Guild Wars 2

Astralporing.1957:

Say only people that have no problem with current difficulty.

not an argument

Sarrs.4831:

Astralporing.1957:

Say only people that have no problem with current difficulty.

not an argument

Neither is yours. Better for whom? And in what situation? For you? Possibly. For others? Debatable. Especially since you assume equity of content that does not really exist. No, getting more difficulty modes is not going to cost us a new dungeon.

I think they will eventually do this. It only makes sense. Difficult content should be included in multiple parts of the game, with no one area reserved for it. The same is true for lower levels of difficulty.

Likewise, there is no logical reason for raids to be as exclusive as they are, especially if they involve story that is directly tied to the larger narrative (which is what they have obviously done).

Sarrs.4831:

difficulty ‘levels’ for raids are better provided via breadth of content rather than multiple modes

This is the best argument against easy mode raids, and I will repeat it in every one of these blasted threads.

There’s no real strong argument on why this particular content must be easy.

I’ve heard the arguments for “lore” and “story,” but, well, those arguments are easily countered. Almost all the lore is in a completed instance. Anyone can experience the boss fights. And story is not the focus of raids. Where are the calls for an arah explorable easy mode? Aether path easy mode?

Breadth of content seems objectively superior. Sometimes raiders want to do something easier. Our maybe they beat raids for the week. Now they can do other content. And when new/less experienced players get better, they’ll have new content to enjoy.

And, even within raids, there’s a variety of difficulties. Wing 3 escort may be the easiest encounter. I was in the most non-meta pug last night and we beat it. Others can start here too.

Don’t like hard content? That’s ok! Play what you like. But easy mode very every single thing in this game would get boring, fast.

Absurdo.8309:

Sarrs.4831:

difficulty ‘levels’ for raids are better provided via breadth of content rather than multiple modes

This is the best argument against easy mode raids, and I will repeat it in every one of these blasted threads.

There’s no real strong argument on why this particular content must be easy.

I’ve heard the arguments for “lore” and “story,” but, well, those arguments are easily countered. Almost all the lore is in a completed instance. Anyone can experience the boss fights. And story is not the focus of raids. Where are the calls for an arah explorable easy mode? Aether path easy mode?

Breadth of content seems objectively superior. Sometimes raiders want to do something easier. Our maybe they beat raids for the week. Now they can do other content. And when new/less experienced players get better, they’ll have new content to enjoy.

And, even within raids, there’s a variety of difficulties. Wing 3 escort may be the easiest encounter. I was in the most non-meta pug last night and we beat it. Others can start here too.

Don’t like hard content? That’s ok! Play what you like. But easy mode very every single thing in this game would get boring, fast.

And I’d like to see new LS every 3 months, new dungeon+fractal every two and new raid with all wings every 6. Oh, and add more races, pve maps, emotions, activities, quests…
Too bad that in real world adding new mode to existing content costs less development time than making a full alternative from scratch. And because of that new mode is much more likely to happen instead.

Excluding people from experiencing the reveal of the White Mantle’s return means they missed chapter one of the next living story. Even if the story was minimal, it was still the big reveal of the antagonist they will be dealing with throughout that story.

It isn’t about lore – it’s about players being part of their story.

As for the breadth of content argument – it isn’t really breadth of content if X part of the game is designed for X community and Y is designed for Y. That is basically building different games within Tyria. While that is acceptable when talking about PVE versus PVP (for balance reasons), I think it is unneccesarily restrictive when talking exclusively about PVE.

Of course, it comes down to development resources. I honestly don’t believe extending resources to ensure easier and harder content is more evenly spread out in the game would take the effort people think it would – and I definitely believe it would be worth the effort.

Blaeys.3102:

Excluding people from experiencing the reveal of the White Mantle’s return means they missed chapter one of the next living story. Even if the story was minimal, it was still the big reveal of the antagonist they will be dealing with throughout that story.

It isn’t about lore – it’s about players being part of their story.

As for the breadth of content argument – it isn’t really breadth of content if X part of the game is designed for X community and Y is designed for Y. That is basically building different games within Tyria. While that is acceptable when talking about PVE versus PVP, I think it is unneccesarily restrictive when talking exclusively about PVE.

Of course, it comes down to development resources. I honestly don’t believe extending resources to ensure easier and harder content is more evenly spread out in the game would not take the effort people think it would – and I definitely believe it would be worth the effort.

No one called for an easy mode aether path, and that directly tied into living story. It even hinted at the sylvari dragon link.

No one called for an easy mode arah explorable, and that directly links into the dragons and blood shard.

No one called for an easy mode triple trouble, and that also directly ties into living story.

The reality is that very few players care about the minutiae of lore. Still, anet has bent over backwards for these players. All lore elements are in a completed raid. And anyone can experience the bosses by raiding right now. There’s even an open world event right now with a living world plug in.

I honestly think that the lore argument is hypothetical. Where are these lore hounds? Based on your previous posts, or seems that you’ve beat at least some of the raids, and encountered the lore.

People hate on raids because of the content drought. They see raids come out every 4 months and want content that they like too. Understandable. But I think if all 3 wings were released at the same time with HOT, people wouldn’t complain. They would realize that raids are a very small part of the game.

I want raid designers making raids. Fractals devs on fractals. Living world on living world.

You want a living world story. Fine. Let that content cater to you, not some raid-lite version.

We don’t know how long it would take to make an easy mode. Gaile dropped by on these forums and told us not to guess. She also warned that designing multi-modal experiences could be very complicated. And you don’t have to look very far for evidence — we haven’t had a new fractal in years.

Absurdo.8309:

No one called for an easy mode aether path, and that directly tied into living story. It even hinted at the sylvari dragon link.

No one called for an easy mode arah explorable, and that directly links into the dragons and blood shard.

Because of mechanics like enrage timers, raids are significantly more restrictive and exclusionary than either aetherpath or arah explorable.

If what you are suggesting is that an easier version of the raids be on par with aetherpath and arah – in terms of difficulty and accessibility – I would be 100% behind that idea.

Blaeys.3102:

Absurdo.8309:

No one called for an easy mode aether path, and that directly tied into living story. It even hinted at the sylvari dragon link.

No one called for an easy mode arah explorable, and that directly links into the dragons and blood shard.

Because of mechanics like enrage timers, raids are significantly more restrictive and exclusionary than either aetherpath or arah explorable.

If what you are suggesting is that an easier version of the raids be on par with aetherpath and arah – in terms of difficulty and accessibility – I would be 100% behind that idea.

Enrage timers are rarely the problem. It’s almost always the mechanics. The only exceptions are gorseval and sometimes sabetha. Groups low man the raids and beat them in sub par gear.

Enrage timers offer a balanced trade off —- do we bring more, squishy dps, or more tanky healers?

I would consider raids on a similar difficulty as arah and aether path, especially when they first came out.

Absurdo.8309:

Blaeys.3102:

Absurdo.8309:

No one called for an easy mode aether path, and that directly tied into living story. It even hinted at the sylvari dragon link.

No one called for an easy mode arah explorable, and that directly links into the dragons and blood shard.

Because of mechanics like enrage timers, raids are significantly more restrictive and exclusionary than either aetherpath or arah explorable.

If what you are suggesting is that an easier version of the raids be on par with aetherpath and arah – in terms of difficulty and accessibility – I would be 100% behind that idea.

Enrage timers are rarely the problem. It’s almost always the mechanics. The only exceptions are gorseval and sometimes sabetha. Groups low man the raids and beat them in sub par gear.

Enrage timers offer a balanced trade off —- do we bring more, squishy dps, or more tanky healers?

I would consider raids on a similar difficulty as arah and aether path, especially when they first came out.

Basically this, enrage timers already are very generous.
You need more DPS in wing 1 than any of the other wings as Gorseval can be a brickwall for inexperienced raiders.
Wing 2&3 bosses can literally be beaten with minutes left on the timer.
However they are more mechanic heavy.

Absurdo.8309:

Enrage timers are rarely the problem. It’s almost always the mechanics. The only exceptions are gorseval and sometimes sabetha. Groups low man the raids and beat them in sub par gear. ]

Then you wouldn’t have a problem with removing enrage timers from all of the fights?

My original premise was to remove timers and replace them with the gold/silver/bronze reward system. That way you don’t limit strategic choice or gear – but still reward people for doing the fight in the time it was designed to be completed in.

That would be an adequate solution, imo – especially if, as you say, enrage timers aren’t a big deal anyway. Ive never had a problem with the mechanics – they make the fight fun. Ive had issue with the unneccesarily restrictive (and artificial, imo) elements like enrage timers.

Arah explorable and aetherpath are different from raids for this very reason. With timers, there will always be that finite wall in place. Arah and Aetherpath never had that wall (regardless of how easy you find the timers in raids to currently be).

Blaeys.3102:

Absurdo.8309:

Enrage timers are rarely the problem. It’s almost always the mechanics. The only exceptions are gorseval and sometimes sabetha. Groups low man the raids and beat them in sub par gear. ]

Then you wouldn’t have a problem with removing enrage timers from all of the fights?

Ehm, how about no?
Enrage timers are a important part of progression, they make mechanics alot more dangerous, as a failed mechanic can result in a DPS loss and therefore in a loss of time.
Also what would hinder people from going into raids with full nomads armor and just tanking it out, resulting in the fight to be completely trivial?

Dominik.5162:

Blaeys.3102:

Absurdo.8309:

Enrage timers are rarely the problem. It’s almost always the mechanics. The only exceptions are gorseval and sometimes sabetha. Groups low man the raids and beat them in sub par gear. ]

Then you wouldn’t have a problem with removing enrage timers from all of the fights?

Ehm, how about no?
Enrage timers are a important part of progression, they make mechanics alot more dangerous, as a failed mechanic can result in a DPS loss and therefore in a loss of time.
Also what would hinder people from going into raids with full nomads armor and just tanking it out, resulting in the fight to be completely trivial?

And why would that matter if tiered rewards were in place based on kill speed?

It wouldn’t change how you approach the fight at all. It would just allow groups that play differently than you to still experience the fight -albeit with a lesser reward.

You cant claim that enrage timers are trivial and required at the same time.

Blaeys.3102:

Absurdo.8309:

Enrage timers are rarely the problem. It’s almost always the mechanics. The only exceptions are gorseval and sometimes sabetha. Groups low man the raids and beat them in sub par gear. ]

Then you wouldn’t have a problem with removing enrage timers from all of the fights?

My original premise was to remove timers and replace them with the gold/silver/bronze reward system. That way you don’t limit strategic choice or gear – but still reward people for doing the fight in the time it was designed to be completed in.

That would be an adequate solution, imo – especially if, as you say, enrage timers aren’t a big deal anyway.

Arah explorable and aetherpath are different from raids for this very reason. With timers, there will always be that finite wall in place. Arah and Aetherpath never had that wall (regardless of how easy you find the timers in raids to currently be).

You could remove enrage timers right now, but that wouldn’t make easy moders happy. They still wouldn’t be able to beat it.

Again, enrage timers force that dps / tank trade off. It rewards groups that bring high dps. Conversely, if you bring more tank/heal, you’ll need to actually use it at the end of the fight.

As I’m sure you know, enrage won’t wipe a group (with the exception of gorseval, because you can’t use updrafts). I’ve beaten plenty of bosses while they were enraged.

And the escort on wing 3 doesn’t have an enrage timer.

EDIT: You probably could beat most bosses in full nomad. There was a group that beat vg with 10 heal eles, going for the longest kill. It just requires you to use your heals and tankiness wisely.

Absurdo.8309:

Blaeys.3102:

Absurdo.8309:

Enrage timers are rarely the problem. It’s almost always the mechanics. The only exceptions are gorseval and sometimes sabetha. Groups low man the raids and beat them in sub par gear. ]

Then you wouldn’t have a problem with removing enrage timers from all of the fights?

My original premise was to remove timers and replace them with the gold/silver/bronze reward system. That way you don’t limit strategic choice or gear – but still reward people for doing the fight in the time it was designed to be completed in.

That would be an adequate solution, imo – especially if, as you say, enrage timers aren’t a big deal anyway.

Arah explorable and aetherpath are different from raids for this very reason. With timers, there will always be that finite wall in place. Arah and Aetherpath never had that wall (regardless of how easy you find the timers in raids to currently be).

You could remove enrage timers right now, but that wouldn’t make easy moders happy. They still wouldn’t be able to beat it.

Again, enrage timers force that dps / tank trade off. It rewards groups that bring high dps. Conversely, if you bring more tank/heal, you’ll need to actually use it at the end of the fight.

As I’m sure you know, enrage won’t wipe a group (with the exception of gorseval, because you can’t use updrafts). I’ve beaten plenty of bosses while they were enraged.

And the escort on wing 3 doesn’t have an enrage timer.

Then, once again, what is the harm of removing them if the mechanic to reward faster kills is implemented?

Blaeys.3102:

Dominik.5162:

Blaeys.3102:

Absurdo.8309:

Enrage timers are rarely the problem. It’s almost always the mechanics. The only exceptions are gorseval and sometimes sabetha. Groups low man the raids and beat them in sub par gear. ]

Then you wouldn’t have a problem with removing enrage timers from all of the fights?

Ehm, how about no?
Enrage timers are a important part of progression, they make mechanics alot more dangerous, as a failed mechanic can result in a DPS loss and therefore in a loss of time.
Also what would hinder people from going into raids with full nomads armor and just tanking it out, resulting in the fight to be completely trivial?

And why would that matter if tiered rewards were in place based on kill speed?

It wouldn’t change how you approach the fight at all. It would just allow groups that play differently than you to still experience the fight -albeit with a lesser reward.

Because raids are meant to be a challenge and a goal to work towards, not something everybody can walk in and just beat it without giving a single thought about anything.
It should require work on yourself (fine tuning builds and general gamplay of yourself) and teamwork.
If you could just walk in there, tank it out for 1h, but still do the boss, that would truly trivialize the work all the raiders put in until now and not to mention how much work the devs put in to give us such good content.

Blaeys.3102:

Absurdo.8309:

Blaeys.3102:

Absurdo.8309:

Enrage timers are rarely the problem. It’s almost always the mechanics. The only exceptions are gorseval and sometimes sabetha. Groups low man the raids and beat them in sub par gear. ]

Then you wouldn’t have a problem with removing enrage timers from all of the fights?

My original premise was to remove timers and replace them with the gold/silver/bronze reward system. That way you don’t limit strategic choice or gear – but still reward people for doing the fight in the time it was designed to be completed in.

That would be an adequate solution, imo – especially if, as you say, enrage timers aren’t a big deal anyway.

Arah explorable and aetherpath are different from raids for this very reason. With timers, there will always be that finite wall in place. Arah and Aetherpath never had that wall (regardless of how easy you find the timers in raids to currently be).

You could remove enrage timers right now, but that wouldn’t make easy moders happy. They still wouldn’t be able to beat it.

Again, enrage timers force that dps / tank trade off. It rewards groups that bring high dps. Conversely, if you bring more tank/heal, you’ll need to actually use it at the end of the fight.

As I’m sure you know, enrage won’t wipe a group (with the exception of gorseval, because you can’t use updrafts). I’ve beaten plenty of bosses while they were enraged.

And the escort on wing 3 doesn’t have an enrage timer.

Then, once again, what is the harm of removing them if the mechanic to reward faster kills is implemented?

If I want to bring a tankier group, I want the same reward, assuming my group can last through enrage.

Sometimes my groups enrage on matthias, because we bring two healers, or someone dies. But if we can survive through increased damage, I think we deserve the reward.

Dominik.5162:

Blaeys.3102:

Dominik.5162:

Blaeys.3102:

Absurdo.8309:

Enrage timers are rarely the problem. It’s almost always the mechanics. The only exceptions are gorseval and sometimes sabetha. Groups low man the raids and beat them in sub par gear. ]

Then you wouldn’t have a problem with removing enrage timers from all of the fights?

Ehm, how about no?
Enrage timers are a important part of progression, they make mechanics alot more dangerous, as a failed mechanic can result in a DPS loss and therefore in a loss of time.
Also what would hinder people from going into raids with full nomads armor and just tanking it out, resulting in the fight to be completely trivial?

And why would that matter if tiered rewards were in place based on kill speed?

It wouldn’t change how you approach the fight at all. It would just allow groups that play differently than you to still experience the fight -albeit with a lesser reward.

Because raids are meant to be a challenge and a goal to work towards, not something everybody can walk in and just beat it without giving a single thought about anything.
It should require work on yourself (fine tuning builds and general gamplay of yourself) and teamwork.
If you could just walk in there, tank it out for 1h, but still do the boss, that would truly trivialize the work all the raiders put in until now and not to mention how much work the devs put in to give us such good content.

The challenge would still be there – as well as the exclusive reward.

Again, it wouldn’t change how you play at all – it would just offer a new experience for some who don’t currently have it. I don’t see how anyone can legitimately argue against that.

I still don’t see a valid argument here other than people not wanting others to experience the raids unless they conform to specific play styles. That is a step in the wrong direction for this game.

Blaeys.3102:

And why would that matter if tiered rewards were in place based on kill speed?

It wouldn’t change how you approach the fight at all. It would just allow groups that play differently than you to still experience the fight -albeit with a lesser reward.

You cant claim that enrage timers are trivial and required at the same time.

You know the next complaint after introducing that?
First thread in this forum would be:
“Seriously Anet, get us some real/better/deserved reward for raid bronze tier!”

We all know that spiral…

Or: “Why should I go for gold tier in raids when reward difference is that little.”, followed by raids becoming abandoned because SW, Tarir, DS, FG and CS trains are 1000 times more rewarding.

I am thankful that Anet will not listen to those ideas.

Vinceman.4572:

Blaeys.3102:

And why would that matter if tiered rewards were in place based on kill speed?

It wouldn’t change how you approach the fight at all. It would just allow groups that play differently than you to still experience the fight -albeit with a lesser reward.

You cant claim that enrage timers are trivial and required at the same time.

You know the next complaint after introducing that?
First thread in this forum would be:
“Seriously Anet, get us some real/better/deserved reward for raid bronze tier!”

We all know that spiral…

Or: “Why should I go for gold tier in raids when reward difference is that little.”, followed by raids becoming abandoned because SW, Tarir, DS, FG and CS trains are 1000 times more rewarding.

I am thankful that Anet will not listen to those ideas.

Then don’t let it spiral. problem solved. Using that as an argument to avoid having the conversation entirely doesn’t make sense.

You don’t see a need because your personal needs are being met. That isn’t the case for the community as a whole, and I am confident that Anet will listen (they always at least listen).

I still think this solution – or some other creative idea from Anet (they are good at those) – would work. And it would work without causing the landslide you seem to fear.

When is a reward called a deserved reward? Only when the last people in GW2 will call out: Now!
And these persons are the ones standing afk in open world maps during events. The demand will never end.

The other thing is that there is only a minority that wants changes to raids. The overwhelming majority has absolutely no problems with the one difficulty or if so, I don’t here them for any reason. And let’s be clear, the group of people that is complaining has always been bigger than the one who is not. In this case it is surprisingly not true.
Raids are already easy enough, even good pug groups can carry one baddy through most of the bosses if not all. It’s not about my personal needs because if my guild mates aren’t online I am also struggling to beat the harder bosses and this is actually how I like things to be implemented.

No. A large part of the appeal of Raids and their account bound rewards are that it means you had the skill that most players don’t and you were able to kill the raid bosses. I don’t think they need to be made easier, not all game content should be available to all players regardless of skill level. Some of it is stuff you should have to work for

Vinceman.4572:

When is a reward called a deserved reward? Only when the last people in GW2 will call out: Now!
And these persons are the ones standing afk in open world maps during events. The demand will never end.

The other thing is that there is only a minority that wants changes to raids. The overwhelming majority has absolutely no problems with the one difficulty or if so, I don’t here them for any reason. And let’s be clear, the group of people that is complaining has always been bigger than the one who is not. In this case it is surprisingly not true.
Raids are already easy enough, even good pug groups can carry one baddy through most of the bosses if not all. It’s not about my personal needs because if my guild mates aren’t online I am also struggling to beat the harder bosses and this is actually how I like things to be implemented.

First, it definitely isn’t a minority. Most people are afraid of these forums – especially this sub forum – because of how nasty personal attacks can get (I’m actually impressed that we haven’t seen more of that in this thread). As for me – I’m a loud mouthed opinionated advocate (which is the nice way of describing me ), so I don’t suffer from that trepidation.

Lets get this out of the way now – I don’t want the same reward for lesser effort. That goes against everything in this game. That is why the gold/silver/bronze reward system works in the rest of the game.

I want a tiered experience with a tiered reward.

Right now, removing the enrage timers and implementing a time based tiered reward seems like the best way to do that.

That doesn’t change how you or any other current raider would play the content. It just lets other people in on a raid based experience. That is only good for everyone – it justifies continued development of raids, it gives people an entry into raids who may never try otherwise and it retains the prestige of being good in the game (even heightens it because more people will realize how difficult hitting those benchmarks really are).

Blaeys.3102:

Vinceman.4572:

When is a reward called a deserved reward? Only when the last people in GW2 will call out: Now!
And these persons are the ones standing afk in open world maps during events. The demand will never end.

The other thing is that there is only a minority that wants changes to raids. The overwhelming majority has absolutely no problems with the one difficulty or if so, I don’t here them for any reason. And let’s be clear, the group of people that is complaining has always been bigger than the one who is not. In this case it is surprisingly not true.
Raids are already easy enough, even good pug groups can carry one baddy through most of the bosses if not all. It’s not about my personal needs because if my guild mates aren’t online I am also struggling to beat the harder bosses and this is actually how I like things to be implemented.

First, it definitely isn’t a minority. Most people are afraid of these forums – especially this sub forum – because of how nasty personal attacks can get (I’m actually impressed that we haven’t seen more of that in this thread). As for me – I’m a loud mouthed opinionated advocate (which is the nice way of describing me ), so I don’t suffer from that trepidation.

Lets get this out of the way now – I don’t want a lesser reward for lesser effort. That goes against everything in this game. That is why the gold/silver/bronze reward system works in the rest of the game.

I want a tiered experience with a tiered reward.

Right now, removing the enrage timers and implementing a time based tiered reward seems like the best way to do that.

That doesn’t change how you or any other current raider would play the content. It just lets other people in on a raid based experience. That is only good for everyone – it justifies continued development of raids, it gives people an entry into raids who may never try otherwise and it retains the prestige of being good in the game (even heightens it because more people will realize how difficult hitting those benchmarks really are).

Timed rewards would be the worst of both worlds.

Easy-moders: They didn’t change any of the mechanics, I still can’t beat it!

Raiders: Off-meta compositions discouraged, in order to maximize dps and receive the greatest reward.

No thank you.

Be careful when advocating for a hypothetical constituent. It’s clear you can beat raids. Where are the lore hounds who can’t beat raids? Where are the pve’ers who’ve exhausted that content?

It’s hard to address “your” concerns because they’re not really yours at all. Each argument can be countered with a hypothetical player with exotic preferences. No amount of suggestions (just try it! try dungeons! go to a completed instance!) can sate a hypothetical player.

Well, I don’t agree to the forum argument. I don’t know any people being afraid of writing in this subforum, have never heard about it from dozens of TS I joined or other guilds I talked to. Even in map chat I don’t see any complaints about this subforum. That’s more of a phenomenom people are calling out in this forum than being a real and relevant problem.

Plus, your assumption is wrong from the start:
Timers aren’t an issue for 99% of the players doing raids. They fail horribly at mechanics. 100% of all my VG fails and I had a lot with learning people in training runs and with others. Gorseval timer is almost irrelevant due to updraft mechanic, Sabetha as well.
The timer on Sloth is very forgiving and also on Trio which is the easiest “boss” along with the event of wing 3.
The argument of people are pressured due to time isn’t valid neither because in all groups that struggle almost nobody has the eye for the clock. ^^

Absurdo.8309:

Timed rewards would be the worst of both worlds.

Easy-moders: They didn’t change any of the mechanics, I still can’t beat it!

Raiders: Off-meta compositions discouraged, in order to maximize dps and receive the greatest reward.

No thank you.

Be careful when advocating for a hypothetical constituent. It’s clear you can beat raids. Where are the lore hounds who can’t beat raids? Where are the pve’ers who’ve exhausted that content?

It’s hard to address “your” concerns because they’re not really yours at all. Each argument can be countered with a hypothetical player with exotic preferences. No amount of suggestions (just try it! try dungeons! go to a completed instance!) can sate a hypothetical player.

This is far from hypothetical. Those people are in my guild. They are in the so called “bad guild” that someone criticized in another thread (another reason we don’t see more comments here on these forums). To a degree – they are me – a raid/guild leader that wants to experience the content with my less dedicated friends in a more casual situation.

I disagree that the timed reward solution is a bad one, but I’m also willing to admit that maybe it isn’t the perfect solution. I know that Anet can do better. They did at the launch of the game when they turned many other traditional MMO tropes on their heads – creating the game I came to love.

The point is, the current solution, for many in the community, is restrictive, in many cases unfriendly and, imo, a bad direction for the game to take.

I also will say again – every other MMO out there sees this issue and makes provisions for it in some way. Some didn’t on day one of raiding – but they all eventually saw the need. Anet will too.

I – and many others (this isn’t hypothetical) – see a need for change. Ive offered one way that change could manifest. I’m not saying its perfect. Just that a. its better than what we have now and b. I’m not a developer – I’m sure Anet could come up with something much more inventive that addressed the issue.

Vinceman.4572:

Plus, your assumption is wrong from the start:
Timers aren’t an issue for 99% of the players doing raids. They fail horribly at mechanics. 100% of all my VG fails and I had a lot with learning people in training runs and with others. Gorseval timer is almost irrelevant due to updraft mechanic, Sabetha as well.

Once again, if timers aren’t an issue, why do you care if they are removed or not?

If the answer is so that people don’t bring full groups of Nomads or 8+ healers, then the gold/silver/bronze setup addresses that pretty directly. All it does is open the door for other – admittedly non optimal (but again, for lesser reward) strategies.

Blaeys.3102:

Vinceman.4572:

Plus, your assumption is wrong from the start:
Timers aren’t an issue for 99% of the players doing raids. They fail horribly at mechanics. 100% of all my VG fails and I had a lot with learning people in training runs and with others. Gorseval timer is almost irrelevant due to updraft mechanic, Sabetha as well.

Once again, if timers aren’t an issue, why do you care if they are removed or not?

If the answer is so that people don’t bring full groups of Nomads or 8+ healers, then the gold/silver/bronze setup addresses that pretty directly. All it does is open the door for other – admittedly non optimal (but again, for lesser reward) strategies.

To me there are two obvious arguments against the removal of enrage timers besides encouraging players to use offensive gear (which I think is fine but w/e).

First, many of the bosses have what is essentially an enrage anyway (i.e. unavoidable wipe) and I have never seen anyone complain about them in the half dozen or so threads I’ve seen on the topic. Gorseval has world eater when there are no updrafts, sabetha has platform destruction, KC has a repeating unavoidable damage buff. No one cares about these because they are gradual I guess, but really they’re the same thing but with some flavor. If KC gets 10 stack of his buff, he deals 250% of his normal damage, which is more than xera’s enrage lol. If they removed the timer but xera gained 75% damage every time she used her marionette slam attack would you be OK with it? It would make the fight strictly harder (and as a result less accessible) and she would have the same damage boost around the same time, but hey the timer would be removed.

The second argument is that the timers are good way to punish excessive small mistakes. If you have someone go down to every matthias hadouken attack and jump attack, you can actually keep your team alive fairly easily if you res fast and stack back up. But does a group like that deserve to get the kill? I would say that they do not. The enrage timer ensures that a group making constant small misplays will not be able to complete the fight. You could say that there should be mechanics in the fight to punish teams harder for those mistakes, and I would agree, but the fact is that the bosses after the first wing were made to be very forgiving of small mistakes, presumably for the purpose of making them more accessible to newer players, and the enrage timers are a way of punishing repeated personal mistakes that would have caused a wipe if the mechanics were more deadly (e.g. flame wall).

So yeah I don’t really see the timer as making the fights harder, because its very existence allows the mechanics of the fight to be more forgiving.

And regardless, so many of the mechanics deal damage based on a percent of max HP and ignore armor that removing the timer would likely not even encourage different strategies.

Dinosaurs.8674:

The second argument is that the timers are good way to punish excessive small mistakes.

With a tiered reward based on kill time, that punishment would still be there. Making those small mistakes would have a potential impact on your reward from the fight.

The difference is that the option to not worry about those small mistakes quite so much would be there for those less skilled or less dedicated groups – with the knowledge that they would receive a lesser reward.

It would be a natural reward tiering that would retain a lot of the difficulty without completely punishing or locking out the groups that opted for more survivability. Essentially, wearing nomads or deviating from the meta would become the easy mode without an easy mode even having to be implemented by the devs (which actually fits well with the rest of the game).

Blaeys.3102:

Dinosaurs.8674:

The second argument is that the timers are good way to punish excessive small mistakes.

With a tiered reward based on kill time, that punishment would still be there. Making those small mistakes would have a potential impact on your reward from the fight.

The difference is that the option to not worry about those small mistakes quite so much would be there for those less skilled or less dedicated groups – with the knowledge that they would receive a lesser reward.

It would be a natural reward tiering that would retain a lot of the difficulty without completely punishing or locking out the groups that opted for more survivability. Essentially, wearing nomads or deviating from the meta would become the easy mode without an easy mode even having to be implemented by the devs (which actually fits well with the rest of the game).

Doing that will only bring tighter gear checks on LFG, equals more complaints.
Enrage is not the issue in 99% of the failed runs.

Blaeys.3102:

Absurdo.8309:

Timed rewards would be the worst of both worlds.

Easy-moders: They didn’t change any of the mechanics, I still can’t beat it!

Raiders: Off-meta compositions discouraged, in order to maximize dps and receive the greatest reward.

No thank you.

Be careful when advocating for a hypothetical constituent. It’s clear you can beat raids. Where are the lore hounds who can’t beat raids? Where are the pve’ers who’ve exhausted that content?

It’s hard to address “your” concerns because they’re not really yours at all. Each argument can be countered with a hypothetical player with exotic preferences. No amount of suggestions (just try it! try dungeons! go to a completed instance!) can sate a hypothetical player.

This is far from hypothetical. Those people are in my guild. They are in the so called “bad guild” that someone criticized in another thread (another reason we don’t see more comments here on these forums). To a degree – they are me – a raid/guild leader that wants to experience the content with my less dedicated friends in a more casual situation.

I disagree that the timed reward solution is a bad one, but I’m also willing to admit that maybe it isn’t the perfect solution. I know that Anet can do better. They did at the launch of the game when they turned many other traditional MMO tropes on their heads – creating the game I came to love.

The point is, the current solution, for many in the community, is restrictive, in many cases unfriendly and, imo, a bad direction for the game to take.

I also will say again – every other MMO out there sees this issue and makes provisions for it in some way. Some didn’t on day one of raiding – but they all eventually saw the need. Anet will too.

I – and many others (this isn’t hypothetical) – see a need for change. Ive offered one way that change could manifest. I’m not saying its perfect. Just that a. its better than what we have now and b. I’m not a developer – I’m sure Anet could come up with something much more inventive that addressed the issue.

I called that guild bad because they weren’t able to try raiding among a guild of 1000 people. That thread was about the accessibility of raiding.

Have you tried forming raid squads in your guild?

Do you beat the bosses? If not, why do you fail?

Do you offer tips to new raiders or just try the encounters over and over? Are players willing to adjust their play styles?

Do you ask why would-be interested players don’t join your groups?

Have you tried some of the easier raid bosses?

Do your players want to explore the world of guild wars 2? Then world exploration. Do they want epic looking bosses that require 0 skill to beat? World bosses. Do they want objective based open world encounters? Map metas, guild missions. Do they want a story? Living world, personal story. Do they want easy or medium instanced content? Dungeons, fractals. Do they want instanced content that requires group coordination? Raids.

I’m playing scatter-shot here, because I’m not sure why your guild can’t beat raids. Could be because of poor organization. Could be you have a lot of new players. Could just be that your guild isn’t interested in raid type content.

But that doesn’t mean easy mode is your silver bullet. It’s likely that your guild just wants more living story content. And you’re latching on to the one thing released with some degree of consistency.

what makes this discussion even more ridiculous is the fact that the rewards in the raids are magnetite shards which you can exchange for (guess what) ascended gear. this only compounds the fact that those who don,t have ascended gear to start with can,t even get into the place

Absurdo.8309:

Blaeys.3102:

Absurdo.8309:

Timed rewards would be the worst of both worlds.

Easy-moders: They didn’t change any of the mechanics, I still can’t beat it!

Raiders: Off-meta compositions discouraged, in order to maximize dps and receive the greatest reward.

No thank you.

Be careful when advocating for a hypothetical constituent. It’s clear you can beat raids. Where are the lore hounds who can’t beat raids? Where are the pve’ers who’ve exhausted that content?

It’s hard to address “your” concerns because they’re not really yours at all. Each argument can be countered with a hypothetical player with exotic preferences. No amount of suggestions (just try it! try dungeons! go to a completed instance!) can sate a hypothetical player.

This is far from hypothetical. Those people are in my guild. They are in the so called “bad guild” that someone criticized in another thread (another reason we don’t see more comments here on these forums). To a degree – they are me – a raid/guild leader that wants to experience the content with my less dedicated friends in a more casual situation.

I disagree that the timed reward solution is a bad one, but I’m also willing to admit that maybe it isn’t the perfect solution. I know that Anet can do better. They did at the launch of the game when they turned many other traditional MMO tropes on their heads – creating the game I came to love.

The point is, the current solution, for many in the community, is restrictive, in many cases unfriendly and, imo, a bad direction for the game to take.

I also will say again – every other MMO out there sees this issue and makes provisions for it in some way. Some didn’t on day one of raiding – but they all eventually saw the need. Anet will too.

I – and many others (this isn’t hypothetical) – see a need for change. Ive offered one way that change could manifest. I’m not saying its perfect. Just that a. its better than what we have now and b. I’m not a developer – I’m sure Anet could come up with something much more inventive that addressed the issue.

I called that guild bad because they weren’t able to try raiding among a guild of 1000 people. That thread was about the accessibility of raiding.

Have you tried forming raid squads in your guild?

Do you beat the bosses? If not, why do you fail?

Do you offer tips to new raiders or just try the encounters over and over? Are players willing to adjust their play styles?

Do you ask why would-be interested players don’t join your groups?

Have you tried some of the easier raid bosses?

Do your players want to explore the world of guild wars 2? Then world exploration. Do they want epic looking bosses that require 0 skill to beat? World bosses. Do they want objective based open world encounters? Map metas, guild missions. Do they want a story? Living world, personal story. Do they want easy or medium instanced content? Dungeons, fractals. Do they want instanced content that requires group coordination? Raids.

I’m playing scatter-shot here, because I’m not sure why your guild can’t beat raids. Could be because of poor organization. Could be you have a lot of new players. Could just be that your guild isn’t interested in raid type content.

But that doesn’t mean easy mode is your silver bullet. It’s likely that your guild just wants more living story content. And you’re latching on to the one thing released with some degree of consistency.

Let’s agree to stop making this personal.

I had actually forgotten that it was you that made the “bad guild” comment in the other thread. I’m sorry if me bringing that back up was offensive to you in any way. I just didn’t agree with the comment or the context at the time (nor do I now).

This isn’t about living story. This isn’t about my individual situation with my guild. In fact, we do all of the things you link in your post above together every single week. The only thing I really cannot do with everyone from my guild is raids – and many of them are interested in the experience (and that is a legitimate interest). They aren’t hardcore raiders. They aren’t interested in the minutia of raiding. They just want the experience.

The undeniable fact here is that every other MMO out there sees why this is needed and make provisions for it. All PVE content fits together in some way in this game, through lore, through guilds, etc. As tough as it may be to do, those areas need to be accessible (while still offering casual and hardcore experiences) to all PVE players. Other games with raids inevitably come to this conclusion. Anet will eventually as well.

gashen.3874:

what makes this discussion even more ridiculous is the fact that the rewards in the raids are magnetite shards which you can exchange for (guess what) ascended gear. this only compounds the fact that those who don,t have ascended gear to start with can,t even get into the place

Lets gloss over that you don’t need full ascended to raid. Lets gloss over that the best way to acquire ascended trinkets are outside of the raid, and, along with weapons, are what you should go for first. Lets also gloss over the other things you can get with shards.

Ascended rewards allow you to gear more characters for raids. They also allow you to gear for other parts of the game, like fractals and wvw.

This criticism also makes no sense in light of fractals, where ascended gear is required. The best method for acquisition is high level fractals, when you presumably already have ascended gear. Doesn’t stop you from gearing other characters, as noted above.

And if we’re talking about the fastest or most efficient way to acquire ascended gear, raids don’t qualify. It’s much faster to gold farm and then just craft them.

Blaeys.3102:

Absurdo.8309:

Blaeys.3102:

Absurdo.8309:

Timed rewards would be the worst of both worlds.

Easy-moders: They didn’t change any of the mechanics, I still can’t beat it!

Raiders: Off-meta compositions discouraged, in order to maximize dps and receive the greatest reward.

No thank you.

Be careful when advocating for a hypothetical constituent. It’s clear you can beat raids. Where are the lore hounds who can’t beat raids? Where are the pve’ers who’ve exhausted that content?

It’s hard to address “your” concerns because they’re not really yours at all. Each argument can be countered with a hypothetical player with exotic preferences. No amount of suggestions (just try it! try dungeons! go to a completed instance!) can sate a hypothetical player.

This is far from hypothetical. Those people are in my guild. They are in the so called “bad guild” that someone criticized in another thread (another reason we don’t see more comments here on these forums). To a degree – they are me – a raid/guild leader that wants to experience the content with my less dedicated friends in a more casual situation.

I disagree that the timed reward solution is a bad one, but I’m also willing to admit that maybe it isn’t the perfect solution. I know that Anet can do better. They did at the launch of the game when they turned many other traditional MMO tropes on their heads – creating the game I came to love.

The point is, the current solution, for many in the community, is restrictive, in many cases unfriendly and, imo, a bad direction for the game to take.

I also will say again – every other MMO out there sees this issue and makes provisions for it in some way. Some didn’t on day one of raiding – but they all eventually saw the need. Anet will too.

I – and many others (this isn’t hypothetical) – see a need for change. Ive offered one way that change could manifest. I’m not saying its perfect. Just that a. its better than what we have now and b. I’m not a developer – I’m sure Anet could come up with something much more inventive that addressed the issue.

I called that guild bad because they weren’t able to try raiding among a guild of 1000 people. That thread was about the accessibility of raiding.

Have you tried forming raid squads in your guild?

Do you beat the bosses? If not, why do you fail?

Do you offer tips to new raiders or just try the encounters over and over? Are players willing to adjust their play styles?

Do you ask why would-be interested players don’t join your groups?

Have you tried some of the easier raid bosses?

Do your players want to explore the world of guild wars 2? Then world exploration. Do they want epic looking bosses that require 0 skill to beat? World bosses. Do they want objective based open world encounters? Map metas, guild missions. Do they want a story? Living world, personal story. Do they want easy or medium instanced content? Dungeons, fractals. Do they want instanced content that requires group coordination? Raids.

I’m playing scatter-shot here, because I’m not sure why your guild can’t beat raids. Could be because of poor organization. Could be you have a lot of new players. Could just be that your guild isn’t interested in raid type content.

But that doesn’t mean easy mode is your silver bullet. It’s likely that your guild just wants more living story content. And you’re latching on to the one thing released with some degree of consistency.

Let’s agree to stop making this personal.

I had actually forgotten that it was you that made the “bad guild” comment in the other thread. I’m sorry if me bringing that back up was offensive to you in any way. I just didn’t agree with the comment or the context at the time (nor do I now).

This isn’t about living story. This isn’t about my individual situation with my guild. In fact, we do all of the things you link in your post above together every single week. The only thing I really cannot do with everyone from my guild is raids – and many of them are interested in the experience (and that is a legitimate interest). They aren’t hardcore raiders. They aren’t interested in the minutia of raiding. They just want the experience.

The undeniable fact here is that every other MMO out there sees why this is needed and make provisions for it. All PVE content fits together in some way in this game, through lore, through guilds, etc. As tough as it may be to do, those areas need to be accessible (while still offering casual and hardcore experiences) to all PVE players. Other games with raids inevitably come to this conclusion. Anet will eventually as well.

I’m honestly not sure what’s stopping these players from trying, especially with wing 3. It’s hard to cure the symptom if you don’t know the disease.

Blaeys.3102:

Dinosaurs.8674:

The second argument is that the timers are good way to punish excessive small mistakes.

With a tiered reward based on kill time, that punishment would still be there. Making those small mistakes would have a potential impact on your reward from the fight.

The difference is that the option to not worry about those small mistakes quite so much would be there for those less skilled or less dedicated groups – with the knowledge that they would receive a lesser reward.

It would be a natural reward tiering that would retain a lot of the difficulty without completely punishing or locking out the groups that opted for more survivability. Essentially, wearing nomads or deviating from the meta would become the easy mode without an easy mode even having to be implemented by the devs (which actually fits well with the rest of the game).

This is true in principle, but it doesn’t change the fact that the whole “nomads is easy mode” thing would only work against VG and Matthias because all the other fights would just kill you with time scaled mechanics unless you had great execution…in which case why are you running defensive gear to begin with. If your goal is to allow for less skilled/dedicated groups to be more successful in raids, then I would say that removing the timer does not accomplish that goal unless you also make substantial changes to many of the fights. I mean yeah great your change allowed a team to kill VG in 12 minutes, but they’re never going to make it past the first phase of gorseval unless they do what they should have done against VG to begin with (deal with the mechanics with good play instead of defensive gear).

Absurdo.8309:

I’m honestly not sure what’s stopping these players from trying, especially with wing 3. It’s hard to cure the symptom if you don’t know the disease.

Simply put, not everyone enjoys that level of challenge – or having to conform – even partially – to a meta composition or build.

And many in the game have tried – and were pretty quickly turned off by the experience because of the severity.

I know your argument against both of these points. My point is that if we can include a more inclusive raiding experience for players, then we should – especially if it doesn’t detract from the experience in any real way.

It doesn’t affect the way higher skilled players experience the game. It would bring more people into raiding (justifying dev time and potentially growing the pot of future skilled raiders). It gives more people a fun experience in the game.

The only legitimate argument I have heard to date is that it could put more strain on the developers time. The only people can adequately address that issue are developers, but I have to believe that a solution is out there that works around that (if not my time tiered reward solution, then something else).

Right now, I just want to discussion and dialogue to continue – with both sides fully heard and (hopefully) seen by developers.

Dinosaurs.8674:

Blaeys.3102:

Dinosaurs.8674:

The second argument is that the timers are good way to punish excessive small mistakes.

With a tiered reward based on kill time, that punishment would still be there. Making those small mistakes would have a potential impact on your reward from the fight.

The difference is that the option to not worry about those small mistakes quite so much would be there for those less skilled or less dedicated groups – with the knowledge that they would receive a lesser reward.

It would be a natural reward tiering that would retain a lot of the difficulty without completely punishing or locking out the groups that opted for more survivability. Essentially, wearing nomads or deviating from the meta would become the easy mode without an easy mode even having to be implemented by the devs (which actually fits well with the rest of the game).

This is true in principle, but it doesn’t change the fact that the whole “nomads is easy mode” thing would only work against VG and Matthias because all the other fights would just kill you with time scaled mechanics unless you had great execution…in which case why are you running defensive gear to begin with. If your goal is to allow for less skilled/dedicated groups to be more successful in raids, then I would say that removing the timer does not accomplish that goal unless you also make substantial changes to many of the fights. I mean yeah great your change allowed a team to kill VG in 12 minutes, but they’re never going to make it past the first phase of gorseval unless they do what they should have done against VG to begin with (deal with the mechanics with good play instead of defensive gear).

Remember that, on Gorseval, we only do the burn phases every other curtain to stay ahead of the final enrage timer. We can always still kite to the next wall and jump again. Groups don’t use all 4 walls now, so while, yes, there would still be an hard wall of sorts, removing the final enrage would loosen the requirements on the fight somewhat. It would be easy enough to program the walls to come back as well – only using more than 4 would mean you no longer qualify for gold reward.

The same is true on other fights as well. These aren’t insurmountable issues that would require solutions that detract from the current challenge (and reward for meeting that challenge).

Blaeys.3102:

Remember that, on Gorseval, we only do the burn phases every other curtain to stay ahead of the final enrage timer. We can always still kite to the next wall and jump again. Groups don’t use all 4 walls now, so while, yes, there would still be an hard wall of sorts, removing the final enrage would loosen the requirements on the fight somewhat. It would be easy enough to program the walls to come back as well – only using more than 4 would mean you no longer qualify for gold reward.

The same is true on other fights as well. These aren’t insurmountable issues that would require solutions that detract from the current challenge (and reward for meeting that challenge).

Yes removing the enrage would make the fight slightly easier, but it wouldn’t do much, because glass cannon builds are necessary to defeat gorseval anyway. The playstyle of that fight is completely dictated by the mechanics, not the timer. If you don’t have high DPS ranged characters to deal with the orbs you are just going to wipe. If you can’t kill the wall fast enough you are going to wipe. If you let him eat his adds you are going to wipe. Defensive gear/comp makes it harder to deal with all of those things. There just isn’t a different way to approach the fight. I wasn’t just making kitten up before, taking a glass cannon comp is simply the only good strategy for fights besides VG and Matthias – taking more defensive gear would only make them harder. You can say that’s bad design if you want, but it won’t change the fact that removing the timer would probably only help like 5-10% of people who are struggling to get boss kills, and those people are on the cusp of killing the boss reliably anyway.

Furthermore, I still don’t see why you want to get rid of the soft enrage timer but don’t have any problem with hard enrage (i.e. instant wipe) mechanics in the boss fights such as world eater and sabetha’s platform damage, and you don’t care about KC’s increasing damage which by itself is more damaging than most enrage timers after 10 minutes. Is there something inherently wrong about a timer that tells you when a mechanic begins?

I think the idea of tiered rewards is really cool in general, especially if it came with a leaderboard or something which would encourage groups to compete for speed kills (and maybe get rewarded for fastest kill of the week or something). But just slapping tiered rewards on and removing the timer isn’t making raids more accessible. That would require significant effort, time, and resources, and frankly I don’t think it’s worth it considering anet’s track record with modifying past content that wasn’t intended to ever be expanded. Saying “it would be easy to program X” is complete BS. You don’t know how raids or gw2 in general are programmed and have no idea what would be easy and what would not.

Dinosaurs.8674:

Blaeys.3102:

Remember that, on Gorseval, we only do the burn phases every other curtain to stay ahead of the final enrage timer. We can always still kite to the next wall and jump again. Groups don’t use all 4 walls now, so while, yes, there would still be an hard wall of sorts, removing the final enrage would loosen the requirements on the fight somewhat. It would be easy enough to program the walls to come back as well – only using more than 4 would mean you no longer qualify for gold reward.

The same is true on other fights as well. These aren’t insurmountable issues that would require solutions that detract from the current challenge (and reward for meeting that challenge).

Yes removing the enrage would make the fight slightly easier, but it wouldn’t do much, because glass cannon builds are necessary to defeat gorseval anyway. The playstyle of that fight is completely dictated by the mechanics, not the timer. If you don’t have high DPS ranged characters to deal with the orbs you are just going to wipe. If you can’t kill the wall fast enough you are going to wipe. If you let him eat his adds you are going to wipe. Defensive gear/comp makes it harder to deal with all of those things. There just isn’t a different way to approach the fight. I wasn’t just making kitten up before, taking a glass cannon comp is simply the only good strategy for fights besides VG and Matthias – taking more defensive gear would only make them harder. You can say that’s bad design if you want, but it won’t change the fact that removing the timer would probably only help like 5-10% of people who are struggling to get boss kills, and those people are on the cusp of killing the boss reliably anyway.

Furthermore, I still don’t see why you want to get rid of the soft enrage timer but don’t have any problem with hard enrage (i.e. instant wipe) mechanics in the boss fights such as world eater and sabetha’s platform damage, and you don’t care about KC’s increasing damage which by itself is more damaging than most enrage timers after 10 minutes. Is there something inherently wrong about a timer that tells you when a mechanic begins?

I think the idea of tiered rewards is really cool in general, especially if it came with a leaderboard or something which would encourage groups to compete for speed kills (and maybe get rewarded for fastest kill of the week or something). But just slapping tiered rewards on and removing the timer isn’t making raids more accessible. That would require significant effort, time, and resources, and frankly I don’t think it’s worth it considering anet’s track record with modifying past content that wasn’t intended to ever be expanded. Saying “it would be easy to program X” is complete BS. You don’t know how raids or gw2 in general are programmed and have no idea what would be easy and what would not.

Youre right. I shouldn’t have used the word easy. No one other than the devs know what is easy and what is not.

My point is there are surely ways to incorporate a tiered reward systems in ways that can open the raids to more people – and, as you note, maybe even add more to the challenge for top end players.

My way may not be the best. In fact, I’m pretty sure it isn’t. My point is, it is worth Anet implementing something. I am asking them to get creative – expand the experience – and make raiding more inclusive (without detracting from the current experience).

Making a party of 5 pugs to go into Aether Path is quite possible to do.
Making a group of 10 to go into a Raid is HARD.

I’m not talking about the raid itself or the combat mechanics involved. I’m talking just about getting enough people available and coordinated at the same time of the week.

An easier, 5 man mode without the full rewards, made just to play the whole story would be really welcome for me.

Ardid.7203:

Making a party of 5 pugs to go into Aether Path is quite possible to do.
Making a group of 10 to go into a Raid is HARD.

I’m not talking about the raid itself or the combat mechanics involved. I’m talking just about getting enough people available and coordinated at the same time of the week.

An easier, 5 man mode without the full rewards, made just to play the whole story would be really welcome for me.

Well, aether resets daily, so the pool of potential players is larger. That said, I have no problem organizing/joining pug groups, especially early in the week. I am not part of a static group — most of my raid kills are in pugs.

Absurdo.8309:

No one called for an easy mode aether path, and that directly tied into living story. It even hinted at the sylvari dragon link.

Some people did ask for that. That mostly went unheard simply because almost noone was interested in that dungeon due to it’s many other flaws.

Also, the Aether path is not even close to being so restrictive on skill, gear and organizational/timetable requirements as raids. If i were to ask any of my guildies to run it with me right now, i’d likely get a group, and we’d clear it with no chance of failing. The only question would be how long it would take. That would be true even if they were never in that dungeon before.

Absurdo.8309:

No one called for an easy mode arah explorable, and that directly links into the dragons and blood shard.

People have been asking for all dungeon paths to be made easier. And this actually happened, all of them got nerfed, most more than once.

(also, see the above note about aetherpath restrictiveness. It applies to Arah too)

Absurdo.8309:

No one called for an easy mode triple trouble

No, people were saying that it should have been outright nerfed. There is a reason why it’s not being done by a huge majority of the players. Also, this tied to LS1. LS1 had a terrible story and the less we’re reminded of it, the better.

Absurdo.8309:

I want raid designers making raids. Fractals devs on fractals. Living world on living world.

If there was such an equality of different content, you might have a point. We do not live in a perfect world however, and we have to make do with what we have. And what we have is nowhere close to what you want.

Absurdo.8309:

We don’t know how long it would take to make an easy mode. Gaile dropped by on these forums and told us not to guess. She also warned that designing multi-modal experiences could be very complicated. And you don’t have to look very far for evidence — we haven’t had a new fractal in years.

We haven’t had a new fractal in a long time, because they weren’t working on any. Same with dungeons. The raids however… they do work on those. Extensively.

Vinceman.4572:

Timers aren’t an issue for 99% of the players doing raids.

Sure, because generally the players that have issues with raids are not doing them.

Blaeys.3102:

Youre right. I shouldn’t have used the word easy. No one other than the devs know what is easy and what is not.

My point is there are surely ways to incorporate a tiered reward systems in ways that can open the raids to more people – and, as you note, maybe even add more to the challenge for top end players.

My way may not be the best. In fact, I’m pretty sure it isn’t. My point is, it is worth Anet implementing something. I am asking them to get creative – expand the experience – and make raiding more inclusive (without detracting from the current experience).

In general I agree, but I don’t think it’s worth the time in forsaken thicket. There have been so many gw2 projects relying on modifying existing content that wound up getting stalled forever for what I assume are technical reasons.

If multiple difficulty levels were built into future raids that would be great, but the current encounters were not made with that in mind and I don’t think it’s worth the potential headache to implement new rewards systems and/or mechanics to accommodate players’ requests to make the existing content more accessible. I’d rather just see a new raid that is more accessible.

And believe it or not I think that tiered raid rewards is actually a great idea. One of the biggest issues with raids is the lack of incentive to repeat them after the weekly kill, and this addresses that issue at least partially by encouraging groups to beat a certain time.

Astralporing.1957:

Sure, because generally the players that have issues with raids are not doing them.

Such arguments always reminds me “you dont have a pile of money because you are too passive to find a 100k$ job”. Outcome of problem is not a source of problem.

Astralporing.1957:

People have been asking for all dungeon paths to be made easier. And this actually happened, all of them got nerfed, most more than once.

(also, see the above note about aetherpath restrictiveness. It applies to Arah too)

Dungeons weren’t nerfed that much only little refinements were made, almost not to mention. The reason why dungeons are so easy has to do with power creep (restructure of zerker stats and introducing of elite specs due to HoT)

Astralporing.1957:

No, people were saying that it should have been outright nerfed. There is a reason why it’s not being done by a huge majority of the players. Also, this tied to LS1. LS1 had a terrible story and the less we’re reminded of it, the better.

The argument that TT belongs to LS1 and LS1 was terrible so TT hasn’t been liked is so absurd, I had to laugh when I read this, sry.
Also, even if TT is easier ppl still won’t play it, rewards are low. Most GW2 players play for loot compared to the time invested. The “walk of npc” in combination with fighting the worms just takes too long for 1g and a minimal chance of an asc box. Even without a preparation phase before the world boss wouldn’t be worth for the “farmers”.

Astralporing.1957:

Sure, because generally the players that have issues with raids are not doing them.

Yeah, ok.
I seriously doubt that those players who will try out raids will then start to complain hard about the timers.
Sorry, but this is pure nonsense. And it has been said so many times and it is true: Timers are nowwhere near a problem when facing the encounters.

As the title state’s many of us have jobs and real life obligations to attend to and can’t sit and raid for 3 or 4 hours. If I wanted hard core raids I would go back to WoW. Please don’t forget who the game was originally made for . I know I’m not alone that there are many people who feel left out they would like to experience raids without having time commitment restraints.

What would you consider casual? How would it differ from the standard raids? To a lot of players, the current Raids are already “Casual”. Most of the fights are pretty short. The sloth for example, is actually only 6 and half minutes long before he enrages. Most open world bosses take longer than this. Think of Jormag, Shatterer, the Golem and the meta events in the hot maps.

If you explain more clearly what you would like them to do, maybe they can accommodate a portion of the player base that agrees with you?

yeah, time commitment requirements are very low. 3 or 4 hours? I have never done that. The only reason you even spend more than 15 minutes is if you don’t know the fight

Astralporing.1957:

Neither is yours. Better for whom? And in what situation? For you? Possibly. For others? Debatable. Especially since you assume equity of content that does not really exist. No, getting more difficulty modes is not going to cost us a new dungeon.

you can try to boil it down to a popularity contest all you like but you haven’t actually presented anything to imply that multiple modes is a superior model to breadth of content. multiple modes is a damaging system in other MMOs and GW2’s systems would exacerbate those weaknesses

yeah i’d be very surprised if it cost us a new dungeon considering dungeon development is discontinued :?

the actual worry is that because they need to spend time going back and creating these modes that the next expansion, which considering raiding’s great success a raid is likely to be a front-and-center feature, is going to be delayed. and if you want to turn this into a popularity contest, i’m sure the wvwers and pvpers in the game would all prefer to see the next expac asap

Rednik.3809:

And I’d like to see new LS every 3 months, new dungeon+fractal every two and new raid with all wings every 6. Oh, and add more races, pve maps, emotions, activities, quests…
Too bad that in real world adding new mode to existing content costs less development time than making a full alternative from scratch. And because of that new mode is much more likely to happen instead.

mmos are long-term projects and short-term decisions like implementing easy modes because it consumes less resources are ultimately destructive in the long term. multiple difficulty modes are bad in the long term, and it isn’t a sane investment to make that sacrifice for the immediate

also any resource expenditure argument doesn’t really make much sense, unless that resource expenditure would also add or return extra resources to the dev team. adding a mode at this point would do the opposite; with the current raid complete, the team has probably already been moved to accelerate other developments, either on the next expac or in live development. moving them back to create an easy mode would therefore slow down anything that they’ve been reassigned to. that means either future live content (very bad) or the next expac (bad)