Guild Wars 2

Yes, that is exactly how Anet wanted it. Raids should only be for 1-10% of the playerbase.

Don’t ask me why they thought it a good idea to invest so many resources in something like this.

Edit: This is not the OP post. OP is cited 3 posts below.

I think its a wonderful idea. The fun is in the challenge, if we would have completed it on the first day it would be nothing special, just another grind.

Why they invested resources into something like this? Because GW2 was lacking difficult endgame content. Besides, there were Elite Zones in GW1 too and no one really complained, at least later on (Wasn’t around for the first two~ years of the game)

circuitnerd.5863:

I like challenging stuff but when 99.99999% of the player base is not going to get past even the first boss, I just don’t see much of a future for raids.

What I don’t understand is why they let an “A” team guild determine the difficulty of it by letting them test it. It sets the bar extremely high.

I honestly do not see people going to continue spending 8 hours a day working on getting past the first boss for too much longer.

Is this how you wanted it to be Arenanet?

If people work eight hours per day to get past those bosses and still can’t do them then they might want to try another type of content.
But seriously… it would be an even worse sign if most people (especially pugs) had been successful during the first week.
I really hope they won’t give in to the complaining about the difficulty or the balance before anyone could even get used to it or had time to figure it out. Nerfs like that have happened many times before and quite often turned out to be too harsh in hindsight.

It was done in the first two days (not including DnT), pugs and those using very little communication are finishing or coming extremely close too.

Also, Wildstar were trying for the whole ‘hardcore’ level of difficulty look how many people stuck around for that…

Do you know how much resources they’ve put in raid? More than any other activities in the game ? How many people are working full time on raids ?
On top of that 1-10 % of player base can beat it… for now. When DOA was released in GW1 I don’t more people could beat it… after 3 years I think more then 50 % could. So after two days with no insider infos you think you can draw those conclusions that are so big that they deserve to open a new thread on the forum ?

Sicarius.4639:

It was done in the first two days (not including DnT), pugs and those using very little communication are finishing or coming extremely close too.

Also, Wildstar were trying for the whole ‘hardcore’ level of difficulty look how many people stuck around for that…

At least gw lore is old and have its roots, this game had a solid playerbase. WS was a bit too extreme since it was new, and the attunement process really was quite rough in itself. Im thankful that ascended will always be best stat.

You know why ppl couldn’t kill the first boss after a couple of hours? The main reason was because we were testing the mechanic. My group never tried the beta so we had no infos. Of a circle, what is this, oh kitten we are dead. Ok we need to have people in it, 1, wipe, 2 wipe, 3 wipe, 4 bingo. Can we get out of the circle? Too fast, wipe, too slow 4k hit, just the right timing, bingo. What the boss split, what are these symbol over our head, why the floor is illuminating, etc, etc. Once a group figure out how the boss work, it’s a lot more easier to do. And over time people will spread the information, guide will appear, pugs will share info and people won’t have to try and die to learn.

The second reason is composition. It’s part linked to the first problem. People didn’t went into the raid with all the right tools the first time. We swapped things out as we learn them and it wasn’t really efficient. As time pass the community will be able to develop different composition that work best, making the fight easier to complete.

The third reason is just player skill. Whatever your knowledge, whatever your composition, you can’t carry 1-2 bad players like you could do other thing content in the game. Everybody need to carry their own weigh. People that die can’t be rez, rally is almost inexistant in raid and almost everybody have a role.

2 days after release and you already saying that 99,99999% wont be able to make it…
Lol
You are way to stupid for this game…sorry man..
Thats just it..
Same thing that was said after teq buff.
Now it is farmed with eyes closed..
Same thing about wurm…
Just freaking give ppl time…
It is a good sign that it is taking longer to be beaten.. at least it is not like ds meta or ls last boss that you beat on 1st attempt…
Challenging content is a good thing and gw2 was needing this since its release…
Just let ppl adapt to boss mechanic and i bet it will be done….
Avoid pugs.. try getting into organized groups… juat like first days after teq buff… organized maps succeeded while the others failed.. same will happen here

Try not to sweat it so much. I found a pug group on launch day, we got the Vale Guard down to 45%. We learned a bit. Yesterday that same group got back together, we refined what we had learned, experimented with tactics and after about 4 hours, we cleared the guard and got our first kill.

It’s tough. There are a lot of mechanics to pay attention to, but (and this is the big secret to our success) you have to actually pay attention.

I mean it. GW2 has taught you that the only thing that matters are red circles up to this point, well that is no longer true. Now we have optimized roles, we have strategy, watch the patterns and learn to exploit weaknesses… its actually a load of fun.

I bashed my face against that stupid boss for almost 8 full hours, and it was the most fun I have ever had playing GW2

The pugs will learn, as strats become widely available. If anything I actually think that the Vale Guard might be slightly too easy…

The difficulty is at just the right level. Casual pugs who google the latest and greatest builds expecting to faceroll everything don’t stand a chance. Though, players who have the aptitude to learn and adapt excel in a fight like this. Even if we get to the point where the community has developed the ideal composition and strategy there’s still the execution check.

Fights like Teq and Wurm were difficult at first because we were used to having to fulfil certain tasks while engaged in combat. Suddenly roles had to be taken and certain coordination was needed to make sure that certain tasks were being met at certain times. We were used to walking up to a boss, let’s say Lupi, and execute very consistent strategies: DPS hard, dodge the grub, dodge the kick, nuke with reflects. Bosses would hide behind invulnerability windows were the map could burn hard and then take a break while fulfilling the events.

Vale Guard takes that concept one step further by requiring the team to fulfil tasks while maintaining damage throughout the whole fight. You also lose the safety of the zerg blob to where we are used to throwing bodies to overcome the difficulty. Now, we have to compensate quantity with quality: 10 solid folks. The unfortunate part about the Vale fight is that one wrong move could potentially wipe the team. Two wrong moves in a row, and it’ll be very difficult to recover. I much prefer this form of “on your toes” mentality vs what we have with Teq, “Oh, I died. Let me waypoint and run back.”

GW2 really needed challenging, strategic PvE gameplay, which neither dungeons nor the open world have ever sufficiently provided. It’s been lacking since launch and is arguably a major reason why it struggles to retain players.

For this reason, the raid is great. They need to release more of them and work on improving their 5 man content.

Two reasons why really challenging elite content works:

- Twitch and streaming viewable content
- Giving players something to aspire to

Before raids this game had zero PVE content that was worth watching simply because there’s nothing people can’t log in and just do themselves. Now you see hundreds of people watching PVE streams, because there’s things they want to see that they can’t actually do themselves yet.

A large majority of players have a psychological need to aspire to something in games. Even in physical sports, amateur players usually have some sort of hero that they aspire to be who plays in the big leagues. They continue to play despite knowing deep down that they probably will never be at that level (Or maybe one day they will). This is what raids should be for GW2 players. The dream to aspire to and hopefully one day achieve.

For those reasons it’s well worth developing content for the top 5-10% (It might be 1% content now but it’ll certainly open up as tactics and builds develop and the player base learns).

savacli.8172:

The difficulty is at just the right level. Casual pugs who google the latest and greatest builds expecting to faceroll everything don’t stand a chance. Though, players who have the aptitude to learn and adapt excel in a fight like this. Even if we get to the point where the community has developed the ideal composition and strategy there’s still the execution check.

Fights like Teq and Wurm were difficult at first because we were used to having to fulfil certain tasks while engaged in combat. Suddenly roles had to be taken and certain coordination was needed to make sure that certain tasks were being met at certain times. We were used to walking up to a boss, let’s say Lupi, and execute very consistent strategies: DPS hard, dodge the grub, dodge the kick, nuke with reflects. Bosses would hide behind invulnerability windows were the map could burn hard and then take a break while fulfilling the events.

Vale Guard takes that concept one step further by requiring the team to fulfil tasks while maintaining damage throughout the whole fight. You also lose the safety of the zerg blob to where we are used to throwing bodies to overcome the difficulty. Now, we have to compensate quantity with quality: 10 solid folks. The unfortunate part about the Vale fight is that one wrong move could potentially wipe the team. Two wrong moves in a row, and it’ll be very difficult to recover. I much prefer this form of “on your toes” mentality vs what we have with Teq, “Oh, I died. Let me waypoint and run back.”

I have nothing to add to this, I just think people should read it again because it is 100% true.