Guild Wars 2

Just to make one thing clear here on my posting based on what is going on here right now …

I absolutely don’t “hate” raids or so, just to make it clear, I am absolutely wanting Raids for GW2.

The point is only, that I’m personally just disappointed of what Anet seems to understand under a “Raid” and practically delivers us instead only Dungeons 2.0, just with 5 more people, better rewards, time gated access and some harder bosses plus two for that instance new masteries that you just can learn there so far with the first Raid Wing, locking also Story and especialyl Legendary Equipment – so quality of life items – behind this gamemode to force practicalyl everyone to play raids, if they want to ever get full quality of life stat change on demand outside of combat. Seriously?

Personally I expect something completely different from a Raid.

I would have expected something more along the lines of these points:

- Group Size: Between 25-50 people based on difficulty (to make full usage of the new Squad System)
- Playtype: Infinite, means, you raid as long as you want and people/you leave , enemies reappear quickly, where raids become more rewarding, so longer/deeper you raid, but also become more challenging over time so longer/deeper you explore in them.
- Raid Map Size: Huge, similar to the Desert Borderlands, so that there is also enough space for some huge monsters of the size of World Bosses to raid in them
- Raid Types: Providing different Raid Types, from Hunting Grounds to Dungeon Crawlers over to Guilds Crusades as Guild unique form of Raids – brief said, I expected something completely new and different and not basically warmed up cold coffee that is Gameplay like Dungeons 2.0 with a tiny row of Bosses to slay that you can do every week once.

Under a Raid I expect challenging coordinated Group Content of various different types that are made for large Groups. 10 People is no large group! 25-50 people is a large group, big enough to make actually good usage of the new Squad System. WvW isnt the only game Mode, that could make good usage of it..Raids could also too, if just the Group Size would be bigger…
Under a Raid I expect that the content is so designed, that all playable Classes can be useful, provide something unique to their role for why you would want to have them with you and where all Classes can do something useful to support the group.
I expected something like class specific Masteries, as the introduction of the Mastery System and the raids together was the perfect opportunity to combine both systems with each other to do something unique there also for Character Progression – see my example of Thieves becoming the Raid Group’s Treasure Hunters and Trap Disablers just for example that can improve the Rewards you collect together on your Raid Tours.

Raids should be more of an social experience, where playing with many people together challening content that is made for a big group to make fun and not to be just only a silly DPS Race, where from everyone is expected to play godlike with no mistakes with absolute perfect equipment and only armed until under the teeth in ascended stuff, just so that you can make sure you can kill those few bosses on the run, before they can get into litterally “Berserker Mode” where their attacks become one hit killers if your group wa just too slow due to not good enough DPS…

One should expect from Anet something more originally and better, than these kind of lame DPS races permanently just to create artificially challenging battles that can fail somehow, if you are too slow…

Brief said, I dislike the way only, how Anet implemented Raids, at least so far the first Raid Wing. Hopefully will be the next Wing alot better and be completely different from the first one and not be again just another Dungeon 2.0 Clone with just like 3 Bosses to slay on the way to your loot at the end, because if thatx really everythign Anet can do, then they should have really not wasted any tiem and ressources at all with Raids and hsould have used that better on completely reworking Dungeons, instead of destroying them by removing their rewards and puting them to Fractals to literally shift over the Dungeon Players only to play Fractals now instead for farmign Gold.

If Raids wont improve and become more interestign with the next wing(s) and differentiate themself more from Dungeons/Fractals, then all of this was basically nothing but a huge waste of ressources, because when you go already so far to implement as complete new Game Mode, then you should want as Developer that this new Mode should also be as unique and different as piossible from all the rest of the game…

What Anet did here so far with raids is, as if anet would have implemented Stronghold for PvP as if Stronghold woudl be exactly the same than Conquest, but just only with 10 players on each side and different rewards and limitatign everyone to play it only every week (time gating)

Would you find Stronghold good, if it would be like that?
I guess not, I doubt hard that anyone would find Stronghold awesome, if Anet would have made with Stronghold, what they practically did so far with Raids by making it just too similar to other already existing content. Especialyl when parts of the already existign content get then extra dumbed down to oblivion in regard of their rewards, just so that players get a better reason to play the “new” old content that seems to come over so far, as if Anet sems to have reinvented the cycle new…

And then just to hear permanently, we have no team for this, when they could have already thrown together a long time ago practically all three teams together the very moment they introduced fractals to the game practically to form with them a new overarching Endgame Content Team that works on all three things, Dungeons, Raids and Fractals is for me personally just the top of the iceberg…

Problem is a ton of people reach the end game fairly quickly because they are gaming addicts, and have nothing to do. Now to keep these players interested raids are born. How is all of this not obvious?

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Raids currently employ 6 of the 300 devs at Anet, or 2% of their work force.

And at the same time they cannot hire even a single person for dungeons, which were more popular than raids are. You could easily say that the raids cost us a dungeon team.

The fact that they are using resources that could have been used for something else is not that important, however. The real problem lies in how their existence impacts the game.

The Raids are being treated as the end game content. This causes them to lock out things that otherwise would have been accessible through other means (legendary armor for example). This causes them to crowd out other design ideas (“the whole game is the endgame”). This also promotes the elitist way of thinking, like suggesting that only Raiders matter. They shift the focus of the whole game. It’s those things that are a main problem.

Stand The Wall.6987:

Problem is a ton of people reach the end game fairly quickly because they are gaming addicts, and have nothing to do. Now to keep these players interested raids are born. How is all of this not obvious?

That’s pretty much it.

Also the so much hated “gear treadmill” combined with raid ensures to give you the most challenging content you can get. If you can’t beat it now (with your skill) it will be slightly easier the next week. Basically making the content available to MORE players at some point.

I’m not saying that’s the best way but it certainly works in some way. If you join an mmo expansion for example WoW 1 or 2 raids later you usually have a quite easy time with the first bosses/raid and you will hit a “wall” at some point that you either have to climb with your skill or with better gear the next weeks.

In some way pretty much everybody can play the content made for the “2%” at some point. Isn’t that what you want?

There are of course some other flaws but there are good reasons why it’s like that.

Now in GW2 I think it’s quite okay without new gear. We have to see how much the older raids will be played but I think raids will work really well in GW2 for the players who like the challenge.

Maybe increase the loot since I can already see newer players not wanting to do a raid boss for 2 gold + a small % on something good if they have to learn it for X hours.

The Anet programmers are gamers, hardcore gamers. Of course, they are biased toward the viewpoints of the hardcore gamer customers. That explains what is going on.

On the face of it, I have no problem with raids. I have no interest in them and no interest in crafting legendaries. But what some have already said earlier, it is the resources being used to create them that is the problem.

But there is no point in arguing this. The financial results will win in the end, no matter what. That is; reality always wins, no matter what your opinion is.

Astralporing.1957:

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Raids currently employ 6 of the 300 devs at Anet, or 2% of their work force.

And at the same time they cannot hire even a single person for dungeons, which were more popular than raids are. You could easily say that the raids cost us a dungeon team.

The fact that they are using resources that could have been used for something else is not that important, however. The real problem lies in how their existence impacts the game.

The Raids are being treated as the end game content. This causes them to lock out things that otherwise would have been accessible through other means (legendary armor for example). This causes them to crowd out other design ideas (“the whole game is the endgame”). This also promotes the elitist way of thinking, like suggesting that only Raiders matter. They shift the focus of the whole game. It’s those things that are a main problem.

The dungeon team was disbanded long, long before there was a raid team. I think the issue is all the dungeons in game now were designed prelaunch with the exception of the Aetherblade Path and Fractals. Fractals are what cost you guys the dungeon team, not raids. Because Fractals were always supposed to be the way moving forward.

Now, the problem I think, is no one really had experience for making dungeons without a trinity and they tried some stuff which from Anet’s point of view didn’t work. The whole stacking and zerker thing was not how Anet intended dungeons to be played. It trivialized that content and made it nothing more than an easy farm for people who wanted quick gold. This was not what Anet had wanted for their dungeons.

Redesigning existing dungeons has a number of pitfalls. It’s actually just easier to start over. So they want with the dungeon team now being replaced by the Fractal team and the raid team an additional team for people who wanted the most challenging content.

I’m absolutely sure that the raid team didn’t cost anyone the dungeon team.

My personal experience with just the idea of raids was a guild community killer. It’s basically a job that was introduced where equally qualified people got chosen for, or not in many cases including mine. It eventually lead to people who had held the guild up for years prior to the raid release feeling alienated and and excluded, and when trying to point out the obvious down turn the guild was taking, I personally was met with “oh, you should just leave if you don’t like it here”, or “oh, you feel the guild is dying because long time players just vanished because of the drama…we don’t like that around here /gkick”.

It is hard to just leave something you help keep up for that long, hard to see people you get along with just leave because they aren’t seeing their due, and very hard to deal with people that all they see is their own progress, when it’s been a team effort the whole time leading up to it. And to give some idea of numbers we had claiming the guild hall, it was around 40-50…it was a lot for a semi small, close knit guild. By the time I was discarded (and that’s what it felt like), it was the one raid team of ten people, plus a few stringers that people from team one would help get through, so 20 at most, plus myself?

I don’t know though. To see guild participation and overall numbers drop like that, and for senior members just quit without the leader even noticing/caring (we didn’t have that many to begin with), I don’t see how raiding was good for the guild I was in. I mean, I still look for their tag when I’m out and about, but with the megaservers I might see one or two here and there.

DGraves.3720:

maddoctor.2738:

DGraves.3720:

SkyShroud.2865:

it is subjective
it really all depends on the overall game design

In what game design are raids good for games? Curious.

In any game design that want to have interesting mechanics and encounters.

Why should that be specifically for raids though? I don’t disagree with you, just curious why raids need to be the things to bring this to the table.

I am thinking world bosses would be better for that.

World bosses have the critical problem of being plagued by rookies, slackers, and other non-contributors of all levels and gear types. Anyone can walk up to a worldboss and scale it up. How often will the Shatterer fail because people refuse to WP on death when the WP isn’t even out of the battleground? And helplessly flailing at crystals with normal attacks? The encounters have to be designed to be challenging in broad strokes, but not character-challenging ones because they have to get the ratio of Effort-applying players and slackers balanced. And they can’t design for a specific number of players, either.

Raids give much better and more flexible workspace for the developers to work with – They know that the players who get in are willing to run, are geared in the proper-tier stats, are fully traited+skilled, and exactly the right number for the challenges designed. They can really crank up the difficulty.

How ungodly awful would Triple Threat be if EVERYONE who showed up had to do the jumping EXACTLY right to get ALL their kegs to the wurm heads in exactly the right time? You can’t design world bosses with any kind of precision – but you can design raids to have much tighter “competence tests”.

DGraves.3720:

SkyShroud.2865:

it is subjective
it really all depends on the overall game design

In what game design are raids good for games? Curious.

let see, it is really hard to say
to begin with, raid isnt suitable for gw2 due to its casual approach.

raid was originated from MUDs, the mother of all MMORPGs, a lot of ideas were taken from the different MUDs. most old school games are generally very grindy and with that, every different levels there will be a range of new gears and items. raid too was meant as a mean to obtain rare items that you won’t get from normal mobs. in those games, there could be several different raids and each raid could have different levels as it target the different leveling stage of the players.

for raid to complement the whole game design, it has to be aligned to the game progression but in gw2 case, there is very little reason to do raid other than the fancy legendary which is equivalent to a ascended.

furthermore, as casual as gw2 is, the mentality of the players are vastly different from people of grindy mmorpg.

Deleena.3406:

I have no problem with raids (long as they never required or become the only new PvE content) its only bad imo if it becomes the main/only way to progress.

Agreed- raids are fine if they don’t detract too much from other content.

As long as raids can be supported within the existing resource envelope, they are probably a net win for the game. I don’t raid myself (I hate waiting around for the raid to start or reassemble after a wipe) but they can be useful for the total game package, even if not all that many folks partake.

One of GW2’s strengths (more so pre-HoT and hopefully soon to be the case again) was that there was always a lot of different content, something for every mood and style. Raids can be part of that.

I actually very much enjoy raids, and the current way they have been implemented in GW2.

I feel that at the core the raids added a much needed element of teamplay that had been missing as most content had become trivial to say the least.

Now then, that doesn’t mean that every addition to the game needs to be a raid. In fact i’d be perfectly fine if after wing 2&3 we didn’t see another raid for a few months at all. To allow for people to work their way upto raiding.

Things like story/dungeon/fractals all need a looking at before Raid 2 comes out.

Astralporing.1957:

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Raids currently employ 6 of the 300 devs at Anet, or 2% of their work force.

And at the same time they cannot hire even a single person for dungeons, which were more popular than raids are. You could easily say that the raids cost us a dungeon team.

Or maybe the Living World is costing us a dungeon team. Or maybe PVP is costing us a dungeon team. Or maybe having a huge art team to make more gem store items, but fewer programmers/developers, is costing us a dungeon team.

Silverstone.4539:

Are there stats they can see, of how many people do, and finish a raid? what % of the player population do them? if it’s only 2%… I got to ask, why? why put so much time into something that only 2% of the gaming population is every going to do or see.

As I said in another thread, if 2% of the company works for 2% of the population, where is the problem? How much of the population does level 100 fractals? How much of the population does PVP? How much of the population does x? Should we start looking at the amount of the population doing something and focus only what the “majority” wants? That would lead to a boring game quickly without options, I thought it was always good for a game to have options for different playstyles.

Raids seemed to kill off the dungeon content in GW2. So for me personally – yes raids were bad since I much more prefer dungeons.

Raids are a hassle, I just dont want to bind my self to specific times for a game. Dungeons you could just to when you felt like, either with friends or pugs or a mix of the two. Guess thats one of the major reasons I hardly ever play anymore.

maddoctor.2738:

Or maybe the Living World is costing us a dungeon team. Or maybe PVP is costing us a dungeon team. Or maybe having a huge art team to make more gem store items, but fewer programmers/developers, is costing us a dungeon team.

Maybe (or then maybe not). You did notice, however, that i said this wasn’t the real problem, right?

maddoctor.2738:

As I said in another thread, if 2% of the company works for 2% of the population, where is the problem?

The problem starts as soon as this 2% starts influencing the rest of the game.

The real problem is that Raids bring with them attitudes and way of thinking that have some serious impact on that remaining 98% of the game. In this way, it’s not like, say, SAB.

Astralporing.1957:

The real problem is that Raids bring with them attitudes and way of thinking that have some serious impact on that remaining 98% of the game. In this way, it’s not like, say, SAB.

Much like how SAB players affect only SAB, Raiders will only affect Raids. What kind of serious impact are you expecting from Raiders on the open world or dungeons/fractals?

maddoctor.2738:

Astralporing.1957:

The real problem is that Raids bring with them attitudes and way of thinking that have some serious impact on that remaining 98% of the game. In this way, it’s not like, say, SAB.

Much like how SAB players affect only SAB, Raiders will only affect Raids. What kind of serious impact are you expecting from Raiders on the open world or dungeons/fractals?

Their impact on PvX guilds, that has apparently already been seen.

Our guild also suffered due to raids. We seem to have recovered from it (after losing some players) by basically forgetting about them.

I don’t mind raids existing, but I would be curious as to how many people do raids compared to how many played SAB. Given that raids are getting a lot of attention, and SAB has been closed for two and a half years (after being paid for with real money by some players).

Generally though, I like hard content, but not having to organise nine other people to do it with. Honestly I’d rather they’d gone the other way and given us something like the Queen’s gauntlet.

Greymantle.9168:

My personal experience with just the idea of raids was a guild community killer. It’s basically a job that was introduced where equally qualified people got chosen for, or not in many cases including mine. It eventually lead to people who had held the guild up for years prior to the raid release feeling alienated and and excluded, and when trying to point out the obvious down turn the guild was taking, I personally was met with “oh, you should just leave if you don’t like it here”, or “oh, you feel the guild is dying because long time players just vanished because of the drama…we don’t like that around here /gkick”.

It is hard to just leave something you help keep up for that long, hard to see people you get along with just leave because they aren’t seeing their due, and very hard to deal with people that all they see is their own progress, when it’s been a team effort the whole time leading up to it. And to give some idea of numbers we had claiming the guild hall, it was around 40-50…it was a lot for a semi small, close knit guild. By the time I was discarded (and that’s what it felt like), it was the one raid team of ten people, plus a few stringers that people from team one would help get through, so 20 at most, plus myself?

I don’t know though. To see guild participation and overall numbers drop like that, and for senior members just quit without the leader even noticing/caring (we didn’t have that many to begin with), I don’t see how raiding was good for the guild I was in. I mean, I still look for their tag when I’m out and about, but with the megaservers I might see one or two here and there.

Thats pretty tough. I cant relate to anything like that but I’ve been in situations where the guild dynamic changes a lot which leads to breakups etc. If I were to dedicate myself to something like raids then it would be all about the players, as I’m sure you hold that stance as well. Believe it or not I think the people that stayed in your old guild believe that too.

People are responsible for what they choose to create. The members of your old guild I think wanted to be in an environment which reflected their desires for how they play the game. They’re now “hardcore” raiders. What I would look at if I were you (just an opinion here, not trying to tell you what to do) are the people that left. Its seems like if all of you guys were to form a guild then you would form a pretty solid bond, and would be free to then play the game how you want to.

Anywho good luck to you and safe travels.

CrashTestAuto.9108:

I’d rather they’d gone the other way and given us something like the Queen’s gauntlet.

o.0’ how was that difficult content? that was just pre-silverwaste.

Same common complaint " Its not fair to have legendary gear behind this wall" – Perhaps you are’t as legndary as you thought you were

I’d rather have guild mates leave the guild (and just adding them on friends list if they are someone dear), then to watch names go grey for several months until kick for room from bordem of doing the same mindless merry-go-round.

echo.2053:

CrashTestAuto.9108:

I’d rather they’d gone the other way and given us something like the Queen’s gauntlet.

o.0’ how was that difficult content? that was just pre-silverwaste.

I said “like”. Plus plenty of people found Liadri difficult in the first year.

The point was that I’d prefer that we had five player content and solo/duo content than five player content and ten player content.

CrashTestAuto.9108:

Plus plenty of people found Liadri difficult in the first year.

Liadri was difficult first year because of gravity orb hitbox being underground, camera being trapped in the cage – it was absolutely amazing!!!…..then they nerfed it

Its funny how this game is most fun when the mechanics are broken – In the first year the champion risen wraith that would just decimate zergs, even teq was interesting after the damage update but broken hitbox – I even partipated rather then afk loot it

xlion.3065:

I recently bumped into a video on youtube where someone stated that raids are actually bad for any MMO (including WoW). At first I was quite surprised, but then I got his point.

For the majority of people the actual fun when playing an MMO doesn’t come from end-game. It’s about progression, diving into a world where there is always something new to explore and meaningful things to do. It’s about the journey and not the destination.

Guild Wars 2 got this very right at launch but instead of improving the actual MMO (VR) aspect they listened to a minority of (very vocal) people and went to destroy what they have created.

Imagine for a moment we had an instant level 80 raid lobby (similar to HotM) where you would start out in fully ascended gear with whatever stat combination you desire and start your raid progression. Why don’t we have this? Because it would be too obvious how little content raids actually add to the game.

This game does not need end-game content that forces you to replay old content over and over again to gear up for a specific role in a raid. It needs new content that we are happy to explore without having a particular destination in mind.

Let the journey continue!

One of the primary functions of MMOs is socializing and building community through game play. Raids are one of many ways that promote this. So, they are healthy for MMOs.

QED (ish)

~EW

EphemeralWallaby.7643:

One of the primary functions of MMOs is socializing and building community through game play. Raids are one of many ways that promote this. So, they are healthy for MMOs.

QED

~EW

Sure. Raids are good. Some people are bad. They refuse to ping their insights!

Most problems concerning raids are community created though. Having content for 10 players where these players have to cooperate in order to beat it is not the problem.

But raids always create kitten flinging contests where one side has the craving to always feel superior (I’m Elite because I raid) and the other side continueosly belittles the first group as a bunch of no-lifes.

In the, end you basically have two groups telling each other how they have to enjoy the game to have fun, kitten it!

In my opinion, mostof the hate the raid gets stems for the fact that there is not much to do for players who enjoy harder content but cannot muster groups of 10 players to raid (or dislike scheduled content in general).

Either you raid or you farm HoT forever. Not exactly engaging.

Grogba.6204:

Most problems concerning raids people are community created though. Having content for 10 players where these players have to cooperate in order to beat it is not the problem.

But raids people always create kitten flinging contests where one side has the craving to always feel superior (I’m Elite because I raid) and the other side continuously belittles the first group as a bunch of no-lifes.

In the, end you basically have two groups telling each other how they have to enjoy the game to have fun, kitten it!

Fixed that for ya’

Not all content is meant for all players… if it’s not your thing, no worries… it’s not my thing either… but that doesn’t mean it still isn’t one of many ways to foster community. Variety is the spice of life, as they say.

Grogba.6204:

In my opinion, most of the hate the raid gets stems for the fact that there is not much to do for players who enjoy harder content but cannot muster groups of 10 players to raid (or dislike scheduled content in general).

Have you watched the recent video by Mikei the Mighty showing off the Spirit Vale? One of the commentaries that’s made is that (to them) it seems a lot more PUG friendly than other MMO raids. This gives me hope, because even though I don’t raid, it still looks like a blast to try.

From what I’ve seen so far, there is an intention to make raids in GW2 be different in concept and execution than the ‘classic’ setup established by WoW.

Grogba.6204:

Either you raid or you farm HoT forever. Not exactly engaging.

I do neither, and I’m still having a blast in the game.

Even with the dynamic leveling system being funky, it’s still there… which does make the entire game potential end-level content… at least for me it still works that way. I don’t feel choosing to grind anything until you’re sick of it is a healthy way to approach any game, even if the option is there in spades.

~EW

I’d imagine that raids are good for people that like that sort of thing, bad for those who don’t like them but want whatever rewards they offer, and a matter of indifference to anyone not in those two categories.

Grogba.6204:

But raids always create kitten flinging contests where one side has the craving to always feel superior (I’m Elite because I raid) and the other side continueosly belittles the first group as a bunch of no-lifes.

Why is this an issue? Thought this game was rated at least Teen. Pretty sure by that point in life people should have developed coping mechanisms. If not well pick up a single player game.

IndigoSundown.5419:

I’d imagine that raids are good for people that like that sort of thing, bad for those who don’t like them but want whatever rewards they offer, and a matter of indifference to anyone not in those two categories.

I’m in neither category, but I wouldn’t say I’m indifferent. I think raids have had a minor negative impact on the community, and also have slightly made the ascended/exotic difference a legitimate problem, which three years later does still bug me.

As someone who hates it when non-SAB players object to SAB coming back, I absolutely wouldn’t want to stop raids being put in the game for those who like them. But I am a little concerned by the way they seem to fit into the schedule. We’re being told timing the release of LS3 in terms of how it relates to raid launches. That is hopefully not an implication that LS3 is being delayed due to raids, but I’d be really unhappy if that were the case.

echo.2053:

Grogba.6204:

But raids always create kitten flinging contests where one side has the craving to always feel superior (I’m Elite because I raid) and the other side continueosly belittles the first group as a bunch of no-lifes.

Why is this an issue? Thought this game was rated at least Teen. Pretty sure by that point in life people should have developed coping mechanisms. If not well pick up a single player game.

^ Proving the point

Because these kind of threads drown out any proper discussion we could have instead.

It’s not raids, but rather challenge. Challenge by nature is designed to seperate people into winner and losers and it always creates drama when its introduced into a game.

Case in point, the stuff about raids is just identical to the same stuff about dungeons. They were considered to be extremely difficult at launch and there was tons of stuff on the forums about people treating other people like crap in pug groups.

Honestly, what promoted the friendly and healthy environment in GW2 was just the lack of challenge. You can’t fail World Bosses and since you can’t fail, there is no reason to get mad. The game also designed it’s mechanics to be inclusive and to remove things that cause player conflict, like tagging mobs to claim their xp for only you or fighting over non-instance resource nodes.

What makes raids so particularly detrimental is it’s the most challenging content to date and it’s a challenge designed for a large group, requiring scheduled practice and commitment to complete, making it ripe for guilds. Dungeons were, at least, puggable and the 5-man design didn’t make it the end all be all goal for guilds.

I was quite fine with GW2 being how it was. It was a beautiful open world that was largely about just chilling and playing casually with other people. Things like Guild Missions were fun, but not so hard that it created stress.

Apparently though, due to a vocal minority that arbitarily decided that the game “needed” challenge to suit their own personal interests, we got challenge in HoT, both in open world events and raids. As a result, the social environment in game has increased toxicity with players fighting with each more than before. If failure is plausible, then people will get kittened off when failure happens and take it out on other people.

And even with all that, it didn’t give the game much, in my opinion. I have no interest in raiding and probably never will, even though I loved raiding in other games. GW2 wasn’t designed from the ground up to support raids and the raids lack the degree of epicness that exists in games like WoW that were.

Know your strengths. Focus on what your good at and what the game is about. I got plenty of games I play for various reasons and GW2 was just for chilling with people and having fun in a low stress environment. Now, I honestly don’t know why I should login, because the game is trying to be so many different things for so many different people that it fails at all of them and the development team can’t keep up.

Grogba.6204:

echo.2053:

Grogba.6204:

But raids always create kitten flinging contests where one side has the craving to always feel superior (I’m Elite because I raid) and the other side continueosly belittles the first group as a bunch of no-lifes.

Why is this an issue? Thought this game was rated at least Teen. Pretty sure by that point in life people should have developed coping mechanisms. If not well pick up a single player game.

^ Proving the point

Because these kind of threads drown out any proper discussion we could have instead.

There isn’t a point to have a discussion for it. It’s either you can or you can’t “just deal with it”. Yup there is going to be players better than you, yup you are going to make mistakes, yup there are players who think they are flawless……so what? In the real world class mates make better grades than you, people have more friends than you, some guys get more girls than you, co workers make more money than you etc etc etc….players have been using these skills unconsciously the majority of their life.

To deny content because of fear that someones feels will be hurt is just utterly rediculous espically these days where every single thing offends someone else. Furthermore denying content will ultimately just lead to players switching games at which point you’ll be in a singleplayer game —- just cut out the middleman by playing single player games and as a bonus you’ll be 100% guarenteed free of even remotely having to entertain the thought of a player telling you whether your good or bad.

Î don’t know whether raids are “good or bad for a game”.

What I do know however is that I personally dislike instanced, fixed-size group content. All the negative experiences I ever had in my MMO history are bound to either this or open world ffa pvp.

I don’t care if raids/dungeons/fractals are there as long as I can avoid them. Of course there may be rewards hidden behind this (and it saddens me somewhat to see that WvW was taken out of map completion, but e.g. dungeon story modes are not taken out of PvP track unlocking). But most of the time I consider the rewards not worth the hassle to cope with content I seriously dislike. In fact that is the only real threat raids offer: if too much desirable rewards are exclusively locked behind something I dislike, I may start disliking the whole thing.

And, to complete this: I have absolutely no problems surviving in HoT maps or accepting the greater challenges there. I still think it was a desastrous idea to give in to the players who wanted more challenge. I have the feeling that the game lost more players this way than if the ones who demanded challenges had left.

echo.2053:

Grogba.6204:

echo.2053:

Grogba.6204:

But raids always create kitten flinging contests where one side has the craving to always feel superior (I’m Elite because I raid) and the other side continueosly belittles the first group as a bunch of no-lifes.

Why is this an issue? Thought this game was rated at least Teen. Pretty sure by that point in life people should have developed coping mechanisms. If not well pick up a single player game.

^ Proving the point

Because these kind of threads drown out any proper discussion we could have instead.

There isn’t a point to have a discussion for it. It’s either you can or you can’t “just deal with it”. Yup there is going to be players better than you, yup you are going to make mistakes, yup there are players who think they are flawless……so what? In the real world class mates make better grades than you, people have more friends than you, some guys get more girls than you, co workers make more money than you etc etc etc….players have been using these skills unconsciously the majority of their life.

To deny content because of fear that someones feels will be hurt is just utterly rediculous espically these days where every single thing offends someone else. Furthermore denying content will ultimately just lead to players switching games at which point you’ll be in a singleplayer game —- just cut out the middleman by playing single player games and as a bonus you’ll be 100% guarenteed free of even remotely having to entertain the thought of a player telling you whether your good or bad.

Plenty of reason to have discussion about it. It’s not about “denying content”. You have a limited development team with limited number of man hours who can only produce X amount of content. You can’t have every type of content in a game; it’s doomed to fail if it tries to be everything. You have to make decisions about what you want in.

So the question is more, in a game like GW2 where it’s largest and most talked about strength is it’s in game community and the relationships among it’s players, does adding content that can increase the “feelings hurt” of people and incite potential drama in guilds make it a better game?

My answer is “No”. The game would have been better served focusing on stuff that played to it’s strengths. You can say it’s a better game now because this content was not “denied”, but my friends list and guild roster only being half full whenever I do actually login compared to what it was right before HoT launched suggests otherwise.

The developers clearly feel otherwise as well, since they doubled down on another raid wing. I hope I am wrong and it works out for them. I’ll miss the game though.

The biggest issue comes down to priorities and resources.

Yes, they say the raid team is small and that raids aren’t taking over the end game developer resources, but the anecdotal evidence points down a much different path. Since HOT, the only new content added to the game has been in the form of raids. Now we hear that the next two content updates will also be raiding focused, and, that, only after those are out, will be see new story instances – and what looks to be a single new fractal map. To add to that, the WvW overhaul will now come in the form of minor updates spread over a longer period of time.

Just as disconcerting, there is no talk of new maps (ala Silverwastes/Drytop/Southsun), new guild missions, new pvp maps, new minigames, new hall upgrades, etc. Some of these items haven’t seen new content in one or more years (more than 2 years in the case of missions), yet there are three updates in 5 months dedicated solely to raiding.

Regardless of their rhetoric, the game focus is currently very clearly on raids, to the detriment of everything else (exactly like every other MMO out there).

I don’t think raids are inherently bad for an MMO – but when they put such a heavy focus on them, they most definitely can hurt the game – especially if they only come in one difficulty mode.

I worry that GW2 will lose what made it special as a result of this direction. This game did some things a lot of other MMOs simply fail at – they made open world fun and brought huge numbers of people together to play together. That large scale mentality has always driven GW2 and made it unique – one of the first MMOs to actually get the “massively multiplayer” part almost perfect. Moving toward a raiding focus will make it just another meh “me-too” MMO.

My opinion is what comes to a MMORPG games. A Raids they are excellent thing in a games what is made for a multiple players contents unlike mostly aRPG offers a singleplayer content all the way high end and able to gain a best stuff in a game.
I rather believe a problems are a players themselves who are getting used to being rewarded to just log in a games. Even a games wich are well known like World of Warcraft has gone that way to please they playerbase and turn a game more and more to -(a)RPG way rather then MMO.

This is my second personally attempt to give a shot for a Guild Wars 2 and i aint pleasant to certain things wich has a impact in a higher end gaming. A enviroments are build for (dps) mostly how to encounter. You can read other topics also that ‘’required to nerf HoT’’ because they cannot bypass a gameplay with a glasscannon method. Wich is good job from ANET to make like this.. more ’’open’’ and hopefully they take step forward to that you want that ’’potato’’ wich you call in here (totally new nickname for it) to stand take attention and other classes wich are more capable of they own things like support and heal better then others on your side to able to get trough a challenge wich awaits you in a game.

I just copy paste this from wiki so none can directly start twist ’’words’’.
(MMORPG games player is not a single destination, but is mainly aimed at the development of your own character, assignments, your wealth management and the fight between the players. MMORPG’s are also very social places. Some of the tasks and adventure trips can be completed alone, but most games tend to reward the player groups of co-operation. The games are an important part of the game world to explore, battle against a variety of creatures, treasures in the exploration and development of the game character’s skills. Examples of social activities are in addition to the discussion, among other things, the adventures of a group, administrators or players organized the plot of the developmental events and guild activities… )

so my anwser is again ..a Raids are good for a MMORPG games rather then compared to singleplayer games mostly like aRPG wich has take a step forward for multiplayer contents like Diablo 3 has. What comes to also wich is talk about in here… ‘’time consuming’’ and shedule a things to able to raid. Again! its not about one player itself when they enter in a content like Raid or Dungeons wich requires a more players to finish. There are either four others… nine others or even 24 or more other people who are willing to do a shedule to progress and get they things and like/enjoy a multiplayer contents, but if you are one those who whine about that you are requested to put something in a stake when you go there with others.. . its selfish attitude.. ‘’me me’’ attitude or even ’’snowflake’’ thing wich people take out. I say those Raiders feels far more less ’’selfish’’ then these who whine about a things when something is required from yourself when comes to cooperative attitude because there multiple people content going on.

Even if i dont get something what those who put effort and they time in cooperative content and get they stuff in there, and i have not put even my fingers crossed about it. I dont go whine about why they have it and i dont just because i would prefer to stand in a somewhere in a safe area and get known a people or just use a socialize skills againts others.

Thanks for a reading.

PS. i have no idea how many Charrs does it take to fix a forums. None i believe

There is no “raid focus”. There is a tiny team of devs that speaks to the community and shows what they are working on while the rest of the company is playing dead.

MadRabbit.3179:

echo.2053:

Grogba.6204:

echo.2053:

Grogba.6204:

But raids always create kitten flinging contests where one side has the craving to always feel superior (I’m Elite because I raid) and the other side continueosly belittles the first group as a bunch of no-lifes.

Why is this an issue? Thought this game was rated at least Teen. Pretty sure by that point in life people should have developed coping mechanisms. If not well pick up a single player game.

^ Proving the point

Because these kind of threads drown out any proper discussion we could have instead.

There isn’t a point to have a discussion for it. It’s either you can or you can’t “just deal with it”. Yup there is going to be players better than you, yup you are going to make mistakes, yup there are players who think they are flawless……so what? In the real world class mates make better grades than you, people have more friends than you, some guys get more girls than you, co workers make more money than you etc etc etc….players have been using these skills unconsciously the majority of their life.

To deny content because of fear that someones feels will be hurt is just utterly rediculous espically these days where every single thing offends someone else. Furthermore denying content will ultimately just lead to players switching games at which point you’ll be in a singleplayer game —- just cut out the middleman by playing single player games and as a bonus you’ll be 100% guarenteed free of even remotely having to entertain the thought of a player telling you whether your good or bad.

Plenty of reason to have discussion about it. It’s not about “denying content”. You have a limited development team with limited number of man hours who can only produce X amount of content. You can’t have every type of content in a game; it’s doomed to fail if it tries to be everything. You have to make decisions about what you want in.

So the question is more, in a game like GW2 where it’s largest and most talked about strength is it’s in game community and the relationships among it’s players, does adding content that can increase the “feelings hurt” of people and incite potential drama in guilds make it a better game?

My answer is “No”. The game would have been better served focusing on stuff that played to it’s strengths. You can say it’s a better game now because this content was not “denied”, but my friends list and guild roster only being half full whenever I do actually login compared to what it was right before HoT launched suggests otherwise.

The developers clearly feel otherwise as well, since they doubled down on another raid wing. I hope I am wrong and it works out for them. I’ll miss the game though.

Yup and for the last 3 years that small development team has been soley focused on casual pve. Do remember what the general reception to each of those updates? Unless it was a straight farming event – complaint whine complaint whine whine complaint whine complaint complaint. I seriously question why they even bother to do more than just rehash the same farm map. Any slight resistance = players giving up.

Oh your guild and friend list started going dark since hot…… cool story bro. Thats been happening for me and other looong before hot release. I preordered this game and have just barely hit 4.8k account hours with countless afk hours. Pve is a complete snoozefest just target boss and autoattack to gold – there is 0 incentive to put forth any more effort. The games strength really is just having mass number of players attack a boss that had little to no mechanics.

Am I saying that raids is ultra 360 kick flip pop shove it in your face hardcore parkour content? Nope but it is a start to adding some challange.

echo.2053:

MadRabbit.3179:

echo.2053:

Grogba.6204:

echo.2053:

Grogba.6204:

But raids always create kitten flinging contests where one side has the craving to always feel superior (I’m Elite because I raid) and the other side continueosly belittles the first group as a bunch of no-lifes.

Why is this an issue? Thought this game was rated at least Teen. Pretty sure by that point in life people should have developed coping mechanisms. If not well pick up a single player game.

^ Proving the point

Because these kind of threads drown out any proper discussion we could have instead.

There isn’t a point to have a discussion for it. It’s either you can or you can’t “just deal with it”. Yup there is going to be players better than you, yup you are going to make mistakes, yup there are players who think they are flawless……so what? In the real world class mates make better grades than you, people have more friends than you, some guys get more girls than you, co workers make more money than you etc etc etc….players have been using these skills unconsciously the majority of their life.

To deny content because of fear that someones feels will be hurt is just utterly rediculous espically these days where every single thing offends someone else. Furthermore denying content will ultimately just lead to players switching games at which point you’ll be in a singleplayer game —- just cut out the middleman by playing single player games and as a bonus you’ll be 100% guarenteed free of even remotely having to entertain the thought of a player telling you whether your good or bad.

Plenty of reason to have discussion about it. It’s not about “denying content”. You have a limited development team with limited number of man hours who can only produce X amount of content. You can’t have every type of content in a game; it’s doomed to fail if it tries to be everything. You have to make decisions about what you want in.

So the question is more, in a game like GW2 where it’s largest and most talked about strength is it’s in game community and the relationships among it’s players, does adding content that can increase the “feelings hurt” of people and incite potential drama in guilds make it a better game?

My answer is “No”. The game would have been better served focusing on stuff that played to it’s strengths. You can say it’s a better game now because this content was not “denied”, but my friends list and guild roster only being half full whenever I do actually login compared to what it was right before HoT launched suggests otherwise.

The developers clearly feel otherwise as well, since they doubled down on another raid wing. I hope I am wrong and it works out for them. I’ll miss the game though.

Yup and for the last 3 years that small development team has been soley focused on casual pve. Do remember what the general reception to each of those updates? Unless it was a straight farming event – complaint whine complaint whine whine complaint whine complaint complaint. I seriously question why they even bother to do more than just rehash the same farm map. Any slight resistance = players giving up.

Oh your guild and friend list started going dark since hot…… cool story bro. Thats been happening for me and other looong before hot release. I preordered this game and have just barely hit 4.8k account hours with countless afk hours. Pve is a complete snoozefest just target boss and autoattack to gold – there is 0 incentive to put forth any more effort. The games strength really is just having mass number of players attack a boss that had little to no mechanics.

Am I saying that raids is ultra 360 kick flip pop shove it in your face hardcore parkour content? Nope but it is a start to adding some challange.

I liked what you wrote in here. Agree with you.

echo.2053:

Yup and for the last 3 years that small development team has been soley focused on casual pve. Do remember what the general reception to each of those updates? Unless it was a straight farming event – complaint whine complaint whine whine complaint whine complaint complaint. I seriously question why they even bother to do more than just rehash the same farm map. Any slight resistance = players giving up.

Oh your guild and friend list started going dark since hot…… cool story bro. Thats been happening for me and other looong before hot release. I preordered this game and have just barely hit 4.8k account hours with countless afk hours. Pve is a complete snoozefest just target boss and autoattack to gold – there is 0 incentive to put forth any more effort. The games strength really is just having mass number of players attack a boss that had little to no mechanics.

Am I saying that raids is ultra 360 kick flip pop shove it in your face hardcore parkour content? Nope but it is a start to adding some challange.

Cool story as well, little sista. Maybe, you should make better friends, because the population in my guilds outside of WvW has remained constant up until HoT.

You feel that adding challenge to the game is a good thing. I do not. I consider saying that it “needs” challenge is a misunderstanding of what made the game special to begin with and imposition of your own personal interests.

What you are suggesting is what is ruining the game, not better and things would have better served if you had played another game that focused on challenge as part of it’s design philosophy instead of endlessly harping on it’s “lack of challenge” as a con, not a pro.

The sentiments you are expressing here are foolish and misguided and we’ll have to agree to disagree on that point.

MadRabbit.3179:

echo.2053:

Yup and for the last 3 years that small development team has been soley focused on casual pve. Do remember what the general reception to each of those updates? Unless it was a straight farming event – complaint whine complaint whine whine complaint whine complaint complaint. I seriously question why they even bother to do more than just rehash the same farm map. Any slight resistance = players giving up.

Oh your guild and friend list started going dark since hot…… cool story bro. Thats been happening for me and other looong before hot release. I preordered this game and have just barely hit 4.8k account hours with countless afk hours. Pve is a complete snoozefest just target boss and autoattack to gold – there is 0 incentive to put forth any more effort. The games strength really is just having mass number of players attack a boss that had little to no mechanics.

Am I saying that raids is ultra 360 kick flip pop shove it in your face hardcore parkour content? Nope but it is a start to adding some challange.

Cool story as well, little sista. Maybe, you should make better friends, because the population in my guilds outside of WvW has remained constant up until HoT.

You feel that adding challenge to the game is a good thing. I do not. I consider saying that it “needs” challenge is a misunderstanding of what made the game special to begin with and imposition of your own personal interests.

What you are suggesting is what is ruining the game, not better and things would have better served if you had played another game that focused on challenge as part of it’s design philosophy instead of endlessly harping on it’s “lack of challenge” as a con, not a pro.

The sentiments you are expressing here are foolish and misguided and we’ll have to agree to disagree on that point.

This was not for me, but i had to anwser in that that its not really a personal interest because some of a playerbase does do enjoy and want that a game gives a challenge also in here and there. Not just being totally flat game experience wich push away a certain playerbase for sure. So its not wrong request more challenge if its okay to request a nerfs here and there to simplicate a game experience towards to ’’nothing’’.
Even a game would be Guild Wars 2 wich is discuss about. A person would also say same that go play something else if its too hard..right ? a less complicated and challenging… right ?

xlion.3065:

I recently bumped into a video on youtube where someone stated that raids are actually bad for any MMO (including WoW). At first I was quite surprised, but then I got his point.

For the majority of people the actual fun when playing an MMO doesn’t come from end-game. It’s about progression, diving into a world where there is always something new to explore and meaningful things to do. It’s about the journey and not the destination.

Guild Wars 2 got this very right at launch but instead of improving the actual MMO (VR) aspect they listened to a minority of (very vocal) people and went to destroy what they have created.

Imagine for a moment we had an instant level 80 raid lobby (similar to HotM) where you would start out in fully ascended gear with whatever stat combination you desire and start your raid progression. Why don’t we have this? Because it would be too obvious how little content raids actually add to the game.

This game does not need end-game content that forces you to replay old content over and over again to gear up for a specific role in a raid. It needs new content that we are happy to explore without having a particular destination in mind.

Let the journey continue!

We don’t have your lobby because Raids are a goal in itself – you have to gear up and get ready for them – the process of getting ready to raid is relevant – because it’s a time sink – like most other time sinks Anet likes.
Raids are a high-end goal – designed for a specific part of the player base.
The Raid team is 5 people – out of 300ish employees at Anet – so I’d like to point out that not a lot of development time is “used up” on Raids- this game remains at its core casual – and most of Anet’s staff are working on more casual content.

MadRabbit.3179:

echo.2053:

Yup and for the last 3 years that small development team has been soley focused on casual pve. Do remember what the general reception to each of those updates? Unless it was a straight farming event – complaint whine complaint whine whine complaint whine complaint complaint. I seriously question why they even bother to do more than just rehash the same farm map. Any slight resistance = players giving up.

Oh your guild and friend list started going dark since hot…… cool story bro. Thats been happening for me and other looong before hot release. I preordered this game and have just barely hit 4.8k account hours with countless afk hours. Pve is a complete snoozefest just target boss and autoattack to gold – there is 0 incentive to put forth any more effort. The games strength really is just having mass number of players attack a boss that had little to no mechanics.

Am I saying that raids is ultra 360 kick flip pop shove it in your face hardcore parkour content? Nope but it is a start to adding some challange.

Cool story as well, little sista. Maybe, you should make better friends, because the population in my guilds outside of WvW has remained constant up until HoT.

You feel that adding challenge to the game is a good thing. I do not. I consider saying that it “needs” challenge is a misunderstanding of what made the game special to begin with and imposition of your own personal interests.

What you are suggesting is what is ruining the game, not better and things would have better served if you had played another game that focused on challenge as part of it’s design philosophy instead of endlessly harping on it’s “lack of challenge” as a con, not a pro.

The sentiments you are expressing here are foolish and misguided and we’ll have to agree to disagree on that point.

I strayed to stay away from zerg guilds bb, if thats yo thang ham it up.

I must be foolish and misguided, I tried to use nonsense logic to see how raids even remotely impact wvw but couldn’t. Go ahead explain that one.

huh I thought math would be better or is it that one player that sees 3 enemies and yells zerg? Ehh I have time to teach….

-Take 4800 hours / (divide by) 24 ( cuz 24 hours in a day ) = 200 days worth of gameplay.

-The game is about 3.5 years old (give or take) x (multiply that by ) 365 ( number of days in a year) = ( which equals) 1278 ( rough estimate of the number days the game has out * remember to round up if 5 or above)

- Now take number of days game has been around 1278 – ( and subtractthe number of days that I have played) 200 = 1078 days (or 2.9 years if you convert) unexplained where I have NOT been in game. I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you know the statistical chances that I probably picked up another game for a challange.

LordSaa.8357:

This was not for me, but i had to anwser in that that its not really a personal interest because some of a playerbase does do enjoy and want that a game gives a challenge also in here and there. Not just being totally flat game experience wich push away a certain playerbase for sure. So its not wrong request more challenge if its okay to request a nerfs here and there to simplicate a game experience towards to ’’nothing’’.
Even a game would be Guild Wars 2 wich is discuss about. A person would also say same that go play something else if its too hard..right ? a less complicated and challenging… right ?

Look, every game has something that’s it good at and games that stand the test time have a very clear design philosophy that they stick to. They have decided what the game is about and what’s it going to be and they on doing best at giving that even if it’s not satisfactory to a certain audience.

When a game stops doing that and caves into greed by trying to attract as many people as possible by being everything to everybody, that’s when they fail. World of Warcraft is a great example. Watch any video on Youtube about why WoW sucks and why people quit and it boils down to making the game so accessible and so generic that it lost the special elements that attracted it’s core player base.

Now, based on my personal opinion, if I had to summarize what I thought what Guild Wars 2 was and what it was good at, it would be bringing lots of people together to have fun in a chill, non-toxic stressless environment. It is the reason I played the game for 3 years while balancing other games that focused on other things that satisifed my other interests.

If that’s true (and it could not be, since I didn’t build the game), then are raids a good thing? No, they are completely contrary by design. They create very small, exclusive groups that have strict requirements to filter out newcomers.

Is that inheritantly bad? Nah, it’s a perfectly viable model to base a game off. Plenty of games out have been successful with a lot of challenge and complexity that creates high barriers of entry. Dark Souls, Path of Exile…

But GW2 isn’t that game and adding raids is not only contrary to why people like me played it to begin with, but adds to the problem of trying to be everything for everyone while effectively being nothing for no one.

So is suggesting something be more challenging any different than suggesting something be nerfed? In a vacuum, nah. It only is in a context relevant to the game where doing one or the other could be detracting from the game’s identity.

echo.2053:

I must be foolish and misguided, I tried to use nonsense logic to see how raids even remotely impact wvw but couldn’t. Go ahead explain that one.

Maybe, if you used sensical logic, you would see that they don’t which is why the decline of my WvW guilds before HoT is a seperate issue and doesn’t have anything to do with my PvE guilds staying steady until HoT.

huh I thought math would be better or is it that one player that sees 3 enemies and yells zerg? Ehh I have time to teach….

-Take 4800 hours / (divide by) 24 ( cuz 24 hours in a day ) = 200 days worth of gameplay.

-The game is about 3.5 years old (give or take) x (multiply that by ) 365 ( number of days in a year) = ( which equals) 1278 ( rough estimate of the number days the game has out * remember to round up if 5 or above)

- Now take number of days game has been around 1278 – ( and subtractthe number of days that I have played) 200 = 1078 days (or 2.9 years if you convert) unexplained where I have NOT been in game. I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you know the statistical chances that I probably picked up another game for a challange.

Cool story again, little sista, but completely pointless.

MadRabbit.3179:

But GW2 isn’t that game and adding raids is not only contrary to why people like me played it to begin with, but adds to the problem of trying to be everything for everyone while effectively being nothing for no one.

Burden of proof not met.

Please prove how adding content that brings about and fosters new communities is contrary to any aspect of 1) Play how you want 2) Social Gameplay 3) Being for no one (because apparently people who play it are no one).

IMO what you’re saying is coming from the vantage of someone who either had a bad experience likely due to pugging, poor leadership or just a flat out inability to accept that not every piece of content has to cater to your likes. PvP isn’t my thing, i do it from time to time but i don’t make a habbit of it, same for jumping puzzles you wont find me doing them daily, world bosses the same.

I don’t believe the raid team consist of only 5 Anet employees. Perhaps 5 devs that design and test the raid encounter itself. But they are not counting the art assets/resources used to create legendary armor and the raid zones/npc’s. They are definitely not counting the programming resources/time used to implement new mechanics for raids. All these assets and resources were tied up for raids that few access, more are being tied up for the upcoming raid content which are coming well before WvW revamps, Living Story, and more dungeon content.

You know why they mentioned 5 devs used to create raids? Because they know darn well that players will question their resource allocation given how HoT has turned out (with their admission of general poor sales, and how WvW has all but become a barren place). They’ve lost a lot of players to other games or rl, and this shouldn’t have happened when we’re only 4 months into a new expansion launch.

Players hear them say WvW was going to be the focus post HoT launch, yet more raids are coming first while WvW continue to bleed players. Majority of the players in PvE who enjoy open world content are demanding for more content, yet again, raids are coming out first, something overwhelming majority of PvE players will not access. PvP pro league that they spent $400k on to promote isn’t gaining more viewership, yet here we are raids are the upcoming attraction in the April patch. Nope, not new PvP maps, not new competitive PvP mechanics/mode, but raids & legendary armors are coming! PvE players have demanded more dungeons and better rewards, but now we know there isn’t even a single Anet employee working on dungeons.

The reason they even bothered to comment on the “5 devs working on raids” is because they know they messed up on their priorities and resource allocation. I’ve said before, I’m not against raids. Raids have been a part of MMORPG’s since the beginning of MMO’s. But raids have always traditionally sucked resources dry while companies sacrifice other parts of their game just to cater to the 2% that even play those content. This isn’t a problem for giant companies like Blizzard with their unlimited resources. This however, is a problem for a company like Anet who are stretched thin on resources.

MadRabbit.3179:

echo.2053:

I must be foolish and misguided, I tried to use nonsense logic to see how raids even remotely impact wvw but couldn’t. Go ahead explain that one.

Maybe, if you used sensical logic, you would see that they don’t which is why the decline of my WvW guilds before HoT is a seperate issue and doesn’t have anything to do with my PvE guilds staying steady until HoT.

Sensical logic would be if had noticed that the thread was about raids not general HoT. Perhaps you should find friends that know the meaning of the expression "When the going gets tough, the tough get going ". Quality over quanity my friend – 15v1 is fun but calling it a night at 16v15……ehhh

MadRabbit.3179:

Cool story again, little sista, but completely pointless.

MadRabbit.3179:

What you are suggesting is what is ruining the game, not better and things would have better served if you had played another game that focused on challenge as part of it’s design philosophy instead of endlessly harping on it’s “lack of challenge” as a con, not a pro.

So you were pointlessly suggesting that I find a different game for challange….thats rather …..odd

Deleena.3406:

I have no problem with raids (long as they never required or become the only new PvE content) its only bad imo if it becomes the main/only way to progress.

You mean like Legendary Armor?

TexZero.7910:

MadRabbit.3179:

But GW2 isn’t that game and adding raids is not only contrary to why people like me played it to begin with, but adds to the problem of trying to be everything for everyone while effectively being nothing for no one.

Burden of proof not met.

Please prove how adding content that brings about and fosters new communities is contrary to any aspect of 1) Play how you want 2) Social Gameplay 3) Being for no one (because apparently people who play it are no one).

IMO what you’re saying is coming from the vantage of someone who either had a bad experience likely due to pugging, poor leadership or just a flat out inability to accept that not every piece of content has to cater to your likes. PvP isn’t my thing, i do it from time to time but i don’t make a habbit of it, same for jumping puzzles you wont find me doing them daily, world bosses the same.

I doubt that burden of proof can be met and I always giggle a little bit when someone takes this kind of hardline in just some a bullkitten thread on a forum.

Exclusivity and inclusivity are incredibly difficult to quantify and I doubt I can say would be an adequate proof in an Internet forum where we are just talking casually and not assembling works cited pages for our work.

My response would be two fold.

One, the distinction between dungeons/fractals and jumping puzzles was that didn’t form the centerpiece of the development effort. The Living Story always had clear priority. A lot in recent times suggests to me that raids are the new focus and that is concerning. I’m not against a game having secondary content and think it’s healthy. My opinions is that raids aren’t secondary and are going to be the primary focus, similar to how they are the primary focus in PvE.

Two, I’m not just kitten, because I got kicked out of a pug and am here making some emotionally charged post loaded with salt. The basis for my opinions is my experience with being a raid leader in other games.

The relevant small size of the teams exceeds the capacity of the guilds and the difficultly of the content requires commitment and practice. Swapping out players constantly gets you no where and forming a secondary team is off difficult, because of lack of people wanting to lead and the people who are begging to go on a raid being unwilling to make a time commitment.

You have to make hard choices at times between taking one player over the other out of the pragmatic reality that you want to win and can’t have 9 people being brought down by one guy. These choices lead to hurt feelings and drama; guilds will dissolve over this.

Now, compare that to a form of content like Guild Missions where the player limit can handle participation from an entire guild and the challenge is such that you don’t have to have a schedule and commitment to practice, that creates a laid back, chill environment where nobody feels left out and we’re just goofing around, having fun with each other.

Raids just aren’t that experience. They are meant to be hard and because they are hard, they are stressful and lack of stress management leads to outbursts that ruin the night for everyone.

Play in one of the high end raiding guilds in WoW’s history. They are all pricks to each other. Night and day experience to guilds in GW2.

On the basis of that personal experience, it’s why I have the opinion they are contrary and detrimental to what makes GW2 special.

MadRabbit.3179:

LordSaa.8357:

This was not for me, but i had to anwser in that that its not really a personal interest because some of a playerbase does do enjoy and want that a game gives a challenge also in here and there. Not just being totally flat game experience wich push away a certain playerbase for sure. So its not wrong request more challenge if its okay to request a nerfs here and there to simplicate a game experience towards to ’’nothing’’.
Even a game would be Guild Wars 2 wich is discuss about. A person would also say same that go play something else if its too hard..right ? a less complicated and challenging… right ?

Look, every game has something that’s it good at and games that stand the test time have a very clear design philosophy that they stick to. They have decided what the game is about and what’s it going to be and they on doing best at giving that even if it’s not satisfactory to a certain audience.

When a game stops doing that and caves into greed by trying to attract as many people as possible by being everything to everybody, that’s when they fail. World of Warcraft is a great example. Watch any video on Youtube about why WoW sucks and why people quit and it boils down to making the game so accessible and so generic that it lost the special elements that attracted it’s core player base.

Now, based on my personal opinion, if I had to summarize what I thought what Guild Wars 2 was and what it was good at, it would be bringing lots of people together to have fun in a chill, non-toxic stressless environment. It is the reason I played the game for 3 years while balancing other games that focused on other things that satisifed my other interests.

If that’s true (and it could not be, since I didn’t build the game), then are raids a good thing? No, they are completely contrary by design. They create very small, exclusive groups that have strict requirements to filter out newcomers.

Is that inheritantly bad? Nah, it’s a perfectly viable model to base a game off. Plenty of games out have been successful with a lot of challenge and complexity that creates high barriers of entry. Dark Souls, Path of Exile…

But GW2 isn’t that game and adding raids is not only contrary to why people like me played it to begin with, but adds to the problem of trying to be everything for everyone while effectively being nothing for no one.

So is suggesting something be more challenging any different than suggesting something be nerfed? In a vacuum, nah. It only is in a context relevant to the game where doing one or the other could be detracting from the game’s identity.

Thanks for a awnser i still disagree with you. I have not play myself Darksoul myself except what i have see my younger brother play it. I am familiar with aRPG games like Diablo II,III, Path of Exile and i only play it them because they have a hardcore mode, and used to play a lot back then but taking a lots of easier nowadays with games not to ’’focus’’ on them so much if you know what i mean.. still that doesnt mean excample i would not wanna a game being challenge i just dont push myself like it must to play most of a day time of it. Besides a progression a games like you mentioned its differend then mmorpg games. No real ’’barriers’’.

I believe i dont need someone else words or opinions from a youtube why even i left a game. ofcourse watch some of them somewhat disagree that those aint a things wich push me away and somewhat agree when its similar. I start it WoW myself in a Classic and play it to WoD (test it a expansion a little and its raid enviroments). Those was not a case wich push me away from it…worthless additions wich doesnt require you except to log in and log out like mostly facebook games like excample. Same goes with Age of Conan or is it Swtor .. a list could continue, but i bet you now what i am trying to say ?
As you keep also mention a Guild Wars 2 even yeah i kind of agree that its more ’’casual’’ friendly then most of other mmorpg games, but a game is still based and design for MMO purpose.. so where contents like raids, Dungeons, fractals you name it are actually in my mind what should be main target even with a playerbase itself.
A games like aRPG Path of Exile wich not just offer normal gameplay, but also a harder mode like hardcore wich i prefer even to try. Has really none multiplayer content unlike MMORPG has offered a years already as they main target and higher end progression. I dont see why Guild Wars 2 should be a differend even its more ’’casual’’ friendly and there is pretty same ‘’playerbase categoring’’ with a zerk/meta things wich comes only because this focus on a simply glasscannon building is a key for progression… ‘’a damage’’ in a other called. (btw works fine in a softcore in aRPG, but in hardcore i dont recommend that approach).
I havent play that much Guild Wars 2 but reaching to end progression is not that time consuming or hard. I did play and test Guild Wars 2 at 2014, but a game did not catch my attention excatly a reason is still has in a game. I try to more open mind it about it, but like a previous gentlemen/lady has mentioned that requires more challenge wich attract a players to a game itself, or how build diversity should be far more open even doesnt matter wich aspect you look at in a game.. pve/pvp. That i even understood what Swifty did mention on his video back then would be great.. and not stuck that ’’method’’ … wich is in GW2 meta or you are out!. (so balance would be great and those Elite specs sucks heavily wich is more forcing a player to choose it from a many option there is in a table..maybe even simplicating a build diversity.

Ps. btw thanks for not mention how bad my english is unlike mostly people offen do to others.. or is it because they cannot counter attack otherwise ..just curious question and none personal one ?