Guild Wars 2

Hmm this should be interesting …

There is no need to beat around the bush mate – you have no intentions of participating in raids – gotcha no problem there.

So what exactly are you “preparing for” then if you are specifically avoiding slightly tougher content? You can complete open world content in blue gear… the mass of players present creates a situation where your individual gear and actions are meaningless to the success of the event.

Yes there was no gear grind on gw1 as all armours had the same stats in their respected levels, thus it was really only a quest for aesthetics. Why they switched to this system, we have been asking that since day 1. The introduction of ascended gear makes senses though but you have to look at it from a general standpoint. Rather than focusing on it being needed specially for fractals or raids – look at what it did for the community- it provided a sink for the less commonly used mats and gave them value. Before its release you would of been listing leather 1 copper above merchant price when there was already 7 million + listings. Again though you DO NOT need ascended gear for regular gameplay.

Prior to HoT release all there was solo or naked party dungeon runs and high end fractals….. you want to talk about boring….. Now that there is some challenge content we get players that are too scared even attempt it making up obnoxious drawn out excuses as to why it should be nerfed down to open world level – to which they also complain is mind numbly boring….. The lengths that people will go has no bounds – Case and point next month Wintersday comes – There will be a sudden and drastic increase in the number of players with “hand amputation, MS, etc” asking for the jp to be removed from achievement requirement. mark that prediction.

At what point was there ever this notion that tougher content wouldn’t require time and effort ( whether it be improving skills or crafting better gear) or is this the usual instant gratisfication scenario???

draxynnic.3719:

You’ll also note that one of the other barriers I listed was time. I work a full-time job and often have other commitments on weekends: I simply don’t have the luxury to commit to raiding once a week with an organised group. Similarly, I don’t have a lot of time for farming even if I wanted to.

wow must be tough for you- I mean out of the Millions of gw2 players for only you to have a full time job. Here I thought I had it rough doing 12 hour shifts in the Emergency Department throughout the week – wow thanks for that perspective…..

I’m going to feel bad for that one person whose curiosity gets the best of them asks you- someone who is lucky if they are able to login just one time in a given week – how exactly do you plan to come up with the rest of the mats needed for legendary armor?

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Legendary_armor – multipled by 6 for a full set

270 mystic coins alone ( assuming perfect luck) on your current login schedule would take years or risk paying tp prices that have been increasing and will most likely skyrocket when the armours actually get released….good thing time isn’t an issue…..

The title of the thread is ridiculous, and really should be something like why dont people like raids?
Theres likley to be a gazillion reasons as what people like and dislike in an MMO is totally up to them and no one else.
The strange assumption that if you arnt doing “challenging” content then you cant be having fun, just makes no sense.

echo.2053:

wow must be tough for you- I mean out of the Millions of gw2 players for only you to have a full time job.

Oooh, you have any data to support your claim that he is alone in his problem? I’d really, really like to see them.

echo.2053:

Now that there is some challenge content we get players that are too scared even attempt it

Because people that do not like what you like must be scared. Right.

Why are people so scared to accept that other people have other likes and dislikes? Insecurity?

Manasa Devi.7958:

Why are people so scared to accept that other people have other likes and dislikes? Insecurity?

They need to bash other people in order to feed their tiny ego.
You can see this kind of behavior all over the internet.

The smugness of some people posting in the thread shows a certain mindset I would call elitist- not necesaary expecting something or getting self worth out of achievement, but a sense that some people look down on other people who arent willing to raid for whichever reasons.
This shows by belittling those reasons-asking but then no answer is good enough unless they include admittance of self-suckyness or something..
Only their effort is true effort and only effort is good.
The idea that casual play is somehow lesser and not just a different way of gaming is still strong-and its not cool. Just because someone is better at doing some things doesnt make their way of playing better or more valid or worse.
Because fun is subjective. Some people think its fun to learn something they cant do and hone those. Other have fun relaxing by playing for story or just admiring the environment. Both is fine, but still the first is deemed better despite being different and people can not only take worth out of it but some take the worth out of defining other players as lesser for choosing to define fun differently.

Peole talkinga bout fears and getting dismissed by someone not being able to accept that some part of the community can behave toxic and that people (of of experience with this and other games) choose to not play out of the reasonable assumption they may meet some of those people.. Im sorry, but “some gamers are toxic” isnt an attack, its stating a fact and demanding proof of personal hurt before accepting is dismissive too. And building some ridonkulous strawman to belittle that position even further-again, proves the point imho.

and thats only on page 1.
So. yeah. people make or break the game, certain content attracts certain people with certain definitions of fun which may differ wildly from people who dont prefer the content. People then belittling those reasons makes a bad impression and may even prove some fears people voiced-and as we all know, bad impressions tend to linger more.

Raid is simply not fun at all.

It’s like a job – forced gear, class and other min-max bulldung, it’s timed and not everyone has time to do it – it needs planning ahead and teaching newcomers is a serious pain in the less noble part of the back. Oh and it resets over a week…

Doing it with randoms is simply impossible and if you make a mistake dung will hit the fan.

I came to GW to have fun time and to reduce stress levels not to work my butt off for something that is not even worth the hassle – for working my butt off I have a real job.

Note to self, necro this thread in 6 months, will still be relevant.

Ashen.2907:

Perhaps people are afraid of raiding because it is very scary. Very threatening. Almost overwhelming in the despair it inspires. The horror of sitting at a computer, looking at a screen filled with terrifying images of…a game.

The horror. Seeing characters, other players, digital monsters….in a game that we are choosing to play. How ever do we manage to cope?

Or perhaps, just maybe, there is the slightest chance that people are not afraid of raids (gasp, inconceivable!) but rather just dont want to play them.

It may be difficult, nearly impossible for some, but try to imagine that you are not the center of the universe and that other players are real people, who dont all share your exact tastes in entertainment, too. They like things that you dont and dislike things that you do. Its nice when there is overlap between different peoples’ likes. Great in fact. But its ludicrous to label others as somehow deficient for not sharing your exact tast in entertianment media.

Great post, thank you.

Since this has been necroed, I’ll simply repeat that the only real problem with the raid is the legendary armor functionality locked behind it.

Make it available elsewhere (not the skin, just the stat picking functionality) and, yes, a lot of people could easily ignore raids if its really uninteresting content for them. Or, like me, really dislike having to spend far more time on logistics than game play.

Asking players to ignore the reward is different then asking them to ignore the raid content itself.

The reason I hate raids?

Pugs.

The reason u hate pugs?

Wasn’t asked that question, so not relevant here.

Just to add a bit more tho, I will say with groups I only have problem with individuals and ppl in it.

Like ppl scrambling on comms, wasting so much of my time doing nothing than afk’ing one by one and generally not coordinating anything. So it gets to point where half an hour waste just waiting for group to get set up, and hurry up whatever they’re doing. Most groups have this annoying and distasteful preconception tho.. Like raid content is alrdy designed to waste our time, so let’s adapt to this and randomly afk or blame it on loading screens, just let’s have this unspoken competition to see who can delay the onset or reprisal of something the longest, since we are under the impression it would help indirectly alleviate some tension and relax some nerves.

Like jeez get over yourself. True story, one guy spend almost half hour swapping gear to his alt and blaming on loading screen, that whole rest of group was ready and inside so we just all disbanded cos got tired waiting. This situations make me want bang my head against the wall incessantly

echo.2053:

Hmm this should be interesting …

There is no need to beat around the bush mate – you have no intentions of participating in raids – gotcha no problem there.

Who are you talking to?

echo.2053:

draxynnic.3719:

You’ll also note that one of the other barriers I listed was time. I work a full-time job and often have other commitments on weekends: I simply don’t have the luxury to commit to raiding once a week with an organised group. Similarly, I don’t have a lot of time for farming even if I wanted to.

wow must be tough for you- I mean out of the Millions of gw2 players for only you to have a full time job. Here I thought I had it rough doing 12 hour shifts in the Emergency Department throughout the week – wow thanks for that perspective…..

Why are you being so offensive? He’s explaining why he doesn’t feel he has time. Apparently his priorities are different from yours. Nothing wrong with that.

I’m not afraid of raids. I don’t have the time to practice. It’s not that I play seldomly, it’s the other way round with my 5500+ hours. But my playing hours are fixed, because I have a job that’s priority. I can never play before 20:00, but then I play almost open end. At weekends, often something else from real life has priority. But if not, I can play 8 hours without break. All in all, it’s next to impossible to find capable teams with these time constraints. First it’s all good, but sooner or later all of them require a date and time where I’m simply not available, and then I’m out.

There’s another thing why I don’t feel the urge to raid. It’s the mechanics. I thought highly of raids and their challenges, until I saw my first two raid bosses.

I was taken aback when I saw that raids are only short glorified boss fights. No challenging way to get to the end, no interesting puzzles to overcome. Just straight to the boss. So short fights: you fail fast, you run back to the boss fast, you try again fast. wipe, run, try again. wipe, run, try again. Over and over again for hours. That’s stupid. For enduring this you get the the bling bling best and only legendary armor the game has to give?
They are not even interesting fights, because the whole challenge is to stack up as much damage and boosters as possible to the point, while avoiding the death traps during the fight. This is the whole raid mechanics. It’s so scripted. It’s so shallow. You are racing against a machine, not fighting a threatening enemy. It has no soul.

I’m not afraid of raids, it’s raiders afraid of me. (being a pug that’s never entered a raid, experienced raiders only)

Raiding isn’t fun for me at all. Here and in other games, it always feels to me like a tedious exercise in cat herding.

My RL schedule isn’t nearly flexible enough to work with the folks that have nothing better to do but play all day, or play whenever they want. In my window of playtime, I can do a bunch of solo stuff I know will entertain me and get me fun stuff, or I can gamble with it trying to do organized group content with others.

The more I have to rely on others to do the things I want to do in game, the more likely my game time is to be wasted and leaving me with nothing to show for it.

By myself, I do 100% of what I want to do 100% of the time.

The more people I require to do a thing I might want to do, the less likely it is that I’ll get to do anything but sit here for an hour waiting for them to go to the bathroom, figure their mic out, AFK for 45 minutes because their mom/wife/kid/cat/neighbor/space aliens knocked on the door, I can’t listen to my own music and, even if everything goes off without a hitch, there’s a very good chance that I won’t get whatever it was I might have wanted as a drop anyway.

Tally it up and, for me, I’m not afraid of raiding – it just winds up holding all the appeal of shutting my computer off and staring at a blank patch of wall for 2-3 hours.

Its pretty much never even remotely worth it to me. Others’ mileage will clearly vary.

Astralporing.1957:

echo.2053:

wow must be tough for you- I mean out of the Millions of gw2 players for only you to have a full time job.

Oooh, you have any data to support your claim that he is alone in his problem? I’d really, really like to see them.

echo.2053:

Now that there is some challenge content we get players that are too scared even attempt it

Because people that do not like what you like must be scared. Right.

i would say the same about people that dont pvp or WvW hehehe.

I dont raid nor pve in general cause i have no stats for it and changing stuff to comple 1 big dungeon for me it would be useless.
I hate when content forces or most players force me to play some class in the way i dont like to play.

Astralporing.1957:

echo.2053:

wow must be tough for you- I mean out of the Millions of gw2 players for only you to have a full time job.

Oooh, you have any data to support your claim that he is alone in his problem? I’d really, really like to see them.

LOL either you are too short that it flew over your head or that was a horrid attempt at a troll.

Astralporing.1957:

echo.2053:

Now that there is some challenge content we get players that are too scared even attempt it

Because people that do not like what you like must be scared. Right.

good question – well you see generally when a person dislikes something that doesn’t really have an impact on their life they just avoid it and move on. That is not the case here rather instead we have 10 pages worth of whining on how it is too unfairly tough for them and that they want an “easy” mode…… Thats a pretty odd request for something they don’t want to do, no? The main reason is that it is a fear – fear of stepping out of the blob mass and getting noticed they are keyboard turning, fear of making a mistake that will actually be noticed, but most of all fear that some rando is going to same something mean.

I never actually had or said that I had an issue with him disliking content that I liked. I could not care any less about other peoples likes or dislikes, I really don’t care. He could be lying and actually likes raids – Dont care, maybe he likes awkward role playing – don’t care, or maybe he has a thing for people with infected toenails – Don’t kittenING care !!

I do, however, have issue when it comes to trying to get content nerfed down to open world level as that directly affects the people who wanted that sort of challenge. I’m sure that if I were to even remotely suggest that open world be brought up to raid level we would suddenly be at page 60 with multiple posts saying " how dare I suggest such a thing", some posts making claims of how they would quit if that happened, as well as several people going to the hospital for aniexty related hyperventilation.

Djinn.9245:

echo.2053:

draxynnic.3719:

You’ll also note that one of the other barriers I listed was time. I work a full-time job and often have other commitments on weekends: I simply don’t have the luxury to commit to raiding once a week with an organised group. Similarly, I don’t have a lot of time for farming even if I wanted to.

wow must be tough for you- I mean out of the Millions of gw2 players for only you to have a full time job. Here I thought I had it rough doing 12 hour shifts in the Emergency Department throughout the week – wow thanks for that perspective…..

Why are you being so offensive? He’s explaining why he doesn’t feel he has time. Apparently his priorities are different from yours. Nothing wrong with that.

Simply put – I am not “PC era” friendly. That was actually a rather tame response. Yet again if he doesn’t have the time to do this type of thing … what exactly is he then “preparing for”?

I didn’t have the time fo SPVP leagues/didn’t care for them —- Guess what I did? moved on, whatever it doesn’t even matter.

Considering you really have to try in order to fail at 95% of PvE people get really intimidated by the actual chance of failure, that there is a chance to fail some mechanic, that u have to do training, learn class properly, use voice communications if needed and on and on it goes.

If there is a limitation to raids, it’s always time and nothing else. Then again if you don’t have the time for it why do you even bother with raids in the first place….

There aren’t really any excuses if some1 wishes to raid. Tons of posts on the internet, amazingly detailed class and boss mechanics guides, a golem to practice and perfect your rotations and a variety of options for people to find or create groups.

zoomborg.9462:

Considering you really have to try in order to fail at 95% of PvE people get really intimidated by the actual chance of failure, that there is a chance to fail some mechanic, that u have to do training, learn class properly, use voice communications if needed and on and on it goes.

If there is a limitation to raids, it’s always time and nothing else. Then again if you don’t have the time for it why do you even bother with raids in the first place….

There aren’t really any excuses if some1 wishes to raid. Tons of posts on the internet, amazingly detailed class and boss mechanics guides, a golem to practice and perfect your rotations and a variety of options for people to find or create groups.

So if I come with a soldier exotic bear/bow ranger and try/train hard enough I will beat the raids…. thats good to know mate

Since time is the only limitation.

If getting carried=beating a boss is the same to you then go ahead, you might actually “beat it”,if u implying that there are gear limitations in this game then we are playing a different game probably. And if u actually bothered to check any guide whatsoever you wouldnt be making such a stupid comment in the first place.

echo.2053:

Astralporing.1957:

echo.2053:

wow must be tough for you- I mean out of the Millions of gw2 players for only you to have a full time job.

Oooh, you have any data to support your claim that he is alone in his problem? I’d really, really like to see them.

LOL either you are too short that it flew over your head or that was a horrid attempt at a troll.

No, i just have a beef with your attempt to ridicule someone’s statement by suggesting that their reaction is somehow unique and nonstandard.

echo.2053:

Astralporing.1957:

echo.2053:

Now that there is some challenge content we get players that are too scared even attempt it

Because people that do not like what you like must be scared. Right.

good question – well you see generally when a person dislikes something that doesn’t really have an impact on their life they just avoid it and move on. That is not the case here rather instead we have 10 pages worth of whining on how it is too unfairly tough for them and that they want an “easy” mode…… Thats a pretty odd request for something they don’t want to do, no? The main reason is that it is a fear – fear of stepping out of the blob mass and getting noticed they are keyboard turning, fear of making a mistake that will actually be noticed, but most of all fear that some rando is going to same something mean.

Yeah, them games are sooo scary. We’re literally dying from fright here.[/sarcasm]
You might want to actually read the arguments behind easy mode, because you seem to have absolutely no idea why people are asking for it.

echo.2053:

I do, however, have issue when it comes to trying to get content nerfed down to open world level as that directly affects the people who wanted that sort of challenge.

Not sure why are you bringing that up, since the easy mode initiative does not try to do that at all. You are fighting windmills here.

echo.2053:

Djinn.9245:

Why are you being so offensive? He’s explaining why he doesn’t feel he has time. Apparently his priorities are different from yours. Nothing wrong with that.

Simply put – I am not “PC era” friendly. That was actually a rather tame response.

Not sure what “PC era” means here, but civility was always a good quality to have, regardless of at what age you lived.

echo.2053:

Yet again if he doesn’t have the time to do this type of thing … what exactly is he then “preparing for”?

I suggest actually reading easy mode threads, because everything is explained there quite clearly.

TL/DR; Challenge isn’t the only thing that players might find appealing in raids. In fact, for many, challenge is the one thing in raids that is the least fun. Easy mode initiative aims to extract the fun things out of raids, leaving the unfun ones behind.

I know that it may be weird and hard to understand for people that are in this primarily for the challenge. That lack of understanding however is not an argument for anything.

They are not afraid… ts ctually much easier to say raids are hard and complain about it rather than actually sacrifice some time studying the encounter builds rotations etc. to be able to do the raids. Theres also the fact that training guild are not the easiest thing to come by but again ppl prefer complaining rather than go through the effort of finding a guild group.

Even training guilds will ask a bare minimum of dedication as in some specific gear (usually exotic is enough) and ofc a set time of runs. Apparently that’s too much for the forum warriors so back to complaining.

echo.2053:

I’m going to feel bad for that one person whose curiosity gets the best of them asks you- someone who is lucky if they are able to login just one time in a given week – how exactly do you plan to come up with the rest of the mats needed for legendary armor?

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Legendary_armor – multipled by 6 for a full set

270 mystic coins alone ( assuming perfect luck) on your current login schedule would take years or risk paying tp prices that have been increasing and will most likely skyrocket when the armours actually get released….good thing time isn’t an issue…..

Hahahahaha. Dude, I don’t even have a legendary weapon, despite having a precursor in my inventory for long enough that it’s a joke among some of my guildies (I’m probably at the stage where I could make it a legendary tomorrow if I really wanted to, but I don’t really care enough to throw gold into buying materials that will steadily accumulate over time anyway). Such things are nice to have, but as long as they’re ‘nice to have’ instead of ‘expected to be required if you want to complete X content’, I don’t particularly care if I don’t have them. I play for the experience, not to chase some arbitrary carrot. It’d be nice to be able to experience the raid story firsthand, since it is closely tied to the LS3 story. If that comes at the price of playing through a lower-tuned ‘story mode’ with no rewards at all, I’d do it just for that.

But I couldn’t give a flying foxtrot for the rewards. Playing for the current rewards can, and should, be at the full level of difficulty. Nobody’s asking for the current difficulty to be removed* – however, the division between ‘hard mode’ and ‘normal mode’ was one of the best received additions to Guild Wars 1. Why? Because it allowed people who wanted the challenge to have it without denying content to the rest.

And in the context of raids, an ‘easy mode’ might actually help increase the population of people who are in a position to go for the real thing. Because having the split means people can use the lower mode for training and practice, then move on to the real thing.

In the meantime… “generally when a person dislikes something that doesn’t really have an impact on their life they just avoid it and move on” is pretty much what I’ve been doing. The thread asked why people were avoiding it and moving on. I gave my answers. It’s time to move on.

*Some people are asking for legendary armour to be available through another means. That’s a separate issue. I don’t particularly care either way.

(PS For the record, I play pretty much daily, unless I have something else on… but my time budget is still limited enough that I don’t want to be spending it on farming that I don’t enjoy. As for the weekends… I have RL friends and an SO that I want to do things with occasionally, which is why I’m not in a position to commit to a regular group even if I wanted to.)

zealex.9410:

They are not afraid… ts ctually much easier to say raids are hard and complain about it rather than actually sacrifice some time studying the encounter builds rotations etc. to be able to do the raids. Theres also the fact that training guild are not the easiest thing to come by but again ppl prefer complaining rather than go through the effort of finding a guild group.

That is a pretty unfair response considering a lot of replies given.

If I was to channel what you said here, I would say its easier to brush aside what others have said only to replace everything with what you pretend was said rather than going through the effort of offering a response that actually seek to address what has been said and was a valid and legitimate reply.

zealex.9410:

They are not afraid… ts ctually much easier to say raids are hard and complain about it rather than actually sacrifice some time studying the encounter builds rotations etc. to be able to do the raids. Theres also the fact that training guild are not the easiest thing to come by but again ppl prefer complaining rather than go through the effort of finding a guild group.

I’ve tried raids, didn’t enjoy myself and stopped trying. It’s not that I didn’t try. It’s not even that I didn’t put many hours into it. It’s that during those many hours I didn’t have fun.

See, this is a game. A game I purchased. A game I purchased that had no raids in the beginning. A game in which I could pick up and play pretty much any content in the game, without worrying about who was in the group (as in what professions) or whether we had a dedicated healer (something they advertised the game as not having), or any of the other dozens of intangibles that make raids annoying to me.

Since I don’t play games to be annoyed, I now have a content type I don’t enjoy, behind which rewards I want are being locked. I’m not incapable of raiding. Bur I am reluctant to spend hours of time doing something I don’t enjoy in a game that I paid for.

Now, if I were a tiny minority it wouldn’t matter what I think but I think most people don’t want to raid and that’s a problem for the game.

You may think it’s not a problem but the perception of a casual game that changed it’s stripes has hurt this game a lot more than raids have helped it.

zealex.9410:

They are not afraid… ts ctually much easier to say raids are hard and complain about it rather than actually sacrifice some time studying the encounter builds rotations etc. to be able to do the raids.

I’m more than willing to sacrifice my time with playing the game. I do it for fun. But with raids, you sacrifice your time with searching for other people, waiting for other people, and with wiping and trying again and getting absolutely nothing out of it but a headache. That’s not fun. If you close your game after a 4 hour raid session that consisted of effectively waiting 2 hours for people gathering and getting ready and 2 hours of wiping, you feel you just lost 4 hours of your life.

The whole world and all your game progress is the same as 4 hours before – it’s depressing you just lost 4 hours. I don’t know how many hours you must lose before you are awarded a success, but I’m not willing to try and count. This time is better spent with everything else, be it ingame or real life, because my free time is rare and precious.

echo.2053:

Astralporing.1957:

Not sure why are you bringing that up, since the easy mode initiative does not try to do that at all. You are fighting windmills here.

Really? name one instance where difficultly was split into different modes instead of overall nerfing the content down for the general public.

GW1 normal mode/hard mode split. Fractals. Any case of implementing easy mode in every other game…
Including the easy mode raids suggestion, which does not include nerfing anything in the current raid difficulty level.

echo.2053:

uhhh PC is the current time period we live in where people get offended by every minuscule thing despite it not relating to them in any form or shape.

Like you get offended by people saying they don’t like raids? Or that they’d like easy mode ones?
(as a side matter: what this has to do with PCs?)

the complete lack of a “practice mode” (which is apparently a HORRIBLE idea for…some reason) doesn’t allow me to actually practice raiding, and I refuse to go anywhere near the toxic cesspool that is raid recruiting, I have never encountered anything that is so terrible or mean-spirited in GW2 before, I feel like I’m at a job interview and the boss really hates me whenever I look into raiding with a group, the smug elitism on display is the exact garbage I played GW2 too get away from

Other than that, I don’t like the idea of spending 5+ hours with 9 other people that I probably don’t even know in real life just trying to push through a raid (and probably getting nothing to show for all the work), hence why I do fractals, 20ish minutes, done, my solution is simple, add a practice mode to raids that severely limit rewards so that people can get the story of raiding and practice the mechanics, that way maybe we can get some more sane people in the raiding community to knock the smug elitist pricks off their high horses

From what i know, WoW has a raid system that allows players to chose from multiple levels of difficulty, each difficulty raising item drops or something like that.

This game introduced raids upping the difficulty from 0 to 9000 with no transition. Players who traditionally are raiders and like raids, and have stable teams that grind them, ofc see them as a good thing.

For the rest? the change in game mentality was so sudden and so drastic that most consider it a waste of time and lack of rewards. Most players bought this game because it was a casual game. That doesn’t mean players don’t want something more challenging.

The way ANet delivered raids is abysmal, considering there were examples of how raids should be done in the first place…it’s not like they invented this system.

It’s a cookie cutter gamemod that requires specific classes and “the same people” generally, to progress efficiently. You can see the exact state of raids, by looking in the LFG. There barely are annoucements of ppl looking for groups, those annoucements remain the same for hours (both for experienced and for beginners, especially for beginners), and when they do fill up, usually they rage and disband. Not to mention the levels of elitism completely uncalled for.

So yea..players that have groups established will never see something wrong with the system…because they constantly have “that” group to rely on.

All in all, for me personally, and for what i look for in THIS mmo, the raids are a complete disaster (for now) strictly because of the lack of diversity in difficulty which is unacceptable by todays standards and already existing examples of raid systems out there.

This game tries to be several things at the same time, with a small team compared to other games, ultimately resulting in subpar quality &/or length content, regardless of what that content might be…pvp..pve..wvw.

If you don’t like raids just don’t do them. I don’t like Arah, so I don’t do it.

When you don’t like them the only reasons to do them anyway are the legendary armor and the story:
→ You can experience the story without killing the bosses
→ You can’t get The Ascension when you don’t pvp
→ You can’t get the fractal backpack or fractal weapons when you don’t do fractals
→ You can’t get the legendary armor when you don’t raid

As far as I know most games handle special skins/gear like that → do x to get y.
So I don’t see a problem there. Of course it would be absolutely ok if we get another legendary armor through pvp, fractals, wvw…, but currently we don’t even have one finished.

When you like raids what stops you doing them?
Time? Afraid of pugs? Other reasons?

Time:
To kill all bosses you need time. You also need time (and skill) if you want to reach “Legendary” in a pvp league. If you don’t have much time just don’t expect to achieve the same like people with much more time. As you don’t aim for “Legendary” in pvp just don’t aim to kill Matthias or Xera right away when you don’t have the time to play often.

Afraid of pugs?
I’m tired of reading posts about “elitist” raiders. I just raid casually with guildies or pugs and so far I haven’t met these so called “elitists” and I’m definitely not one myself.
I’m sure they exist, but you can avoid them (or at least most of them), if you don’t join “spam 150+ LIs, KP, 1 fail=kick” groups.
I watched the lfg on the weekend and there are lots of training runs for beginners and groups that ask for 1-50 LIs. Hardly any group asks to ping gear.

Recently I joined an “escort training” group as I was in the mood of helping others. The group had experienced and inexperienced people and “first timers”. McLeod was dead ca. 30 min after joining them. The atmosphere in ts was awesome. Everyone was happy, especially the “first timers” who killed their first raid boss. I still enjoy the feeling of the “first kill”, even if it’s not my first kill → I’m just happy for the others .

If you don’t want to pug you can join a raid training guild. I’m sure there are nice and helpful people in such guilds.

Other reasons?
I can’t think of anything else.

There are two reasons why I first stopped raiding and later stopped playing gw2:
1) Lack of role-per-class-variety: I will not play my warrior the whole time as might stacking one hit wonder with an greatsword (the fifth year in a row…). I want to try other roles with him (heal or tank). I played Guard and Rev too, but just on the meta builds because the classes are not “viable” in other roles. (I personally think they are, but thats a part of my second reason.)
Nobody wants an Guard or Rev as tank or healer.
And that brings me two the second reason:
2) The community of GW2. Raids are really really easy. You dont need skill in form of adaption or prediction. You just have to memorize the simple mechanics. But most players are not able of it. Most of my 10-people-groups fails VG again and again… with fail safe meta builds… and these people will never be able to adapt or predict something. Its impossible to play another builds then meta with that people and takes a whole evening for just ONE boss (that can be killed by an 3-man-group).
In the past i had some good guild groups, but none of them want to try runs with non meta builds…
And I think a good group can kill all raid bosses when every player plays an build he want, with spontaneous adjustments, far away from fail safe meta.

Well, but I dont know how the community can be fixed… (the role or build variety have to be fixed by Arena Net.)

Rhiannon.1726:

If you don’t like raids just don’t do them. I don’t like Arah, so I don’t do it.

When you don’t like them the only reasons to do them anyway are the legendary armor and the story:
-> You can experience the story without killing the bosses
-> You can’t get The Ascension when you don’t pvp
-> You can’t get the fractal backpack or fractal weapons when you don’t do fractals
-> You can’t get the legendary armor when you don’t raid

As far as I know most games handle special skins/gear like that -> do x to get y.
So I don’t see a problem there. Of course it would be absolutely ok if we get another legendary armor through pvp, fractals, wvw…, but currently we don’t even have one finished.

When you like raids what stops you doing them?
Time? Afraid of pugs? Other reasons?

Time:
To kill all bosses you need time. You also need time (and skill) if you want to reach “Legendary” in a pvp league. If you don’t have much time just don’t expect to achieve the same like people with much more time. As you don’t aim for “Legendary” in pvp just don’t aim to kill Matthias or Xera right away when you don’t have the time to play often.

Afraid of pugs?
I’m tired of reading posts about “elitist” raiders. I just raid casually with guildies or pugs and so far I haven’t met these so called “elitists” and I’m definitely not one myself.
I’m sure they exist, but you can avoid them (or at least most of them), if you don’t join “spam 150+ LIs, KP, 1 fail=kick” groups.
I watched the lfg on the weekend and there are lots of training runs for beginners and groups that ask for 1-50 LIs. Hardly any group asks to ping gear.

Recently I joined an “escort training” group as I was in the mood of helping others. The group had experienced and inexperienced people and “first timers”. McLeod was dead ca. 30 min after joining them. The atmosphere in ts was awesome. Everyone was happy, especially the “first timers” who killed their first raid boss. I still enjoy the feeling of the “first kill”, even if it’s not my first kill -> I’m just happy for the others .

If you don’t want to pug you can join a raid training guild. I’m sure there are nice and helpful people in such guilds.

Other reasons?
I can’t think of anything else.

You avoided the entirety of my point.

You can’t get the Ascension if you do not PvP. That much is true. However, you CAN get a legendary back piece by never doing any PvP. The legendary armor? Nope.

It’s not just the skin that is locked, it’s the quality of life aspect of the legendary that is locked behind the raid.

The armor IS the only legendary piece that offers ZERO alternatives to the players. None.

THAT is bad and what makes reasoning of the type “you don’t like it, don’t do it” pretty weak considering it’s doesn’t just involve the raid content itself (that you may not like) but a type of reward (that is the motivation to inflict yourself a content you despise so much).

@Sirbeaumerdier.3740
I’m confused. My post isn’t directed at you nor at anyone else specifically. I just wrote generally about my feeling about the topic.

But to answer your point about the legendary armor:
You have currently two ways to get a legendary back piece → fractals and pvp.
You have currently only one way to get a legendary armor (at least when Anet finishes it). I’d be more than happy if we would get another legendary armor via pvp, wvw, fractals or something else entirely.

Vayne.8563:

I’ve tried raids, didn’t enjoy myself and stopped trying. It’s not that I didn’t try. It’s not even that I didn’t put many hours into it. It’s that during those many hours I didn’t have fun.

See, this is a game. A game I purchased. A game I purchased that had no raids in the beginning. A game in which I could pick up and play pretty much any content in the game, without worrying about who was in the group (as in what professions) or whether we had a dedicated healer (something they advertised the game as not having), or any of the other dozens of intangibles that make raids annoying to me.

Since I don’t play games to be annoyed, I now have a content type I don’t enjoy, behind which rewards I want are being locked. I’m not incapable of raiding. Bur I am reluctant to spend hours of time doing something I don’t enjoy in a game that I paid for.

Now, if I were a tiny minority it wouldn’t matter what I think but I think most people don’t want to raid and that’s a problem for the game.

You may think it’s not a problem but the perception of a casual game that changed it’s stripes has hurt this game a lot more than raids have helped it.

The thing is, there are a lot of rewards locked behind specific content. It’s not just raids. You may very well be in a tiny minority that does not enjoy raids but does enjoy everything else the game throws at players. From the reactions on these boards, there are a lot of players who dislike a lot of content types, and sometimes there are things locked behind such content. I tend to take the view that it is impossible to cater to players who believe that everything in the game ought to be aimed at them when they don’t want to play everything that the game could throw at them.

The thing is, the MMO fan base is diverse, but the business model is dependent on keeping many demographics interested over time. A game developer that ignores enough demographics is cutting its own throat. That said, there is a balancing act inherent in adding content designed for one group because players do take the unrealistic view that everything the company puts into the game ought to be their cup of tea.

Take your point about designated roles. You don’t like that aspect of raids. However, there was a sizable demographic whose beef about dungeons was the lack of such roles. Now that raids are in, I’m not seeing those complaints. A game developer cannot cater to both points of view. All they can hope is that when they cater to A, B recognizes, “Oh, this isn’t for me, I’ll just focus on the parts of the game that are for me.”

I think, in the long run, ANet is too smart to lock L. Armor as a tier behind one type of content. The drawbacks there are:

• Seemingly, L. Armor takes a long time to produce, and if there is one thing an overwhelming majority of posters have in common it’s lack of patience.
• ANet has locked skins behind specific content, so there’s every likelihood the raid skin will be exclusive even if they add a different L. Armor elsewhere.

This is not to say you are wrong to beef, it’s just offering a rationale for why the issues are less cut and dried than many posters seem to believe. Finally, it seems somewhat ironic that I, a non-raider, am defending the inclusion of raids, and defending ANet actions from you when it’s often been the other way around.

Because raiding is not for the faint of heart… it’s a world full of rage, elitism and drama. It’s the hardest content in the game and if you’re bad you must understand that you will get yelled at. If you can stay alive and avoid stuff you’ll be just fine.

Wazzouf.2748:

Because raiding is not for the faint of heart… it’s a world full of rage, elitism and drama. It’s the hardest content in the game and if you’re bad you must understand that you will get yelled at. If you can stay alive and avoid stuff you’ll be just fine.

Actually, it’s not really hard in itself. What IS hard is getting a group that knows what they have to do within the time frame you can play.

Fighting a human opponent (PvP or WvW) requires more skills than anything the raid ask out of any player.

Rhiannon.1726:

@Sirbeaumerdier.3740
I’m confused. My post isn’t directed at you nor at anyone else specifically. I just wrote generally about my feeling about the topic.

But to answer your point about the legendary armor:
You have currently two ways to get a legendary back piece -> fractals and pvp.
You have currently only one way to get a legendary armor (at least when Anet finishes it). I’d be more than happy if we would get another legendary armor via pvp, wvw, fractals or something else entirely.

Sorry about how I came at you.

I think providing one more option to get a legendary armor would go a long way for a lot of people. However, looking at how long it is to get even one…

sephiroth.4217:

I’m not afraid of raids, it’s raiders afraid of me. (being a pug that’s never entered a raid, experienced raiders only)

Bwahaha, probably the best, most concise statement I’ve seen on the matter.
+1 to you!

echo.2053:

Astralporing.1957:

echo.2053:

Astralporing.1957:

Not sure why are you bringing that up, since the easy mode initiative does not try to do that at all. You are fighting windmills here.

Really? name one instance where difficultly was split into different modes instead of overall nerfing the content down for the general public.

GW1 normal mode/hard mode split. Fractals. Any case of implementing easy mode in every other game…
Including the easy mode raids suggestion, which does not include nerfing anything in the current raid difficulty level.

This isn’t gw1, why you are naming other games when we are talking about gw2…… are you feeling ok? – They are not going to split areas when they are already relying on megaservers to keep upon the apperance of areas being populated.

If they never did anything they hadn’t done before, we wouldn’t have raids in the first place.

echo.2053:

Astralporing.1957:

(as a side matter: what this has to do with PCs?)

What does this have to do with political correctness – measures taken as to not offend any particular group?

Ah, political correctness. Never been a fan of it, but isn’t it mostly an american thing? Personally, i didn’t even think you meant anything else except Personal Computers. Which seemed really weird from the context.

echo.2053:

Astralporing.1957:

Like you get offended by people saying they don’t like raids?

You mean two post prior when I blatantly stated that I do not give a kitten about other peoples likes/dislikes?

And yet your posts seem to include a lot of emotions, and you are arguing very vehemently against said likes/dislikes. Even when you claim you don’t give a kitten about them.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Vayne.8563:

snip
Now, if I were a tiny minority it wouldn’t matter what I think but I think most people don’t want to raid and that’s a problem for the game.

You may think it’s not a problem but the perception of a casual game that changed it’s stripes has hurt this game a lot more than raids have helped it.

The thing is, there are a lot of rewards locked behind specific content. It’s not just raids. You may very well be in a tiny minority that does not enjoy raids but does enjoy everything else the game throws at players. From the reactions on these boards, there are a lot of players who dislike a lot of content types, and sometimes there are things locked behind such content. I tend to take the view that it is impossible to cater to players who believe that everything in the game ought to be aimed at them when they don’t want to play everything that the game could throw at them.

The thing is, the MMO fan base is diverse, but the business model is dependent on keeping many demographics interested over time. A game developer that ignores enough demographics is cutting its own throat. That said, there is a balancing act inherent in adding content designed for one group because players do take the unrealistic view that everything the company puts into the game ought to be their cup of tea.

Take your point about designated roles. You don’t like that aspect of raids. However, there was a sizable demographic whose beef about dungeons was the lack of such roles. Now that raids are in, I’m not seeing those complaints. A game developer cannot cater to both points of view. All they can hope is that when they cater to A, B recognizes, “Oh, this isn’t for me, I’ll just focus on the parts of the game that are for me.”

I think, in the long run, ANet is too smart to lock L. Armor as a tier behind one type of content. The drawbacks there are:

• Seemingly, L. Armor takes a long time to produce, and if there is one thing an overwhelming majority of posters have in common it’s lack of patience.
• ANet has locked skins behind specific content, so there’s every likelihood the raid skin will be exclusive even if they add a different L. Armor elsewhere.

This is not to say you are wrong to beef, it’s just offering a rationale for why the issues are less cut and dried than many posters seem to believe. Finally, it seems somewhat ironic that I, a non-raider, am defending the inclusion of raids, and defending ANet actions from you when it’s often been the other way around.

So what rewarrd TYPES are only locked behind one type of content.

Put it another way. I’ve done everything in the game. I’ve been able to achieve it. I wasn’t able to do the legendary backpack in PVP but I am able to get a legendary back pack through Fractals.

I may not like crafting ascended armor, but it does drop (if rarely in game) and you can farm high level fractals for it. In fact, now you can buy it.

I may not be able to get the mini from SPvP but I can get minis elsewhere.

There is one place to get legendary armor from. Period. And it requires more of an investment that almost anything else in the game, including legendary weapons.

More to the point, the hardest part about getting a legendary weapon is world complete, which I can do in 5 minute intervals solo if I like. This is a departure from the rest of the game, as the commitment is much higher.

I can get a gift of battle if I want, but doing WvW or EotM in half an hour intervals with a commander, without thinking about it.

This ups the ante to what I perceive to be an unacceptable level. This is going to make me feel like a second class citizen, because that armor is flash as hell and it’ll be around me, but I won’t have access to it without destroying the game for myself.

Seeing a mini, when I can get other minis isn’t such a big deal. Seeing a skin when I can get other skins, isn’t a big deal.

But this skin that animates only when you’re in battle, that has swappable stats.

Sorry, it’s a prize that’s being withheld from me that I’ll not be able to get without destroying the game for me. Which makes me wonder if the game is really for me anymore.

I’ve played too many hours and worked too hard to get the rewards I have to become a second class citizen now and I’m not the only person who feels this way.

It’s a massively visual indication that the game is moving away from my comfort zone. That implication has already cost this game players and sales. If you think that’s going to stop, you’re probably wrong.

Vayne.8563:

So what rewarrd TYPES are only locked behind one type of content.

Put it another way. I’ve done everything in the game. I’ve been able to achieve it. I wasn’t able to do the legendary backpack in PVP but I am able to get a legendary back pack through Fractals.

I may not like crafting ascended armor, but it does drop (if rarely in game) and you can farm high level fractals for it. In fact, now you can buy it.

I may not be able to get the mini from SPvP but I can get minis elsewhere.

There is one place to get legendary armor from. Period. And it requires more of an investment that almost anything else in the game, including legendary weapons.

More to the point, the hardest part about getting a legendary weapon is world complete, which I can do in 5 minute intervals solo if I like. This is a departure from the rest of the game, as the commitment is much higher.

I can get a gift of battle if I want, but doing WvW or EotM in half an hour intervals with a commander, without thinking about it.

This ups the ante to what I perceive to be an unacceptable level. This is going to make me feel like a second class citizen, because that armor is flash as hell and it’ll be around me, but I won’t have access to it without destroying the game for myself.

Seeing a mini, when I can get other minis isn’t such a big deal. Seeing a skin when I can get other skins, isn’t a big deal.

But this skin that animates only when you’re in battle, that has swappable stats.

Sorry, it’s a prize that’s being withheld from me that I’ll not be able to get without destroying the game for me. Which makes me wonder if the game is really for me anymore.

I’ve played too many hours and worked too hard to get the rewards I have to become a second class citizen now and I’m not the only person who feels this way.

It’s a massively visual indication that the game is moving away from my comfort zone. That implication has already cost this game players and sales. If you think that’s going to stop, you’re probably wrong.

I expect ANet will eventually offer L. Armor outside of raids. It’s probably years away. It might or might not be transformer style. It will probably be too late to retain some players.

The thing is, I’ve felt disenfranchised by ANet decisions as to game direction going all the way back to the inclusion of Ascended gear in late 2012. I know exactly what you’re talking about. The thing is, where can we go? Where is there an MMO which offers the things you like about GW2? I haven’t found one which even comes close, and I like a whole lot less about GW2 than you seem to.

And no, I don’t expect people in general to suddenly become willing to accept that there are going to be aspects of any game that aren’t for them. I offer the idea because maybe there will be some who get it.

Vayne.8563:

Seeing a mini, when I can get other minis isn’t such a big deal. Seeing a skin when I can get other skins, isn’t a big deal.

But this skin that animates only when you’re in battle, that has swappable stats.

Sorry, it’s a prize that’s being withheld from me that I’ll not be able to get without destroying the game for me. Which makes me wonder if the game is really for me anymore.

I’ve played too many hours and worked too hard to get the rewards I have to become a second class citizen now and I’m not the only person who feels this way.

Genuinely curious here as to why something that in the end is merely a super fancy skin with stat-swapping that MIGHT be near-useless for most classes if we’re not allowed to swap runes along with it and is not required to partake in any content is ruining the game for you? Especially considering that you can very well change stats on your ascended gear for a small fee and that purchasing/getting a 2nd armor set is most likely cheaper than going for full legendary armor, even more so if you’re a frequent fractal runner.

I’m not seeing any grounds for “game-ruining” happenings here. If you don’t want to raid, sure, you don’t have to. The armor is a want at best, not a need and likely not a money-saver except when looking at the really long run under specific circumstances such as throwing the gear around between multiple characters and/or swapping stats a whole lot

Vayne.8563:

…or whether we had a dedicated healer (something they advertised the game as not having)

The words Healer and Tank should never have been uttered in this game. As Vayne says, this was an actual advertised promotion point.

Raids detract from the game in a very real, intrusive way for non-raiders; all my former dungeon/fractal running contacts are now mainly only raiding. Not really because they like it so much, just because it’s the highest content in the game. Because it feels pointless to play a game if you’re not going to do the highest/latest/best content.

Of course one doesn’t -have- to raid. You could simply take your time and gemstore dollars to a different game.

Vayne.8563:

…or whether we had a dedicated healer (something they advertised the game as not having)

The words Healer and Tank should never have been uttered in this game. As Vayne says, this was an actual advertised promotion point.

Raids detract from the game in a very real, intrusive way for non-raiders; all my former dungeon/fractal running contacts are now mainly only raiding. Not really because they like it so much, just because it’s the highest content in the game. Because it feels pointless to play a game if you’re not going to do the highest/latest/best content.

Of course one doesn’t -have- to raid. You could simply take your time and gemstore dollars to a different game.

NovaanVerdiano.6174:

Vayne.8563:

Seeing a mini, when I can get other minis isn’t such a big deal. Seeing a skin when I can get other skins, isn’t a big deal.

But this skin that animates only when you’re in battle, that has swappable stats.

Sorry, it’s a prize that’s being withheld from me that I’ll not be able to get without destroying the game for me. Which makes me wonder if the game is really for me anymore.

I’ve played too many hours and worked too hard to get the rewards I have to become a second class citizen now and I’m not the only person who feels this way.

Genuinely curious here as to why something that in the end is merely a super fancy skin with stat-swapping that MIGHT be near-useless for most classes if we’re not allowed to swap runes along with it and is not required to partake in any content is ruining the game for you? Especially considering that you can very well change stats on your ascended gear for a small fee and that purchasing/getting a 2nd armor set is most likely cheaper than going for full legendary armor, even more so if you’re a frequent fractal runner.

I’m not seeing any grounds for “game-ruining” happenings here. If you don’t want to raid, sure, you don’t have to. The armor is a want at best, not a need and likely not a money-saver except when looking at the really long run under specific circumstances such as throwing the gear around between multiple characters and/or swapping stats a whole lot

It may have escaped your attention but many people play this game strictly for cosmetics. That’s what they care about. Not stats, but cosmetics. Cool looking stuff. The stats are a little relevant to me, but the way the armor transforms is far more relevant to me. It’s not just another skin. It’s a skin that does something no other armor in the game does. So if I think that looks really cool and it’s beyond my reach, if I’ve come to the end of what I can do in this game without hating the game, then yes, it’ll become time for me to move on.

To put it differently, I already have made 12 legendary weapons. I can do that. I need stuff to do, long term stuff to do. Legendary armor would be something perfect for me to work on, if I didn’t dislike, actively dislike raiding. Nor can I raid for 15 minutes and take a break and do more later.

With dungeon tokens, getting that stuff wasn’t an issue. Run a path of a dungeon, run another path another day. Raids are a whole different animal.

So yeah, if I’m at the top of the game now and I can’t stay there because of decisions made that I don’t like, it might no longer be the game for me.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Vayne.8563:

So what rewarrd TYPES are only locked behind one type of content.

Put it another way. I’ve done everything in the game. I’ve been able to achieve it. I wasn’t able to do the legendary backpack in PVP but I am able to get a legendary back pack through Fractals.

I may not like crafting ascended armor, but it does drop (if rarely in game) and you can farm high level fractals for it. In fact, now you can buy it.

I may not be able to get the mini from SPvP but I can get minis elsewhere.

There is one place to get legendary armor from. Period. And it requires more of an investment that almost anything else in the game, including legendary weapons.

More to the point, the hardest part about getting a legendary weapon is world complete, which I can do in 5 minute intervals solo if I like. This is a departure from the rest of the game, as the commitment is much higher.

I can get a gift of battle if I want, but doing WvW or EotM in half an hour intervals with a commander, without thinking about it.

This ups the ante to what I perceive to be an unacceptable level. This is going to make me feel like a second class citizen, because that armor is flash as hell and it’ll be around me, but I won’t have access to it without destroying the game for myself.

Seeing a mini, when I can get other minis isn’t such a big deal. Seeing a skin when I can get other skins, isn’t a big deal.

But this skin that animates only when you’re in battle, that has swappable stats.

Sorry, it’s a prize that’s being withheld from me that I’ll not be able to get without destroying the game for me. Which makes me wonder if the game is really for me anymore.

I’ve played too many hours and worked too hard to get the rewards I have to become a second class citizen now and I’m not the only person who feels this way.

It’s a massively visual indication that the game is moving away from my comfort zone. That implication has already cost this game players and sales. If you think that’s going to stop, you’re probably wrong.

I expect ANet will eventually offer L. Armor outside of raids. It’s probably years away. It might or might not be transformer style. It will probably be too late to retain some players.

The thing is, I’ve felt disenfranchised by ANet decisions as to game direction going all the way back to the inclusion of Ascended gear in late 2012. I know exactly what you’re talking about. The thing is, where can we go? Where is there an MMO which offers the things you like about GW2? I haven’t found one which even comes close, and I like a whole lot less about GW2 than you seem to.

And no, I don’t expect people in general to suddenly become willing to accept that there are going to be aspects of any game that aren’t for them. I offer the idea because maybe there will be some who get it.

Well no, I won’t go from this to another MMO that I like even less, but there’s plenty of other things to do in the world besides MMOs. I’d either buy a console or I’d play some adventure games that I haven’t been playing, or I’d catch up on Netflix. It’s not like an MMO is the only thing I can do to entertain myself.

I agree, MMOs are in a terrible place right now, but you know, I can make a game out of trying different ones too, between doing a bunch of other stuff.

Vayne.8563:

Nor can I raid for 15 minutes and take a break and do more later.

To be fair, once you’ve got past the learning phase you could easily get to the point where you generally oneshot bosses or so, allowing you to kill a boss in around 15min (including setup time usually) and then just coming back for another boss the next day. If you did that every day while limiting yourself to 15min raid-playtime, you’d still get 7 LIs per week.

That’d still exclude the learning phase and the fact you simply don’t enjoy raids.

My guess is there will be a second legendary armor later on, but who knows.