Guild Wars 2

Aesa.4819:

STIHL.2489:

Blaeys.3102:

If this is the planned path for future raids, I, personally, would rather they abandoned them altogether. That said, however, I would prefer that they look to solve this issue instead – and offer raids in a way that doesn’t create those barriers.

The raid team has moved on to other things. Personally, I would rather Anet just go back to focusing on re-building a solid lateral end game then mess with raids any further.

Yes they moved on to making new raids, which is awesome considering the quality of the content and that so many people enjoy it

I love your hopeful optimism, but the AMA made it clear they have moved on to doing something else. They have also made it clear that there is no raid development in the works, and that the only time a new raid might come out is with the next expansion.

So at least you will have that to look forward to buying.

For now, Raids are done.

Time to Move On.

Sykper.6583:

ekarat.1085:

I don’t buy that someone cannot make an easier mode raid simply by tweaking a few numbers. You can argue that that wouldn’t be good enough to lower the difficulty (I don’t agree, but you could argue that). You can argue that even that would take resources (to be fair it does, but it’s not clear how much). However, you can’t reasonably argue that it couldn’t be done.

Of course it could be done, the argument is that it’s not as simple as numbers. There’s the prospect of ‘how low can we go before it feels less like raiding and more like 10-man open world where you can ignore mechanics’. It’s not authentic, not to mention there will always be someone asking for an easier mode, always. What you might be able to pull off and agree as an easy mode, someone else will demand it be even lower. It’s more work, for people who are clearly not that interested in raids to begin with.

My point is that the difficulty adjustment could be as simple as adjusting the numbers. I don’t want them to remove the mechanics. I want them to reduce the penalties for failure, so as to allow for more mistakes. I don’t want them to do more than adjust numbers.

I enjoyed the raid at first. However, at some point, I knew the mechanics but still kept failing. I might have gotten satisfaction if the kill had come much, much sooner. At that point, I just felt dead. Burnout does that to people.

To be fair, it is more work than just adjusting the difficulty. There’s the interface, and then there’s testing (which is honestly what I would expect most of the work to be). So, there would be work to be done — I’m not denying that. However, it isn’t necessarily prohibitively much work — probably on par with a fractal revamp. If Anet says it’s too much work, I’ll trust them on that, but until then, I’m not willing to just assume that it is.

Sykper.6583:

It would be better for everyone if content was made that was NOT raids offered the same quality of equipment, everyone including Arenanet agrees on the exclusivity of trinket stats in Raids was a bad thing, hence we will see it in Living Story soon.

You’re assuming that the only thing people want from raids is the rewards. That makes sense from a mindset that games are content set to challenge you and reward you for the hard work you put in. But other people are interested in the content for its own sake, and not just the rewards.

If I only cared about rewards, the most efficient thing would be to play the TP for money and buy everything. I want to be clear, I can and do sometimes play the TP for money, and I’m good enough at it to have that be the best value for my time. However, I don’t play this game for the TP. I want to play content. It’s just that the money I get from playing content is far less than I could get via the TP for that same amount of effort. So, yes, I do play content for reasons other than rewards.

(Just to head off the inevitable response, I do care about rewards. I am saying that I don’t care only about rewards.)

Sykper.6583:

ekarat.1085:

I spent 100+ hours practising twice a week for months to beat Vale Guardian once. When I defeated him, was I proud of my accomplishment that all my hard work paid off? No. I don’t want to go through that again. It was much harder for me than it was for other people and took much more work for me than for other people. However, most of all, it wasn’t fun.

I find this a little hard to believe that you didn’t get some sort of satisfaction from killing VG for the very first time. I suppose frustration might have curbed your enthusiasm since you have said you have spent 100+ hours, but if what you have said is true, you might just not have the mentality to enjoy raiding. You could keep raiding, it’s as accessible as you make it, but if I were in your position I would instead of asking for easier raids, ask for content you actually enjoy to give similar rewards.

Yes, it’s called burnout. If you assume that some people are not going to be as skilled, even with practice and hard work, then raids are gong to be that much harder for them. For me, the difficulty is past where it would be fun. My point is that I had to work much, much harder than most for my one VG kill. An easier version might result in me putting in the same amount of effort someone else did on the current version.

Sykper.6583:

ekarat.1085:

An easier mode would be fun. Do I demand it? No. But I would enjoy it if it were made. I would probably not be posting this now if I didn’t keep seeing so many excuses on why people claim an easier mode would be a bad idea.

You might enjoy it but it would be at the expense of raiders right now who have their content delayed.

My expectation is that we won’t get another raid until the expansion, so I don’t see this costing the raiders much, if anything at all.

[snipping out details about WoW]

Sykper.6583:

If Blizzard, the supposed ‘creators of raid content’ can’t find a way to not neglect the quality and quantity of their raid content by catering to a ‘Easy-Mode/Hard-Mode’ mentality, what makes you think anyone can?!

I don’t play WoW, but I trust Anet more than I trust Blizzard. Plus, GW2 is not as focused on raids to the degree that Blizzard is, so it’s a different story altogether. Finally, I’ve seen people reasonably argue that Easy-Mode wasn’t a disaster in Wrath of the Lich King. So, I don’t buy that argument that Anet can’t do it — I will only believe it when Anet tells me that they can’t do it.

Sykper.6583:

ekarat.1085:

Once again, the only valid reason I’ve seen that an easy mode would be bad is the issue of whether or not you get access to the same rewards (but in lower quantities). If so, then people who did the original mode would get angry. If not, then the people who want an easy mode would get angry. This is a fundamental no-win problem.

Rewards are one thing, wasting the dev’s time, diminishing the quality of the raiding, there are a LOT of bad things that happen when Raiding starts becoming ‘easier’ because people don’t want to put the effort in.

Well, I’ve been arguing that it isn’t necessarily that much effort (but only Anet can tell me for sure). I’ve argued that it won’t notably delay the next raid (if it’s coming with the expansion). I don’t see how it would diminish the quality of raiding — other than time spent, and I’ve argued against that.

Finally, I do want to put effort in. Look at what it took to beat VG once. That doesn’t mean that I can now beat VG reliably. It means I had a good and lucky run after many, many tries more than it took most other people. At this rate, it will take about 6 more years for me to beat the rest of the raid — that’s not reasonable. ‘Not skilled’ is not the same as ‘lazy!’

Ultimately, I started speaking up about this on the forums, not because I demand this, but because people kept saying that nobody wants an easier difficulty and it would take an unreasonable amount of effort. I am here to say that people (and more than one or two) would want this.

Absurdo.8309:

Can you imagine if you replaced “raids” with “wvw” or “pvp”? I’m sure only a fraction of players play this content too, and it’s just as “accessible” as raids.

…“as accessible as raids”? Surely you’re joking. If you’ve said “spvp tournaments” i might agree, but pvp in general? WvW?
…did you even try to play one of those modes?

In my opinion, all the easy mode requires is to decrease the mobs dps, or rather the whole damage dealed to players. It can be realized by adding a boon with N% damage taken reduction. Simple NPC or something similar to chalange mote can give it to the group inside the instance.

The mechanics and timers should stay the same, so newbies could learn the raid as it trully is in normal mode.

Ofcourse easy mode := weak rewards.

Astralporing.1957:

Absurdo.8309:

Can you imagine if you replaced “raids” with “wvw” or “pvp”? I’m sure only a fraction of players play this content too, and it’s just as “accessible” as raids.

…“as accessible as raids”? Surely you’re joking. If you’ve said “spvp tournaments” i might agree, but pvp in general? WvW?
…did you even try to play one of those modes?

What is stopping you or any other player from raiding?

I’m honestly not really sure what players mean when they say accessible. Does it mean easy? Does it mean in-game experience? Does it mean quickly mastered?

I’m not sure what definition you’re using, or what other players are using. And I don’t really want to quibble over the relative accessibility across all content. But wvw and pvp have their barriers too. Not all players can compete in high ranked play. Not all players can consistently win matches. And not all players can participate in organized wvw play.

The main point is that it’s ok to have a variety of content in the game. Some people like raiding. Some people like pvp. Some people like living world. This diversity is healthy. Contending that anet should scrap content, just because you don’t like it, is not.

I think the vast majority of people’s saltiness in here stems from at least one of the following:

• Spending little to no time actually looking in forums, reddit, lfg, map chat, or asking folks on their friends list for training opportunities.
• Too lazy to look at videos to learn mechanics from the perspective of the class(es) they play. Alternatively, reading guides for the basics and following them up with YouTube videos (and there are dozens!).
• Having no desire to properly gear their characters rather than use whatever drops they get from pve or WvW. Similarly thinking their WvW gear is suitable. —I bet everyone already has the laurels or guild tokens to get ascended trinkets and not like you need ascended armour due to the measly 2% boost to main stat. You will have farmed enough by now to make an ascended weapon or two (or the gold to get them).
• Having little to no desire to actually improve on their gameplay (want to just spam buttons and get things for free). Similarly, not willing to listen to advice or ask questions about their build if they feel they are not doing well in a group.
• Putting themselves down for some reason or another and thinking they are not good enough. I have a friend that does this, says his reaction times are too bad for it yet all the people I raid with have a 250+ms ping and we clear things regularly.
• Generally hate pve and anything in it.

I am currently talking to folks in my WvW guild that are wanting to try raiding again. I have given them basic gear requirements and shown them the training golem. Already, they are amazed how much better they do in dungeons and are going through every path in all of them to learn how things work so they can come to raid, where I will spend whatever time they need to get through it. This willingness to learn and get better at the game is all you need to do the raid content today. It is all people really ask of you in a training raid.

We even did a progressive raid once with a new player but we never kicked him because he listened to advice, changed his food and build, and continued to improve so fast we could no longer tell he was new.

With the right attitude, anything is possible. So flip the frown upside down, filter your tears into energizing water, and get out there and skill up and have fun!

Absurdo.8309:

This diversity is healthy. Contending that anet should scrap content, just because you don’t like it, is not.

Not sure anyone (or at least not many) are advocating scrapping anything if it can be helped. If anything, people are looking to expand on that diversity of content – because, just as you say, it is healthy for the game.

What isn’t healthy for the game is the divisive nature of raiding in its current form. You don’t have to look past this thread to see a great example of it – and it is having a negative impact on the game. yes, some did exist with dungeons and fractals, but, tbh, not a lot. Raids, in their current format, brought it to the game. Were just looking for a way to fix this without the need to scrap anything.

And, I realize you probably don’t see it. That goes back to the idea of different perspectives and approaches to the game – which we’ve touched on in multiple posts..

I just want the openness and community focus we saw at launch and for the first few years back in the game – and I think they can do that without taking anything away from anyone.

ekarat.1085:

My point is that the difficulty adjustment could be as simple as adjusting the numbers. I don’t want them to remove the mechanics. I want them to reduce the penalties for failure, so as to allow for more mistakes. I don’t want them to do more than adjust numbers.

I’ll, for the sake of this discourse here, will attest to something that specifically has numbers being adjusted. We can start from this standpoint.

ekarat.1085:

I enjoyed the raid at first. However, at some point, I knew the mechanics but still kept failing. I might have gotten satisfaction if the kill had come much, much sooner. At that point, I just felt dead. Burnout does that to people.

I can get that, and I hope it doesn’t discourage you from the long-term. VG in retrospect is a painful boss for newcomers to work with, due to its mechanics being either really easy to deal with, or really difficult due to all the RNG.

ekarat.1085:

To be fair, it is more work than just adjusting the difficulty. There’s the interface, and then there’s testing (which is honestly what I would expect most of the work to be). So, there would be work to be done — I’m not denying that. However, it isn’t necessarily prohibitively much work — probably on par with a fractal revamp. If Anet says it’s too much work, I’ll trust them on that, but until then, I’m not willing to just assume that it is.

That’s a position I can agree with as well. I was combative with my arguments mainly due to no one else on the side you are taking was actually considering the possibility that the work to make this ‘easy-mode’, in a Guild Wars 2 fashion, could potentially be very debilitating to develop. No one has said that Arenanet can consider the possibility of this Easy-mode, but that they MUST do it for the sake of some raiding future that current raiders already are seeing, and bringing their friends along with.

If I had to go with your interface idea, plus strictly numbers, I would take a sort of ‘fractal’ level approach where the default option is the normal difficulty, but you can set a tick for 80% of the difficulty, 60%, 40%, and 20%…numbers correspond of course. There would likely be a warning in red stating “Warning: Reducing the Difficulty disallows you from receiving the weekly lockout loot from the fierce foes within! This mode is for inexperienced groups/story groups only!”

Deny the legendary armor progression, deny any of the potential drops, and especially deny being able to purchase boss specific loot, just offer a really decreased amount of Magnetite Shards. There’s a lovely vendor outside the raid that allows you to trade in for normal Ascended gear. Perfect.

ekarat.1085:

You’re assuming that the only thing people want from raids is the rewards. That makes sense from a mindset that games are content set to challenge you and reward you for the hard work you put in. But other people are interested in the content for its own sake, and not just the rewards.

If I only cared about rewards, the most efficient thing would be to play the TP for money and buy everything. I want to be clear, I can and do sometimes play the TP for money, and I’m good enough at it to have that be the best value for my time. However, I don’t play this game for the TP. I want to play content. It’s just that the money I get from playing content is far less than I could get via the TP for that same amount of effort. So, yes, I do play content for reasons other than rewards.

(Just to head off the inevitable response, I do care about rewards. I am saying that I don’t care only about rewards.)

The original complaints against raids were actually due to the exclusive rewards. Then they twisted the legitimate complaints of ‘We are missing the lore!’ when in reality none of them have even posted in the Lore forum, or have ever posted about Lore prior on the forums.

Unfortunately, there are quite a few players who just want loot. And they feel threatened at the prospect of having to put forth the effort to do so. The lore folks who wanted to see things, Raiders in the first week the 3rd wing came out took their own time to post in LFG for hours with a cleared instance for the lorehounds, and I saw those groups fill. I think the lore folks have a good reason, but some of them have compromised and found their own way to getting what they want rather than demand things be done.

ekarat.1085:

Yes, it’s called burnout. If you assume that some people are not going to be as skilled, even with practice and hard work, then raids are gong to be that much harder for them. For me, the difficulty is past where it would be fun. My point is that I had to work much, much harder than most for my one VG kill. An easier version might result in me putting in the same amount of effort someone else did on the current version.

Again, I can understand that perspective. And as long as you understand what you said above about the work being potentially too much for Arenanet to pull off, we can agree things may or may not change. I simply don’t want them to delay raids for a investment into ‘easy-mode’ raiding that those wanting it, won’t play more than once.

ekarat.1085:

My expectation is that we won’t get another raid until the expansion, so I don’t see this costing the raiders much, if anything at all.

Just because there’s a lot of time for the next expansion, it doesn’t mean the 6-man raid team isn’t busy trying to one-up their first raid.

ekarat.1085:

I don’t play WoW, but I trust Anet more than I trust Blizzard. Plus, GW2 is not as focused on raids to the degree that Blizzard is, so it’s a different story altogether. Finally, I’ve seen people reasonably argue that Easy-Mode wasn’t a disaster in Wrath of the Lich King. So, I don’t buy that argument that Anet can’t do it — I will only believe it when Anet tells me that they can’t do it.

I can spend hours explaining every single major patch from Vanilla to WotLK, explaining the implications of major raiding changes, how it correlates to the chart and why subs may or may not have changed. I think however that avenue is dead, and your major point about trusting Arenanet more than Blizzard is something both of us agree with.

ekarat.1085:

Well, I’ve been arguing that it isn’t necessarily that much effort (but only Anet can tell me for sure). I’ve argued that it won’t notably delay the next raid (if it’s coming with the expansion). I don’t see how it would diminish the quality of raiding — other than time spent, and I’ve argued against that.

Finally, I do want to put effort in. Look at what it took to beat VG once. That doesn’t mean that I can now beat VG reliably. It means I had a good and lucky run after many, many tries more than it took most other people. At this rate, it will take about 6 more years for me to beat the rest of the raid — that’s not reasonable. ‘Not skilled’ is not the same as ‘lazy!’

Ultimately, I started speaking up about this on the forums, not because I demand this, but because people kept saying that nobody wants an easier difficulty and it would take an unreasonable amount of effort. I am here to say that people (and more than one or two) would want this.

I am certain people would want this, I am certain that this ‘easy-mode’ would definitely for a time get people playing raids. My biggest concern is that, they will go down the ‘Adventures’ route. You do them once for a decent silver or maybe gold if you need it, and never go back.

A really solid part of what makes Raids so good right now is that the reward structure is tightly tuned to the normal difficulty. Bosses can drop their personal loot, you get a cap on currency that will allow you to eventually buy your own rewards from bosses you have killed, and even on failures you still get currency!

Let’s think about a system you have suggested, an interface to change the difficulty of the raid. I imagined it would have different scales going downward, or maybe just one scale, it doesn’t matter. Firstly, you agreed that the loot needs to be at a much lesser scale. I believe we all assumed that a reduced shard rate would be perfect, but even if we scale the shards to the percentages I listed above, there’s an issue. What would the cap be?

If we have the cap match the full shard cap, we kill off normal raiding. This is because both easy-mode raiders and the hard-core raiders would have zero incentive to farm normal-mode for shards once they killed the bosses that week, or just once for the easy folks. Easy-mode raiding would be the Silverwastes of raids, someone else would open up a new easy instance and people would ferry in.

So the cap on shards in this easy mode would have to be pretty bad, like 30 that week. 30 of the 150 shards you can earn in Easy Mode. With 30 shards a week, that’s 5 weeks for a 1H Ascended Weapon of your choice. Would that be incentive enough for anyone to redo easy-raids over and over again? Content that even at 20% difficulty might still take too more coordination (Gorseval Updrafts too much apparently).

I don’t know, my gut tells me that people will just go farm gold and make their own weapons in a week rather than spend time in raids.

Blaeys.3102:

Absurdo.8309:

This diversity is healthy. Contending that anet should scrap content, just because you don’t like it, is not.

Not sure anyone (or at least not many) are advocating scrapping anything if it can be helped. If anything, people are looking to expand on that diversity of content – because, just as you say, it is healthy for the game.

What isn’t healthy for the game is the divisive nature of raiding in its current form. You don’t have to look past this thread to see a great example of it – and it is having a negative impact on the game. yes, some did exist with dungeons and fractals, but, tbh, not a lot. Raids, in their current format, brought it to the game. Were just looking for a way to fix this without the need to scrap anything.

And, I realize you probably don’t see it. That goes back to the idea of different perspectives and approaches to the game – which we’ve touched on in multiple posts..

I just want the openness and community focus we saw at launch and for the first few years back in the game – and I think they can do that without taking anything away from anyone.

Apologies for being a bit combative here, but you said you would have ANET stop making raids if they continued in the current form.

Blaeys.3102:

If this is the planned path for future raids, I, personally, would rather they abandoned them altogether. That said, however, I would prefer that they look to solve this issue instead – and offer raids in a way that doesn’t create those barriers.

That statement itself is divisive. People enjoy raids in their current form.

You call raids divisive. I really don’t see it. Is arah divisive because some people can’t beat it? Aetherpath? Just because people disagree on the value of easy mode raids doesn’t mean raids are bad or divisive. What makes them divisive?

This is a trick question: Would you still be upset at raids if they released them all with the launch of HOT?

If no, then your real problem is the content drought.
If yes, then you’re upset that ANET commits resources to some content you don’t enjoy. But, again, diversity of content is a good thing.

Absurdo.8309:

Apologies for being a bit combative here, but you said you would have ANET stop making raids if they continued in the current form.

Because in their current form, they are divisive. I don’t want to see them go away – but I also don’t want to see them continue down the path they are on now either.

Just look at the recent complaints about the content drought – in the forums, on reddit, on news sites. A lot of players don’t even consider or mention raids when they are making those comments, because raids do not fit with the general theme and feel of the PVE game we have grown used to.

It is like they are a side game developed for a new audience – which is what I actually believe Anet originally intended. IMO, raids were developed to fill a marketing niche – to try and entice a new category of player to the game.

The problem is, imo, they did that at the expense of the base game – both in terms of development resources (however small) and the walls they put in the community. Raids created divisions in the game that never existed before. Yes, there were a few elitists that tried to pretend that Arah was somehow exclusive, but that was never really the case. As long as they stayed away from enrage timers in that kind of content, it was always doable with pretty much any build/playstyle in the game (and that was a good thing).

They consciously tried to make raids something apart from the rest of the PVE experience – and, among a decent sized population (I believe), that has not been well received.

STIHL.2489:

the AMA made it clear they have moved on to doing something else. They have also made it clear that there is no raid development in the works, and that the only time a new raid might come out is with the next expansion.

Just curious, but what’s the context to this? The Envoy Armor II collection says to me that they’re probably not quite done making raids yet.

STIHL.2489:

Aesa.4819:

STIHL.2489:

Blaeys.3102:

If this is the planned path for future raids, I, personally, would rather they abandoned them altogether. That said, however, I would prefer that they look to solve this issue instead – and offer raids in a way that doesn’t create those barriers.

The raid team has moved on to other things. Personally, I would rather Anet just go back to focusing on re-building a solid lateral end game then mess with raids any further.

Yes they moved on to making new raids, which is awesome considering the quality of the content and that so many people enjoy it

I love your hopeful optimism, but the AMA made it clear they have moved on to doing something else. They have also made it clear that there is no raid development in the works, and that the only time a new raid might come out is with the next expansion.

So at least you will have that to look forward to buying.

For now, Raids are done.

Time to Move On.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/a-raiding-retrospective/
“So keep on theorycrafting. Our next destination may surprise you.”
“As we move forward with raiding…”
“And while this is not the end, we all realize that this was at least the end of the beginning.”
They are hardly done with raids.. Not to say they will release another one next week, but they say they are continuing working on them

it would not chock me, in fact i would be rather happy if they made a single wing or what not for the final part of the collection. Maybe a 4 boss wing, with all the remaining pieces.

it would make sense. as well as offer even more chances at shards and insights etc.

one can hope i suppose.

Blaeys.3102:

Absurdo.8309:

Apologies for being a bit combative here, but you said you would have ANET stop making raids if they continued in the current form.

Because in their current form, they are divisive. I don’t want to see them go away – but I also don’t want to see them continue down the path they are on now either.

Just look at the recent complaints about the content drought – in the forums, on reddit, on news sites. A lot of players don’t even consider or mention raids when they are making those comments, because raids do not fit with the general theme and feel of the PVE game we have grown used to.

It is like they are a side game developed for a new audience – which is what I actually believe Anet originally intended. IMO, raids were developed to fill a marketing niche – to try and entice a new category of player to the game.

The problem is, imo, they did that at the expense of the base game – both in terms of development resources (however small) and the walls they put in the community. Raids created divisions in the game that never existed before. Yes, there were a few elitists that tried to pretend that Arah was somehow exclusive, but that was never really the case. As long as they stayed away from enrage timers in that kind of content, it was always doable with pretty much any build/playstyle in the game (and that was a good thing).

They consciously tried to make raids something apart from the rest of the PVE experience – and, among a decent sized population (I believe), that has not been well received.

I have made more connections with people and got to know more players with a still increasing friendlist, than I ever did with fractals/dungeons/open world/LS. Simply because the old content did not require me to interact in a meaningfull manner with the game or the players. Raids are not building walls between people, they are breaking down walls for me and many others. I was hardly interested in the people I pugged fractals and dungeons with, I got kicked out of more groups and saw more people kicked out more fractals than I ever saw with raiding.

Ultimately I do not want to go back to the harsh content that is dungeons and fractals which I often times got kicked out of for no reason at all, or worse even didn’t allow me to join since I did not meet the 5k AP requirement. I do not want to go back to having full zergs of people yell at me for killing a champion in queensdale and orr. Often would I get yelled at for conducting different than these 100 people pressing 1 at a champ. I do not want to go back to players mindlessly rushing content for 1/2 weeks only to leave the new maps in the dust when the the next update happens. This type of content builds so many walls the chinese are probably still impressed with the total length of it.

Putting these 6 devs at LS3 is not gonna turn it in good content. Simply because it is easy, repetitive and temporary in nature. However if you have fun looting AB, SW chests and all that stuff, I do not demand it to be changed and turned in different content.

These 6 devs were even working on LS in the past ( correct me if I’m wrong), it still was not a replayable and engaging experience. LS is the culprit, it is temporary in nature and we got a small expansion because of all the devs working on it. Look at all this content that has been received exceptionally well for the resources spend.

- SAB ( 1 devs initiative )
- Shatterer ( very little resources spend )
- SW jumping puzzle ( again a few devs)
- Raids ( 6 man team )

Putting these 6 people on LS forever is a bad idea because of diminishing returns and because LS is a flawed format for new content. Raids are probably more rewarding content for arenanet than LS3 will ever be. Now maybe they fix these issues with LS3 ( which would be outstanding dev work), I have good hopes since I sincerely believe these devs working on LS are just as competent as the raid team.

We literally made a raid squad in my small dutch guild yesterday on the fly, got some friends/pugs some of mind you were first timers, and 5 minutes later we were clearing wing 1 with vg and gorseval killed at 2 attempts ( so difficult, so much organisation). We are not exceptional players at all nor have we raided much together. Non of these issues and walls you guys describe were present. How is it quite some friends of mine with only 20 LI’s have no problems getting into raids? How is it quite some casuals only raid and are still succesfull?I really doubt how many critics actually tried to raid.

To me it seems an awfull lot like a lot of players want a share in the raid experience (for good reason), but do not really understand what this experience is about. Making an easy mode raid will turn them in what we have with fractals/dungeons/open world. LS3 is comming up and we won’t have a new raid for a long time, have some patience arenanet is changing and you won’t see results immediately.

The truth is that raid “lore” that some of you really want to experience is just another tease towards next Living Story, which mostly comes from the notes lying on the ground rather than the actual boss encounters. If you are into it, I strongly reccomend you to watch a raid lore youtube video from woodenpotatoes or deroir. And easy mode for raid doesn’t make any sense to me, because it wouldn’t be raid anymore. EVEN if they created it without any rewards, how many people would run it? Maybe once on the release week and that’s all. That’s the real waste of the content and development resources.

Of course raids are a divisive force in the game.

• Just days ago in these forums, you had someone belittling another player – saying he was in a “bad guild” because that guild didn’t raid – people are looking down on non raiders. I myself have been attacked through whispers multiple times in game for daring to disagree about the direction of raiding on the forums. People continually try to blow off any criticism whatsoever as “entitlement” or “whining.” In another thread just today, you see someone calling another group “pups” in an obvious sneer because they mentioned having a hard time on VG. The hate is real and it is at a level not seen before raids.

• The recent Apathy article on MMORPG talks about nothing to do in the game. Likewise, a lot of people talk about the content drought as if raids never happened. They don’t consider them part of GW2 – for good reason. They do not fit with the rest of the game at all.

• People keep bringing up these teacher guild or run scenarios, but if you look at the lfg over any real period of time, it is obvious that, if they do exist, they are very very rare. It is a red herring to avoid talking about the real issue – raids have divided the community. If anything, looking at lfg only proves the ultra exclusive club that raiding is becoming.

• The gap between raiders and non raiders will only widen as things like legendary armor and new raids make their way into the game. While this seems benign, it isn’t. A cohesive PVE community is critical in a game where new content is often dependent on numbers and people actually getting along in the open world.

• People are starved for substantial new content – and, even as a small team, raids detract from that. As an example, lot of people have been asking for a summer festival – a return to the queen’s gauntlet. The small raid team could have probably retrofit that event and given it to us this year – something small that would have appealed to a much larger group.

• I’m not even convinced that this is sinking in with Anet – or that they are even seeing it. I worry they rely a little too much on their forum player liasons and miss out on some important information. Even worse, I worry that it is falling on deaf ears – that they are so tied up in marketing the term “player tears” in a blind attempt to bring a new type of player to the game that they fail to see the true impact raids are having on the game.

As bad as it sounds, I do hope that we have seen the last of raids in 2016. If they are going to continue with this kind of content, they need to re-center and come up with a better way – one that fits with the game as a whole and is more inclusive of the community as a whole.

Blaeys.3102:

Of course raids are a divisive force in the game.

As bad as it sounds, I do hope that we have seen the last of raids in 2016. If they are going to continue with this kind of content, they need to re-center and come up with a better way – one that fits with the game as a whole and is more inclusive of the community as a whole.

I really hope we see more raids in the current state.
They already have seen how would easier raids with worse rewards would have been ( the current rewards are already miles below something like SW or AB rewards ).
Just look how many people would do high level fractals before the daily rework, people would do swamp only, good luck finding a group if you wanted to do something like Thaumanova or Cliffside high level.
Now look how dungeons were when they nerfed the rewards at HoT release ( before the little buff ), you would sit all day to do something like Honor of New Waves any path and would not find a single group (even now with a little better reward is hard to find a group for these ) , nobody wants to do boring and unrewarding content, and easier raids would be it.

Blaeys.3102:

Of course raids are a divisive force in the game.

• Just days ago in these forums, you had someone belittling another player – saying he was in a “bad guild” because that guild didn’t raid – people are looking down on non raiders. I myself have been attacked through whispers multiple times in game for daring to disagree about the direction of raiding on the forums. In another thread just today, you see someone calling another group “pups” in an obvious sneer because they mentioned having a hard time on VG. The hate is real and it is at a level not seen before raids.

• The recent Apathy article on MMORPG talks about nothing to do in the game. Likewise, a lot of people talk about the content drought as if raids never happened. They don’t consider them part of GW2 – for good reason. They do not fit with the rest of the game at all.

• People keep bringing up these teacher guild or run scenarios, but if you look at the lfg over any real period of time, it is obvious that, if they do exist, they are very very rare. It is a red herring to avoid talking about the real issue – raids have divided the community. If anything, looking at lfg only proves the ultra exclusive club that raiding is becoming.

• The gap between raiders and non raiders will only widen as things like legendary armor and new raids make their way into the game. While this seems benign, it isn’t. A cohesive PVE community is critical in a game where new content is often dependent on numbers and people actually getting along in the open world.

• People are starved for substantial new content – and, even as a small team, raids detract from that. As an example, lot of people have been asking for a summer festival – a return to the queen’s gauntlet. The small raid team could have probably retrofit that event and given it to us this year – something small that would have appealed to a much larger group.

• I’m not even convinced that this is sinking in with Anet – or that they are even seeing it. I worry they rely a little too much on their forum player liasons and miss out on some important information. Even worse, I worry that it is falling on deaf ears – that they are so tied up in marketing the term “player tears” in a blind attempt to bring a new type of player to the game that they fail to see the true impact raids are having on the game.

As bad as it sounds, I do hope that we have seen the last of raids in 2016. If they are going to continue with this kind of content, they need to re-center and come up with a better way – one that fits with the game as a whole and is more inclusive of the community as a whole.

I’ve tried several times to distill this discussion to first principles. We’ve had proxy arguments over lore, difficulty, and accessibility. It’s clear what your true motivation is:

You want ANET to stop making raids because you don’t like them.

It’s ok to not like everything in this game. But most players don’t demand that anet focus exclusively on their desired content.

To address your specific points:

1 – I’m the one who called that players guild “bad.” I’m not sure how calling a guild bad belittles the player. Regardless, my comment was in a discussion where a player complained that he wasn’t able to get in to raids because no one in his 1000 person general purpose guild wanted to play with him. Here’s the original quote:

And if your 1000 person guild can’t raid, well, that’s a pretty bad guild. I’m sure some people in a big guild raid. Get them together and hop in.

I later clarified that the guild was bad because it failed to connect interested raiders. The guild isn’t bad because it doesn’t raid but because it doesn’t organize interested players into a raid group.

Regarding your other “sneers,” I’m not sure how “pups” really counts — that at worst denotes an inexperienced player. And that poster complained that he spent 100s of hours on VG. But he didn’t ask what he was doing wrong.

I can’t speak to the whispers, but if they attack you that’s obviously wrong. Not to victim blame, but you’re the one calling for the destruction of content a lot of players enjoy.

2 – I’m not sure what you’re using as your baseline of “fits into the game.” Pvp and wvw don’t really fit in with other content. Super adventure box doesn’t either.

3 – Almost any big guild that raids has a teacher run. There was a reddit post a while back with dozens of guilds willing to teach newer players.

I’m still amazed that people are willing to pug teacher runs — there’s very little incentive to do so. But some do, and good on them. But there’s nothing stopping anyone from learning these fights. Heck, the people who want to see what the bosses are like can hop in.

3 – Not really sure what point you’re trying to make here. Almost all content has some sort of exclusive reward. And raids require much more cohesion than open world. Open world rarely requires any community interaction, just a lot of players.

4 – ANET has stated several times that the raid team does not slow down other development.

This comment seems more in line with “ANET can only develop things I like.”

5 – Not sure what this means either. I mean, anet can’t do everything people want on the forums, as many ideas are contradicting. And several, like easy mode raids, are shortsighted.

We’ve discussed lore, story, easy modes, and accessibility. I’ve tried to give you the benefit of the doubt throughout those conversations. But you really lost me here. I would never recommend the destruction of content that people enjoy.

Absurdo.8309:

I’m the one who called that players guild “bad.” I’m not sure how calling a guild bad belittles the player. Regardless, my comment was in a discussion where a player complained that he wasn’t able to get in to raids because no one in his 1000 person general purpose guild wanted to play with him. Here’s the original quote:

And if your 1000 person guild can’t raid, well, that’s a pretty bad guild. I’m sure some people in a big guild raid. Get them together and hop in.

I later clarified that the guild was bad because it failed to connect interested raiders. The guild isn’t bad because it doesn’t raid but because it doesn’t organize interested players into a raid group.

The fact that the conversation even took place – that an obviously successful guild (from a social perspective) is immediately labeled as “bad” because they cannot (or chose not to) raid is indicative of the attitude shift in the game – away from a community focus where people are actively encouraged to get along – to one where insults and silo-ing are the norm.

To the other point, my motivation most definitely is not to kill raiding in GW2. It is to remind the community and the developers of what is truly important in the game and hopefully push developmental efforts back toward the social and friendly philosophy that made the game great and fun in the first few years. And, I do believe raids (just not in their current form) can be a part of that.

Blaeys.3102:

The fact that the conversation even took place – that an obviously successful guild (from a social perspective) is immediately labeled as “bad” because they cannot (or chose not to) raid is indicative of the attitude shift in the game – away from a community focus where people are actively encouraged to get along – to one where insults and silo-ing are the norm.

Being unable to organize a raid of 10 in a guild of 1000 members is, frankly, utterly bizarre. How in the world are they ‘obviously successful from a social perspective’ if they can’t even get a group together which is 1% of the guild’s total size?

Sarrs.4831:

Blaeys.3102:

The fact that the conversation even took place – that an obviously successful guild (from a social perspective) is immediately labeled as “bad” because they cannot (or chose not to) raid is indicative of the attitude shift in the game – away from a community focus where people are actively encouraged to get along – to one where insults and silo-ing are the norm.

Being unable to organize a raid of 10 in a guild of 1000 members is, frankly, utterly bizarre. How in the world are they ‘obviously successful from a social perspective’ if they can’t even get a group together which is 1% of the guild’s total size?

I don’t know the details. I was mainly commenting about the attitude shift and divisiveness that make that kind of insult suddenly acceptable. This isn’t the same game many of us bought into and supported for the first three years.

If I had to guess, I would say they could get a group, just not one that made real progress in the raid.

Sarrs.4831:

Being unable to organize a raid of 10 in a guild of 1000 members is, frankly, utterly bizarre. How in the world are they ‘obviously successful from a social perspective’ if they can’t even get a group together which is 1% of the guild’s total size?

Perhaps, just perhaps, the number of people interested in raids was lower than those 1%? Which in no way tells us anything about how succesful the guild is, by the way. But might say something about how popular Raids are.

Astralporing.1957:

Sarrs.4831:

Being unable to organize a raid of 10 in a guild of 1000 members is, frankly, utterly bizarre. How in the world are they ‘obviously successful from a social perspective’ if they can’t even get a group together which is 1% of the guild’s total size?

Perhaps, just perhaps, the number of people interested in raids was lower than those 1%? Which in no way tells us anything about how succesful the guild is, by the way. But might say something about how popular Raids are.

Actually, the poster confirmed that they had a raid group for guild veterans, but that the group was generally full. The poster did not indicate whether the guild had training runs or a secondary group. Based on the posters complaints (that he was not able to get into raids) probably not.

Don’t really want to sound too negative here, but the arguments I’ve been hearing lately from the other side seem to be based on speculation and misinformation.

Blaeys.3102:

Absurdo.8309:

I’m the one who called that players guild “bad.” I’m not sure how calling a guild bad belittles the player. Regardless, my comment was in a discussion where a player complained that he wasn’t able to get in to raids because no one in his 1000 person general purpose guild wanted to play with him. Here’s the original quote:

And if your 1000 person guild can’t raid, well, that’s a pretty bad guild. I’m sure some people in a big guild raid. Get them together and hop in.

I later clarified that the guild was bad because it failed to connect interested raiders. The guild isn’t bad because it doesn’t raid but because it doesn’t organize interested players into a raid group.

The fact that the conversation even took place – that an obviously successful guild (from a social perspective) is immediately labeled as “bad” because they cannot (or chose not to) raid is indicative of the attitude shift in the game – away from a community focus where people are actively encouraged to get along – to one where insults and silo-ing are the norm.

You’re focusing way too much on the semantics. The use of the word “bad” means nothing, especially since many of the posters here are not native english speakers lol. The bottom line is that if raiding is high on someone’s priority list and they’re in a guild that doesn’t raid, that isn’t a result or an indicator in any way of raids being divisive. The player’s goals simply do not align with those of the guild. My guild doesn’t do things like organized HoT metas, so if that were #1 on my priority list then obviously this guild wouldn’t be a good fit for me. That doesn’t mean the HoT metas are causing rifts between players, it just means that what I want is different from what my guild leadership wants. And while it doesn’t make that guild bad in general, it would certainly make the guild bad for me.

Blaeys.3102:

To the other point, my motivation most definitely is not to kill raiding in GW2. It is to remind the community and the developers of what is truly important in the game and hopefully push developmental efforts back toward the social and friendly philosophy that made the game great and fun in the first few years. And, I do believe raids (just not in their current form) can be a part of that.

Even before raids there were people that were elitist as kitten and had ridiculous requirements for “high level” content. It isn’t like raids came along and suddenly people turned into kittens, those are just the same people who were kittens before with dungeons or fotm or whatever.

Honestly I have found raids to be more “social and friendly” than any other content simply because you have to communicate to do it. When you have to get into voice chat you wind up talking about random crap and make way more friends that way than if you were doing fotm dailies or dungeon runs or world bosses or whatever. You have to make a plan and execute it as a group. If “what’s truly important” is the social aspect then raids for me have been the most successful content in the game; I am in my guild and met most of my friends in the game because I raided with them. I doubt I am alone in that respect.

Astralporing.1957:

Which in no way tells us anything about how succesful the guild is, by the way.

If I were in a guild with 1000 active members which also could not form a 10 man group at a reasonable hour….

Yeah, no, not a guild worth being in. Not successful by any stretch.

I wont be posting any further in this thread – or likely any other on the forums – again.

I have remained very active and tried to keep this topic alive because it is something I feel very strongly about.

Since they first mentioned the word raid, through to the CDI with Chris Whiteside, on to this and similar posts, I have been dead set against the idea of single tier difficulty raids. That is because I’ve seen first hand what that can do to a(n amazing) guild and gaming community.

More than anything, it creates haves and have nots – a hierarchy of PVE players based on their time commitment, level of skill (which is often more a measure of age and lack of disability) and gear philosophy. And, once that hierarchy is put in place, it is used to divide the community – not through the fault of players, just as a natural next step. People begin to look down on non-raiders. They are somehow considered less important – or not real players anymore. Groups gradually pull away from each other into their own little pockets in the game.

This can even happen among the best of friends.

It’s hard not to read that and think its hyperbole or exaggeration, but I – and many others – have seen it happen. It is commonplace in MMOs – at least MMOs other than GW2 (until now).

So, going back before the CDI, I pushed for them to remember one thing – the one thing that brought me to GW2 – inclusion.

Tiered difficulties let hardcore players continue to face challenges, but, at the same time, give them a place to play alongside their less hardcore friends. It gives casual groups a place to feel like they are still a part of the game world – and not feel like they are somehow less important to other players – and just as importantly, to developers. It takes the sting and the stigma out of that divisive hierarchy (something GW2 did with every other divisive element common to MMOs when the game launched).

Ive made these – and other arguments – until I’m red in the face and, finally, until I’m just ready to give up. I don’t want to deal with the constant forum negativity anymore – and it is clearly evident from the lack of any kind of real dialogue, that the developers are dead set on the very path Ive been railing against for close to a year now.

And then today, I see them (anet) basically tell someone – a player obviously interested in raiding – that thier efforts just aren’t good enough to be considered raiding (not in those words, but that was the clear message). The developers themselves are making the same divisive assumptions and comments I was worried would become part of the player culture. That makes it clear where they stand on this.

Anet doesn’t want to do away with the ability to include terms like “player tears” and “hardcore content” in their marketing – even though tiered difficulties wouldn’t remove those things – it would just defang the inclusion issues I mention above.

I still hope that they do not continue down this path, but the fight has been squeezed out of me. I’m just gonna back to playing the game (at least for now) and see what happens next. Maybe I’ll be surprised, but this clear shift in their mindset makes me doubt it.

So I’m done – you don’t have to worry about me posting 4 times a day or trying to push this agenda any more.

I just hope they understand the toll this shift has taken on players like me and the guilds we lead/represent (a toll that I understand many other players cannot relate to) .

I still love this game, but it is taking a path I’m just not sure about.

Sarrs.4831:

Astralporing.1957:

Which in no way tells us anything about how succesful the guild is, by the way.

If I were in a guild with 1000 active members which also could not form a 10 man group at a reasonable hour….

Yeah, no, not a guild worth being in. Not successful by any stretch.

Thank you for proving Blaeys’ point for all to see.

The reality is that Raids by their very nature have to be a bit exclusive, only to those who want to put in time, effort, and improve their skill-level. This is actually no different than PvP excluding players who don’t want to fight other players but just NPCs for the rewards, or Fractals excluding immediate high-end rewards for those who won’t put the time and gold into getting infusions.

If same tier rewards came out in other content that are currently exclusive in Raids, I am quite certain the majority of complaints would die down. The issue is that:

- There’s been a massive content drought (These current events don’t quite cut it)
- We still don’t know that Legendary Armor would be made available elsewhere in the future.

I want more Living Story, I want an alternative Legendary Armor set elsewhere outside of Raids. It’s been a real nice promotion to have the first Raid of GW2 have the first ever Legendary Armor set. It’ll wouldn’t hurt anyone if there was a non-raid exclusive Legendary Armor set. I doubt the majority of raiders would hate that prospect given all the other incentive to raid so far.

But as I pointed out before in my previous post, having ‘easier’ difficulty levels is entirely likely to be a waste of the devs time. They should keep focused on delivering single difficulty raiding, or for current raider’s best interests, provide harder challenges a step up from what we have now through use of achievements and additional weekly loot!

Bandit Trio had a nifty concept with an additional chest of loot behind not using environmental weapons to trivialize the encounter. We can use more ‘Ulduar’ style raids that have ‘now’ difficulty baseline, but provide more loot when you do a more difficult version of the encounter!

I am definitely in favor of an easy mode. I don’t see any real need for like four different modes, I think we only need one mode that is easier than the current one, tuned to be competitive with dungeon content, and if the raiders want to demand it, I wouldn’t be opposed to a harder than current mode, but I don’t really see the need myself.

For those that say “the current raids are easy enough,” “just learn the current raids,” etc., it’s fine that you enjoy them, and I hope that they remain enjoyable for you, but you enjoying them means nothing to whether other players would enjoy the same experiences, and if another player tells you that they will never enjoy raids the way that you enjoy raids, but that they would enjoy an easier version of them, then just respect that.

Accept that they have different tastes than you, that what they want is not what you want, and that so long as you get to keep the version you enjoy, it’s ok if they also get the version that they would enjoy just as much. End of story.

For those that say “they shouldn’t make easy mode raids, they should just have equivalent rewards elsewhere,” that would certainly help, that would cut down on the reasons people have for being disgruntled, but it’s not a complete solution. For one thing, the armor would need to be at least visually identical to the existing Experimental armor. The stats aren’t particularly relevant, but if the armor looks different then what’s even the point? It might look better or worse, but there’s no such thing as “equivalent” when it comes to looks.

For the other, there actually are people, myself included, who WANT to play the content of the raids, just in a lower pressure, lower stakes manner, one in which failure is far less likely for a random collection of relatively unskilled players, where they can just enjoy the mechanics without the challenge factor. And I can already hear the keyboards clicking away “oh, that’d be awful, who cares if it’s not challenging?” well it’s not for those people, those people already have their version and this version doesn’t have to offer them anything that matters to them, it’s intended for people that play differently. The views of raiders are entirely irrelevant to whether they would enjoy content or not, and so there’s no real value to raider’s voices in that conversation.

Ohoni.6057:

For one thing, the armor would need to be at least visually identical to the existing Experimental armor. The stats aren’t particularly relevant, but if the armor looks different then what’s even the point? It might look better or worse, but there’s no such thing as “equivalent” when it comes to looks.

Take your own advice about “different tastes” to heart. Stats are very relevant to many people. I for one I am willing to settle for an alternate legendary armor set, as long as it is of comparable quality. Yes, that might mean i’d get something that i like less than the raid version (though that would be hard, if envoy set is any indication) but as long as i could see that the devs put as much work in that set as in the raid one, and that it wasn’t made intentionally ugly, i’d be satisfied that at least devs treat all players equally. And for me that is the most important point of the whole Raid issue.
I just don’t want to feel like a second category citizen. And currently i very much do.

Ohoni.6057:

For the other, there actually are people, myself included, who WANT to play the content of the raids, just in a lower pressure, lower stakes manner, one in which failure is far less likely for a random collection of relatively unskilled players, where they can just enjoy the mechanics without the challenge factor. And I can already hear the keyboards clicking away “oh, that’d be awful, who cares if it’s not challenging?” well it’s not for those people, those people already have their version and this version doesn’t have to offer them anything that matters to them, it’s intended for people that play differently. The views of raiders are entirely irrelevant to whether they would enjoy content or not, and so there’s no real value to raider’s voices in that conversation.

On that point i do agree, although you must also understand that it is a separate problem than the rewards issue.

TL/DR;
Remember, that people taking part in this discussion assign importance to parts of the issue differently. Not everyone thinks the same as you. Raiders’ group seem to keep forgetting this on regular basis, but i can see that you’re sometimes showing signs of it as well.

Take your own advice about “different tastes” to heart. Stats are very relevant to many people. I for one I am willing to settle for an alternate legendary armor set, as long as it is of comparable quality. Yes, that might mean i’d get something that i like less than the raid version (though that would be hard, if envoy set is any indication) but as long as i could see that the devs put as much work in that set as in the raid one, and that it wasn’t made intentionally ugly, i’d be satisfied that at least devs treat all players equally. And for me that is the most important point of the whole Raid issue.
I just don’t want to feel like a second category citizen. And currently i very much do.

Well, if they made a different set, then that might be nice, but that does nothing for players who want the existing set. I mean, the Experimental sets are not all the best, I certainly wouldn’t want to wear full Experimental on any of my characters, but the boots are fantastic on all of them, and the heavy set has a few other solid pieces, so I’d want access to those. A second Legendary set would be a bit of a waste, just have the one.

Remember, that people taking part in this discussion assign importance to parts of the issue differently. Not everyone thinks the same as you. Raiders’ group seem to keep forgetting this on regular basis, but i can see that you’re sometimes showing signs of it as well.

I think that there are multiple concerns being raised, but the easiest way to deal with all of them is with a comprehensive solution. If they only solve one or two of the issues at a time, it would please some of the people, but leave others still waiting for a resolution.

Ohoni.6057:

Well, if they made a different set, then that might be nice, but that does nothing for players who want the existing set.

Sure, just don’t be too dismissive of the people that do care about stats and legendary status instead of just skin.

Sykper.6583:

I can get that, and I hope it doesn’t discourage you from the long-term. VG in retrospect is a painful boss for newcomers to work with, due to its mechanics being either really easy to deal with, or really difficult due to all the RNG.

RNG? The blue teleports and green AoEs happen on a fixed interval. Since I have a hard time seeing them, I learned to just count and know when it was coming. Also, I learned not to start a channelled attack when it was about to pop. Some of the other bosses worry me, with picking a random target. They seem much more RNG to me than VG.

Sykper.6583:

Deny the legendary armor progression, deny any of the potential drops, and especially deny being able to purchase boss specific loot, just offer a really decreased amount of Magnetite Shards. There’s a lovely vendor outside the raid that allows you to trade in for normal Ascended gear. Perfect.

Rewards for a hypothetical easy mode is a thorny issue — possibly a “no win” one. See below.

Sykper.6583:

The original complaints against raids were actually due to the exclusive rewards. Then they twisted the legitimate complaints of ‘We are missing the lore!’ when in reality none of them have even posted in the Lore forum, or have ever posted about Lore prior on the forums.

I got my lore through a combination of entering an already-cleared instance and looking up videos on youtube (woodenpotatoes really likes the raid lore). I cared enough to put in the effort to do that (well, for some of it, I still haven’t done it for wing 3).

Sykper.6583:

I am certain people would want this, I am certain that this ‘easy-mode’ would definitely for a time get people playing raids. My biggest concern is that, they will go down the ‘Adventures’ route. You do them once for a decent silver or maybe gold if you need it, and never go back.

Yes, it depends on how it is structured, and that is the lose-lose conundrum. You’re right in that if it were the way you described, I would probably do it once and never come back — like I did with Honor of the Waves. (Remember, I was careful to clarify that I did care about rewards too.) Striking the balance is hard, if not impossible. See below.

Sykper.6583:

A really solid part of what makes Raids so good right now is that the reward structure is tightly tuned to the normal difficulty. Bosses can drop their personal loot, you get a cap on currency that will allow you to eventually buy your own rewards from bosses you have killed, and even on failures you still get currency!

Let’s think about a system you have suggested, an interface to change the difficulty of the raid. I imagined it would have different scales going downward, or maybe just one scale, it doesn’t matter. Firstly, you agreed that the loot needs to be at a much lesser scale. I believe we all assumed that a reduced shard rate would be perfect, but even if we scale the shards to the percentages I listed above, there’s an issue. What would the cap be?

If we have the cap match the full shard cap, we kill off normal raiding. This is because both easy-mode raiders and the hard-core raiders would have zero incentive to farm normal-mode for shards once they killed the bosses that week, or just once for the easy folks. Easy-mode raiding would be the Silverwastes of raids, someone else would open up a new easy instance and people would ferry in.

So the cap on shards in this easy mode would have to be pretty bad, like 30 that week. 30 of the 150 shards you can earn in Easy Mode. With 30 shards a week, that’s 5 weeks for a 1H Ascended Weapon of your choice. Would that be incentive enough for anyone to redo easy-raids over and over again? Content that even at 20% difficulty might still take too more coordination (Gorseval Updrafts too much apparently).

I don’t know, my gut tells me that people will just go farm gold and make their own weapons in a week rather than spend time in raids.

So, here’s the issue:

From the perspective of current raiders, the exclusive rewards have to be protected to keep their accomplishments meaningful. From the perspective of would-be raiders, locking out of the exclusive rewards would disincentivize doing it more than once. I’m not sure how possible it would be to make both groups happy.

I believe that the majority will do whatever is most efficient. If you allow legendary armor from easy mode, but keep the current mode more efficient, then people will still do the current mode. I’d go so far as to say that if easy mode were as little as 10% less efficient (after taking into account that it can be cleared faster), then people would still do the current mode. Look at speed-runs of dungeons. (I stand by people’s right to have speed runs, as long as the LFG is properly annotated with their requirements. If I don’t like them, I can start (and have started) my own LFG.)

So, I think they really have to make legendary armor possible (but with a longer time-gate) with any hypothetical easier mode. The backlash against this is probably the biggest reason I see for not having it in the first place.

Ultimately, it is up to Anet how much effort it is and whether or not this would delay future raids. They know, and we don’t. You’ve made your voice heard that you don’t want future raids delayed. I want to make my voice heard that I would enjoy an easier mode, since I originally heard people claim that not enough people actually want it.

Players are always looking for the path of least resistance to get their reward. That more or less translates to being the most effective with their playtime as you pointed out.

I think right now we have reached a point where it is up to the devs to figure out if they can balance it, if it’s even a distinct possibility and within their scope. Either an easy-mode is created that works, that doesn’t impact the current raid end-game too much. Or it is so inefficient that no one runs it after the first week since it is worthless. Or it is too effective and the normal difficulty of the raids is cut out, and that side is technically a waste of everyone’s time while everyone mindlessly farms easy-mode like Silverwastes and wonders why we don’t have difficult content anymore.

No.

Raid serve the exact function they are intended for. Challenging group content. They serve a segment of the population that was not being served previously.

There is no reason to create an ’easy" version of raids any more than there is a reason to create a “player versus AI” variant of PvP.

Raiding is a specific type of content, build for a specific audience. If you are not in that audience, then just don’t do it or attempt to learn that content type.

It is a fraction of the content in the game, and, like the PvP update and WvW updates is a long time coming. Anet neglected gameplay that wasn’t open world and story instances for three years. They’re rectifying that problem by giving equitable treatment to the whole community. That means some patches they will serve parts of the community you aren’t in. They’ve now served that part of the community for the duration of HoT. We are moving in to LS3.

It is not ‘wasted content" just because some players don’t want to do it. Unless you spend equal amunts of time in PvP, WvW, fractals, open world, dungeons, and replaying story instances, some part of the game is always going to be ’wasted content" relative to the individual player.

This is not a single player game. It is not designed around individual players. It is designed to serve a massive and diverse community of players.

PopeUrban.2578:

No.

Raid serve the exact function they are intended for. Challenging group content. They serve a segment of the population that was not being served previously.

There is no reason to create an ’easy" version of raids any more than there is a reason to create a “player versus AI” variant of PvP.

Raiding is a specific type of content, build for a specific audience. If you are not in that audience, then just don’t do it or attempt to learn that content type.

It is a fraction of the content in the game, and, like the PvP update and WvW updates is a long time coming. Anet neglected gameplay that wasn’t open world and story instances for three years. They’re rectifying that problem by giving equitable treatment to the whole community. That means some patches they will serve parts of the community you aren’t in. They’ve now served that part of the community for the duration of HoT. We are moving in to LS3.

It is not ‘wasted content" just because some players don’t want to do it. Unless you spend equal amunts of time in PvP, WvW, fractals, open world, dungeons, and replaying story instances, some part of the game is always going to be ’wasted content" relative to the individual player.

This is not a single player game. It is not designed around individual players. It is designed to serve a massive and diverse community of players.

Except that in current iteration as “only PvE endgame” is serves only as game killer.

And what, exactly, would your alternative “endgame” be?

Because they have that already. The “endgame” activities targeted at people who want to do events and open world stuff. Heck they had that before HoT. Its called silverwastes. Then they added four more zones of “endgame” in HoT.

They added even more “endgame” to fractals with the scaling adjustments.
Raids are not the “only PvE endgame” and even if they were, doesn’t that justify their difficulty?

PopeUrban.2578:

And what, exactly, would your alternative “endgame” be?

“The whole game is the endgame”. That was a really good idea. It’s too bad that some people would rather be herded into a narrow content space.

PopeUrban.2578:

Raids are not the “only PvE endgame” and even if they were, doesn’t that justify their difficulty?

They are the “ultimate endgame” (dev term, not mine) currently. And no, it doesn’t justify anything, because two wrongs don’t make a right.

From the perspective of current raiders, the exclusive rewards have to be protected to keep their accomplishments meaningful. From the perspective of would-be raiders, locking out of the exclusive rewards would disincentivize doing it more than once. I’m not sure how possible it would be to make both groups happy.

I will say this, having “raid rewards” is not absolutely mandatory to make an easy-mode worth replaying. The rewards can be more generic than that, so long as they are enough in quantity to justify the time and effort, likely a few gold’s worth per run, with caps. So long as players feel that their time has been well spent, it doesn’t have to be fancy unique stuff.

However, as a separate issue, I definitely want Experimental armor, and likely Envoy armor as well, and I definitely never want to have to do the existing raids to get them.

So it’s two distinct elements, and I’d want both taken care of, and I think that taking care of them at the same time is the easiest way to do that, but it isn’t absolutely necessary that they be part of the same package so long as each is addressed.

As for what current raiders can keep? They can keep achievements, they can keep titles, and if they want to give them other exclusive rewards like hall trophies, bundle trophies, or nametag flairs, then that would be fine too, but the hard line for me is armor skins, I want the skins I want.

Raid serve the exact function they are intended for. Challenging group content. They serve a segment of the population that was not being served previously.

And they can and should continue to do just that. The easy mode raid is a separate thing entirely, for players that are not being served by the existing raids.

There is no reason to create an ’easy" version of raids any more than there is a reason to create a “player versus AI” variant of PvP.

If there is demand for it then they should, but so far I haven’t heard significant demand for it. There are certainly plenty of PvP games like sPvP that include “bot mode” versions, including Overwatch.

Raiding is a specific type of content, build for a specific audience. If you are not in that audience, then just don’t do it or attempt to learn that content type.

Agreed, and by that same token, easy mode raiding is a specific type of content, build for a specific audience. If you are not in that audience, then just don’t do it or attempt to learn that content type.

Raids are not the “only PvE endgame” and even if they were, doesn’t that justify their difficulty?

Some players enjoy difficulty, and to them, “endgame content” must be difficult, but not everyone is like that. To many, especially in GW2, “endgame content” just means “things to do when you’ve done everything else,” something novel and fun that they can do repeatedly until the next new thing comes out. And if that content is difficult to the point that they don’t want to do it, then it fails to serve that function, like an advanced rock climbing wall put in front of beginners who lack the capabilities to get off the ground on it.

You have your difficult endgame content, and that’s fine, you should be able to keep it, but there are other players that would like a version that they can play too, and despite numerous protests from the current raiding community, that will never be the current raids.

Ohoni.6057:

I am definitely in favor of an easy mode. I don’t see any real need for like four different modes, I think we only need one mode that is easier than the current one, tuned to be competitive with dungeon content, and if the raiders want to demand it, I wouldn’t be opposed to a harder than current mode, but I don’t really see the need myself.

For those that say “the current raids are easy enough,” “just learn the current raids,” etc., it’s fine that you enjoy them, and I hope that they remain enjoyable for you, but you enjoying them means nothing to whether other players would enjoy the same experiences, and if another player tells you that they will never enjoy raids the way that you enjoy raids, but that they would enjoy an easier version of them, then just respect that.

Accept that they have different tastes than you, that what they want is not what you want, and that so long as you get to keep the version you enjoy, it’s ok if they also get the version that they would enjoy just as much. End of story.

For those that say “they shouldn’t make easy mode raids, they should just have equivalent rewards elsewhere,” that would certainly help, that would cut down on the reasons people have for being disgruntled, but it’s not a complete solution. For one thing, the armor would need to be at least visually identical to the existing Experimental armor. The stats aren’t particularly relevant, but if the armor looks different then what’s even the point? It might look better or worse, but there’s no such thing as “equivalent” when it comes to looks.

For the other, there actually are people, myself included, who WANT to play the content of the raids, just in a lower pressure, lower stakes manner, one in which failure is far less likely for a random collection of relatively unskilled players, where they can just enjoy the mechanics without the challenge factor. And I can already hear the keyboards clicking away “oh, that’d be awful, who cares if it’s not challenging?” well it’s not for those people, those people already have their version and this version doesn’t have to offer them anything that matters to them, it’s intended for people that play differently. The views of raiders are entirely irrelevant to whether they would enjoy content or not, and so there’s no real value to raider’s voices in that conversation.

If you participate in and clear equivalent content you can have equivalent looks. If you clear dungeon mode raids than you get dungeon mode rewards though. Many skins are not attainable for everybody and it is a good thing. We already have to many characters using the same skins.

I can have from raids whatever arenanet decided to be obtained from raids, which is envoy armor. You can have from different content whatever arenanet decided that particular content would reward, which isn’t envoy armor.

You don’t want to play the content, if you would want it you would be doing it.

DutchRiders.2871:

You don’t want to play the content, if you would want it you would be doing it.

Yeah, that has always been his point actually. He wants the reward, but he doesn’t want the content associated with that reward, so he asks for another way to get said reward.

If you participate in and clear equivalent content you can have equivalent looks. If you clear dungeon mode raids than you get dungeon mode rewards though.

No, I reject that reality and substitute my own. It’s a game, it’s not life. It is meant for everyone to have fun, and it does not create the greatest fun for the greatest number of players to say “see this thing? You want this thing? You can’t have this thing. This is for better players than you.”

Those better players might feel great about that arrangement, but there are less of them, so what they want matters less.

If better players want something that only they can have, then it should be something that nobody would ever want except that it has value for showing off an accomplishment. A trophy or medal is a perfect example of this because if everyone gets a trophy or medal then nobody would care about having it, while armor skins is a perfect example of NOT this, since even if everyone does have a given armor skin, plenty of people would still like it because it’s the armor skin that they like.

Variety in player skins should be about player expression, not about skin availability. If everyone looks the same because they’re wearing the same skins, that only gives you the opportunity to look different than them by wearing one of the dozens of available skin sets that apparently they are not wearing.

I can have from raids whatever arenanet decided to be obtained from raids, which is envoy armor. You can have from different content whatever arenanet decided that particular content would reward, which isn’t envoy armor.

No reason it couldn’t be envoy armor. I’m asking for envoy armor.

You don’t want to play the content, if you would want it you would be doing it.

That’s faulty logic. All it does is set up a lose/lose scenario. It sets up either:
A: I never get the skins that I want, and I’m sad because I never get that skin.

or

B: I have to do a bunch of content that I really do not enjoy, and I’m sad that I am doing a bunch of content that I am not enjoying.

Either way would make me sad, neither way would make me happy, and nobody benefits from me being sad. If you believe that it would make you happy for me to be sad, then that’s. . . sad.

Ohoni.6057:

If you participate in and clear equivalent content you can have equivalent looks. If you clear dungeon mode raids than you get dungeon mode rewards though.

No, I reject that reality and substitute my own. It’s a game, it’s not life. It is meant for everyone to have fun, and it does not create the greatest fun for the greatest number of players to say “see this thing? You want this thing? You can’t have this thing. This is for better players than you.”

Those better players might feel great about that arrangement, but there are less of them, so what they want matters less.

If better players want something that only they can have, then it should be something that nobody would ever want except that it has value for showing off an accomplishment. A trophy or medal is a perfect example of this because if everyone gets a trophy or medal then nobody would care about having it, while armor skins is a perfect example of NOT this, since even if everyone does have a given armor skin, plenty of people would still like it because it’s the armor skin that they like.

Variety in player skins should be about player expression, not about skin availability. If everyone looks the same because they’re wearing the same skins, that only gives you the opportunity to look different than them by wearing one of the dozens of available skin sets that apparently they are not wearing.

I can have from raids whatever arenanet decided to be obtained from raids, which is envoy armor. You can have from different content whatever arenanet decided that particular content would reward, which isn’t envoy armor.

No reason it couldn’t be envoy armor. I’m asking for envoy armor.

You don’t want to play the content, if you would want it you would be doing it.

That’s faulty logic. All it does is set up a lose/lose scenario. It sets up either:
A: I never get the skins that I want, and I’m sad because I never get that skin.

or

B: I have to do a bunch of content that I really do not enjoy, and I’m sad that I am doing a bunch of content that I am not enjoying.

Either way would make me sad, neither way would make me happy, and nobody benefits from me being sad. If you believe that it would make you happy for me to be sad, then that’s. . . sad.

Dammn must be good to have legendary armor from easy mode raids in a dream. You are also handing out legendaries like candies in your dream right? Greatest value for the largest number of dreamers. Personally I like all these kittenmn fused skins, since it has value for me I should get it for free!

Again in your dream we don’t have a trading post I suppose? Every single skin should be unlocked once you create a character I guess? We do not have stuff like RNG, cause we wouldn’t want luck to determine the availability of skins.

In reality, the game is designed around scarce rewards, hence we have a Trading Post/RNG/Grind. Cause guess what, ultimately the game is simply created to provide the largest sums possible to the company.

So the reality is not every single skin is attainable for everyone, and this is a good thing it gives value to skins. The reason I get happy about a precursor drop is the fact that it doesn’t happen alot, and you want to take that value out of the game? I can’t have legendary weapons/armor/back skins because I do not have alot of gold ( as the vast majority of players). You cannot have raid rewards, since you are not capable and able to raid. If everybody gets Legendary for free, it is trash and has zero value. So currently there is more value in legendaries than if we would hand them out to everybody for free.

No my logic sets up for this:

A: You never get the skins that you want and move on. ( That should be you)
B: You do a bunch of content that you do not enjoy, but getting that sweet armor is worth it. (Could be you)
C: You do content that you enjoy and are happy doing it ( Me, even though I do not have the funds to create Legendary armor)

I’m not happy that you’re sad per se, I’m happy that people who do not participate in raids cannot have raid rewards. Now congratz about turning another thread into: I want raid rewards without doing them. I suggest you get back on topic, which is the question whether there should be easy mode raids in the first place.

Dammn must be good to have legendary armor from easy mode raids in a dream. You are also handing out legendaries like candies in your dream right? Greatest value for the largest number of dreamers. Personally I like all these kittenmn fused skins, since it has value for me I should get it for free!

Remember, the point is not to “hand things out,” these are rewards and should be earned, the distinction is to make the path to earning them something that is convenient for the vast majority of players. You can have a “steep but direct” route to them, but you should also have a “shallow but winding” path as well. Someone who is suited to the existing raids might be able to earn Experimental armor through a few months of raiding, while someone who is not suited to the existing raids would be able to take maybe twice as many months to earn them via some other means.

Again in your dream we don’t have a trading post I suppose? Every single skin should be unlocked once you create a character I guess? We do not have stuff like RNG, cause we wouldn’t want luck to determine the availability of skins.

I don’t see where you’re getting any of that from. Things should be available, but you should still have to earn them. All I’m objecting to is having only ways to earn a given item that would reject the majority of players, such as the existing raid modes.

In reality, the game is designed around scarce rewards, hence we have a Trading Post/RNG/Grind. Cause guess what, ultimately the game is simply created to provide the largest sums possible to the company.

But from what I understand, Envoy armor will not be part of the trading post, so there is no financial benefit to them in making them exclusive. They do not make any more money if a hundred people have them or a hundred thousand have them.

The reason I get happy about a precursor drop is the fact that it doesn’t happen alot, and you want to take that value out of the game?

Yes. Your happiness at getting a rare Precursor drop is outweighed by the sadness of the thousands who have never had a precursor drop and would very much like one. Again, greatest happiness for the greatest number.

If everybody gets Legendary for free, it is trash and has zero value.

That would be preferable to only raiders having it, obviously.

No my logic sets up for this:

A: You never get the skins that you want and move on. ( That should be you)
B: You do a bunch of content that you do not enjoy, but getting that sweet armor is worth it. (Could be you)
C: You do content that you enjoy and are happy doing it ( Me, even though I do not have the funds to create Legendary armor)

A. But then I would be sad, because I don’t get that thing that I wanted.
B. no, it could not, because the value of the reward would not overcome the sadness of having to do raids.
C. I plan to, but this has nothing to do with A or B, if option C does not provide a path to Envoy skins then it is just option A.

I’m not happy that you’re sad per se, I’m happy that people who do not participate in raids cannot have raid rewards.

Then you’re happy that I’m sad. You can’t absolve yourself of that. Either you’re happy that I’m sad or you want me to be happy, one or the other.

Now congratz about turning another thread into: I want raid rewards without doing them.

Again, NOT ME. I only brought it up in response to people that insisted that the rewards that come from the current raids can’t possibly also come from an easier version, they are the ones raising the discussion, I’d prefer it not exist at all and it just be assumed that the easy mode raid would provide the same rewards (in decreased quantity).

I suggest you get back on topic, which is the question whether there should be easy mode raids in the first place.

And rewards are an integral part of that discussion. You can’t discuss content without also discussing the rewards for that content, the two go hand in hand.

DutchRiders.2871:

The reason I get happy about a precursor drop is the fact that it doesn’t happen alot, and you want to take that value out of the game?

…you might have missed the fact, that precursor weapons are craftable. For over half a year now. Did the existence of another path to obtain them devalue your experience? Doesn’t seem so, or you wouldn’t have been mentioning them as a good example.
So, where exactly is the problem?

DutchRiders.2871:

I can’t have legendary weapons/armor/back skins because I do not have alot of gold ( as the vast majority of players).

But you can work towards them. It will be slower than for others, that’s true, but it’s as sure and certain. And you don’t even need to play differently than you already do for this.

DutchRiders.2871:

You cannot have raid rewards, since you are not capable and able to raid.

Since you use it to counterpoint the wealth disparity, do you perhaps mistakenly think that majority of the raiders (or even a significant number of them) are poor?

DutchRiders.2871:

If everybody gets Legendary for free, it is trash and has zero value. So currently there is more value in legendaries than if we would hand them out to everybody for free.

Stop strawmanning, okay? So far the only people speaking about legendaries for free are raid defenders. Having another way to obtain them is not equivalent to handing them out for free.

DutchRiders.2871:

I’m not happy that you’re sad per se, I’m happy that people who do not participate in raids cannot have raid rewards.

So you do take joy from unhappines of others. That’s… really sad.

Ohoni.6057:

There is no reason to create an ’easy" version of raids any more than there is a reason to create a “player versus AI” variant of PvP.

If there is demand for it then they should, but so far I haven’t heard significant demand for it. There are certainly plenty of PvP games like sPvP that include “bot mode” versions, including Overwatch.

And you are the reason this topic will be brought up again and again — until people convince you that there is demand for this.

How can someone reasonably claim there isn’t significant demand after all the posts and threads on the topic?

I will respect the arguments of whether or not it is a good idea, what resources it might take, and what the consequences are. However, saying that there isn’t significant demand is just denial.

And you are the reason this topic will be brought up again and again — until people convince you that there is demand for this.

How can someone reasonably claim there isn’t significant demand after all the posts and threads on the topic?

If you’re talking about easy mode raids, then there is totally demand for that, obviously. Only a fool could suggest otherwise. I was responding to Pop Urban’s question as to why there wasn’t “bot mode” sPvP, to which my response was that I was unaware there was any demand for it, and in any case that would be a discussion for the PvP forums, not here.

Argon.1563:

I’d rather a raid that is scaled for single player. Playing content that actually requires players to talk to each other has taught me how disgusting this game’s community really is. The only reason people say this game has a “good community” is because everything below Raids doesn’t require us to converse with each other.

I’m sorry to hear that

I’ve made a ton of friends from raids that I otherwise likely wouldn’t have in the rest of the game’s non-conversing nature.

I don’t see where you’re getting any of that from. Things should be available, but you should still have to earn them. All I’m objecting to is having only ways to earn a given item that would reject the majority of players, such as the existing raid modes.

Earn your raid skills as well, the raids are available and live right now. What you do not see, is that wealth is restricting the majority of players more than raids ever will.

But from what I understand, Envoy armor will not be part of the trading post, so there is no financial benefit to them in making them exclusive. They do not make any more money if a hundred people have them or a hundred thousand have them.

Ofcourse there is value to envoy armor being exclusive, nobody wants to play an MMO without exclusive rewards. Your real issue is that you can’t have the rewards yourself for once. And now suddenly there is need for alternative paths, thats not how it works.

Yes. Your happiness at getting a rare Precursor drop is outweighed by the sadness of the thousands who have never had a precursor drop and would very much like one. Again, greatest happiness for the greatest number.

Obviously you have trouble understanding this, but ten people being happy is greater happiness than everybody not giving anything about yet another green drop.

A. But then I would be sad, because I don’t get that thing that I wanted.
B. no, it could not, because the value of the reward would not overcome the sadness of having to do raids.
C. I plan to, but this has nothing to do with A or B, if option C does not provide a path to Envoy skins then it is just option A.

I can’t help that you get sad over little things. I do not participate in certain content and don’t get the exclusive rewards, yet I’m not sad at all. Hint if the value does not over come the effort, you do not participate.

Then you’re happy that I’m sad. You can’t absolve yourself of that. Either you’re happy that I’m sad or you want me to be happy, one or the other.

You being sad is simply the result of you getting worked up over little things. I do not want anything for you, I could not care less whether you are sad or happy. I do care about exclusive raid rewards remaining exclusive to raids. If I get sad when exclusive rewards get turned into generic rewards, does that mean your happy that I will be sad?

I wouldn’t object to a different sets of legendary armor being available in open world/pvp/wvw. We are never going to agree cause we have fundementally different views. You do not see value in different content providing different skins, I do see value in it.

Astralporing.1957:

..you might have missed the fact, that precursor weapons are craftable. For over half a year now. Did the existence of another path to obtain them devalue your experience? Doesn’t seem so, or you wouldn’t have been mentioning them as a good example.
So, where exactly is the problem?

You mean the crafting system that is more expensive than buying them straight of the trading post, which means there is no real alternative path? I do not see your point. But if you want more difficult content than the current raids that also rewards envoy armor (I rather have a different set), good luck arguing for it, I will help you.

But you can work towards them. It will be slower than for others, that’s true, but it’s as sure and certain. And you don’t even need to play differently than you already do for this.

I do have to play differently for it, I do lose gold over the time of a week or break even. Rerunning raids for fun is still expensive with all those consumables. Could I potentionally make alot of gold if I wanted? Hell yeah, just like you could potentionally learn to raid.

Since you use it to counterpoint the wealth disparity, do you perhaps mistakenly think that majority of the raiders (or even a significant number of them) are poor?

Nope most of them are rich. Doesn’t change the fact that you cannot have raid rewards if you do not raid.

Stop strawmanning, okay? So far the only people speaking about legendaries for free are raid defenders. Having another way to obtain them is not equivalent to handing them out for free.

I thought you guys were all about majorities getting their way?

So you do take joy from unhappines of others. That’s… really sad.

The sad thing is that you reach such a conclusion. I take joy in different content providing unique and to that content exclusive skins, I have no issues with open world providing a different set of legendary armor. I object against open world getting the same set of legendary armor.

DutchRiders.2871:

Astralporing.1957:

..you might have missed the fact, that precursor weapons are craftable. For over half a year now. Did the existence of another path to obtain them devalue your experience? Doesn’t seem so, or you wouldn’t have been mentioning them as a good example.
So, where exactly is the problem?

You mean the crafting system that is more expensive than buying them straight of the trading post, which means there is no real alternative path? I do not see your point. But if you want more difficult content than the current raids that also rewards envoy armor (I rather have a different set), good luck arguing for it, I will help you.

Restating your argument already? You said that getting the weapons available through other means than rng dropping them would devalue your experience. You didn’t even mention the TP, which was already supposedly doing that.

Crafting precursors is an alternative to relying on luck. It’s not more difficult, it is a completely different way. And yet it doesn’t involve getting them for free, nor does it devalue your experience. Which clearly shows that all your other arguments are pure bunk, as they are based on some assumptions that are simply not true.

DutchRiders.2871:

Stop strawmanning, okay? So far the only people speaking about legendaries for free are raid defenders. Having another way to obtain them is not equivalent to handing them out for free.

I thought you guys were all about majorities getting their way?

That’s not even close to what we were saying (and you know it), but i’ll bite. Since when “majority getting their way” would be “everything given out for free”? This is only generally brought up by minorities already posessing said things, as a fake argument against making them available (not for free, with effort, just different kind of effort) for others.