Guild Wars 2

I haven’t logged in the game for a long time, I’m seeing a ton of raid updates and not much else.

Are they really successful? Does the majority of the playerbase raid now?

I wouldn’t say the game is raid centric at all, there have been large WvW makeovers and the new PvP season started a little while ago. We’re also currently working our way up to Living Story Season 3 with some snippet updates with the bandits and white mantle.

Raids themselves are fairly successful regarding their quality, but only a minority of the player base actually play them.

I wouldn’t call it ‘raid centric,’ but I will say the majority is not raiding.

lordhelmos.7623:

Are they really successful?

Raids are really popular among a specific (minority) subset of the community. (There’s a vocal minority that want to burn raids at the stake, too. I think they succeeded in attracting new players & offering (some) players a reason to stay or return.

lordhelmos.7623:

Does the majority of the playerbase raid now?

No. It’s higher than most RPG/MMOs, but far below 20% of the total community, near as anyone can estimate (probably closer to 10%).

lordhelmos.7623:

I haven’t logged in the game for a long time, I’m seeing a ton of raid updates and not much else.

Look more closely. There have been a lot of changes, minor & major. Raids are simply the only major new content, but that’s because the major PvE content is expected next month. Also: lots of changes to PvP.

Raids are a bloody waste of development time and I’m ashamed they have become anything in GW2, it’s a crime a bloody crime.

Here we go, you just opened another pandoras box thread lol. And to answer your question its hardly raid centric people just think it is because thats what they where recently working on, raids are optional.

Vlad Morbius.1759:

Raids are a bloody waste of development time and I’m ashamed they have become anything in GW2, it’s a crime a bloody crime.

Kek

While raids have been seeing love while a lot of other stuff hasn’t recently, overall the raid team is incredibly small; the game is definitely far from raid-centric.

Fermi.2409:

Vlad Morbius.1759:

Raids are a bloody waste of development time and I’m ashamed they have become anything in GW2, it’s a crime a bloody crime.

Kek

While raids have been seeing love while a lot of other stuff hasn’t recently, overall the raid team is incredibly small; the game is definitely far from raid-centric.

That’s likely because most of the raids were ALREADY almost finished when the team was downsized to the 5 or so people it has now. All they had left to do was basically polish work to release the subsequent wings. Particularly when raids were content that was coming along with HoT, not after, despite their release schedule. Other things like LS3 would be taking longer to arrive because they arent a mere boss fight.

edit: plus it seems when people REALLY hate on raids, they tend to ONLY see raids in releases, not the content they actually like, so their complaints are often skewed by that.

Of the ~250 devs, currently 6 are working on raids.

120 are working on the “live game”
70 are working on the next expansion
30 devs are floaters that provide art type assets to all the teams.

http://dulfy.net/2016/03/05/gw2-reddit-developer-ama-summary/#Schedule

So No the game is not even close to raid centric. The raid team has done a fantastic job with their very limited resources, but the make up only a tiny % of the active devs.

We haven’t had much in the way of new PvE or story-based releases since Heart of Thorns, other than Raids, so Raids naturally get a lot of the hype. That can be really frustrating for people who don’t raid, when it looks like that’s all the development team is doing.

There have been some small additions recently (see Current Events achievements for Leyline events and Bandit events,) but the rest of use are hanging out a bit until Living Story Season 3 kicks off, probably sometime late summer or early fall, at a guess. They did revamp a lot of HoT maps to make them less of a grind back in April, so that’s helping to reinvigorate people’s interest in HoT maps.

Living world season 3 has been pushed for at least the third quarter after all of the raid wings are released.

More information here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/490u3k/missed_the_ama_heres_a_summary/

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

No. It’s higher than most RPG/MMOs, but far below 20% of the total community, near as anyone can estimate (probably closer to 10%).

And where do you get numbers to support that assertion that raiders in GW2 are a larger proportion than in other games?

The only MMO to my knowledge that ever admitted the pitifully low percentage of players that raided was WOW around the time of BC when Blizzard admitted only 15% of players had ever been in raids and only 5% of players had cleared raids.

That’s why Blizzard introduced LFR and tiered raids, so that they could push up the percentages (of course, most ‘real raiders’ consider the LFR tier toy-town raiding).

I see no reason to think GW2 is any different, indeed if anything a smaller percentage of players would be expected to raid in GW2 as raiding is the antithesis of what GW2 originally offered.

Of course, if HOT drove away large numbers of players who don’t want hard-core type gaming raiding is designed for (and HOT open world is entirely group-centric, again entirely different from GW2 pre-HOT) then the percentage of raiders would be higher in a smaller playerbase.

lordhelmos.7623:

I’m seeing a ton of raid updates and not much else.

If, by “a ton” you mean two since the end of 2015 — which completed the HoT raid — then OK. In the meantime, we’ve had two quarterly updates which added gliding to core, revamped Shatterer and revamped a lot of open world HoT. In addition, we’ve gotten ley line events and bounty events, possibly stand-alone stuff, but ley line might be leading into LS3. Sure, “tons” of raids, not much else. Delusional.

Raids have made me bitter as well, but at least the HoT maps haven’t gotten that stale for me yet since I’ve been working on Alts after getting sick of the overly difficult open world, now since April they are at my skill level.

I take the ANET people at their word when they say they are working on many aspects of the game at the same time. Expansion, WvW, PVE, Raid etc.

Just so happens Raid is coming out now.

I watched a girl tonight Raid. With a guild.

I have never seen such a massively choreographed thing in gaming. Over and over they’d die. Go over every detail of each others roles. Over and over. Step after step.

That is not my idea of fun at all but there’s enough GW2 things to go around so whatever.

I just have no intention whatsoever of playing a Raid where I feel like I’m an actor that has to rehearse every single little line/action to succeed.

I’d feel like I have to pay a Screen Actor’s Guild fee.

Raids have gotten a lot of updates recently and there’s been a lot of promotion given to that aspect of the updates because they’re the new thing.

For years we had people complaining that there were no raids at all in the game. It may well be that people left the game because their preferred ‘end game’ content wasn’t on offer. So Anet understandably want to let them, and everyone else who might be interested, know that raids are now a part of the game, and want to get them to the point where they are a fully functional part of the game (as opposed to when they first launched with just 1 boss).

But does that mean the game is now raid-centric? No of course not. As other people have said we’ve also had big WvW updates, PvP tournaments and leagues (I think these are different, correct me if I’m wrong) and we’ve got a whole new PvE Season coming soon, on top of HoT which was mainly open-world PvE content.

The game is no more ‘raid centric’ now than it was ‘dungeon centric’ when it launched with 8 dungeons with 4-5 paths each, a unique armour set and weapon set for each one and associated achievements and titles (which is a lot more than our one raid has to offer). It wasn’t PvP centric or WvW centric or PvE centric either. Like most MMOs it had a variety of game modes and goals for players to choose from. Adding raids has just increased that list, not removed all the others.

They have a couple of dozen zones, and 15 fractals and a bunch of old dungeons lying around, thousands of dynamic events, and a single raid broken into three wings, the first in the game.

I’d say raids make up less than 1% of the content in this game. I don’t know how anyone could think the game is raid centric.

Raids are what’s ready now.

Lets not forget WvW has also had love this year with the first of some major updates, so it isnt just raids.

The issue isn’t directly with raids. I don’t raid and have no issues with them being in game, apart from the unnecessary toxicity which arrived with it and ironically will only hurt raids long term. Personally I find the raids bolster the lore and make the overall game a bit more interesting.

However, the issue is the open world and story drought. When it takes this long to put out content for what basically constitutes your largest section of communities, then players start venting loudly and in the direction of other content. If we had had raids alongside other pve content, I doubt most ppl wpuld be kicking off.

We are also in a situation where the drought is so long, that the long awaited content needs to be of the highest quality and of great substance. After wvw and raids getting what they want, expectations for pve will be great.

Frankly this was the perfect opportunity for festivals, but one not taken to fill the gap

CrusaderMichael.9245:

I take the ANET people at their word when they say they are working on many aspects of the game at the same time. Expansion, WvW, PVE, Raid etc.

Just so happens Raid is coming out now.

I watched a girl tonight Raid. With a guild.

I have never seen such a massively choreographed thing in gaming. Over and over they’d die. Go over every detail of each others roles. Over and over. Step after step.

That is not my idea of fun at all but there’s enough GW2 things to go around so whatever.

I just have no intention whatsoever of playing a Raid where I feel like I’m an actor that has to rehearse every single little line/action to succeed.

I’d feel like I have to pay a Screen Actor’s Guild fee.

This is pretty much how I feel about raids, it wasn’t that HARD in fractals but at upper levels it did get harder but, it feels not to the same level as if one thing goes wrong, we lose the entire thing.

Been getting a lot of WvW polls to vote for in WvW, and a lot of changes since the April patch including return of Alpines BL, participation system, commander functionality, rewards tracks, WvW exclusive skins, the new rank point item that allows you to buy siege/food anywhere, and then that item has been updated a number of ways so you can buy superior siege with proof of heroics, and those proofs are account bound now instead of soul bound, server linking “ally” system to improve population imbalance… Still a long ways to go, but I can’t say WvW hasn’t been getting a good amount of attention.

PvP has their pro-leagues, many of the PvP maps are in “beta” as Anet attempts to improve them to player demand, class imbalance is (and will always be) a major issue. Can’t say PvP is really all that ignored either.

PvE has the current event achievements and events, and while small this is the build-up to LS3 and I’d expect it to compare to LS1 so while slowly drawing out, I can’t say PvE is being ignored either.

Raids are probably the most positively received and successful kind of content currently, so it’s the most advertised/promoted/etc. But I wouldn’t say it’s raid-centric, just all the others are in a “we’re working on it” stage atm.

There is just no new events added to the game anymore,those raid update are part of the HOTM expansion that they had promised,now we need to wait for the underwater expansion that come out sometime in 2017….

Well, since you have to do raids to get Legendary Armor, it’s definitely integrated. I wouldn’t say it is central but at the same time I definitely wouldn’t say that it is “optional”. Unlike Legendary Weapons which are majorly cosmetic Legendary Armor has some serious utility because of all the pieces you have to get over and over when changing your character armor and trinkets, or 12 of the 14 pieces of equipment, need to be done and redone and redone and redone for every build over and over and over.

It’s cost effective in the long-run to build the armor so … sorta.

Danikat.8537:

Raids have gotten a lot of updates recently…

The 2nd and 3rd raid wings have dropped an average of 3.5 months apart. That’s a slightly longer gap than the 3 month releases. You know, the release cadence that people are griping about. The first raid wing dropped ~ a month after HoT did. We’ve had:

Raids: 1st wing a month after HoT; 2 updates since
Other PvE: HoT dropped, 2 updates since

HoT content was originally designed to last longer. However, some players convinced ANet to reduce “grind,” which has to some degree lessened the staying power of HoT. Also, revising HoT cost ANet at least some dev effort.

Killface.1896:

There is just no new events added to the game anymore,those raid update are part of the HOTM expansion that they had promised,now we need to wait for the underwater expansion that come out sometime in 2017….

This is patently false. The last update added over 50 new events. Also every other Tuesday for the last 2 months has added in an additional 3-10 events.

Additionally there was significant WvW updates, PvP seasons, Gliding added to the entire old world, a world boss revamp, QOL updates and a significant number of bug fixes. The amount of raid content has been miniscule compared to the open world PvE content added in the same time period.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Killface.1896:

There is just no new events added to the game anymore,those raid update are part of the HOTM expansion that they had promised,now we need to wait for the underwater expansion that come out sometime in 2017….

This is patently false. The last update added over 50 new events. Also every other Tuesday for the last 2 months has added in an additional 3-10 events.

Additionally there was significant WvW updates, PvP seasons, Gliding added to the entire old world, a world boss revamp, QOL updates and a significant number of bug fixes. The amount of raid content has been miniscule compared to the open world PvE content added in the same time period.

Fractals had some decent updates too, let’s not forget.

Vayne.8563:

Fractals had some decent updates too, let’s not forget.

Fixing of old content (really, really great fixes, too). The thing is: for people starved for something new to do, that doesn’t count.

Mind you: that doesn’t mean the game is raid-centric — the worst that could be said is that all of the recent & new instanced content (story, achievements, combat) has been for raids. But that pretty much happens with any sets of changes: when living story season 3 comes out, that will be most of the new content for the next set of updates and WvW/PvP are likely to wait to see new stuff.

tl;dr calling the game “raid-centric” is like saying the calendar has been “spring-centric” the last few months. (Or autumn-centric for those living south of the equator.)

The game isn’t raid centric, it’s just that the raid development and release schedule started well before HoT’s launch and was small enough to be released every 3 months. But HoT’s issues set the rest of ANet back on their heals. That set them scrambling to fix issues while LSW3 got delayed while they reconsidered what went wrong.

No, it is in no way anything resembling that.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Of the ~250 devs, currently 6 are working on raids.

120 are working on the “live game”
70 are working on the next expansion
30 devs are floaters that provide art type assets to all the teams.

http://dulfy.net/2016/03/05/gw2-reddit-developer-ama-summary/#Schedule

So No the game is not even close to raid centric. The raid team has done a fantastic job with their very limited resources, but the make up only a tiny % of the active devs.

What? That’s not how it works.

What he means is that they have six people on the raid team, not implementing the raid content. Meaning six people whose job it is to actively design the concepts and plan the mechanics of the raids, and then that team pulls engineers, programmers, artists, designers, localization specialists, writers, managers and what ever other professionals in as they are needed for whatever time they are needed. It most likely surges up and down all the time and is largest as it approaches a release.

So no, there are not “six people” working or raids.

It depends on what you mean by “raid centric”.

I will note that there are a few things that require HoT and even further, require doing the raid, that give the impression that raids are becoming a central focus.

Without the raid, and only doing PvE, you can get to 161 mastery points. You never need to do WvW or PvP (so just the one game mode needed…PvE). In order to get to 169 (highest total I’ve seen, I think it goes to 171) mastery points you must raid. You can not get additional mastery points in WvW or PvP or anywhere else.

In order to get legendary armor (which is really the only “endgame” content left) you MUST do the raid (for a long, long time).

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