Guild Wars 2

Dean Calaway.9718:

Fermi.2409:

Dean Calaway.9718:

That’s why no one PuGs Raids, you can only do it with people you know for years that you are sure they are reliable.

I don’t have time to reply to the whole thing here, but this is false; plenty of people pug raids. My raid successes are all with pugs…

False?

Let me check the LFG tool on a Friday, 6:30PM London time.

Ascalonian Catacombs: 2
Caudecus’s Manor: 0
Twilight Arbor: 0
Sorrow’s Embrace: 0
Citadel of Flame: 1
Honor of the Waves: 0
Crucible of Eternity: 0
The Ruined City of Arah: 1 <- Selling.

Mind you I’ve waited in each tab to see if PuGs turn up.
Now add the fact the LFG tool doesn’t have any tab for Raids and your case is looking flimsy at best.

For the giggles on the Open World Content tab there are over 37 PuGs selling SAB, too many coming too fast to count.

Last nail, let me /m LFG Raid. Nothing after 10 minutes…
But I’ll take your word for it, plenty of people PuG Raids, GW2 is healthier than ever, Raids and the Expansion were a great idea. Not.

You think that checking lfg at a particular time on a particular day proves that no one pugs raids nor has ever done so, and that the only way one could possuibly ever complete the raid is to play with people you have known for years?

What an amazing coincidence that you mention London time because I asked around at 6pm my time and no one asked had ever seen London or England. Definitive proof that England is imaginary. Since London doesnt exist neither can, “London time,” so it is now proven that you did not actually perform your test, right?

Astralporing.1957:

Lol, i was there from the beginning, and “the masses” never asked for it. A small but vocal minority did.

Sort of like the small vocal minority calling for raid nerfs/different raid modes? I can back this up from the fact that Anet created raids and stated that raid participation hit higher numbers than in most games. If you don’t think that is a success then there is no point in continuing this conversation.

Astralporing.1957:

That’s not exactly true. In fact, if you look at it, most MMOs don’t really increase difficulty. Yeah, the mobs get stronger, but at the same time players get supplied with stronger gear to balance it. That creates an illusion that you improve, while in fact you are standing still.

My quote was taken out of context/misunderstood by you. What I am saying is from the start of a game to the end, there should be some sort climb in difficulty, as there is. What players wanted was an additional climb past level 50 fractals. Once the climb ceases the flare of the game wares out. This is a horizontal progression game. You can’t think of it in terms of games with vertical progression.

Astralporing.1957:

No. What you realy need is new goals to pursue, both long and shortterm ones. New maps, skins, achievements, questlines and bosses, new legendaries, scavenger hunts and new reasons to spend resources (and thus new reasons to obtain them).

A game should have more than a farmville incentive to keep playing. Once you achieve all these goals there is nothing. Different players achieve these goals at different rates meaning you need some sort of climb to keep the majority of the community interested.

Astralporing.1957:

It’s actually better not to introduce such mechanics, because not only they require introducing stronger enemies, but eventually either invalidate old content or force devs to put effort into revamping it.

Old content is almost always invalidated by new content. You can only spread the community so far. What do you think is going to happen to HoT when the next few xpacs drop, assuming they do? Can you go on more about how this statement is a fact because you say so? This game doesn’t even promote a vertical ladder. It’s more of a horizontal ladder which requires skill to cross rather than time.

Sird.4536:

It’s a shame there is no Reddit gold system here.

<3

I can see why people who liked open world are upset. I don’t think this content was aimed at the hard core crowd. I also don’t think the enemy difficulty is the ultimate problem (I don’t see huge complaints about the same enemies in story) but it may be a contributing factor. I think the problem is that every single map is event driven, on a timer, and has champion protected hero points.

I have heard from people who could barely get through the first story chapter to get their glider and never touched it again. The mob difficulty is a significant problem for some people. Don’t you remember the HoT betas when people were complaining very loudly about Modrem Snipers, to the point that they tweaked them (at least in that first mission) several times before launch?

I agree that timer changes and soloability changes will be nice, it will improve things considerably, but it won’t entirely solve the problems people are having. And keep in mind, this is coming from someone with full HoT map completion, maxed elite specs on 11 characters, and HoT story completion, so I’m not saying this was too hard for me, but I totally get why it’s too hard for others, and honestly it was more hassle than fun in places.

But yeah, right now HOT causal content is in a dire state. I don’t think this is the fault of raids (which are generally well received by that community) but the ongoing content drought and poor open world maps.

I also don’t think it was the fault of raids, just that raids are a symptom of the problem, which is that ANet overestimated how much the players would want raid like content, more difficulty enemies, more meta map objectives that required overall map coordination to complete, stuff like that. The HoT open world maps are basically like “raid content-lite,” so for people who enjoy raid style content, there’s a lot to do, while for people that don’t enjoy raid style content, there’s really not much aside from trying to cross maps while avoiding as much as possible.

Were you not around when the masses were calling for more difficult content prior to HoT?

That isn’t a thing that happened. “The masses” were never asking for more difficult content. A very vocal minority was asking for more difficult content, a group of similar size to the “anti-raid whiners” you’re trying to hush up now. There have always been people that wanted raids, that wanted “more challenging content,” but most of them left early in the game and never came back, because that’s not what GW2 was about. The community that they fostered for three years were the people who liked that GW2 was not overly challenging.

I think it’s fine to have challenging content, but it needs to be COMPLETELY optional. Not “optional” in the sense of “you don’t have to do it, but if you don’t then you’ll never get certain rewards or be able to play through certain content,” but TRULY optional, in the sense of “there is a hard version and there is an easy version. You can play the easy version if you like and get all the same stuff, it’d just take a bit longer than in hard mode. Have fun!”

In general, if a game does not increase in difficulty over time, then the game has no longitivtiy. You can make the difficulty constant, but then the game becomes mindless. In order for a game to be interactively entertaining and promote longitivtiy, there needs to be slight increases in difficulty (a sort of ladder) as the game goes on, especially when adding in player-boosting mechanics such as elite specs.

That’s not how GW2 works. GW2 was designed to have relatively flat difficulty, at least once you reach endgame. That’s why a level 80 can still do content in starter zones, and while it’s a bit easier, it’s not like one-shottting boss mobs easier like in other games.

I suspect, if Ohoni was a lead marketer for Guild Wars 2, the game wouldn’t be in the state it’s in. That said, he’s offering his opinion based on his experience. And he’s been extremely civil about it. If you disagree, that’s fine.

But there’s no need for your snark.

Ardenwolfe.8590:

I suspect, if Ohoni was a lead marketer for Guild Wars 2, the game wouldn’t be in the state it’s in. That said, he’s offering his opinion based on his experience. And he’s been extremely civil about it. If you disagree, that’s fine.

But there’s no need for your snark.

Woah woah ease up on the name calling. Don’t want to be snarky. There’s a different between expressing your opinions and staring your opinions as facts.

Copy, Paste, /thread:

Sort of like the small vocal minority calling for raid nerfs/different raid modes? I can back this up from the fact that Anet created raids and stated that raid participation hit higher numbers than in most games. If you don’t think that is a success then there is no point in continuing this conversation.

You’re trying to apply a same/same argument here, which is faulty for several reasons:

1. Forums and other out of game communities always skew towards “serious” players, hardcores. If you have ten people loving raids on a forum that might represent hundreds in the game, while if you have ten people talking against them that is more likely to represent thousands. Previous MMO developers have expressed this fact, that while the majority of the conversation on their boards revolved around raiding and endgame content, those players only made up 10-15% of the actual players. Because of this, “the same number of people are on your side as on mine”, in this case, would put you well behind, not even.

2. They did say that raid participation in GW2 was higher than the industry standard, but this is not a major factor, both because of the generally low raid participation in other games (so “more than 10%” is really nothing to right home about), and because the raids are brand new, and most people can at least enter them as is, so chances are that a huge number of players have at least tried the raids out over the past few months. I’m certainly one of those. That doesn’t mean that they enjoyed their experience, or would continue to do so over the next few months. We have heard no data out of ANet as to how many people are raiding on a weekly basis.

You may be right, the GW2 community might LOVE raids as they are and not want any changes made, but there’s no evidence to support that theory, and it seems by far the least likely scenario, given past circumstances and the GW2 community in general.

I hear your opinion, and you are one in a dozen. Is this a fact because you state it needs to be that way? Is this how a solid game works that keeps the interest of the consumer? Zero progression? If I wasn’t right Ohoni, things would not be the way they are. It’s pretty simple.

So basically you’re arguing that if this wasn’t the right thing to do, they wouldn’t have done it?

Like WvW Borderlands 3.0?

Like NGE 1?

Or NGE 2?

Like the oh-so-successful Precusor Crafting that everyone loves so much?

They’re human, they make mistakes. A mistake is only really a problem if they refuse to correct it (although really they could make a lot more mistakes if they were more transparent about their long term plans rather than springing systems on us fully formed). they implemented raids they did because they thought it would be a good idea to do so. That doesn’t mean that it WAS a good idea for them to do so.

Hello GW2 community, what would you rather have?

1.) Would you rather have an easy-mode faceroll raid mode.

2.) NEW CONTENT

It’s not an either-or situation. At least not significantly so. New content takes a lot of resources, and is likely going to get them. Easy mode raiding, even by the most pessimistic analysis, would take a lot fewer resources, no new models, textures, environments, animations, etc. It would be purely content designer work, spreadsheets and databases, and that’s still work, but less of it than full blown “new content”.

So if say the original plan is to design “one hundred new ‘content things,’” and they changed their plans to also make an easy mode raid, then that might reduce it to “the easy mode raid and ninety-seven new ‘content things,’” not “well, just the easy mode raid now, no time for new content.”

People would still be getting PLENTY of new content, and they would also be getting the ability to play the entire current raids in a manner that they would enjoy more. Win-win-win.

I’m sorry, did you design GW2? Are you the lead marketer for consumer interest or something? Or… are you making things up again to push your agenda?

If you don’t recognize my statement as being obviously true, then you need to play more GW2 before attempting to discuss the game.

Avarice.2791:

Astralporing.1957:

Lol, i was there from the beginning, and “the masses” never asked for it. A small but vocal minority did.

Sort of like the small vocal minority calling for raid nerfs/different raid modes? I can back this up from the fact that Anet created raids and stated that raid participation hit higher numbers than in most games. If you don’t think that is a success then there is no point in continuing this conversation.

People were asking for harder content. That is true. When you start to faceroll Orr semi afk, this is understandable. I was also looking for some more challenging stuff and found my comfort zone in ls1. I also think that elitists showed their true faces in ls1 when they kept on hillariously complaining in map chat how people could be so bad to fail Marionette although that was quite a challenging content. The good thing with Marionette was that you could just run off if you ran out of time, that is my main gripe with raids anyway if they insist to hide legendary armor behind it in a blunt attempt to force me into them.
What is certainly not true is that people were specifically asking for raids. Anet also tried first with ls2, but that was so much of a design fail on all levels that I don´t really wonder that many people did it once to just get over with because they, like me, hated to get absolutely nothing out of a 20 minute encounter because a monster struck you in its death throes with a last attack or were forced to bring some friends with you while you were just afk(this was kittened, really?) at some point. Which brings me to my second gripe with raids, just bad reward distribution.

@more people participate in raids:
I want to begin with the statement that it may very well be that the raids of Anet are more accessible and better than WOW raids. I don´t know, I did neither with big enjoyment and was biased from the start. I know that I just hated doing open world DAOC raids, but that is another story.
I am also not that good at mathematics, but I think this hits home my knowledge about statistics(assuming numbers here):
WoW has 100 people. 5 of them raid. The number of people raiding is 5%.
GW2 has 100 people. 8 of them raid. The number of people raiding is 8%.
So a larger portion of players raid in GW2 than in WoW.
Also, did you know that if you had one player and another player joins the first one, that you have increased the number of players by 100%? What a huge success!^^

Simply not fun enough to warrant the stress and effort.

I loved LFR style raiding, in WoW, but they have ruined that, now, to try to keep a few “real” raiders happy.

I did some “real” raiding in WoW myself, but only because I felt I was capable of it, having learned the basics of the fights from MoP LFR and happened to have the time; not because it is my preferred form of raiding.

There is, literally, nothing worse, IMO, than being forced to look up fights, in advance and then paint by numbers.

When I was a kid, looking stuff up was viewed as cheating; now it’s compulsory.

I don’t like it and never will.

Raiding should be for all and have a learning curve (so you don’t have to look up tactics) – while it isn’t, they can keep it.

There’s a huge difference between being an elitist jerk, and actually striving to kill the bosses. The latter requires a specific setup, or else you’ll make it impossible to kill the boss. Specific gear setup/build is required to succeed, not because someone is a jerk. Raids are about beating the content using appropriate builds, and although there are different varieties, the specific setup still exists and it’s needed more than anything else in PvE.

It turns out you aren’t really supposed to play the way you want, you are supposed to play the role you want, within a certain framework. And this is perfectly fine. This is the very nature of raids in MMOs. If you disagree, please proceed to doing other content that fits your tastes, raids won’t change because it would defeat the purpose of what it is.

its also a fine line ^^ When a raid leader is only capable of adopting 1 rote memorized strategy then that is where issues arise because it forces builds on people which can be counter productive. However the real problem is that any type of fight that has a dps race element to it is ultimately cursed by this potential behavior. That’s not to say all raid leaders are bad.

Astralporing.1957:

cranos.5913:

I’m not taking away anything from anyone. What you guys are arguing is the same as saying, “why can’t I get the legendary pvp backpiece in hotjoin?” or “why can’t I get the fractal backpiece by only doing levels below 10?”

No. It’s “why can’t i get pvp backpiece without getting past Ruby” and “Why can’t i get fractal one without runing Elite/Champion tier”. And the answer in both cases is “why, you can”. Easy mode Raids would be exactly the same.

cranos.5913:

It would take me more time to get it but I’m entitled to this reward even though I don’t like pvp/fractals at all.

You are entitled to nothing, really. Technically, looking at EULA you’re not even entitled to playing.

cranos.5913:

In fact, while we’re at it, you guys do realise the new legendary weapons are exclusive to open world content, right? I can’t get it without getting suicidal tendencies from DS.

Yeah, the new legendary weapons are bad in that regard, i fully agree. They should not be so dependant on rare HoT drops and map currencies.

cranos.5913:

Skill gated vs time gated has nothing to do with how much something costs.

Indeed.

cranos.5913:

I’m talking about the perceived value by players, not actual cost on the tp.

It’s the same. Legendary weapons are freely available and timegated, not skill-gated, and their value (perceived value) is all-time high.

In fact, their perceived worth is generally much, much higher than, say, Liadri mini, which was skillgated. Or than non-legendary raid exclusive skins for that matter.

You’re still missing the point rly. You can pick out whatever quotes you want and try to discuss these little things but it comes down to this. I strongly feel that skill gated rewards are more valuable than time gated rewards. I see this in my guild (which is raid focused) as well. Maybe I don’t speak for the entire raiding community here, but many of these “I don’t mind easy mode but legendary armor should stay hardmode only” seems to suggest otherwise. Perceived value is in the eye of the beholder and for some that liadri title or mini might be a lot more valuable than yet another gold bought skin. I for sure know a lot of people preferred the fractal weapons over legendaries before they made em so easily accessible.

So you want to make easy mode? You want to have legendary armor? I already said I’m in favour of both of those as long as it doesn’t take time away from raid development too much. After all what I want to see most in the future is them not scrapping the team after wing 3 because of this negativity towards this 1 single reward.

But here comes the thing… In my eyes, and in the eyes of many other raiders it seems from the posts I see changing the system from a skill gated system to a time gated system devalues what we currently have as rewards. So how do you fix this? You could obv go “screw the raiders I want my shinies” which seems to be Ohoni’s stance on this (and the reason I interjected in the first place) or you could have a decent discussion about reward rebalance. Because let’s face it, without leggy armor current raid rewards are abysmal.

cranos.5913:

You’re still missing the point rly. You can pick out whatever quotes you want and try to discuss these little things

A tactic to misdirect a solid argument. It plagues these forums.

cranos.5913:

but it comes down to this. I strongly feel that skill gated rewards are more valuable than time gated rewards. I see this in my guild (which is raid focused) as well.

I agree with you 100%. A reward as prestigious as the theoretical legendary armor should consist of the most difficult content the Dev’s can throw at us. At the very least, raiding should be more rewarding than all else in relation to the amount of effort put in, which Anet has done a fantastic job so far doing so.

It’s not the game’s issue if the player is unwilling to play. This could lead to general population issues which is pointless to speculate on as a player, but it is not a “problem” as it is.

Topics such as these consist of personal speculations based off personal experiences which hold no grounds for an argument. The best thing to do is address your opinion, and move on. Ignore the trolls who preach opinions like they are facts.

If the player is willing to play, but having trouble then rather than asking for changes, they should be asking for help.

^ in my case said “raid help” was verbal abuse for even asking what build i should use and for a small question just to get sure what colour of the VG is the one that only can get condi damage. Oh well.. just throwing that in… not like i gonna get nice things anyways in this game, gave up on that long ago…

Basaltface.2786:

^ in my case said “raid help” was verbal abuse for even asking what build i should use and for a small question just to get sure what colour of the VG is the one that only can get condi damage. Oh well.. just throwing that in… not like i gonna get nice things anyways in this game, gave up on that long ago…

Both EU and NA have teaching guilds now. If you really want to get into it, there’s definitely an option to learn.

cranos.5913:

Basaltface.2786:

^ in my case said “raid help” was verbal abuse for even asking what build i should use and for a small question just to get sure what colour of the VG is the one that only can get condi damage. Oh well.. just throwing that in… not like i gonna get nice things anyways in this game, gave up on that long ago…

Both EU and NA have teaching guilds now. If you really want to get into it, there’s definitely an option to learn.

Nah, got my burn already. As cool as legendary armor might sound and as cool as the white mantle weapons and sabetha rifle\backpack might look.. its not worth the verbal abuse.

Basaltface.2786:

Nah, got my burn already. As cool as legendary armor might sound and as cool as the white mantle weapons and sabetha rifle\backpack might look.. its not worth the verbal abuse.

Don’t judge the raiding community as a whole due to the experiences a few gave you. I would highly recommend searching for a raiding guild to properly learn how to deal with this sort of content. Pugs tend to be toxic. If this doesn’t interest you the only thing I have to add is once there is an organized way to create pugs (LFR) this sort of content will appear to be a lot easier. More and more players will funnel through the content completing it giving off the illusion that raiding is becoming easier. The community as a whole progresses through content such as this when it comes to pugging.

Edit: I’m not saying it will be as noticeable as a game such as WoW with a vertical and horizontal climb, but you can still…sort of…climb the horizontal ladder this game has to offer. (Vertical being gear and horizontal being skill.)

The problem with raids has nothing to do with time, gear, or elitism. Heck sPvP is elistism personified yet sPvP is still popular.

The problem with raids is how isolated raids are from the rest of the game. Raids are this side content that’s only at endgame, and moreover it’s content you can’t just step into.
This means that new players generally don’t understand why they would want to raid, and since it’s not immediately apparent how to get a group for raids, most of the new players will probably give up.

Right now the only way a player gets into a raid is if they already know people that raid. If you don’t know people, you’re not getting it.

What Anet needs to do is have a queueing system where people can sign up for roles and the system automatically creates groups and ports them in. This would make getting groups way easier and it easier for new players to transition into raids.

Crinn.7864:

The problem with raids has nothing to do with time, gear, or elitism. Heck sPvP is elistism personified yet sPvP is still popular.

The problem with raids is how isolated raids are from the rest of the game. Raids are this side content that’s only at endgame, and moreover it’s content you can’t just step into.
This means that new players generally don’t understand why they would want to raid, and since it’s not immediately apparent how to get a group for raids, most of the new players will probably give up.

Right now the only way a player gets into a raid is if they already know people that raid. If you don’t know people, you’re not getting it.

What Anet needs to do is have a queueing system where people can sign up for roles and the system automatically creates groups and ports them in. This would make getting groups way easier and it easier for new players to transition into raids.

The comparison to spvp is a bad one. Nobody can prevent you from soloqing spvp. Ppl being elitist kitten bags is an annoyance but never a real hindrance. Finding a group to raid on lfg has an entirely different dynamic when ppl start asking for 10 insight to even consider you.

Sirbeaumerdier.3740:

The comparison to spvp is a bad one. Nobody can prevent you from soloqing spvp. Ppl being elitist kitten bags is an annoyance but never a real hindrance. Finding a group to raid on lfg has an entirely different dynamic when ppl start asking for 10 insight to even consider you.

No you just have people in sPvP that send the entire match berating you while sitting afk.

But you did find the big problem raids have: the way you form them.

sPvP works because you hit a button and you get queued in. Raids require you to find people yourself. If we had a impartial queuing system this wouldn’t be a issue.

Also raids probably need a “entry level” difficulty setting that gives less rewards. The current difficulty is a pug killer.

Crinn.7864:

Sirbeaumerdier.3740:

The comparison to spvp is a bad one. Nobody can prevent you from soloqing spvp. Ppl being elitist kitten bags is an annoyance but never a real hindrance. Finding a group to raid on lfg has an entirely different dynamic when ppl start asking for 10 insight to even consider you.

No you just have people in sPvP that send the entire match berating you while sitting afk.

But you did find the big problem raids have: the way you form them.

sPvP works because you hit a button and you get queued in. Raids require you to find people yourself. If we had a impartial queuing system this wouldn’t be a issue.

Also raids probably need a “entry level” difficulty setting that gives less rewards. The current difficulty is a pug killer.

Agree with you there. It is so hard and long to get a party up that most will be turned off. The fact it’s a refuge for elitist control freaks is just the cherry on the cake.

Long story short, I raid with my guild or when the lfg planets are all aligned (like it did this week hopefully).

The reason I don’t raid, and my only issue with it, is because I don’t like having to spend hours looking through LFG in hopes of finding a group. When you’re not in a guild, it takes too long to find a group. I don’t feel comfortable starting my own groups since I haven’t done the encounters.

The reason I don’t do raids has nothing to do with the difficulty of the raid itself, but rather the attitude of the of the crowd performing these raids. They require you to have this, this and this, and to play this class with this elite specialization unlocked, and if you don’t ping your gear out you go. I don’t play like that. I have a character I like to play, in gear that I like, with a build that I like. Admittedly it is the group’s prerogative to kick me if I don’t comply with their wishes, but it is also my prerogative to play my character how I dang well feel like. And so I don’t raid.

Berelious.3290:

The reason I don’t do raids has nothing to do with the difficulty of the raid itself, but rather the attitude of the of the crowd performing these raids. They require you to have this, this and this, and to play this class with this elite specialization unlocked, and if you don’t ping your gear out you go. I don’t play like that. I have a character I like to play, in gear that I like, with a build that I like. Admittedly it is the group’s prerogative to kick me if I don’t comply with their wishes, but it is also my prerogative to play my character how I dang well feel like. And so I don’t raid.

Then find a guild. If your guild are enforcing these rules then find another. Don’t blame the fact enrage timers have kept the zerker meta the same.

Because usually these players that raid are being so tryhard to make it into an “elitist” thing, so I can’t bother with it anymore.

Full ascended gear on 3 different professions is apparently required to enter a raid group.

Yeah, no… not going to bother with that. I can dedicate time and skill, gold, food and whatnot, but I’m not going to bother filling 2 more professions with ascended equipment because these raiding players thinks it’s necessary.

It makes me cringe when elitist players try to make a game that is casual into something hardcore.

Farzo.8410:

Because usually these players that raid are being so tryhard to make it into an “elitist” thing, so I can’t bother with it anymore.

Full ascended gear on 3 different professions is apparently required to enter a raid group.

Yeah, no… not going to bother with that. I can dedicate time and skill, gold, food and whatnot, but I’m not going to bother filling 2 more professions with ascended equipment because these raiding players thinks it’s necessary.

It makes me cringe when elitist players try to make a game that is casual into something hardcore.

In certain guilds they ask for that because certain class stacking is pointless. It has nothing to do with elitism. You can’t expect to bring a bunch of mesmers and not hit enrage. There are plenty of guilds out there that accommodate all sorts of players and there is no reason why you can’t start your own group in LFG or from friends.

It makes me cringe the amount of casuals that want to turn this casual game even more casual.

Sird.4536:

Farzo.8410:

Because usually these players that raid are being so tryhard to make it into an “elitist” thing, so I can’t bother with it anymore.

Full ascended gear on 3 different professions is apparently required to enter a raid group.

Yeah, no… not going to bother with that. I can dedicate time and skill, gold, food and whatnot, but I’m not going to bother filling 2 more professions with ascended equipment because these raiding players thinks it’s necessary.

It makes me cringe when elitist players try to make a game that is casual into something hardcore.

In certain guilds they ask for that because certain class stacking is pointless. It has nothing to do with elitism. You can’t expect to bring a bunch of mesmers and not hit enrage. There are plenty of guilds out there that accommodate all sorts of players and there is no reason why you can’t start your own group in LFG or from friends.

It makes me cringe the amount of casuals that want to turn this casual game even more casual.

Never mentioned anything about class stacking, you did.

People are allowed to form whatever groups they want. It just becomes overly pitiful when they ask people to have 3 different professions with full ascended armour.

Farzo.8410:

Never mentioned anything about class stacking, you did.

People are allowed to form whatever groups they want. It just becomes overly pitiful when they ask people to have 3 different professions with full ascended armour.

Have 1 heavy armor with scholar runes & play warr/DH/rev = problem solved?

My 2¢.
I haven’t tried raiding in months, but finding the slots to fill was the worst part of raiding for me. It’s why I haven’t tried recently. Waiting an hour + to have fun isn’t fun. When someone leaves, that process often starts over. Then you potentially have to teach the new person your strategy. Then someone else leaves. Rinse and repeat ad nauseam.

I could join a raiding guild that’s on a schedule with a roster and expects me to show up at _ time every week for the rest of forever, but no.

Getting a team that isnt made of fail is more work then i care to put in. The rewards don’t interest me and people only want certain classes and builds to beat it. Sure i could rebuild my Ranger or design a new class for it but I just don’t care. My endgame has always been wvw, as I bought this game to war with guilds. So just waiting on these “big changes” to breath life into it again.

Seems like most people replying to this thread are not answering the question “why don’t you raid?”, but “why don’t you pug?”

Pugs are completely different than guild or friend groups. Pugs even have different motivations much of the time.

tl;dr: don’t pug

Surbrus.6942:

Seems like most people replying to this thread are not answering the question “why don’t you raid?”, but “why don’t you pug?”

Pugs are completely different than guild or friend groups. Pugs even have different motivations much of the time.

tl;dr: don’t pug

The OP didn’t ask “Why don’t you raid?”. S/he asked “Why are people so afraid of raiding?” That’s a very different question, and IMO people have answered it: they’re not.

Many agreed with me: I do not fear raids. I simply despise the typical attitude that goes along with typical raiding people.

Daddicus.6128:

I simply despise the typical attitude that goes along with typical raiding people.

Suppose I shouldn’t have been paraphrasing. Either way again, you’re not talking about people who raid, you’re talking about people who Pug raid.

Throughout my experiences in GW2 since way back to BWE1, the people who do the high level content of the day (dungeon speed runs, high level fractals pre-HoT, current raids) were always some of the most chill groups of people. The people who pugged dungeon “speed runs”, did low level fractals and currently pug raids though?… lol I’ve long since decided that not playing the game at all (or just play with friends/guildies or make friends/join guilds) was a better use of my time than associate with those people.

“Pugs are bad and you shouldn’t do them” has basically been a constant throughtout GW2.

Surbrus.6942:

Seems like most people replying to this thread are not answering the question “why don’t you raid?”, but “why don’t you pug?”

Pugs are completely different than guild or friend groups. Pugs even have different motivations much of the time.

tl;dr: don’t pug

Actually, most of us did, but then it dissolved into this nonsense. Please note the posters who are doing it, their obvious agenda, and you’ll no longer wonder why it went there. . . .

I did do some raiding with the last guild I was in, sort of learning the fight. I could only get so far before the graphics tried to kill me - the VG did some shiny orbs of electrical death or something, which my epilepsy didn’t agree with. I don’t remember it particularly well. Then I had a hard time with a green circle on a green bit of floor, in that I really couldn’t see it, what with other flashy stuff going on and the general green-on-green madness. Seeing as I have no desire to commit suicide playing a game, and the fact I’m no longer in a guild, I have no sensible reason to try and get back into a raid. In that sense, yes, I suppose I could be afraid to raid.

Rude, offensive players. Same with pvp. I’m tired of the fact that people can say whatever they want to people on this game with no consequence. You know they don’t talk that way to people in real life. I played gw2 to get away from players like this.

Anet fudged big time with raids. Living Story and the raid content should have been basically the same, with some story culminating with a 5-man easy version of a raid wing so casual players could familiarize themselves with the mechanics. After getting their feet wet players could then ease into the 10-man harder version.

Avarice.2791:

Ohoni.6057:

You forgot the “. . .for me” part there, it’s vitally important to the accuracy of the comment.

Were you not around when the masses were calling for more difficult content prior to HoT? In general, if a game does not increase in difficulty over time, then the game has no longitivtiy. You can make the difficulty constant, but then the game becomes mindless. In order for a game to be interactively entertaining and promote longitivtiy, there needs to be slight increases in difficulty (a sort of ladder) as the game goes on, especially when adding in player-boosting mechanics such as elite specs.

now we have seen how big those masses actually where
if they can keep up a big mmo with those numbers, i would be very surprised

roamzero.9486:

Anet fudged big time with raids. Living Story and the raid content should have been basically the same, with some story culminating with a 5-man easy version of a raid wing so casual players could familiarize themselves with the mechanics. After getting their feet wet players could then ease into the 10-man harder version.

please, dont
this is how DCUO does it, and it feels very cheap

Farzo.8410:

Sird.4536:

Farzo.8410:

Because usually these players that raid are being so tryhard to make it into an “elitist” thing, so I can’t bother with it anymore.

Full ascended gear on 3 different professions is apparently required to enter a raid group.

Yeah, no… not going to bother with that. I can dedicate time and skill, gold, food and whatnot, but I’m not going to bother filling 2 more professions with ascended equipment because these raiding players thinks it’s necessary.

It makes me cringe when elitist players try to make a game that is casual into something hardcore.

In certain guilds they ask for that because certain class stacking is pointless. It has nothing to do with elitism. You can’t expect to bring a bunch of mesmers and not hit enrage. There are plenty of guilds out there that accommodate all sorts of players and there is no reason why you can’t start your own group in LFG or from friends.

It makes me cringe the amount of casuals that want to turn this casual game even more casual.

Never mentioned anything about class stacking, you did.

People are allowed to form whatever groups they want. It just becomes overly pitiful when they ask people to have 3 different professions with full ascended armour.

Read what I wrote.

Again, they ask you to have multiple classes with sets so they can avoid class stacking. If you play a Mesmer and other guy plays a Mesmer then one of you will have to switch. Now there are guilds out there that need specific classes but having a backup is nice (not needed). In LFG groups ask for specific classes as well.

I’m not a fan of raid ‘mechanics’, timers, stupid one hit skills, circles, dps checks or enrage timers, or waiting hours not playing a game in my valuable spare time or waiting for a long time just to have some elitist quit after the first attempt, or twitch mechanics, etc. Or learning patterns. or areas without any sort of guide for first timers so they have a chance of what to expect without having to watch 20 hours of UTube videos from some twitch fanboy with a terrible taste in music showing how easy something is with 0 ping.

So I don’t raid. In my younger days I was heavily involved in all sorts of raids, leading guilds, organising 60-80 people for weekly pvp, etc but no longer have the endless time to dedicate to what is, after all, just a game.

I can understand the allure for those that do. It does lead to elitism and elitist guilds, but no one is forcing you to join them so it doesn’t really matter. Are they any better than you at other aspects of the game? Probably not. What they are good at is learning what works when and having the reactions and armor, etc along with a decent raid leader.

I don’t feel the need to raid any more. That level of stress for some meaningless pixels just doesn’t interest me any more. But if that’s you thing, then learn what the meta builds are, spend the money and time to get the build, learn the patterns and mechanics and away you go.

Baldrick.8967:

I’m not a fan of raid ‘mechanics’, timers, stupid one hit skills, circles, dps checks or enrage timers, or waiting hours not playing a game in my valuable spare time or waiting for a long time just to have some elitist quit after the first attempt, or twitch mechanics, etc. Or learning patterns. or areas without any sort of guide for first timers so they have a chance of what to expect without having to watch 20 hours of UTube videos from some twitch fanboy with a terrible taste in music showing how easy something is with 0 ping.

So I don’t raid. In my younger days I was heavily involved in all sorts of raids, leading guilds, organising 60-80 people for weekly pvp, etc but no longer have the endless time to dedicate to what is, after all, just a game.

I can understand the allure for those that do. It does lead to elitism and elitist guilds, but no one is forcing you to join them so it doesn’t really matter. Are they any better than you at other aspects of the game? Probably not. What they are good at is learning what works when and having the reactions and armor, etc along with a decent raid leader.

I don’t feel the need to raid any more. That level of stress for some meaningless pixels just doesn’t interest me any more. But if that’s you thing, then learn what the meta builds are, spend the money and time to get the build, learn the patterns and mechanics and away you go.

Precisely. Raids aren’t for everyone because not everyone want to take time to learn and gear themselves to do it. Time is extremely relative. Some people find it boring to spend their time playing faceroll open world content, others don’t. Some people dislike the commitment raids require, others don’t. All about tastes.

Indeed, don’t bother with raiding here…raids are about adaptation and synergy between raid members. If you refuse to adapt your build and gear, then make your own lfg “all welcome”. Oh and record it, I’m interested in this expérience.

No I won’t. I agree raid is about (but not only) synergy and adaptation, but synergy and adaptation should’nt hurt the gameplay you like. I mean, it would be ok to adapt your character between some tanky builds, or some damage builds or some support builds, but not between a power build and a support build.

You can bring any group you want in raid dude.

But just like Dungeon before, it’s not because you can do it that pugs will accept you.

So I can but I cannot (or I can only if I find an open minded guild).

In the ideal world all build should be equal, but we live in the real world so that never happen.

This totally depends on the quality work of Anet. Yes, we will never have a 100% equality, but you can trend towards this. In WoW, when we have an empty slot for a dps, we dont search a fire mage, a assasination rogue or whatever, we search a DPS. Same for tank and heal. Why ? Because each spec is pretty balanced overall in PvE. The player skill is more important that the class/spec.
Its totally WTF when I read “search phalanx warrior full berserk” or something like that. It seems GW2 is a game from the early 2000s. Even at WoW vanilla you had more specs viable and accepted in raid.

For me it is totally WTF that Anet is ok with the fact that each class has only one style of build considered as viable.
Each classes should be have the capacity to fill each role (or delete the support and tanky trait lines for classes that should be only DPS …).

Yeah, realistically, things needed some serious balancing before they introduced raids.

Some people may be happy with being forced into certain classes and specs (and weapon types), but most people will just go and play a more established game, where you can (at this point) play pretty much any class and spec (with more equal results), if they want to raid.

Exactly. I search to be a valorous holy guide that supports his mates. If I absolutly want to raid and if I can do that in one game but not in other … well …

Farzo.8410:

Because usually these players that raid are being so tryhard to make it into an “elitist” thing, so I can’t bother with it anymore.

Full ascended gear on 3 different professions is apparently required to enter a raid group.

While many group’s prereqs is just overkill I understand why they do it.

With raids you can’t just throw warm bodies at the boss like you can with World Bosses, and because of this having 1 bad player can easily ruin the rest of the raid group’s experience.
Unfortunately there isn’t a quick way to determine how useful a player is, so what most groups do is set outrageous requirements knowing that anyone that meets those requirements will probably have the skill.

Raid leaders often have to make a choice of “Do I want to screw this guy over, or do I want to screw everyone else over?” And most raid leaders will go with “screw that guy over”

Tahlie.4259:

So, I played GW2 when it first came out, and had a lot of fun with it — at first. Fractals rolled around, and they were fun, but you can only do the same thing so many times before it gets boring. So, I quit at about the beginning of Living Story season 1.

Flash forward a few years, and here I started playing again ~3 weeks ago. When I heard about new fractals, a raid, and all kinds of challenging content, I just had to come back! So, now I have an 80 Engineer and Elementalist (both fully geared out), I’ve been raiding in MMOs for upwards of 12 years, and all that — yet, to date, I’ve not even set foot inside the raid.

I’ve been listing myself in LFG for a week and a half or so, I’ve been asking around in chat, and so on. But, there’s just no one pugging a raid, or filling a spot, or any of that. And no guilds are recruiting that actually go into the raid.

So, what exactly is the issue? Is the raid in GW2 just one of the hardest in the genre or something, or are people just being silly?

Raiding was the main reason I came back to the game. : / And it doesn’t seem like I’ll even set foot in the raid any time soon.

I was away from this game for a while. but i hear the new expansion is out plus raiding.
So count me in. I like an challange.

DeceiverX.8361:

One word:

Elitism.

And this is why the game, which prospered so much at launch, didn’t feature any kind of “elite” or arbitrarily “difficult” content. And also part of why, HoT, an expansion featured as pleasing the “hardcore” crowd has failed in the eyes of a bulk majority of players when looking at sheer numbers.

Strictly speaking, not many people care. And those that do are likely too exclusive to not care about anyone not involved in their personal affairs.

Why learn to do raids in GW2 when WoW does it better and has a wealth of willing participants?

Personally, I did my raiding 10 years ago. It felt a lot like work and I’m no longer interested in doing a job when I get home.

lots of people wanted to raid… but only strong guilds with its “core team” got to experience them. After a few weeks of trying pugs fell apart as to hard without a solid team and organization (like ts, vent etc)

So its not that people are scared, its just that most have an its impossible attitude especially when it comes to (most) pugs.

Been a raider in WoW for 5-6 years. And what I’ve experienced there made me not want to ever touch raids in GW2.

1) You cannot have amazing raids without a holy trinity and specific jobs. You can try to emulate the trinity with soft builds and such, but it’s not the same. And that hinders the raid design, since you have to work around these limitations.

2) If you do not have a guild or you’re not close to the guys who are calling the shots then you’ll never be part of the core raiding group.

3) You can’t pug raids, unless you carry a large amount of aloe vera with you.

4) Competitiveness brings the worst in people. That guild leader who you thought was cool and a nice guy will simply destroy you and kick you out of the guild if you wipe the raid accidentally at that time of the month.

5) You need to be invested in it. You need to respect schedules, you need to be able to spend hours and hours repeating the same encounter, you need to devote your entire gameplay to raid progression. Basically do everything that’s opposite to what this game stands for.

TLDR; Raids are not for everybody.

Raiders care about raiding and not much else, just another niche in the game. I can see someone simply not enjoying it and thus avoiding.

I’m not interested in it. I’ve done enough raiding. Slightly off-topic question, but if raids were not included and sold as optional content would you still be interested?

Personally, i was a raider in back then in WoW.
When raids came to Gw2 i started forming a group and raid, at that point i remembered why i stopped raiding, i don’t want to follow schedule and be forced to connect to raid. I like being ‘free’ and do whatever i want to do and that is why i love this game so much.