP Llamas, etc), open world challenges (jumping puzzle titles and rewards) and with time investment (legendary weapons, etc). I do not see why raiding should be any different. Greater effort should be rewarded in some way (that doesn’t involved greater character stats, of course).

The true issue to me is whether or not their should be a more casual way to experience the content (actually doing the fights in some form). I look at this way. The only reason raids are branded as “difficult” content is because Anet originally took that stance.

In its purest form, a raid is just a 10 person instance. That is the sole defining factor of a raid (and I would add that the 10 person part is arbitrary as well, but that would be a different discussion entirely). So, why not take the same approach that they take to the rest of the game? Build it out for everyone – and then address difficulty.

Difficult content shouldn’t be solely confined to raids. And neither should easy content be solely confined to open world or fractals. They have the systems, the developmental knowledge and the motivation to make difficult content in EVERY part of the game.

So, I make this argument – build a game that everyone can play, and then look at how you can add challenge to every part of it. There should be fractal encounters (and even living story chapters) that are every bit as hard as the current raid bosses, just for smaller groups. They could even add open world content, guild missions, etc, that meet that same criteria (and I would argue, in the case of TT, they did in open world).

Now, the counter argument many might have to this is around developmental resources – but Anet themselves have addressed this. They said they want to focus future design on making the game deeper rather than broader (ie, perfecting and adding to the content systems they have in place today).

So, my advice to Anet – when the raid team and the living story team have completed their current projects, have them swap roles. Tell the raid team to come up with a design for the Fractal level 105 swamp end boss that rivals anything they have done for 10 player raids, while telling the story team to develop a toned down version of the raid story for more casual players. I know that is a simplified example and probably wouldn’t work exactly that way, but I think you understand where I’m coming from.

Raiding is just 10 player content. There is no mandate that says it has to be the hardest content in the game. On the flip side, the inverse could just as easily be true of single player or fractal content. There is nothing stopping you from turning up the dial and melting our faces with an optional fractal or story mode instance (fractals would be perfect for this).

So, I don’t see this as a “make raids easier” discussion. I see it as a “spread the love for everyone from casual to hardcore players” to every part of the game discussion.

I think this is the most persuasive argument for easy-mode raids. If this is the philosophy, I could get on board.

That said, I still don’t think easy mode raids are necessary. Like you said, there is nothing special about a ten person instance. Between fractals, dungeons, and raids, there is plenty of content at all skill levels.

And I’d rather ANET develop all 3 of these areas concurrently (with a variety of difficulty levels), than make easy mode raids. As someone who plays all 3 areas of this content, I would not play both easy and hard mode raids. I would play a new dungeon/fractal though, even if it was easy. With multiple modes, there’s rarely an incentive to play both. Even now, I rarely find myself playing low level fractals, (a mode designed for scalable difficulty) and just stick to the 75+ fractals.

Absurdo.8309:

That said, I still don’t think easy mode raids are necessary.

Oh, i agree. It’s a weak argument, though, because, for example, current raids aren’t exactly necessary either.

Absurdo.8309:

As someone who plays all 3 areas of this content, I would not play both easy and hard mode raids. I would play a new dungeon/fractal though, even if it was easy. With multiple modes, there’s rarely an incentive to play both. Even now, I rarely find myself playing low level fractals, (a mode designed for scalable difficulty) and just stick to the 75+ fractals.

Oh, of course. But those lower fractal levels do exist, and people are running them.

Similarily, easy mode raids probably won’t be for you, but that does not mean others won’t be interested in them.

Yes, there may not be incentive to play both, but then it would be okay, since they won’t be aimed at the same people.

2. I’ve already said a million times, billion times, trillion times, anet can go ahead and add legendary armor to pvp/wvw/other areas of pve, completely expected and fine with me, as long as its a different set, so we can all be happy, jeez. READ my posts.

But a different set wouldn’t “make us all happy,” since if the raid set looks good, then people who want that set would not be happy unless they actually had it.

What if anet adds a different set of legendary armor to easy mode raids then, same functionality, different set? Would that appease you guys?

No.

And on top of that “no,” we both know how extremely unlikely that would be, given that they haven’t even released the first set of raid armor yet. It takes them years to put out a single set of armor, so to imply that they might whip up an entirely new one on a moment’s notice is a bit “well what if, and I’m just spit-balling here, we could use pigs as aerial couriers?”

I’m really not sure what else to suggest.

How about this: the easy mode raids could include a slower path to acquiring the raid armor. That way the hard mode raiders get the fastest path to them, and they are happy because they get the armor, and the easy mode raiders get a slower path, but they are still happy because they also get the armor, and then everyone is happy!

I really think your focus on rewards and not fun is a HUGE problem going forward with this idea though.

No, personally I focus on both, and if I end up talking about rewards more it’s only because I’m responding to you guys talking about rewards more. I can agree though, we talk about rewards too much, so let’s just agree that the easy mode should offer a reasonable path to the raid armor and we can move on.

I still don’t see what would be wrong with a no-special reward (i.e. only lootbags, rares, exos and gold) easy raid mode, if that ever comes (and it’s gonna take up a lot of time, no matter what others say… reasons have been mentioned a few pages ago) so that you can practice and then have an easier time in the actual raid.

Well look, there are a few reasons why that’s not ideal.

1. There needs to be an alternate PvE path to getting the Envoy armor, so that players who do not like hard mode raiding can still earn it. If they’re going to do this, they might as well make easy mode raid that path, because it’s the simplest solution.

2. Not everyone WANTS to do hard mode raids, so while easy mode can serve as training for hard mode, it cannot only serve that function. Whatever rewards it does offer need to be competitive with the rest of the game, enough that a player will want to play the easy mode whenever it’s off cooldown, whether he ever intends to do hard mode raids or not.

I still think combining the two is the best overall solution, but I would be fine with them splitting the two so long as both are adequately covered.

My stance is pretty simple. Addressing the reward first, I do believe greater effort should equal a different (not necessarily “better”) reward.

But “better” is subjective. Personally, I find the blue SAB weapons “better” than the yellow and green ones, even though ostensibly the latter are the more prestigious. You cannot offer a “different” reward with cosmetic items and not have one be viewed as “better” by the people seeking them, so locking out ANY cosmetic reward is locking out the “better” option to a lot of players.

So no, more difficult content should not lock out “different” rewards. It should offer a higher quantity of rewards, allowing those players to earn more per unit of time spent, but whatever a player can earn in the hard mode, a player in easy mode should eventually be able to earn as well.

You can’t accurately measure fun. What is fun for you is boring for others, and therefore irrelevant to the discussion.

The same applies to skins. Really though, the important thing is to just trust people. If they say that something is not fun for them, don’t assume that they are “doing it wrong,” just accept that it is not fun for them. If they say that making a certain change would make it fun for them, don’t argue with them that it wouldn’t, accept that they know what they find fun better than you do.

As someone who plays all 3 areas of this content, I would not play both easy and hard mode raids. I would play a new dungeon/fractal though, even if it was easy.

Yes, but creating entirely new content is considerably more work than tweaking the difficulty of existing content. So it’s not an “either/or” situation. It’s like you’re saying “well sure, they could take last night’s leftovers and mix in some new ingredients to create a tasty dinner, but really I think I’d prefer if they just whipped up a four course gourmet meal from scratch.”

With multiple modes, there’s rarely an incentive to play both.

That’s not the point. The point is not to get players to play both, although some do and that’s nice. The actual point though is so that there can be some players who would get bored with easy mode, and they have a hard mode that challenges and engages them, while other players would struggle and get frustrated by hard mode, so they have an easy mode that they find as fun and engaging as those first players find hard mode. Everyone has different tastes, and multiple difficulty modes allow as many people to be satisfied as possible with minimal effort (relative to creating entirely new content for each group).

It’s like you’re saying “I don’t even know why a restaurant has a menu, I like fried chicken, the only thing they need to serve is fried chicken and then everyone would be happy. If I had fried chicken then I don’t think I’d even bother eating steak or fish or salad, so why even have those things available?”

Blaeys.3102:

TexZero.7910:

Astralporing.1957:

But i am interested in fun. Raids as they are now are not fun. Easy mode would be so much better.

You can’t accurately measure fun. What is fun for you is boring for others, and therefore irrelevant to the discussion.

Is it fun is really the only important question in a game like this.

And, yes, you are right in that “fun” means different things to different people. That is the whole point behind having raids offer different experiences for different groups of people.

Except that it’s not.

If you were to ask those currently raiding, not those asking for a mode to suit them, “Is it fun” you’d like get a mostly positive response of yes. Those that don’t raid, and won’t raid aren’t relevant to the target question.

When designing content aimed at being challenging and rewarding the question is never, is it fun. It’s did this encounter meet our expected goal for its challenge level. Most encounters, save maybe bandit trio do just that.

TL;DR fun in unimportant to the overall discussion.

I’ve been following this thread for a while, but I think the only thing need to be discussed is rewards. As far as I can tell the raiders don’t mind if others have acces to an easier version, but they don’t want them to be able to get everything that’s available in normal mode. – And honestly, this sounds reasonable. Every game mode has it’s unique skins , wether we talk about fractals, WvW, PvP or anything, really.

@ Ohoni, you seem to be the most active on this thread. I’d like to bring you two points. First would be this:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Glorious_Hero's_armor

If I go through your post history, will I find any complain about this armor? If I don’t, the only reason I think you are posting in favor for easy raids is jealousy in case the envoy armor is the prettiest thing ever; and everything else is secondary. That’s fine, I’m jealous about the high end pvp ers who has these armors, but I also understand there has to be skins for the 1%.

Point two; you’ve already pointed out there are ways to buy a raid path, meaning if you do that basically everything you want from easy raids comes true:
-People who don’t like raids has acces for their rewards
-You’ve get to experience the encounters and the story
-People who put in less effort progress slower than those who aren’t
-and finally people who put in more effort earn more rewards

Gaile Gray.6029:

The last several pages of this thread have devolved into walls o’ text with back-and-forth insults. This thread can continue to be interesting and valuable — or at least acceptable -- but that will require everyone to please stay on topic and stop playing Quote Wars™.

Before posting, stop and ask yourself:

• Is it true?
• Is it fair?
• Is it necessary?

Please… post wisely.

Thank you Gaile for trying to bring some calm here, but just at looking at some posts after this one, I guess some players still prefer playing quote wars instead of guild wars…
No one has got new arguments: raiders (at least the one posting here) don’t mind easy mode for lore and teaching, as long as rewards stay gated behind normal raids, whereas some others non raiders want at all cost the legendary armors, and won’t stop arguing for it to be obtainable with easy raid.
Since no one will change his mind, has this topic some purpose ?

If you were to ask those currently raiding, not those asking for a mode to suit them, “Is it fun” you’d like get a mostly positive response of yes. Those that don’t raid, and won’t raid aren’t relevant to the target question.

All players of the game are relevant, just within different contexts. If you ask current raiders “are raids fun?” You likely would hear mostly positive results. This is good. This is why raids should continue to exist in their current form.

But then if you ask the people not playing raids “are the raids fun?” They might say no. They are not irrelevant. Their not having fun shouldn’t be used to break raids for those that do enjoy it, but just because some people enjoy raids doesn’t mean that nothing should be done for those who don’t.

When designing content aimed at being challenging and rewarding the question is never, is it fun. It’s did this encounter meet our expected goal for its challenge level. Most encounters, save maybe bandit trio do just that.

Meeting the challenge level is only part of making the encounter fun, for those that enjoy such things. Making it fun is the ultimate goal, you just don’t realize it when it’s working right because you’re having too much fun.

@ Ohoni, you seem to be the most active on this thread. I’d like to bring you two points. First would be this:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Glorious_Hero's_armor

If I go through your post history, will I find any complain about this armor?

Yes.

If I don’t, the only reason I think you are posting in favor for easy raids is jealousy in case the envoy armor is the prettiest thing ever; and everything else is secondary.

Nope, but if it makes you feel better to marginalize my viewpoint into a tiny box that you can throw away then there’s nothing I can do to stop you from doing so.

That’s fine, I’m jealous about the high end pvp ers who has these armors, but I also understand there has to be skins for the 1%.

No, there’s absolutely no need to have skins for the 1%. That’s a profound waste fo resources.

Point two; you’ve already pointed out there are ways to buy a raid path, meaning if you do that basically everything you want from easy raids comes true:

No, because that’s being carried, not participating in the game. It’s a rigged system that only benefits those who like to raid. Players should not be profiting off of other players.

Ohoni.6057:

Point two; you’ve already pointed out there are ways to buy a raid path, meaning if you do that basically everything you want from easy raids comes true:

No, because that’s being carried, not participating in the game. It’s a rigged system that only benefits those who like to raid. Players should not be profiting off of other players.

You want to be carried, just carried by Anet.

As for “players should not be profitting off of other players,” when should we expect your “Close The TP!” thread?

You want to be carried, just carried by Anet.

Nonsense. You could say that about any content in the game. The point is, there is a huge difference between just AFKing while other players do the work for you, and actually playing through the content and carrying an equal load with the other players, even if that total load is balanced for your group’s capabilities. If you don’t see that distinction, then that’s ok, you don’t have to because you don’t decide anything.

As for “players should not be profitting off of other players,” when should we expect your “Close The TP!” thread?

Been there, done that (in a sense). I won’t even get started on the TP here because it’d be profoundly off topic, but yeah, it’s been covered.

All players of the game are relevant, just within different contexts. If you ask current raiders “are raids fun?” You likely would hear mostly positive results. This is good. This is why raids should continue to exist in their current form.

But then if you ask the people not playing raids “are the raids fun?” They might say no. They are not irrelevant. Their not having fun shouldn’t be used to break raids for those that do enjoy it, but just because some people enjoy raids doesn’t mean that nothing should be done for those who don’t.

I’ll grant that in all likelihood, more players are not utilizing raids than do. However, not enjoying content does not mean that someone is not having fun with the game. It’s very possible to not even notice or care about raids. Also, disliking the current iteration of raids does not mean one would do them if there were an easy version. What evidence is there that a significant number of the people who are not playing raids want to?

As to the L. Armor, this game has always had rewards tied to specific content. The amount of such has been increasing, not decreasing, as the game has aged. Do you have anything other than your opinion that it would be in ANet’s interest to step away from that paradigm? On the face of it, it seems that using rewards to entice players into content is their approach, not allowing players to get the enticement elsewhere.

I’ll grant that in all likelihood, more players are not utilizing raids than do. However, not enjoying content does not mean that someone is not having fun with the game. It’s very possible to not even notice or care about raids.

Sure. Nobody is saying that 100% of people who don’t raid are wanting anything involved with raiding. There are basically five groups at play here. There are (a) people who like raids exactly like they are. There are (b) people who don’t care what happens either way. There are © people who want easy mode raids and don’t care about loot. There are (d) people that want raid-specific loot and don’t care about easy mode raids. and there are (e) people who want both.

People representing each of these groups have chimed in, but we don’t have good numbers on any of these groups. It’s ANet’s job to figure out the relative sizes of them. I assume that groups © through (e) are large enough that it would be in ANet’s interests to do something to satisfy them, many of you disagree. I also do believe that groups (d) and (e) are large enough to be accounted for as well.

If it turns out I’m right, ANet will do something. If it turns out I’m not, then they won’t and you don’t need to worry. Trying to argue with me about the relative sizes of these groups is pointless because none of us can provide meaningful data on the matter.

As to the L. Armor, this game has always had rewards tied to specific content.

True, and I have always opposed that. Over time though, they tend to open things up to more sources. Saying that they’ve done something in the past does not mean that they were right to have done that in the past, or that they should continue to do so moving forward.

Do you have anything other than your opinion that it would be in ANet’s interest to step away from that paradigm?

I believe it would lead to the greatest benefit for the greatest number. It would remove the unpleasant dilemma of “do the thing you hate to do” OR “never receive the thing that you’d like.” The removal of this dilemma would be a better outcome than any possible negative consequences of removing it.

On the face of it, it seems that using rewards to entice players into content is their approach,

You may have missed where I have discussed this very concept repeatedly and in depth, but the short version of it is, I am perfectly fine with rewards being used to entice players into trying content that they might not otherwise attempt, but any reward used for this purpose should be earned in relatively short order, so that anyone who earnestly attempts the content for an hour or two would receive this prize and could go on their way. Anything that requires more time and effort than that should have multiple paths, so that if players attempt the new content and do not enjoy it, they are not forced to continue playing it if they want the prize; they can instead go off and do something they enjoy more.

NOBODY, least of all ANet, benefit from trapping players in content that those players are not enjoying.

Ohoni.6057:

NOBODY, least of all ANet, benefit from trapping players in content that those players are not enjoying.

The only person who traps you inside said content is yourself. Your fault.

The only person who traps you inside said content is yourself. Your fault.

You clearly were not paying attention. Read it again and come back with the correct answer.

Humanity is competitive (even you Ohoni, look how you compete in this thread alone). Why do you want to remove all competition and striving from GW2 when we’ve seen every attempt to get a large number of people do this irl fail?

You want the death of the TP and death of prestige, your philosophy is just backwards and has been tested throughout the 20th century and failed every time.

Humanity is competitive (even you Ohoni, look how you compete in this thread alone). Why do you want to remove all competition and striving from GW2 when we’ve seen every attempt to get a large number of people do this irl fail?

I think people can compete all they want, so long as it doesn’t interfere in another player’s ability to get the things he wants. I mean, let’s look at the completion in the raids themselves. People competed to beat the various bosses first. There was no reward for that. People competed for the fastest times, no reward for that either. People competed to figure out amusing ways to beat them, involving minimal parties, or odd class balances, or whatever else made the encounter more difficult in an amusing way. Again, no prize, not even a no prize.

That’s all great, and ANet should encourage that with things like leaderboards that track progress. But if you tell me, "I want to compete with you. I want there to be an item, and I want it to be something that “I can get, but that for you would be much harder to get because I want it to be something set to be within my capabilities, which puts it outside of yours.” Well sorry, I’m not cool with that. I don’t see any reason why your desire to compete with me, which I don’t agree to, should trump my capability to get something that I’d like to have. Competition should be mutual, not based on a Hobson’s choice.

You want the death of the TP and death of prestige, your philosophy is just backwards and has been tested throughout the 20th century and failed every time.

No more than any other.

Ohoni.6057:

The only person who traps you inside said content is yourself. Your fault.

You clearly were not paying attention. Read it again and come back with the correct answer.

You clearly are delusional if you think ANet is forcing you to run the content just because there’s legendary armor behind it (which you STILL don’t know how it looks and it won’t give any actual gameplay advantages). YOU want the shinies, YOU force yourself to run this content. ANet simply tries to lure you into said content to try it out. That’s not forcing.

You clearly are delusional if you think ANet is forcing you to run the content just because there’s legendary armor behind it

And you’re engaging in semantics. Clearly I’m not using “forced” in the sense that they have my eyelids peeled back and my fingers stapled to the mouse, but from the context of the original statement it should be obvious that I meant that they were forcing the choice of “do that content, whether you enjoy it or not,” OR “never receive that reward that you would enjoy having.”

That is what they are “forcing,” for one of those two options to be selected, when it is within their capabilities to not require a choice to be made at all. They have it within their power to instead present the player with three choices, 1. “Do this content, which is the fastest method, but which apparently you do not enjoy,” 2. “Never get the reward from this that you would enjoy,” OR 3. “Do some other activity, which might take a bit longer than option #1, but which you apparently enjoy more, and eventually you’d have the thing you wanted.”

ANet simply tries to lure you into said content to try it out. That’s not forcing.

Again, “luring people into the content to try it out” is FINE. I am 100% in favor of that, full stop.

The important distinction though, is that once you’ve been lured in, once you’ve tried it out, once you’d had reasonable time to determine whether you actually enjoy the content or not, they should respect the choice that you make, and allow you to leave without permanently leaving anything behind you.

Anything that takes more time and effort than a few hours, you should be able to earn it via multiple paths, so that if that single method definitely doesn’t work for you, you can move on to a different one.

Ohoni.6057:

You want the death of the TP and death of prestige, your philosophy is just backwards and has been tested throughout the 20th century and failed every time.

No more than any other.

Do you genuinely believe that? The very system that constructed GW2 and you think it failed on par with the nightmare behind the Iron Curtain? You need to go read or listen to people who actually went there.

Utopia means no-place and thats where you want to throw raids – into the void of failed philosophies.

Nobody’s talking about the Iron Curtain.

Ohoni.6057:

Nobody’s talking about the Iron Curtain.

You want to void achievement and remove profitting and competition, you might not know it but you certainly are talking about behind the Iron Curtain.

Astralporing.1957:

Absurdo.8309:

That said, I still don’t think easy mode raids are necessary.

Oh, i agree. It’s a weak argument, though, because, for example, current raids aren’t exactly necessary either.

Absurdo.8309:

As someone who plays all 3 areas of this content, I would not play both easy and hard mode raids. I would play a new dungeon/fractal though, even if it was easy. With multiple modes, there’s rarely an incentive to play both. Even now, I rarely find myself playing low level fractals, (a mode designed for scalable difficulty) and just stick to the 75+ fractals.

Oh, of course. But those lower fractal levels do exist, and people are running them.

Similarily, easy mode raids probably won’t be for you, but that does not mean others won’t be interested in them.

Yes, there may not be incentive to play both, but then it would be okay, since they won’t be aimed at the same people.

I think you misunderstand my argument.

Raids fill a niche that was not prevalent in the game (hard, instanced, pve content). Whereas easy mode raids would fill a niche already in the game (easy and medium instanced pve content).

Now I realize not everyone likes hard content. Heck, sometimes I also want to relax into a cof run. But as someone who likes both, I would rather see more fractals and dungeons. I can’t speak for others, but I’m less likely to complete the same content on an easier difficulty.

So I would see more fractals/dungeons as a win for raiders (more content to choose from) and a win for non-raiders (more easy and medium tier content).

As to some of the arguments in this thread —-

I’m resistant to “compromise” into easy mode raids. As I said above, I think it’s a suboptimal solution. Again, I think more dungeon and fractals is a superior answer.

I don’t think we can convince some of the non raiders in this thread, but we can identify philosophy. Some want access to any/all rewards in this game at an easy/medium difficulty level, and across all game modes. While I think this is a preference outside the norm (and generally outside gw2 historically) I do understand it.

However, even if I subscribed to this philosophy (and I’m somewhat sympathetic), easy mode raids are not the solution. The solution is to make everything sellable on the TP. That way, you could play how you want, and just buy the skin with the gold you earn. I’m actually not opposed to this solution (see gorseval aura), but I realize this implementation is unlikely.

Edit: This solution is already in effect since you can buy raids. So do the content you like, earn gold at your pace, and then buy the runs.