Guild Wars 2

Incoming people with “raids got so much already, look at all the other game modes like WvW where there’s nothing” obligatory.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tM8cgQ42bMQ

m16:20 “The next two wings will be available early next year, like early early, don’t think like they’re gonna come out in May”. Really early indeed, like mid-june for SotF.

m16:55. “Early guess would be like 6 per year”. SV – 2015; SP, SotF -2016; BotP -2017. Okay, I get that it’s a guess. But I bought HoT on the idea that I would get more than this. Problems arise, not everything can be released on a strict deadline but we went from 6 wings to 2 wings per year? It’s obvious that the next raid won’t see the light till after the next expansion since it took 8 months for raid 4 to be released.

Does the raid team want to share some up-to-date roadmap for the raids? When is the next wing coming? What happened that one of the selling points for HoT (atleast for me) was not respected?

Watch the video again to see the context. They were guessing as to what they might be able to pull off prior to launch; they weren’t promising anything.

Ruby: how many raids do you think you’re going to crank out per year?
M: That’s a more tricky question to answer. …we’re trying to find our stride… like how long does it take us to build this stuff, like what can we actually build… I mean, if we’re looking at these wings… early guess would be maybe six per year.

Raids hardly needs a road map; it’s a game mode that has gotten consistent updates since the first encounter in the first raid. If anything, those who don’t raid are envious of the amount of updates.

Besides that, you’re going off a 2 year-old video; many, many things have changed since then (including members of the raid team).

It’s fine to want more content (who doesn’t want that?). However, try to get some perspective on what we’ve already gotten; the last year and a half have been good for raids.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Watch the video again to see the context. They were guessing as to what they might be able to pull off prior to launch; they weren’t promising anything.
Raids hardly needs a road map; it’s a game mode that has gotten consistent updates since the first encounter in the first raid. If anything, those who don’t raid are envious of the amount of updates.

Provide me the context then.
I don’t care what the people that don’t raid think of raids. They have their own stuff / game modes they are interested in. Good for them. Here we are talking about one of the selling points for HoT.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Besides that, you’re going off a 2 year-old video; many, many things have changed since then (including members of the raid team).

Unless Anet said somewhere that this video no longer reflects reality, this video is up-to-date. Legendary weapons were said to come 2 years ago so the full set shouldn’t be finished because it’s a 2 years old statement?

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

It’s fine to want more content (who doesn’t want that?). However, try to get some perspective on what we’ve already gotten; the last year and a half have been good for raids.

We barely got anything for one year and a half, in my perspective. 8 months for one raid wing? Really?

I don’t think you understand. This was at a Twitchcon panel on upcoming Raids in Hearth of Thorns. They were there to promote the expansion. This was made as a selling point for HoT. Which means that a client goes to ANet and asks them: “yo, dudes, why should we buy your expansion?” and Anet replies “if you are interested in raids, we might be able to crank about 6 raids per year”. Okay, problems come and can’t be solved really fast, so the timeline might get adjusted, everyone understands that. But one raid in 8 months?. That video is a Q&A where there are some questions asked and answered about an expansion. The devs weren’t there to talk about their personal lives, they were there to talk about HoT and what’s coming with it.

If you take such a video at face value, you’re delusional. I have yet to see a MMO where the devs manage to fulfill the expectations they created before the respective content cycle. That simply does not happen. Besides, a new wing every two months is ridiculous anyway.

It might have been me, but I understud it as 6 bosses pr. year. I’d love to see more then that, but..

Even if we take it at 6 boss a year, then you can count it as job done.

However, i think the raid team has earned a nice vacation given the work they’ve done already. Outside of minor polishing and bug fixing this year has been plenty healthy for raids. Now its time to work on the Legendary Armor and get that out and done.

The issue transcends raids. We don’t really have a roadmap for any aspect of the game.

And I don’t really expect one. About two years ago, Anet adopted a communication strategy where they only really talk about content as it’s being released – to avoid disappointing people with predictions that either take longer than planned or never see the light of day.

And six wings per year would be ridiculous given the current model. That would outpace living story and fractals and make raids the biggest part of the game – a very bad idea given the divisive opinions and feelings regarding raids right now.

Blaeys.3102:

That would outpace living story and fractals and make raids the biggest part of the game – a very bad idea given the divisive opinions and feelings regarding raids right now.

Since when did a vocal minorities voice about excluding themselves from content matter to a developer when they already acknowledge raids are for a specific target audience (read: not that voical minority) …. ?

TexZero.7910:

Since when did a vocal minorities voice about excluding themselves from content matter to a developer?

Since a small vocal minority that didn’t want to play the existing content persuaded Anet to introduce Raids, i’d say.

Astralporing.1957:

TexZero.7910:

Since when did a vocal minorities voice about excluding themselves from content matter to a developer?

Since a small vocal minority that didn’t want to play the existing content persuaded Anet to introduce Raids, i’d say.

solid point.

Astralporing.1957:

TexZero.7910:

Since when did a vocal minorities voice about excluding themselves from content matter to a developer?

Since a small vocal minority that didn’t want to play the existing content persuaded Anet to introduce Raids, i’d say.

We had a CDI that proves the opposite of this point.

Sykper.6583:

Astralporing.1957:

TexZero.7910:

Since when did a vocal minorities voice about excluding themselves from content matter to a developer?

Since a small vocal minority that didn’t want to play the existing content persuaded Anet to introduce Raids, i’d say.

We had a CDI that proves the opposite of this point.

I would recommend going back and reading through that CDI. What most people asked for or expected from raids isnt what they delivered.

Blaeys.3102:

Sykper.6583:

Astralporing.1957:

TexZero.7910:

Since when did a vocal minorities voice about excluding themselves from content matter to a developer?

Since a small vocal minority that didn’t want to play the existing content persuaded Anet to introduce Raids, i’d say.

We had a CDI that proves the opposite of this point.

I would recommend going back and reading through that CDI. What most people asked for or expected from raids isnt what they delivered.

It didn’t fit any single person’s idea of a raid from that thread, that’s true.

But they did deliver the content. It is instanced, difficult content that requires coordination and an above party-sized squad.

They actually held back a lot, there were definitely some requests for 20-man raids.

Sykper.6583:

Blaeys.3102:

Sykper.6583:

Astralporing.1957:

TexZero.7910:

Since when did a vocal minorities voice about excluding themselves from content matter to a developer?

Since a small vocal minority that didn’t want to play the existing content persuaded Anet to introduce Raids, i’d say.

We had a CDI that proves the opposite of this point.

I would recommend going back and reading through that CDI. What most people asked for or expected from raids isnt what they delivered.

It didn’t fit any single person’s idea of a raid from that thread, that’s true.

But they did deliver the content. It is instanced, difficult content that requires coordination and an above party-sized squad.

They actually held back a lot, there were definitely some requests for 20-man raids.

There were some really good and creative ideas in that CDI – and a clear desire by many for things like tiered levels/variable challenges/high accessibility across the board/etc. I am constantly saddened that they chose to carbon copy the raid model from other games (actually from other games 10 years ago) rather than play to this game’s strengths and develop something unique and fun.

The CDI definitely wasn’t a clarion call for raids as we have them today, as you try to posit above.

How can today’s raids be anything but a result of what the community collectively wanted from the CDI?

From the multitude of suggestions there was a consistent theme, ‘instanced difficult content for more than 5 players’.

There was such a demand for this back then, nothing in the game at the time was truly challenging except for Triple Trouble which coincidentally likely caused such an upheaval. The open-world encounter at that time was very demanding, and it split the community between those who finally enjoyed a challenge on a large scale, and those who wanted to ask the question “Why is this in my open world? This is too hard.”

The best approach was creating truly difficult content in an instanced environment outside of the open-world that was larger than Dungeons. Hence we got the CDI of which dozens of forum-goers at that time gave their detailed ideas for how to go about it, and from there Arenanet gave us the content as it exists today. All of this for the goal of creating difficult-only content.

The CDI was most definitely a call for what raids could be in GW2, and no amount of denial from you is going to change what the CDI brought to us. And given the overwhelming positive remarks from those actually raiding the content since W1, loving the fact that we got instanced difficult content that requires coordination from more than 5 people, they nailed it.

And I really dislike how you continue to insist that GW2 raids are some sort of ‘carbon-copy’ of other MMOs. I would argue right now that adding other difficulties would actually make them MORE identical, which means we should keep to the single difficulty we have right now no?

Sykper.6583:

Astralporing.1957:

TexZero.7910:

Since when did a vocal minorities voice about excluding themselves from content matter to a developer?

Since a small vocal minority that didn’t want to play the existing content persuaded Anet to introduce Raids, i’d say.

We had a CDI that proves the opposite of this point.

Oh, really? In what way?

Sykper.6583:

How can today’s raids be anything but a result of what the community collectively wanted from the CDI?

First, only a small subset of community participated in that CDI, so how it could be a represenation of what community wanted? Second, on lot of things there was no debate (or at least no meaningful debate) because Anet devs have already decided what they wanted.

Anet asked a small subset of players what they wanted, and then interpreted it their own way, ignoring most of the feedback.

Astralporing.1957:

Anet asked a small subset of players what they wanted, and then interpreted it their own way, ignoring most of the feedback.

Yes, and it was a good decision because it was this specific subset of players that wanted to have a lil bit more challenging content than the old trash dungeons and the boring open world pve stuff.
No casual was asking about same lame and easy dungeons, they weren’t even playing them.

Astralporing.1957:

Anet asked a small subset of players what they wanted, and then interpreted it their own way, ignoring most of the feedback.

They asked everyone, the CDIs covered several aspects of the game. By far the largest amount of community inquiries done during the forum’s lifespan.

Although if you want to pursue that even the CDIs were meaningless since the forums are based on a subset of the playerbase, then we should assume that just about every single thread on the raiding is pointless since they contain less individuals contributing overall.

Go have a look at the archive, these threads were no small subset of the community.

Astralporing.1957:

TexZero.7910:

Since when did a vocal minorities voice about excluding themselves from content matter to a developer?

Since a small vocal minority that didn’t want to play the existing content persuaded Anet to introduce Raids, i’d say.

Really, those people who wanted more from the game and played the content without excluding themselves are somehow the same in your mind as the people currently vilifying raids ?

I’d say it’s a different subset of people entirely…

Also again since when did developers take feelings of players into account for designing content, especially when that subset of players is so small as to be insignificant ? If you answer this with raids, you’re being disingenuous on a silly level.

I’d expect another raid to ship alongside the next expansion. That’s my gut feeling from their current pace, where we’re at in the year, and how close (I’m estimating) we are to the expansion announcement.

TexZero.7910:

Also again since when did developers take feelings of players into account for designing content, especially when that subset of players is so small as to be insignificant ? If you answer this with raids, you’re being disingenuous on a silly level.

That’s pretty true. More like, they took financial results instead.

Rising Dusk.2408:

I’d expect another raid to ship alongside the next expansion. That’s my gut feeling from their current pace, where we’re at in the year, and how close (I’m estimating) we are to the expansion announcement.

Agreed, I think that now they have tested the waters they might consider putting the first wing of the new raid, on launch date.

Then those wanting to raid have to decide to go straight into progression with what they have now, OR do the open-world maps and unlock the next elite specs. I do have higher expectations of the upcoming expansion since they’ve taken what they have learned from the current state of the HoT maps and applying them forward. Meaning we won’t have HoT maps like they were at launch, and more rewards, ambient events, etc.

I don’t expect the difficulty to drop whatsoever.

Unless they have two raid teams working concurrently, I dont really expect to see a raid packaged with the next expansion. Instead, I suspect the raid to be timed as closely to the expansion drop as possible – most likely coming a month or two after the actual expansion drop.

As far as difficulty, I don’t expect – nor want – a drop in difficulty at all. I do think they are are, or will soon be, exploring ways to add more accessibility to the raid experience – which probably means some kind of easy mode or flex system. It really is the most logical solution to the current issues.