Guild Wars 2

NoTrigger.8396:

this doesnt make any sense, because its just a matter of how you design bosses and the mechanics behind the fight.
and bosses for 20 people need more hp obviously. i dont understand what you are trying to say.

I’ll try to clarify then.

First, watch this :
http://youtu.be/x88CmDOWnc4?t=15m42s

It’s with the old meta but you get the idea : Anet designed a boss featuring a nice “invuln phase” that requires the group to pull and kill a mob at the right time. Here, the [rT] team did such a good job that they literally obliterated the clockheart before it had the time to do anything.

Basically, the interesting boss has been turned into an hp bag.

They just did the classical rotation and then boom! target down. Nothing special required. Of the entire run, only slick and sparki required a special strategy.

To have the clockheart use its special mechanics again, Anet should have doubled its HP. Now imagine what a hell this would be for non optimised groups.

Can you tell me how you can design a 10 player content that is at the same time doable by 75% of the population and still remain interesting for the top 1% optimised groups ? Ofc Anet could double the HP of all monster, double their armor, their damage etc… but this would only turn endgame content in a power creep. It won’t make content more interesting.

I hope this is now clearer.

NoTrigger.8396:

VodCom.6924:

I repeated this time and again : an optimised party can nuke almost any HP bag Anet can throw at it and thus prevent the boss from using its abilities (read: make the boss uninteresting). Imagine now what a party of 20 can do. How much DPS such a group can generate.

this doesnt make any sense, because its just a matter of how you design bosses and the mechanics behind the fight.
and bosses for 20 people need more hp obviously. i dont understand what you are trying to say.

I believe he’s saying that the mechanics in the boss fight will need to be guaranteed to occur and can’t be skipped by burning down the boss too fast, think of it like the defend the batteries portion of Teq. In a raid the boss could become temporarily invun when it hits certain health thresholds to preform its attack.
Part of a raid is learning, you shouldn’t be able to dps past the mechanics without learning them.

VodCom.6924:

NoTrigger.8396:

this doesnt make any sense, because its just a matter of how you design bosses and the mechanics behind the fight.
and bosses for 20 people need more hp obviously. i dont understand what you are trying to say.

I’ll try to clarify then.

First, watch this :
http://youtu.be/x88CmDOWnc4?t=15m42s

It’s with the old meta but you get the idea : Anet designed a boss featuring a nice “invuln phase” that requires the group to pull and kill a mob at the right time. Here, the [rT] team did such a good job that they literally obliterated the clockheart before it had the time to do anything.

Basically, the interesting boss has been turned into an hp bag.

They just did the classical rotation and then boom! target down. Nothing special required. Of the entire run, only slick and sparki required a special strategy.

To have the clockheart use its special mechanics again, Anet should have doubled its HP. Now imagine what a hell this would be for non optimised groups.

Can you tell me how you can design a 10 player content that is at the same time doable by 75% of the population and still remain interesting for the top 1% optimised groups ? Ofc Anet could double the HP of all monster, double their armor, their damage etc… but this would only turn endgame content in a power creep. It won’t make content more interesting.

I hope this is now clearer.

There is nothing in this game currently comparable to the stupidity of pre-nerf FGS rushing so I don’t even know why you’re linking that.

The way things are now you have to kill bosses conventionally, so if you just so happened to be able to bypass phases that way, then I say have a cookie because 99.9999999999999999999999999999% of players aren’t going to be able to replicate it and you shouldn’t be who ANet are balancing around so it doesn’t even matter.

VodCom.6924:

NoTrigger.8396:

this doesnt make any sense, because its just a matter of how you design bosses and the mechanics behind the fight.
and bosses for 20 people need more hp obviously. i dont understand what you are trying to say.

I’ll try to clarify then.

First, watch this :
http://youtu.be/x88CmDOWnc4?t=15m42s

It’s with the old meta but you get the idea : Anet designed a boss featuring a nice “invuln phase” that requires the group to pull and kill a mob at the right time. Here, the [rT] team did such a good job that they literally obliterated the clockheart before it had the time to do anything.

Basically, the interesting boss has been turned into an hp bag.

They just did the classical rotation and then boom! target down. Nothing special required. Of the entire run, only slick and sparki required a special strategy.

To have the clockheart use its special mechanics again, Anet should have doubled its HP. Now imagine what a hell this would be for non optimised groups.

Can you tell me how you can design a 10 player content that is at the same time doable by 75% of the population and still remain interesting for the top 1% optimised groups ? Ofc Anet could double the HP of all monster, double their armor, their damage etc… but this would only turn endgame content in a power creep. It won’t make content more interesting.

I hope this is now clearer.

first of all i was in rT when rT did this run.
2. your "nice “invuln phase” that requires the group to pull and kill a mob at the right time" isnt a cool feature, its lazy and bad game design.

3. you dont need to pull the mob and kill it at the right time. you can CC the boss at the right time which has the same effect.

4. "_Basically, the interesting boss has been turned into an hp bag._ "
this boss has always been just a “hp bag”. there is no interesting and challenging mechanic involved.
pulling a mob and killing it once its close to the boss is just as easy as autoattacking ambient creatures in the bloodtide coast.

5. "To have the clockheart use its special mechanics again, Anet should have doubled its HP. "
no, the hp doesnt need to be doubled. the entire fight should be reworked into a real boss fight with real mechanics.

6. "Now imagine what a hell this would be for non optimised groups. "
you cannot make everyone happy. either you design more difficult content and give players a reason to improve and get better at the game. or you keep releasing easy mode stuff until even casuals are bored because there is no replayability and nothing to strive for.

7. "Can you tell me how you can design a 10 player content that is at the same time doable by 75% of the population and still remain interesting for the top 1% optimised groups ? "
yes i can. i can tell you how you cant design content that can make everyone happy who is interested to try it and play through it.
teach people how to play.
but you cannot teach people how to play if you always nerf stuff and hold a crisis meeting everytime a lazy player complains on the forum.

and other than that, you dont have to be superman to become good at gw2. all you need is a working brain. if anet ever releases challenging content, even the greatest casual will be able to finish the raid. it will only take longer for him.

maha.7902:

There is nothing in this game currently comparable to the stupidity of pre-nerf FGS rushing so I don’t even know why you’re linking that.

I’m linking this, because it used to be the great meta ruthlessly enforced on the community no matter how stupid it was. If a player finds something equally stupid in the coming months, it will become the meta no matter how stupid it is.

Don’t lecture me with the “it won’t happen again” fallacy please. Real life and the gaming universe are full of examples of mistakes made multiple times.

It is also here to show the challenge of creating content that is accessible to the majority of the population and remain interesting for optimised groups. There is a huge gap between the two. The larger the group, the wider the gap.

Please tell me how to design something that accomodates both. I’m still waiting for concrete examples. Right now, we are still flailing at shadows.

Stacking eles and fiery rushing everything was never enforced on the wider community, it was only forced on people who wanted to set world records, so let’s not even pretend here that the majority of players were being oppressed by it.

Here is an example of a challenging boss accessible to the majority but interesting for optimised groups:

Lupicus

—

Now if ANet applied similar mechanics to other bosses, that would be great. If they applied the mechanics of the open world risen priest of melandru to a dungeon boss, that would also be great (open worlders can afk range because there’s like 200 of them, doing it low-man is entirely different).

Conski Deshan.2057:

NoTrigger.8396:

VodCom.6924:

I repeated this time and again : an optimised party can nuke almost any HP bag Anet can throw at it and thus prevent the boss from using its abilities (read: make the boss uninteresting). Imagine now what a party of 20 can do. How much DPS such a group can generate.

this doesnt make any sense, because its just a matter of how you design bosses and the mechanics behind the fight.
and bosses for 20 people need more hp obviously. i dont understand what you are trying to say.

I believe he’s saying that the mechanics in the boss fight will need to be guaranteed to occur and can’t be skipped by burning down the boss too fast, think of it like the defend the batteries portion of Teq. In a raid the boss could become temporarily invun when it hits certain health thresholds to preform its attack.
Part of a raid is learning, you shouldn’t be able to dps past the mechanics without learning them.

This issue points to one major problem with the design of GW2’s harder encounters. Players in Ascended are going to burn through HP much faster than players in MW. Also, if a coordinated group is stacking might as high as possible and has perma or near-perma Fury to go along with that Ascended Gear, their damage output is going to be many times what a less-coordinated group in lesser gear will generate.

So, who is the content being designed for? Are people in MW supposed to be able to complete it? Is coordination to maximize output going to be required, or is it going to be the, “You get to finish the fights faster” that we have now? There’s also the issue of instanced versus open raids, where players can outnumber the scaling. These are questions of accessibility, and they have to be addressed — if not by us, at least by ANet.

Use of boss invulnerability to ensure that boss phases are interacted with is not a bad idea, especially if other techniques can be used so that the fights are not always similar. However, that’s still going to leave the issue as to whether raids will require Ascended (or at least Exotic) gear, and whether might stacking, perma Fury and berserker stats are going to be the assumption when the boss fights are being tuned.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Conski Deshan.2057:

NoTrigger.8396:

VodCom.6924:

I repeated this time and again : an optimised party can nuke almost any HP bag Anet can throw at it and thus prevent the boss from using its abilities (read: make the boss uninteresting). Imagine now what a party of 20 can do. How much DPS such a group can generate.

this doesnt make any sense, because its just a matter of how you design bosses and the mechanics behind the fight.
and bosses for 20 people need more hp obviously. i dont understand what you are trying to say.

I believe he’s saying that the mechanics in the boss fight will need to be guaranteed to occur and can’t be skipped by burning down the boss too fast, think of it like the defend the batteries portion of Teq. In a raid the boss could become temporarily invun when it hits certain health thresholds to preform its attack.
Part of a raid is learning, you shouldn’t be able to dps past the mechanics without learning them.

This issue points to one major problem with the design of GW2’s harder encounters. Players in Ascended are going to burn through HP much faster than players in MW. Also, if a coordinated group is stacking might as high as possible and has perma or near-perma Fury to go along with that Ascended Gear, their damage output is going to be many times what a less-coordinated group in lesser gear will generate.

So, who is the content being designed for? Are people in MW supposed to be able to complete it? Is coordination to maximize output going to be required, or is it going to be the, “You get to finish the fights faster” that we have now? There’s also the issue of instanced versus open raids, where players can outnumber the scaling. These are questions of accessibility, and they have to be addressed — if not by us, at least by ANet.

Use of boss invulnerability to ensure that boss phases are interacted with is not a bad idea, especially if other techniques can be used so that the fights are not always similar. However, that’s still going to leave the issue as to whether raids will require Ascended (or at least Exotic) gear, and whether might stacking, perma Fury and berserker stats are going to be the assumption when the boss fights are being tuned.

Give bonuses for the speed with which an encounter is completed, kind of like mission bonuses in Factions GW1.

The MW wearers still can complete the encounter, get the boss chest, etc. Those who have spent time/money getting Ascended get an extra chest, or title, or something, for beating it faster.

NoTrigger.8396:

[snip for readability]

You’re getting closer. I’m quoting you: “Teach people how to play”

Now watch this : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FpigqfcvlM

It’s a bit longer but you’ll learn here something important :

A good chunk of level design and game design is spent on teaching player how to play

That’s right, the content has to teach people how to play. Don’t expect the gaming masses to understand the delicate details of GW2 mechanics by themselves because they won’t. GW2 never taught them this. It taught them they have to be autonomus and not care about what skills their neighbor is using.

Now about your response :
1) Stop being agressive on me, I’m trying to argument my case, not to insult you.

2) If you say “Teach players how to play” but do not suggest something concrete and implementable in the game to teach players, you sound childish and entitled. I’m sure you’re neither childish nor entitled, try to flesh out your propositions.

3)maha pointed out that the lupicus is interesting for everyone. Maybe integrating bosses like this in raids could be a solution.

4) So I’m still waiting for your idea of content

Ashen.2907:

Give bonuses for the speed with which an encounter is completed, kind of like mission bonuses in Factions GW1.

The MW wearers still can complete the encounter, get the boss chest, etc. Those who have spent time/money getting Ascended get an extra chest, or title, or something, for beating it faster.

That’s certainly a variation which would allow for better rewards. However, the question of, “Whom is the content being tuned for?” remains. One concern I have is that content completable by players in MW whose play is “less coordinated” is going to be viewed as, “Too easy!” by some, whereas content that requires the best gear and the best play is going to be viewed as, “Too hard!” by some. GW2 has way too many force multipliers for damage for there to be an outcome that will appeal to both ends of the spectrum.

The obvious answer is to say, “No, raids are only for the best players.” However, I’m concerned that ANet may not view the effort to produce raids as worthwhile if they are inaccessible to many players.

Ashen.2907:

So, who is the content being designed for? Are people in MW supposed to be able to complete it? Is coordination to maximize output going to be required, or is it going to be the, “You get to finish the fights faster” that we have now? There’s also the issue of instanced versus open raids, where players can outnumber the scaling. These are questions of accessibility, and they have to be addressed — if not by us, at least by ANet.

At a minimum it should be designed with exotic tier as baseline that being general advice, raids should also require good co-ordination and teamwork in addition to other requirements. There is no excuse for not being in full exotics from the moment you hit 80, this isn’t like when the game first came out. Players easily hit 80 with 30g , In addition the new story missions give enough T6 mats to craft a few pieces if you wanted to go that way. The achievement chests you’ll have gotten even getting your first level 80 also give you badges to use.

Edit basically what I’m trying to say is that MW is a practically non-existent phase of being level 80 and I wouldn’t see why it would ever be considered as a baseline.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Ashen.2907:

Give bonuses for the speed with which an encounter is completed, kind of like mission bonuses in Factions GW1.

The MW wearers still can complete the encounter, get the boss chest, etc. Those who have spent time/money getting Ascended get an extra chest, or title, or something, for beating it faster.

That’s certainly a variation which would allow for better rewards. However, the question of, “Whom is the content being tuned for?” remains. One concern I have is that content completable by players in MW whose play is “less coordinated” is going to be viewed as, “Too easy!” by some, whereas content that requires the best gear and the best play is going to be viewed as, “Too hard!” by some. GW2 has way too many force multipliers for damage for there to be an outcome that will appeal to both ends of the spectrum.

The obvious answer is to say, “No, raids are only for the best players.” However, I’m concerned that ANet may not view the effort to produce raids as worthwhile if they are inaccessible to many players.

Content can be tuned to be difficult for MW wearers, would be easier for Ascended wearers, but those same ascended wearers might be challenged to complete it with tight deadlines for bonus rewards.

I’m not completely against raids and, in general, I think party sizes should go up to 10. Maybe more but it would impact the UI more.

As long as raids are some side activity that’s pretty benign (no gear treadmill, not so rewarding that it’s clearly “the thing to do” and you’re handicapping yourself by opting out), I see little issue with it.

I avoid dungeons/fractals because I don’t like doing the exact same things a million times with no clear stopping point in sight (for example, I’m grinding in Archeage to save up for the ship I want. But there’s a definite endpoint for that and then I have something really cool, so I can justify it).

I also prefer to avoid the type of the type of players who frequent this type of thing. Between work, money issues, family stuff, kid, ex-wife, ..I’ve already got enough on my plate I’m not fond of dealing with. I don’t need it in my game too (this is my “escape” basically).

Also I have limited time / energy, and family obligations. I MUST be able to afk for a bit or log off all together, without a bunch of people depending on me and getting mad. I also MUST be allowed to play how I want and change my playstyle how I see fit, not how someone else demands.

I didn’t mind the instanced content of GW1 because I usually just did it with Heroes. Rarely would I ever actually play with more than one or two people if any. I’d be much more keen to play instances here if I could again do it with something like Heroes.

But if I need a bunch of demanding and unfriendly people to do the content ..it basically doesn’t exist for me. The open nature of the rest of GW2 works much better for me. I can come and go as I please, and play how I please without anyone being a jerk about it. I just wish there was more variety of things to do in the open world.

Give us more things we can do that actually matter in the game, to Tyria, and to other players. More ways to interact with and experience the world. More types of experiences to share with others. More ways to compete with others. More ways to be creative. More ways to change the world (and I mean actually changing things, not just watching them change with the next story patch). There is so much that could potentially be done to make the game like the “living breathing world” they said it would be.

But instanced or not, the more things we can do in a game, the better. Any new content is better than none. But I do still stand by my position that grinding static instances is an inferior form of content that necessarily gets stale, and I wouldn’t want that to impede the development of more dynamic and meaningful things.

I consider instance-grinding to be a lazy (or at least short sighted) approach for developers. Just meaningless busy work for us instead of coming up with something more compelling to do. Players burn though it and get bored of the “same old same old” and demand ever more themepark instances to grind. After a while we have another wow clone, gear treadmill or not.

The best type of content has inherent value in the world. It has an effect players notice and care about. Not something to simply rinse and repeat for no reason or “phat lootz”. You do it because you will be recognized for it. Respected. Appreciated. Maybe hated. But whatever it is, it’s something that makes a difference that people will notice. Players are themselves content (which is why nobody wants a dead mmo). The more things we can do that have value to other players, the more worthwhile the game’s content is. And it’s more dynamic and self-refreshing, with less devs need to do.

I argue that GW2 does have a “lack of meaningful content”, But going the generic tired instanced themepark route like so many clones already do – is not the best way to fix that. Empower players with more ways to create and BE content, and you’ll get a lot more bang for your buck.

In a nutshell, you don’t want to have to deal with people imposing standards on you so you don’t enjoy group content in this game.

That’s fine.

But that’s not a reason why we shouldn’t have raids. If you chose to play a multiplayer game and not want to do multiplayer (“I didn’t mind the instanced content of GW1 because I usually just did it with Heroes. …”) then that’s your fault and ANet shouldn’t have to cater around your preferences by denying all of the people who play a multiplayer game to have actual challenging multiplayer content.

I don’t think there are too many people that are anti-raids. Since we already have them in the game and everyone is fine with it. Mostly, it just comes down to a fear that a higher tier of gear will be released. As long as this isn’t the case then you probably will not hear anything else out of anyone that seems to be anti-raid. If Anet dropped a line right now stating that there will be no higher tiered gear to come along with any new raids then everyone would be able to work much more smoothly in helping to get this underway. The gear theme of this game and Gw1 was always that you and your friends and team mates and guild mates should be able to achieve top of the line gear easily and then be able to jump right into any content you have chosen to do together. That needs to remain the theme. A great many people were attracted to and stayed with both GW1 and 2 for that very reason.

maha.7902:

In a nutshell, you don’t want to have to deal with people imposing standards on you so you don’t enjoy group content in this game.

That’s fine.

But that’s not a reason why we shouldn’t have raids. If you chose to play a multiplayer game and not want to do multiplayer (“I didn’t mind the instanced content of GW1 because I usually just did it with Heroes. …”) then that’s your fault and ANet shouldn’t have to cater around your preferences by denying all of the people who play a multiplayer game to have actual challenging multiplayer content.

Good job ignoring the rest of the post.

I didn’t say there “shouldn’t be raids”, and I didn’t use my play preferences as a justification for it either (I did illustrate how such things have little value for players like me though).

I said as long as it doesn’t come with increasing gear tiers, and as long as it’s not SO rewarding that it’s the only thing anyone considers worth doing ..then I see little issue with it. As long as it’s “harmless”, who cares? I also said any new content, instanced or or not, is welcome because it’s better than nothing.

I also described why it is a more limited and inferior form of content and I’d rather not have it pull resources away from something better. If we get that AND something more meaningful, hey good for everyone I guess.

But it’s more work for devs to try to keep churning out that kind of content, and less satisfying for players in the long run. At some point, after you’ve done it x-times, it’s going to be just plain “done”. There are only so many times you can do it for “fun”. Beyond that, it’s work/grind. And players always get these things done much faster than devs can put out new ones.

And outside of all those instances, it hasn’t changed the world at all. Players still have the same places to to go and same things to do, and same options for doing them.

This is short term content that takes a lot of work to make, and doesn’t really add much to the world or add to what we can do in it. Again, as long as it’s not detrimental to the game or its community, I’m absolutely fine with it being in there somewhere.

But there are other more valuable things they should be working on also. And if they can’t “do it all”, this sort of content should not steal too much focus. If they can include raids in a non-detrimental way, along with better things, then by all means bring in on. The more the game has to offer, the better.

I’m afraid raids might be too much to handle for the type of audience currently targetted by Anet.

I was going to do a summery of everyone’s stance from this thread but it gets surprisingly messy and hard to tell.
From the first page there were:
Page 1
Pro : 11
SirBlunticus.4258
Morsus.5106
Gele.2048
SundayTrash.9562
Killface.1896
Rasimir.6239
kitten .9460
Xar.1387
Valento.9852
Blaeys.3102
Korossive.7085

Strictly Anti: 1
Halvorn.9831

Ok with under conditions :5 (3 for no new gear tier, 2 for not instanced)
Thia.4891
LanfearShadowflame.3189
Kartel.2561
RSLongK.8961
Sizer.5632

Did not express an opinion either way: 9
Rangerdeity.5847
Scryeless.1924
Rashy.4165
Boneheart.3561
Yargesh.4965
Bloodstealer.5978
Vayne.8563
Chameleon Dude.1564
poisonality.8972

(If you feel you are in the wrong category PM me and I’ll move you, bare in mind that this is only the first page I might try the other pages but it gets messy making sure I don’t double add someone etc.)

It is also worth noting that the pro side did not once ask for gear tiers/treadmill in the traditional sense (a few mentioned using Agony). Despite this being the number one fear/reservation on the other side (A quick read of the new few pages sees this fear come up frequently)

Also
Guys on the pro side:
I get that we really want this to go through and that it feels like people want to prevent you getting any rewards/ lump you in with elitists (being an elite and been elitist are different things) or whatever grievance you perceive.
But we need to be calm and articulate, attempting to shout down the other person won’t work and will not be tolerated in the CDI. Try to calmly explain your point in a clear and concise manner even if it is subjective (I.E "I feel that since I can do more than 99% of the player-base that some form of rewards for this would be acceptable).
If you take exception to someone else s statement explain your reasons why but don’t get angry / start personally attacking them/ make generalizations.

Guys on both sides:
Please read all the information in the posts before trying to reply to them, there are plenty of posts here on both sides that clearly show a lack of actually reading what was said.

Guys on the anti side
I understand that the word raid has certain preconceptions attached with it but try not the knee-jerk based on what you assume a raid entails.
Full disclosure: You’re not entirely wrong that people want it to be somewhat exclusionary but they do have their reasons for this and if both sides come to some compromises on this it will work out much better for everyone.

(Theoretical example , story mode for raids , that way no one is excluded from the content but the difficulty and rewards are restricted to the “explorable” version so that players looking for a challenge can do so and get rewarded for it.)

NoTrigger.8396:

open world events arent raids and will never be.
they dont need a “raid cdi” or raid content designer for open world stuff because they can create that kind of content already.
and tbh i dont understand why some people call everything in gw2 raid?!

wvw = raid
cursed shore 11111 = raid
dynamic events = raid
world bosses = raid
living story = raid

in gw2 everything is a raid because some people dont know what a raid looks like.

a raid isnt “jump in, zerg it down, get the reward”
a raid needs planning, an organized and coordinated group of players, skilled players, tactics and lots of other stuff that would be just too complex for open world events.
it should take top guilds weeks to kill a boss for the first time. not a few hours or 3 days.

Think outside the box. I’m pretty sure it’s possible. But none of that exists anywhere in any game as of yet. (At least not the way I’m thinking of them, anyway)

Of course, I wouldn’t particularly call what I have in mind raids either.

I’ll leave it at the CDI next time.

Kartel.2561:

But I do still stand by my position that grinding static instances is an inferior form of content that necessarily gets stale, and I wouldn’t want that to impede the development of more dynamic and meaningful things.

There’s one assumption in your text that I can’t accept: You imply that the only way to repeatedly play dungeons (and future raids derived from a dungeon-like instanced content) is to grind the instances. You exclude the people who actually play the dungeons again and again because they enjoy that type of gameplay, instanced group challenges that need coordination between the group members (regardless if it’s 5 players, or 10 or possibly 15 or more in the future) to get to the end.

Personally, I play a ton of dungeons with friends/guildies simply because I enjoy the kind of content much more than zerging world bosses or farming event trains. To me, the later is pure grind, while dungeons are actually something to enjoy myself with friends, even if we’ve done them often. There’s always new character combinations to try, new people to show around, or sometimes simply the experience of cruising through a dungeon with a group that works well together and makes everything seem like a breeze, even though you know that with less experience (either of the content or the people you are playing with) the same run could still be a nightmare.

I know that there are a lot of people around who don’t share my enjoyment of dungeon/instance play, but there’s no reason for me to go around calling the content they enjoy (like press-1-1-1-1 world boss zergs) inferior, just because it quickly feels like a painfully boring grind to me. Your post would have a lot more impact (at least on me) if you would refrain from showing such a clear bias against playstyles other people enjoy.

Kartel.2561:

I argue that GW2 does have a “lack of meaningful content”, But going the generic tired instanced themepark route like so many clones already do – is not the best way to fix that. Empower players with more ways to create and BE content, and you’ll get a lot more bang for your buck.

Sounds good to me, but do you have any specific suggestions what this kind of new content would look like? What kind of activity can you think of that is directly influenced by players the way you describe it and fits into this game, without breaking it apart at the seams?

Other games have for example tried player-created missions/instances, but those can be a balancing nightmare when one player’s desire for tools to customize their experience clashes with another player’s desire to maximize loot at all costs. Some players like to immerse themselves in the game world, and seek out hidden stories and out-of-the-way locations. Others prefer the teamwork-puzzle variety of working together to achieving a goal (in different kinds of ways). What kinds of updates/activities/events/whatever do you suggest to give them all something they consider “meaningful content”?

Your post sounds all well and nice on first glance, but I fail to find any really substantial suggestions to work with when comming up with what “meaningful content” really is. Instead I see a thinly-veiled bias against certain types of content that won’t help this game evolve at all.

Conski Deshan.2057:

I was going to do a summery of everyone’s stance from this thread but it gets surprisingly messy and hard to tell.
From the first page there were:
Page 1
Pro : 11
SirBlunticus.4258
Morsus.5106
Gele.2048
SundayTrash.9562
Killface.1896
Rasimir.6239
kitten .9460
Xar.1387
Valento.9852
Blaeys.3102
Korossive.7085

Strictly Anti: 1
Halvorn.9831

Ok with under conditions :5 (3 for no new gear tier, 2 for not instanced)
Thia.4891
LanfearShadowflame.3189
Kartel.2561
RSLongK.8961
Sizer.5632

Did not express an opinion either way: 9
Rangerdeity.5847
Scryeless.1924
Rashy.4165
Boneheart.3561
Yargesh.4965
Bloodstealer.5978
Vayne.8563
Chameleon Dude.1564
poisonality.8972

Be careful with this kind of lists :

• opinions can change over time
• I fail to see how we can divide people between pro and anti raid since the definition of “raid” in GW2 is fuzzy (except for NoTrigger who has a precise idea of what it means, but he is an exception).

Nice initiative nonetheless.

World bosses are ill-balanced in my opinion. Just take a group big enough that overcomes the scaling mechanism and all the world bosses are super easy.

The whole mega server / Schedule combination just made it worse.

I played on the lower populated servers just because of the zerging that happened on the higher populated servers was just too boring for me. Not being able to do shatterer, or even flame elemental was exciting, or at least I remember failing several world bosses because time ran out or we simply wiped alot of times.

While other people are completely fine with 1-1-1-1 ing world bosses and killing those in 5 minutes tops, I actually preferred the low population we had and the “server-wide” system in order to drag people from other guilds on our server if we needed that tiny bit of edge.

That was, to me, the true nature these world bosses should have felt (at all numbers due to scaling)

If Open world raids should be done, then the scaling system needs to be up to par on every amount of players.

I remember the scaling system being advertised that bosses get more skills more health and more mechanics the more players would come, but I rarely seen the impact of it. If not it scales up at 5 people 10 people 15 people and 20 people and then stops scaling all together. (or only gets health increments or extra mobs that don’t do much)

If (a big if) Arenanet can up their game with the dynamic (meta) events, scaling system, and making interesting encounters that forces people to spread out enough so that the whole thing doesn’t feel like a “lets all smash this mob with a big blob”, then they can actually pull it off just fine.

I remember the marionette event being fairly exciting and not always going as planned.
Alot of toxicity happened sometimes when it failed, but I still felt that that was a STEP in the right direction. I also remember alot of talk saying they wanted to keep the marionette event over the triple wurm event. (It also brought to light some of the problems such open world events have, like random people joining in that dont know what to do)

maha.7902:

In a nutshell, you don’t want to have to deal with people imposing standards on you so you don’t enjoy group content in this game.

That’s fine.

But that’s not a reason why we shouldn’t have raids. If you chose to play a multiplayer game and not want to do multiplayer (“I didn’t mind the instanced content of GW1 because I usually just did it with Heroes. …”) then that’s your fault and ANet shouldn’t have to cater around your preferences by denying all of the people who play a multiplayer game to have actual challenging multiplayer content.

In a lot of cases, it has nothing to do with standards. It has to do with the people involved.

Some of us just don’t want to deal with kittens. People who (while laying dead on the floor) seem to be the belief that they know best and everyone else just sucks.

No thanks, my heroes aren’t pricks M.ore than 90% of the time I could complete content in the first try with them rather than wasting time failing repeatedly with actual people. Been there, done that.

VodCom.6924:

• I fail to see how we can divide people between pro and anti raid since the definition of “raid” in GW2 is fuzzy (except for NoTrigger who has a precise idea of what it means, but he is an exception).

i dont know how raids in gw2 will look like. but what i know is we need some challenging group content that takes a bit longer to beat. and the only way to do something like this is instanced.
i will post my boss encounter and reward ideas in the cdi thread.

Well I’m late to this party, but standard boilerplate should do:

-It should scale, even if scaling stinks.

-Raids do not need a gear treadmill. Nobody wants that. It’s a pain, and it eventually makes the raid dead content.

-Raids should be challenging, but not impossible. Note that what appears impossible at first may not be. Raid encounters are oftentimes a “puzzle” as well (except when you get a tank and spank, those are rarely involved other than requiring fast damage.) While I’ll probably elaborate come cdi time, I do think some encounters should have different tasks suited for people of different skill levels. A simple example would involve keeping some mob away from a boss, like a subject 6 on a larger scale. Or pulling the chain at the endboss dredge fractal. The examples may not be great, but the point is that we don’t all need to making intense proximity love with bosses all the time (like in dungeons). Design it to avoid that.

-Unique rewards are an okay thing. Not unique as in statistically superior, but rather in appearance, or a title, or something. If it’s an item, allow it to be sold. Cash tends to be king here.

And I’m so sorry VeeWee, but I truly wish to try this.
Wahoo, bye frands! Now that was exhilarating.

There is alot of potential in raids and a lot of different directions they could go. Just because they do one doesnt mean they would have to exclude another.

That said, I don’t think traditional raids, like those seen in WoW or Wildstar, would fit well in GW2. Raids in those games are designed to be the pinnacle of end game play – to the point where people really dont pay attention to the rest. GW2 has always had a more open feel at end game. I think raiding has to keep in line with that premise.

That is why I think raids, at least at first, need to feel familiar to players. The model I think would accomplish this most effectively would be the resurrection of the more popular Living Story open world events in the form of controlled-entry maps (leader decides if the map is exclusive to the group/guild or if it is open to public). The four I would like to see are the Ancient Karka event (without the lag obviously – we never really got to experience that), The Tower of Nightmares, The Marionette and the Breachmaker fight (and possibly, the retaking of LA, but I think that would cause technical conflicts with their map phasing system).

The next step would be to start adding complex big open world events back into the current living story – using a new raid system to keep them alive indefinitely into the future – giving us the best of both worlds (the return of intense world events without sacrificing permanence). Once the event is done in the actual living story, it disappears from the open game world and is only accessed through the guild raid interface.

To address the difficulty issue, once the raids move out of the open world, they could add difficult achievements and mechanics similar to “mote master” (where we activate a “hard mode” by interacting with a trigger at the beginning of the instance). Examples could include things like more complex bosses in the Marionette fight, the addition of traps requiring teamwork in the Tower of Nightmares, earthquakes breaking the ground apart during the Ancient Karka run, etc.

The point is, I think there is a good middle ground here that can give us deep interesting raids (with more complexity and teamwork requirements) without creating the air of exclusion and game dominating content we see in games like WoW or Wildstar.

Again, I have deeper thoughts on this, but will save those for the actual CDI.

Blaeys.3102:

There is alot of potential in raids and a lot of different directions they could go. Just because they do one doesnt mean they would have to exclude another.

That said, I don’t think traditional raids, like those seen in WoW or Wildstar, would fit well in GW2. Raids in those games are designed to be the pinnacle of end game play – to the point where people really dont pay attention to the rest. GW2 has always had a more open feel at end game. I think raiding has to keep in line with that premise.

That is why I think raids, at least at first, need to feel familiar to players. The model I think would accomplish this most effectively would be the resurrection of the more popular Living Story open world events in the form of controlled-entry maps (leader decides if the map is exclusive to the group/guild or if it is open to public). The four I would like to see are the Ancient Karka event (without the lag obviously – we never really got to experience that), The Tower of Nightmares, The Marionette and the Breachmaker fight (and possibly, the retaking of LA, but I think that would cause technical conflicts with their map phasing system).

The next step would be to start adding complex big open world events back into the current living story – using a new raid system to keep them alive indefinitely into the future – giving us the best of both worlds (the return of intense world events without sacrificing permanence). Once the event is done in the actual living story, it disappears from the open game world and is only accessed through the guild raid interface.

To address the difficulty issue, once the raids move out of the open world, they could add difficult achievements and mechanics similar to “mote master” (where we activate a “hard mode” by interacting with a trigger at the beginning of the instance). Examples could include things like more complex bosses in the Marionette fight, the addition of traps requiring teamwork in the Tower of Nightmares, earthquakes breaking the ground apart during the Ancient Karka run, etc.

The point is, I think there is a good middle ground here that can give us deep interesting raids (with more complexity and teamwork requirements) without creating the air of exclusion and game dominating content we see in games like WoW or Wildstar.

Again, I have deeper thoughts on this, but will save those for the actual CDI.

I`ve been thinking of preposing something similiar when the CDI goes up. It feels like with a bit of tinkering all the old open world events could be converted into raids easily.

I also feeling scaling would function better in an instanced enviroment then a open world eviroment. Currently if a newbie joins you in a fight, it doesn’t matter what skill level they are, the fight will be a bit easier (otherwise you’d hate every new PVT newbie showing up to any event because they’d scale it up). The problem with this is that every event gets stupidly easy when enough people show up.

In an instanced enviroment you don’t have to worry about some random newbie wandering into the fight and making it harder by upscaling it so in turn, you can scale the fight 1:1 with the difficultly and allow any sized group to take on any raid. You could also lock certain scaling (like say in Triple trouble the amount of kegs you need to trigger a burn phae) based on set numbers and the community could adapt and figure out what are the “best” group sizes to try out a raid.

guardian.6489:

I also feeling scaling would function better in an instanced enviroment then a open world eviroment. Currently if a newbie joins you in a fight, it doesn’t matter what skill level they are, the fight will be a bit easier (otherwise you’d hate every new PVT newbie showing up to any event because they’d scale it up). The problem with this is that every event gets stupidly easy when enough people show up.

I don’t think instancing large encounters will solve the problem of scaling. No matter how good your scaling system is, encounters and their mechanics are designed with a target audience in mind.

The major pitfall of traditionnal world bosses was their intended target audience : they were created to be optimal for a 5 player group. The Scaling is just here to prenvent the golem Mk II to be stomped in 3 seconds, but does not make it a zerg crusher.

An optimal scaling would not only change the HP and armour of the WB, it would completely overhaul the mechanics of the WB when a zerg shows up (and this is something Anet is not able to do right now).

Teq and TT were designed with large zergs in mind and the scaling works better for them simply because of this.

Truth be told, I’d rather have Anet :

• expand the pool of megabosses we have, since it is the content that approaches the most traditionnal “raids”.
• give guilds the option to generate private instanced versions of the megabosses for special guild rewards
• add new fractals and expand the maximum level of fractals with new instabilities.
• have a special guild mission that consists in clearing a pre defined set of fractals with unique instabilities and gambits as fast as possible.

That CDI had better start soon or this thread is going to turn into it.
/grin

I’m loving the discussion so far, I simply want to wait for the coordinated CDI thread to add any small ideas I may have. That’ll be the thread that consolidates the debate and brainstorming.

VodCom.6924:

guardian.6489:

I also feeling scaling would function better in an instanced enviroment then a open world eviroment. Currently if a newbie joins you in a fight, it doesn’t matter what skill level they are, the fight will be a bit easier (otherwise you’d hate every new PVT newbie showing up to any event because they’d scale it up). The problem with this is that every event gets stupidly easy when enough people show up.

I don’t think instancing large encounters will solve the problem of scaling. No matter how good your scaling system is, encounters and their mechanics are designed with a target audience in mind.

The major pitfall of traditionnal world bosses was their intended target audience : they were created to be optimal for a 5 player group. The Scaling is just here to prenvent the golem Mk II to be stomped in 3 seconds, but does not make it a zerg crusher.

An optimal scaling would not only change the HP and armour of the WB, it would completely overhaul the mechanics of the WB when a zerg shows up (and this is something Anet is not able to do right now).

Teq and TT were designed with large zergs in mind and the scaling works better for them simply because of this.

Truth be told, I’d rather have Anet :

• expand the pool of megabosses we have, since it is the content that approaches the most traditionnal “raids”.
• give guilds the option to generate private instanced versions of the megabosses for special guild rewards
• add new fractals and expand the maximum level of fractals with new instabilities.
• have a special guild mission that consists in clearing a pre defined set of fractals with unique instabilities and gambits as fast as possible.

There’s a video floating around about a 11 man Cobalt Decap in TT. While it was definitely harder to pull off then a full 50 man squad, it does demonstrate that the encounter scales better then you think.

I honestly think the only thing you need to make a 50 man version of TT is to set the scaling so the amount of spears/colors/kegs you need decreases with the amount of people in the instance. Everything else in that fight already scales well from my experience.

KarlaGrey.5903:

I’m afraid raids might be too much to handle for the type of audience currently targetted by Anet.

Depends on the raid. I used to suit up for Plane of Time regularly back in the day, after all. When it was possible to take 30-40 people to something and not guarantee success. And when it was much more possible even with success 75% of the players there were walking away empty-handed. Why? It was mostly because there wasn’t much else to be doing.

And then there was having two buddies and I sit down and prepare for a couple weeks before doing White Fatalis G3 on Monster Hunter . . .

Anyway. I think I made myself clear. Three objections to raids:

- Seeing it foster the attitudes of “this is not for you” with regards to taking part in raids as “the non hardcore”. (Currently my biggest concern, since that keeps coming up even in lighter shades.)

- Do not, do not, do not add higher tier gear to the game which is locked behind raids. There’s barely a point to Ascended Gear doing that, why do it again? While on this, dual-tier the rewards. Make it possible for the rewards to be sold off, but leave some of them as Account Bound so people would have to go through the raid if they want it. Maybe it will inspire them to get their act together and organize to do it.

- Make it less about whether your gear is good enough, or you have a certain class with you. Make it about skill and coordination of effort instead. It’s more likely people will want to try to get organized than they will want to “gear up”.