Guild Wars 2

Hey everyone!

I’m back into the fray and I present you:

Note : There will be a French version at some point as well.
Note (bis) : holy kitten, how I am supposed to sum up a threat that grew to 19 pages in 3 days ?
Edit : After 2 days of perfectly scientific research, I’ve realised that I’ve forgotten to reserve some posts to expand the summary. Expect heavy layout change sin the coming weeks

What is this thread for?
Many of us have little time to read pages and pages of (very often) well constructed and cool suggestions.
This is the place when you can learn quickly what other proposed before you and see what you can add to their idea or propose something entirely new.

Why is it called “The condensed edition (X/Y)” ?
Since I do my summary page by page, the X/Y is here to inform you of the advancement of the task. X is the number of pages I’ve covered. Y is the number of pages of the CDI when I last updated the thread.

How does this summary work ?

• I’ll deviate a bit from the formula that Orpheal.8263 created a few months ago. In this CDI, instead of listing new ideas page by page, I’ll sort them by broad categories that I’ll expand over time.
• If I see original ideas that do not fit the classical categories, I’ll include them below following Orpheal’s style.
• I see an interesting idea, how do I reach the OP ? Log in the forum, and look for the lists of posts by the author. Go and read his post(s) in the CDI topic. Eventually you’ll get to where he posted his/her suggestion.
• I’ll shorten Guild Raid as GR, world bosses as WB and megabosses (Teq, Triple trouble) as MB. Open world is OW.

Why did you only list fragments of my suggestions?
In order to keep the summary short and readable, I’m not going to post the same idea twice. Sorry about it. If you feel I’ve missed your point…. well you have PMs.

Disclaimer and conflicts of interest:
I’m French (no, there is no white flag factory in my country), that explains the multiple grammar murders I make. Feel free to correct me with PMs.
I do NOT claim to be 100% objective and I am highly biased toward expanding the megabosses rather than creating Guild Raids ad hoc .
If you feel cheated, ignored or misunderstood just send me a PM and we can work this out.
I’m a biased person but not an obtuse one.

Link to the Main Page of the Guild Raid CDI:
>>> https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Guilds-Raiding/first <<<

Ideas of GR themes and propositions of fight mechanics (I am listing raid themes and lore here).
Conski Deshan.2057

• Look at ultima weapon from FFXIV
• Boss buffs: game changing fight mechanics (e.g “lone wolf” Each player within 500 of the player reduces damage by 20%)

guardian.6489 and many others (your servitor included). Note (guardian is a leader of the [TTS] guild)

• Ancient karka event scaled down
• Tower of nightmare (small scale raid)
• The marionette (on high heeeeeeels)
• The battle of the breachmaker (some suggest to include the assault knights as well)

Blaeys.3102
The heart of Zaithan (a mini zaithan chased all over the cursed shore)

TPenny.5071
Mordremoth’s Lair

Devata.6589
Design a boss that cannot be fought directly in melee but we go power ranger style. Having to control some huge robot.
Imagine if you need 15 people to control it, everybody moving different parts of that robot

hybrid.5027
“The Cleansing of Arah” where players would spawn in the Lupicus room and could move outward to through any of the 5 doors

aRestless.6213

• The Boss Blitz
• Evacuation of LA

runeblade.7514
Zhaitan Raid : When the players shoot down Zhaitan aka finish the dungeon, you get to unlock a raid that lets you go on a raid mission to kill Zhaitan. It will be a ground mission.

Proposition to create GR ad hoc .
TPenny.5071
We wanted raids to differ from the world boss content therefore each raid will have a portal in the zone the raid is situated.

Retro.6831
We already have dungeons and we already have World Bosses. Raids should not just be “Bigger Dungeons” or “Private World Bosses”, but something meaningfully distinct.

Tuomir.1830 not exactly about raid content, but close enough forthe author
Infrequently at set times, large map-sised event happen and culminate in Boss battle. These event are similar to Scarlet’s invasions.

Marcus Greythorne.6843

• 3 groups play a raid-instance parallel on 3 paths; paths do not intersect but players on a path can help players on other paths (via ranged, siege,…)
• Champions of the Mists : 3 parties enter a raid. Your party looks normal to you, the other 2 parties’ characters look like ghosts (to your team only). Each party can only take down 1 of 3 health-bars of their enemies.

hybrid.5027 (Also known as Nike, leader of the GW2 branch of [DnT])
Raid instances will be large zones, similar in size to an entire explorable dungeon or one of the main cities (Lions Arch, Divinity’s Reach etc). Players will spawn in a central area and can move outward in any desired direction, as the instances will be open ended.

Foefaller.1082 Dramen Maidria.1034 (similar suggestion)
Raiding Zones, explorable instanced areas with linking events/plot, roughly half the size of current open-world zones.
For those who played GW1, think Underworld/Fissure of Woe, and you are pretty much there.

nopoet.2960
Open world raid maps (similar to what hybrid proposed but in the OW). More details here

Exosferatu.2961
Instanced, WvW-like battle that lasts a week up to a month.

merforga.4731 (Also know as merf, head of TTS in Guild Wars 2)
Create multipath instanced raids. Similar to hybrid’s proposal with a twist : Each path could be run simultaneously, culminates with final boss fight.
Once all paths are cleared, a final boss area would appear with a boss that is scalable

Proposition to create a “raid-like” mode for fractals/dungeons
Devata.6589
RAID dungeons. Explorable dungeons on steroids for groups larger than 5.

Dramen Maidria.1034
Guild Raids: Mobs,Bosses, and puzzles

aRestless.6213
Guild Fractals – going back to Tyria’s Living World challenges with your guild.

VodCom.6924
Fractal Raids : allow guilds to rush fractals with multiple groups of 5 in parallel with new instabilities/gambits.

Symph.8407
Raid layout resembling Fractals, continuos string of short levels, with one huge difference : the levels are focused on the boss encounters

Instanced or Open world GR?
guardian.6489

• An expansion of tools to allow current “Mega-Organized Events” and old Living Story events to become Raids to allow more inclusive play.
• Guilds would be allowed to create their own separate instances for either certain current world events or old living story events.
• Once inside, if the Guild does not have enough players to fill the instance, they may use the LFG tool to taxi pug

Blaeys.3102
One person starts the raid by opening an instance and controls who comes in. The instance can be public, guild restricted or invite only.

TPenny.5071, Serophous.9085, Conski Deshan.2057 hybrid.5027 Evee.2714 Bloodstealer.5978 and many others that I’ve forgotten. Send a PM if you want to be in the list.
New raids are fully instanced and do not have an open-world counterpart.

Soren.9316 Send a PM if you want to be in this list.
Keep Raids in the open world, like the MB.

merforga.4731
Instanced raids, anyone can join, but the instance owner is able to control and remove people where necessary (in the event of trolls or whatnot)

Foefaller.1082
In essence, you’re doing the pre events and boss of a world event, only in your own instance, with the challenges/fail state set much higher than what’s found in the open world.

Zanthrax.6538 (also know as killchain, founder of the guild Attuned of BlackGate)
Proposition similar to Guardian Jack’s one:
I think instanced raids are superior to anything OW can offer. Perhaps a compromise that could be worked out is providing an easier open world alternative to raid bosses as well.
e.g something like keeping Tequatl as is but also providing a harder instanced version of Tequatl with different rewards etc.

masaplata.3965
Vote for instanced raid because OW is too “polluted” with consumables.

Gating the GR and interaction with guilds:
guardian.6489
GR use the world event spawner to create instances. Just reguires the guild WB upgrade.

Conski Deshan.2057
Only a minor entry gate (Thinking Dungeon master or 30 AR)
Not linked to guilds

TPenny.5071
Raids in Guildwars2 are a guild activity => New guild upgrades category: RAID

Baltzenger.2467
It should offer two modes: Mercenary and Guild mode

Bloodstealer.5978
More controllable LFG if you like where the raid leaders set the requirements and only those that meet the criteria (class reqd, lvl, AP’s etc) get through the filter

Arewn.2368
No barrier to entry : Pugging (for those who wish to brave it) should be readily available, the raids shouldn’t be locked behind guild upgrades and the like. Something like a short “story lead-in” attunement that is account wide would be acceptable though

Dreamcaller.4612
Create kind of ‘key/pass’ to access raids : If there is kind of costs or consequences when a raid is in preparation/progress/fail, each actions inside of the raid is much more thoughtful.
Key could be obtained through multiple channels (treasure hunt, crafting, trade with BLTC).

Exosferatu.2961

• Guild upgrade : cost 1k merit, 100k influence, 1month to build.
• Guild instanced raid
• Guild members can go in and out of the raid to bring resources to the raid through the course of a month (month long open instance)

Mingus Dew.8620
Accessibility: Fractals System or LFG system or Guild unlock

PseudoNewb.5468
Leverage existing, previous and future living story, open world, world boss style content, but to expand in games UI, tools, and capabilities to enhance the ability to organize, increase accessibility, and bring a renewed focused on the guilds, of Guild Wars 2, to all players even lone wolfs.
Raids have a Guild rally system implemented to taxi players in without using the LFG.

rapthorne.7345
Should raiding guilds be viable? Absolutely. Should they be mandatory? No.

leviN.4390

• Create multiple types of GR, each one being an “evolution” of content that currently exist
• Raid types could be : World Boss Raid (instanced with time challenge), Dungeon Instance Raid (created ad hoc with tiers and failing conditions)

Zanthrax.6538
There definitely has to be some form of gating behind the progress you make, however I don’t think the shear entering of the instance to begin with should be gated by anything.
You implement 3 raids, does raid z require all of raid y to be completed before entering? Something to consider.

Merus.9475
There’d be a lot less frustration for PvE commanders if they could cull the poor performers, or even if the game would specifically target and eliminate poor performers.

Capacity of the GR and scaling:
guardian.6489
Have multiple raid sizes with scaling in order to accommodate multiple sizes of guilds

Conski Deshan.2057

• I see GW2 raids coming in 2 sizes, 10man (half raid) and 20man (full raid) and no 40 man raids due to the logistical issues
• Gate requires Dungeon master or fractal personnal level 20 or a mix of both or a trial that forces contact with advanced bosses

Blaeys.3102

• The one who started the raid controls the size.
• (Page III post) scaling is what can set raiding apart in Gw2, even if it does affect the difficulty a little.

TPenny.5071

• Only guild members can access this instance.
• 10 person minimum and content scales up to the map capacity of 150 people.
• While encounters inside the raid are in progress it will not scale down. This is a mecanic to punish death.

Serophous.9085
Allow any sized guild to participate in the raid, with a set minimum that can be determined later

CMM.6712
More than 5 players for sure

Retro.6831
Setting the bar at “Mega-Organized Events” for enormous guilds only is a mistake
Scale based on the number of players present or should come in a variety of different size options. Guild mission “scaling” is a good example.

Marcus Greythorne.6843
Scaling for up to 150 people: I think it might be too difficult to create an interesting encounter that scales from 10 to 150 people.
A mix between open/scaleable and closed/fixed number: •2 groups enter a raid-instance: one of them – the core group – consists of 5-8 players and these do damage to bosses, the other group is open for 5-20 players. They can’t damage bosses but they can have multiple roles in the battle as well

Devata.6589
Something between 10 and 25

Baltzenger.2467
A raid should require at least 16 players, and the maximum limit of participation, should be related to the amount of players that can be on the same map

Torsailr.8456 BlackBeard.2873 (similar suggestion)
To avoid scaling, why not have multiple raids of different sizes? A raid for 10 people, another for 25, another for 50?

Arewn.2368
Static group size : since it’s challenging content, it needs to be carefully tuned. A variable group size unnecessarily complicates that.
This is not to the exclusion of multiple static group sizes (for example, a 15person version of the raid & a 30 person version).

merforga.4731
Groups as small as 15 to as large as 150 can participate in.
Each path of the raid would be capped with a set number of players (say 15-20) [We are talking about an instanced multi-path raid]

Mingus Dew.8620
Create two different types of raids :

• 10-15 person instances – Style of instances that are a fusion of Guild Challenge & Puzzle combined.
• 150 person instances – Similar to open world boss encounters.

Zanthrax.6538
My vote here would be 100% be behind 10-20 man raids ideally 10-15 man

Spyritdragon.6048
If a suitable “LFG/topping up” system could be found, i think raids of around 30-50 people seem like a better size

spoj.9672

• You should avoid implementing scaling to raids. Its not present in dungeons or fractals and that works. If you attempt something with fewer players it should be more challenging.
• Keep puzzle player requirements to a minimum.
• I think its best to keep the max sized raid as a multiple of 5.

Encounter design and punishment featured by the raids (part I) :

VodCom.6924
Expand the system of mistlock instabilities and include them in raids. Design instabilities to promote new types of builds and gameplay.

Metredel Le Preux.2587
Trash mobs have unique and interesting skills (like mord minions) in order to restrict corner stacking. Furthermore they have an optimized composition with different role and combo.

Marcelinho.3190
In need of a intelligent thing or need group collaboration please no solo raid for sellers of paths as we are seeing in arah.

mindweller.5978
GW2 combat system has much depth that is poorly utilized in most of current meta-events and even dungeons. Current world bosses such as Tequatl and Great Jungle Wurm do utilize this versatility of GW2 combat system but to a very low extent. Time to remedy this.

Riku.4821
Each phase, or level, will be a large meta event chain meant for a large party to do. these events should force players from time to time, to split up and do things that cannot be done with the “stacking” meta

ShadowBane.5836
Start with designing the challenging version of the raid for the organised groups. Once that’s done, figure out what will make less skilled/organized groups struggle and proceed to make a dumbed down version of the raid for them.

Encounter design and punishment featured by the raids (part II) :
Conski Deshan.2057

• A bad player should not be allowed to be carried by a team of good/experienced players.
• If you are an average player of this game, you are expected to fail the raid.
• Additional members can’t join an in progress raid.
• A rewardless(gold only) story mode for raids so that players who want to view the content can, but the rewards for the challenge mode maintain their meaning

TPenny.5071

• All foes will no longer leash to their origin, they will now pursue relentlessly until you or they are killed.
• Some creatures can sense you through stealth, so hiding won’t work!

Marcus Greythorne.6843

• insta-kills. Not sure that’s fun.
• dungeon-specific buffs determine roles (e.g In the entrance-area of a dungeon there are 5 golden-glowing weapon bundles. If you pick up one of these your current weapon-set(s) will become golden glowing. Only golden-glowing weapons can hurt the boss directly.)

Devata.6589

• What is also important is to require many roles. Lack of real roles is turning much of the dungeon into DPS spam
• Raids require communication

hybrid.5027
Lupicus as an example of the baseline easiest difficulty and complexity of these subbosses

IndigoSundown.5419
Whatever other characteristics the ANet take on raids might have, there should be a normal and a hard mode. Rewards for hard mode should consist of increased coin and increased chances for rare drops

Baltzenger.2467

• Raids should feel like fractals, on a scale of world bosses, with less people involved
• inside of the raid instance, you never leave combat
• lava and water shouldn’t be the only terrain modifications we can experience
• I want to see something different from “stack” or “zerg”

Iason Evan.3806
A tiered raiding system. Fractals are a great example

Crysto.7089

• Platforming/Environmental Hazards should be a strong element in any “raid.”
• Tribulation mode SAB jumping WHILE fighting Lupicus WHILE dodging the laser grid from CoE […] WHILE Liadri spams AoE and clones hunt you down (O_O)

Dramen Maidria.1034
There could be fail mechanics (like when quests failed in UW or FoW) that close the raid

Bloodstealer.5978

• Give condi builds a role, give zerks their job, bring in the need for certain classes to perform certain tasks and skills (stealth etc etc)…
• Add puzzles, co-op actions, mix up what certain encounters within the raid require

Arewn.2368
Consider multiple difficulties : An “easy” and “hard” mode could be a good way to keep everyone involved

Evee.2714
A long post featuring suggestion of what GW2 did well in terms of bosses design and how to build on these mechanics. A good reading if you have time.

Exosferatu.2961

• Boss and minions
• Tower defense (camps)
• Supply management: logs, ores, etc. (this will come up as whether the guild is ready and have enough resources to move on to the next boss)
• Profession abilities will be needed, such as Leap, Stealth, Portals, etc. to navigate the raid instance

merforga.4731
Mechanics I feel should be on par with TT at the easier end of the scale. The fundamental concepts should be easy to understand, but execution and most importantly coordination will be where the difficulty lies.

Iason Evan.3806
Please don’t include Defiance in raids. Make “Control” mean something

runeblade.7514
Design the game around countering stacking and LoSing. (e.g All mobs can revive each other just like players).

Tuomir.1830

• Multi-phased fights that require different player groups doing different things at different phases.
• About trash mobs : make ranged mobs attempt to stay out of melee. Give melee enemies more access to crippled. There you have it, mobs no longer stack.
• Quoting one of his old posts : I feel the mordrem and the karka are actually quite well designed, and provide the right amount of challenge in high level open world content.

aRestless.6213
“tough mobs” could have a different version of the Unshakable Buff, that allows coordinated crowd control.

Spyritdragon.6048
Challenging and anti-stacking mechanics already exist in the game (e.g prime hologram fight). Capitalize on them.

Zanthrax.6538

• Promote under-used aspect of the GW2 combat. Allow bosses to inflict unavoidable damage to players to force them to heal. Use anti stack attacks like the exhalted grawl shaman etc…
• What about bosses that upon being defeated effect the remaining bosses in some fashion

masaplata.3965 (Zok.4956 posted a similar suggestion later)
The leadup to any final raid encounter should be tutorial-like

LuBu.9086
Increasing HPs isn’t more Challenging / Fun…it’s just boring and frustrating

GR reward system:
Conski Deshan.2057

• Guaranteed rewards, next to no RNG drops (will be outlined in my later proposals)
• Not vertical progression rewards (i.e no stat increases).
• No lockout timers, you want to try and run it daily by all means go ahead.

Blaeys.3102

• Rewards should be similar to guild missions: a set number of commendations + a chest on par with a world boss chest
• Flesh out what we can purchase with commendations.

TPenny.5071

• Loot table with; unique and rare drops, raid currency, mystic forge components and mini pets.
• Unique armour and weapon skins, achievements and titles

Lunar Sunset.8742
Unique titles, armor, weapons, achievements is a must.

hybrid.5027

• Trash mobs drop T7 mat
• sub-bosses : drop recipes using the T7 mats
• End boss : drop multiple pieces of the t7 refined mats and a chest containing either one of the unique ascended weapons or one of the armor pieces
• Clearing the Raid unlock a title, speed clearing it unlock an other title.

NoTrigger.8396

• Create a unique looking weapon and armor skin set for each profession.
• The raid armor and weapon skins should be looking somewhat specialised for each profession
• special raid style infusions to be used on raid weapon set.

Baltzenger.2467

• No RNG means devaluated rewards, RNG means we get only greens and blues. Reward tracks are a good way to fight against this problem
• Integrate rewards with other systems in the game : outfits, minis, finishers, dyes, skins, tokens, home instance upgrades, trophies, utility items, consumables, boosters, etc.

globe.7238
Make sure that the average gold earning rate is equivalent for the different raids. Otherwise, some raids will be forgotten to oblivion.

Evee.2714 (The one from the podcast relics of Orr)

• tokens system is possible (to unlock rewards in the short term)
• Synthesis Track: good long term goal for raiding. A hybrid system of the current PvP track reward system and the Mystic Forge. Using materials that can be obtained from all aspects of the game the player will be able to spend “Raid Experience” to synthesize these materials into new items giving access to difficult to obtain items that span the entire game.

lunacrous.6751

• Raid exclusive consumables, or runes/sigils, or anything else of that nature that is not so much more powerful as it is different (but still has an effect on gameplay)
• Disable these rewards in WvW

spoj.9672
Add infusions to the boss loot tables. These would be tradeable and would range between the regular +4 stat infusions and the versatile +5 X stat with +5 agony resist. Also add new infusions which give a +5 stat bonus and/or a cosmetic glow.

Exosferatu.2961
Precursors, dungeon gift, full armor set, influence and merits to cover the costs of the raid.

Sithaco.4673
Each time the raid is completed, it gives a currency to purchase rewards as well as random reward drop. It is important that the reward structures gives us an incentive to go back to the raids.

Zanthrax.6538

• As for bosses there should be 2 catergories of rewards : Everytime you kill a boss and once a day you kill a boss. Once a day is where you get a chance at your RNG shenanigans
• Ensure trash mobs aren’t exploitable (aka no respawn and farm situation) and ensure it doesn’t scale to give more champions that drops champ bags etc…
• Include a token-like reward system for those who have trouble with RNG.

TraumaReaper.8610

• Since it’s a guild raid, make sure it rewards the guild aswell. (like some statue, picture or anything inthe guildhalls, that can work like a guild achievementlist)
• Make sure it is rewarding for every person joining. (for both people in as out the guild)

VodCom.6924
If you are to create OW and instaced versions of MB (cf guardian Jack’s proposition) make sure the rewards do not overlap each other. The goal is to maintain an incentive to do both the OW and instanced version of the GR.

Metredel Le Preux.2587
Every end’s chest guaranteed the drop of 2-4 gold or exo, 1 raid’s token and some gold (5 or more) + usual green-blue. It is also possible to loot : Ascended weapon/armor box, Ascended raid weapon/armor box, Raid minipet, Ascended trinket, Raid’s crafting material (40-45% drop rate), Raid’s recipe

Merus.9475
Progression should be tied to the guild, instead of players

Symph.8407
Skin rewards should of course be account bound : The only way to get them, is by beating the challenge

mindweller.5978
Rewards that require multiple steps to obtain throughout the raid content (e.g. “scavanger hunts” similar to process of obtaining Mawdrey, Mad King Memoires etc.).
These rewards should be scaled in regard to time-investemnt and skill level required in comparison to the existing content in the game.

BenGrech.3912
Each raid boss has its own loot table and that way no more RNG and getting random greens.

I am listing here oposing opinions about various topics of GR with the corresponding arguments:
I won’t include the paternity of each argument since they are pretty much mainstream.

Instanced vs non instanced
The pro instance arguments:

• Bystanders: they are removed from the equation
• Organization: Map limits may be filled by other people causing some of your team to get misplaced
• Control: You control the conditions, the combatants and the overall flow of the combat.
• No Conflict: Lower skilled players can attempt casual runs (I’m not saying they should be able to complete it, just if they want to experience it/practice/improve) without wrecking some top tier players day and vice versa.
• I don’t like when people just happen to wander through a piece of content and get over rewarded for no effort
• You avoid the : turn up 1 hr early, plug headset in and play the WP lottery when a map IP is announced to try and get into the organised event… and then hope you don’t get DC’ed and loose all chances of getting back into the correct map to complete the event you spent the best part of 2hrs supporting
• Easier to fine tune encounters, no taking down a whole map cause triple trouble bugged

The pro open world arguments:

• It’s possible for ad-hoc additional players to contribute meaningfully without being amazing players.
• random players get to experience content without it being gated by membership to specific player communities.
• Lower skilled players won’t practice it because they won’t have the infrastructure to organise a group.
• Encourages scaling of events therefore LOSELY determined by minimum or maximum amount of players ( aka not rigid 10 man only ).
• Likeminded players will more easily “find” each other

Guild centered vs guild independant
The Guild independant arguments:

• To not lock raids to specific guilds (that can prevent some people from accessing the content)
• What would likely be my “Raid Group” in this game consists of leaders/commanders from a few different guilds.
• Opposed to the raids being only activated through means that only a guild could have. The raids should be able to be put together through chat or LFG tool if wanted.
• Raids that are independant from guilds allow the community to organise their own raiding throughout the day and not have to rely on trying to catch a TTS run event or such

Other controversial topics listed by runeblade.7514 :

• Scaling- Should Raids be rigid to make balancing easier or, should Raids be very flexible so that all guilds can be more inclusive to their members?
• Difficulty- Should Raids be easy enough for casual players, or should raids be difficult so it requires skill on the risk of excluding casual player.
• Stacking- What steps should be taken to remove stacking or should it even be removed at all?
• AI- What AI should be in place?

Larger or smaller? (Reflexions by Zanthrax.6538)
Large Raid pros

• Opportunity for larger and more “epic” fights
• Less likely to leave people aside
• People won’t split up in small raiding cliques within and between guilds

Small raid pros

• will promote and help grow MORE guilds
• Larger guilds can still set up multiple raid teams
• Easier to get a full group

Partial summary of the controversies so far in page 5
Gilgalas.7860
Link to the post : a very good read
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Guilds-Raiding/4524109

Chris, on the topic of Scaling:

timmyf.1490:

timmyf.1490:

Hey, is there any reason why raids wouldn’t just scale to your size? So like… 5-20 man, bring what you can, and it scales.

Very hard to get the balance we would want from this kind of content.

The experience we are looking for would also be diluted the more players you have in an instanced raid.

This said, let’s say the number was ten. We shouldn’t stop folks from trying to beat content with 5 for example.

Chris

Colin, on the topic of copying a well know MMORPG and thinking outside the box:

Lots of great concepts here already, great job folks. I’ll echo that this discussion is most helpful if we consider what the concept of guild raids in Guild Wars 2 could be, rather than attempting to limit to what “raids” in other games have been.

Think outside the box and ask yourself what other “raid” type systems don’t do well, and consider proposals that you think both make best use of what Guild Wars does well; it’s a similar process we use when evaluating any system or feature for Gw2 in general.

Looking forward to read more of your ideas!

Anthony Ordon, on scaling magic:

On scaling: it is true that we have a certain amount of “magic” scaling in the game, commonly seen in dynamic events. The intent of that system is to keep difficulty consistent across a variety of player counts. The sticking point for myself on raids and scaling is that while we can scale enemies, it is far more difficult to meaningfully scale objectives.

To elaborate, in a 10-player raid, each player is responsible for approximately 1/10 of challenge. As you add players, that challenge share diminishes, so in a 20-player raid, the individual role is about half as important as it would have been with 10 players (challenges of coordination aside).

Of course, group content is rarely so singular and for a good reason. If we have 3 objectives, we divide the focus of the group and your ownership of a 20-player challenge goes from 1/20 to 1/6ish.

Is it possible, then, to just scale objectives along with the player counts? Perhaps. But it seems that would equate to just making many tiers of the content which, to me, sounds like a good way to diminish the total amount of content we could build. What do you guys think?

Chris: On the definition of a raid (sorry for you OW fans, I’ll still list your propositions though ‘cause they’re interesting)

Leablo.2651:

Leablo.2651:

Chris, can you provide a baseline definition of “raid”? What exactly is the intention behind creating “raid” content that cannot already be expressed in terms of existing dungeons or fractals? Is it about creating another category of content that is gated to guilds?

Here you go:

‘…instanced co-operative group based ‘challenging’ content…’
Chris

Conski Deshan.2057
Hide raid items from the wardrobe until they are collected.
Create a new sets of legendaries available only by doing raids.

TPenny.5071
As new raid content is released the older raids will be rebalanced to make it more accessible

Randulf.7614
One of the problems involve ‘teaching’ current mechanics to a wider player base before the raids are introduced.
Personnal note by VodCom.6924 : this is a problem that rose up several times during previous discussions about endgame and raids. Some players claims that the average GW2 player is dumb. I think this is because the game teaches poorly how to play in group. Time to get this fixed

Retro.6831
Raids should occur when it is convenient for the individual; time locks and such should not dictate when a player can raid. (Not everyone has a regular work schedule!)

Noobix.3958
Improve the UI for Raids and create specific UI tools for this type of content.
More details here : https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Guilds-Raiding/4522652

Asgaeroth.6427 (similar suggestion)
A revamp of the current squad system for a unified raiding, world boss, and WvW large party system experience.

Evee.2714 (The one from the podcast relics of Orr)
This post is an interesting recap on the history of raids in MMOs.

Thyrm.8352
So what definition of raid would I not want to see?

• The one with gear treadmill. Beat raid x to get access and gear required for raid y, ad infinitum.
• The one that requires you to have a certain lineup to even try it.
• The one that needs people with positioning knowledge and movement skill, so you can actually find people to raid with you.
• The one requiring you to chew through 15 min off so called tactics.
• The one where key functions of the fights are placed on one or two people.
• The one where you can’t take more than x meele, because fight mechanics.

Soren.9316
By utilizing the already created squad interface I think Anet has the ability to put a new spin on raiding

Risingashes.8694
Detailed analysis on the strengths and weaknesses of GW2 combat system and how they will perform in GR
Weaknesses : Agro (or lack of agro to be precise), graphic spam, condition cap
Strengths : Mobility, dodges, no trinity
OP : https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Guilds-Raiding/4523042

Karizee.8076
Leaderboards for Raiding Guilds, as a motivating tool.
Raid completion data could be included in the API

Kartel.2561
Suppose that raids were instanced (and I think they should be specifically for guilds), but they also had an effect in the open world that everyone else can notice and benefit from.
I think public recognition and making a difference in the world for yourself and others

leviN.4390
Give new abilities to commanders to manage raids

Metredel Le Preux.2587
Raids should be instanced, but also include a preparation room that can be accessed by everyone. The room includes usual city commodities.

Snowball.3497
Raid Leader boards – A scoreboard similar to the challenge leader boards in GW1.
Incentive to repeat the content over and over.

Soooooo much better, less busy and easier to read than the summaries with links in.

From someone who simply can’t put the time into reading the main thread right now, this is incredbily useful!!

:)

You missed my comments about infusions for rewards.

Thanks for this post. I was working on a similar condensed post, re evaluating some of the suggestions based on feedback and feasibility. Good job

spoj.9672:

You missed my comments about infusions for rewards.

It’s possible. Thanks for reminding me. Could you link me your post with a PM so I can find the exact proposition asap ?

One small thing VodCom about myself in the post, I’m currently A leader of TTS but I am not THE leader of TTS. There’s more then one leader in TTS (all of us split duties of leading raids, missions, administration) , the head of TTS is the Keeper which is Merforga, not me. I just thought I’d clarify that.

Thanks for making this summary, btw.

would be cool if you could add the infusion stuff from my suggestion:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Guilds-Raiding/page/2#post4522745

and the imbuement quests for visual progression
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Guilds-Raiding/page/5#post4524266

thanks

Hey Vod
I don’t know if you have all of page 19 done yet, but I made a few points about reward progression and how to progress inside the raid itself. Hope you can find a spot for it here

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Guilds-Raiding/4531386

Symph.8407:

Hey Vod
I don’t know if you have all of page 19 done yet, but I made a few points about reward progression and how to progress inside the raid itself. Hope you can find a spot for it here

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Guilds-Raiding/4531386

Hi. So far I’ve only summed up two pages. The number of pages I’ve covered is indicated in the topic’s title (2/20).

Great summary. Thanks for taking the time to do this.

Great summary, however, concerning my suggestion on open world raids…

Tuomir.1830 not exactly about raid content, but close enough forthe author
Infrequently at set times, large map-sised event happen and culminate in Boss battle. These event are similar to Scarlet’s invasions.

Unlike the Scarlet’s invasions, these events (let’s call them invasions, too, for now) would be specific to the zones they occur in (and tailored to them), and success/failure could switch the state of the zone universally and until a new such invasion event would occur in the zone. That was the key idea in the suggestion.

VodCom.6924:

Disclaimer and conflicts of interest:
I do NOT claim to be 100% objective and I am highly biased toward expanding the megabosses rather than creating Guild Raids.
I’m a biased person but not an obtuse one.

Hopefully Arena Net understands this and doesn’t listen to cherry picked opinions that lobby certain type of content.

Nick.6972:

VodCom.6924:

Disclaimer and conflicts of interest:
I do NOT claim to be 100% objective and I am highly biased toward expanding the megabosses rather than creating Guild Raids.
I’m a biased person but not an obtuse one.

Hopefully Arena Net understands this and doesn’t listen to cherry picked opinions that lobby certain type of content.

I came to realise during my studies that nobody is objective and the perception one has of an opinion is usually polluted by personnal experiences and social background. This is why I try as much as possible to listen to feedback, since this summary must be as fair as possible in order to be useful.

I got a lot of PMs recently, thanks for you feedback, this is really helping.

This post is here to answer some questions about my methodology when contructing the summary:

Step 1 : I always skim through the first 5 pages of the CDI to get an idea of the directions the discussion is taking. It helps me getting a general vision of what is going on and the general topics that will be discussed.

Step 2 : Construct categories and taking notes. I work with a notepad file on one screen and the forum page on an other.
I read each post individually and try copy-paste punch lines and key sentenses in the notepad’s categories. Splitting posts in categories is the most time consuming part of the job, since some contributors do not split their proposition in categories (for better coherence and lisibility which is something I understand).

Merforga’s post is a good example of the challenge. The post is detailed, cristal clear and well constructed. Splitting it in many categories while keeping the coherence of merf’s idea is really tough. I’m not saying you should change merf, keep it up and I’ll do my best to do justice to your ideas.

Step 3 : Re-organise the notepad file. Ordering categories and eliminating doubloons is a boring but necessary task. This is where I do most of my mistakes.

Step 4 : Previewing. In this step, I focus on lisibility and clarity. A necessary task to avoid walls of text that nobody will read.

Step 5 : Post. Analysing a page of the CDI takes about an hour of work.

I hope some questions have been answered

VodCom.6924:

Symph.8407:

Hey Vod
I don’t know if you have all of page 19 done yet, but I made a few points about reward progression and how to progress inside the raid itself. Hope you can find a spot for it here

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Guilds-Raiding/4531386

Hi. So far I’ve only summed up two pages. The number of pages I’ve covered is indicated in the topic’s title (2/20).

Ah, silly me for missing that good work so far!

Page 4 is covered. I do have problems to edit some of my my posts though :/

Btw, is there anyone who volunteers to create a google form to count more easily the top 3 choices ?

We could also improve the formula by counting opinions on various themes of GR (length, capacity, link with guilds, OW/instanced/both etc…).

VodCom.6924:

Merforga’s post is a good example of the challenge. The post is detailed, cristal clear and well constructed. Splitting it in many categories while keeping the coherence of merf’s idea is really tough. I’m not saying you should change merf, keep it up and I’ll do my best to do justice to your ideas.

That’s me! =D. Awesome stuff with the summary. I’ve found it extremely difficult trying to keep up with the CDI and definitely stickying this for future reference!

And like wise, keep up the awesome work

Hats off to VodCom, well done for condensing and taking notes on this.

I do hope dev’s reach out further more to individuals that made excellent suggestions and have a chat with them. Everyone seems to have a variation and definition of “raid”.

A suggestions maybe have a voice comms 1 to 1 or 1 to selected few at a time to have a chat. Most players here have a TS\Vent\Mumble\RaidCall devs can join in.

im interested in the idea of a huge dungeon that includes every boss in the game randomly rolled just like fractals but much harder and with the raiding concept of huge amounts of people also having puzzles to do to get to the next zone ect. raids should be hard i dont think marionette is raid content it would have to be something like a massive dungeon sort of like the new hidden arcana instance but much harder and longer.