(edited by Pifil.5193)
Wait, there is no raid story mode?
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Because in GW2 raids are not the end goal that every one will need to pursue.
Edit:And generally more resources to actually implement it due to a subscription model.
Neither are they the only end goal in other MMOs. For example, back in the day Blizzard revealed that fewer than 5% of WoW players raided. Then they introduced raids that needed fewer players and the numbers rose. Then they added an accessible, pug-friendly Looking For Raid difficulty and the numbers rose even more.
See they figured out ways of getting more people into raiding, which meant that more people got to see and enjoy the content they’re creating. Which is a good thing for both the players and the company.
An easy mode raid would serve a similar purpose in GW2. It would give people a more accessible intro to raiding and far from being the waste of resources that some people see it as it would instead be a way of ensuring that the work they’ve done in raids would be seen and enjoyed by more people. It would make the raids themselves a better use of resources than they are now.
If you assume that raids in GW2 are done by 5% (I think it’s higher, but whatever), then assigning 5% of the devs on the live team to them seems appropriate. To make an additional mode would require more dev time. I prefer that the devs not on raids work on the stuff they’re working on rather than a story mode raid that would not have sustainability.
As I said above, LFR worked in WoW because of the Blizz approach. They would add a bunch of dungeons, raids, gathering, dailies and quests in with XPac’s while concentrating on dungeons and raids (and festivals) between XPac’s. GW2 offers less with XPacs but more between for non raiders. I don’t want to see the “more between” impacted negatively.
I didn’t say anything about the numbers in GW2 but regardless that’s a bit of a false dilemma.
The raid team should be the ones to add that easy mode, and that easy mode should simply be lower boss health and damage and longer or more forgiving timers. If they put this simpler/easier mode in then it would attract more people to raiding which would increase the percentage of players who raid and therefore the work your hypothetical 5% of devs does would be enjoyed by more players giving a better return on the resources spent on raids.
Either way, scheduling and resourcing is a matter for ArenaNet.
And ANet has said that tiered raids are not going to be a thing.
Especially if you’re interested in the story – you’d be better off finishing the Personal Story and then doing the Living World, Heart of Thorns and Path of Fire story missions, and of course the open world content that goes with them.
A shame the story is awful though.
Playing GW2 for the story is like expecting plot in a porno. You’ll be left disappointed.
Because in GW2 raids are not the end goal that every one will need to pursue.
Edit:And generally more resources to actually implement it due to a subscription model.
Neither are they the only end goal in other MMOs. For example, back in the day Blizzard revealed that fewer than 5% of WoW players raided. Then they introduced raids that needed fewer players and the numbers rose. Then they added an accessible, pug-friendly Looking For Raid difficulty and the numbers rose even more.
See they figured out ways of getting more people into raiding, which meant that more people got to see and enjoy the content they’re creating. Which is a good thing for both the players and the company.
An easy mode raid would serve a similar purpose in GW2. It would give people a more accessible intro to raiding and far from being the waste of resources that some people see it as it would instead be a way of ensuring that the work they’ve done in raids would be seen and enjoyed by more people. It would make the raids themselves a better use of resources than they are now.
If you assume that raids in GW2 are done by 5% (I think it’s higher, but whatever), then assigning 5% of the devs on the live team to them seems appropriate. To make an additional mode would require more dev time. I prefer that the devs not on raids work on the stuff they’re working on rather than a story mode raid that would not have sustainability.
As I said above, LFR worked in WoW because of the Blizz approach. They would add a bunch of dungeons, raids, gathering, dailies and quests in with XPac’s while concentrating on dungeons and raids (and festivals) between XPac’s. GW2 offers less with XPacs but more between for non raiders. I don’t want to see the “more between” impacted negatively.
I didn’t say anything about the numbers in GW2 but regardless that’s a bit of a false dilemma.
The raid team should be the ones to add that easy mode, and that easy mode should simply be lower boss health and damage and longer or more forgiving timers. If they put this simpler/easier mode in then it would attract more people to raiding which would increase the percentage of players who raid and therefore the work your hypothetical 5% of devs does would be enjoyed by more players giving a better return on the resources spent on raids.
Either way, scheduling and resourcing is a matter for ArenaNet.
And ANet has said that tiered raids are not going to be a thing.
Fair enough, but at one time they said that raids weren’t going to be a thing. Mounts too. They sometimes change their minds.
They said, going back to pre-launch, that there would be raids. They actually intended dungeon explorable to be raids. Of course tbe difficulty, etc didnt measure up so they started over.
I recall them saying that mounts were not on the table at the time they were mentioned, not that they would never add them.
Then again, I dont know that they said never to tiered raids either.
ANet tends to say things like, “not at tbis time,” or, “not currently on the schedule,” ratber than, “never going to happen.”
I consider this to be one of the biggest issues with the game. I’ve spoken out about it before, but clearly the powers that be don’t care very much that people don’t have access to the story all the way through. It’s bad enough you can’t play Season 1, but the connecting stories that lead from HoT to Season 3 should have been playable by everyone.
I’m not saying everyone needs to have rewards for doing it. I’m saying we need to be able to experience that in game as our characters.
This genre is called mmoRPG. Seems like some people at Anet don’t really focus very much on the RPG part.
I know I like my characters to be motivated to do stuff. So much so that I’ve finished the personal story on 17 characters.
A raid story mode shouldn’t even have been a question. It should have been a given…in my opinion.
I don’t think many MMORPGs put that much effort in the RPG part. Let’s be honest, the writing in GW2 doesn’t live up to good RPG standards. Take joining the Shining Blade as an example. It was rushed and pretty illogical, even for my human noble character. Imagine what’s like for an asura or a charr. So… while I generally agree and would like more actual role-playing, I don’t think it’s happening in this particular game and I don’t see hypothetical “story mode raids” contributing at all to it.
That’s why I don’t play many MMOs. I like the story in this one though.
“We’re investigating different methods to make the story more accessible. I can’t share any details at this time, but wanted to let you know we’re exploring a few potential options internally. As with everything in development, this isn’t a guarantee. I want to set expectations accordingly.”
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/A-Plea-for-a-Raid-Story-Mode/first#post6416831
A story mode for Raids is similar to adding a build save/load to the game. They know the players want them, the devs say they are discussing them internally. But I don’t think any amount of new threads on those subjects would speed up the process. They’ll come when they are done.
Is it similar? Hopefully they won’t come before they’re done. But I disagree about new threads. I think that as long as the devs know that their customers are still talking about it, the higher priority it will get.
it’s this luck based mystic toilet that we’re all so sick of flushing our money down. -Salamol
I don’t think many MMORPGs put that much effort in the RPG part. Let’s be honest, the writing in GW2 doesn’t live up to good RPG standards. Take joining the Shining Blade as an example. It was rushed and pretty illogical, even for my human noble character. Imagine what’s like for an asura or a charr. So… while I generally agree and would like more actual role-playing, I don’t think it’s happening in this particular game and I don’t see hypothetical “story mode raids” contributing at all to it.
Well, a story mode certainly would contribute to role playing in GW2 raids, I’m not certain why you don’t see that.
it’s this luck based mystic toilet that we’re all so sick of flushing our money down. -Salamol
MMO’s survive by using reward systems to foster content repetition. ANet has been adamant about keeping the raid rewards exclusive. So, what rewards would be put into story mode to foster the type of repetition we see in normal raids? Without such rewards, a story mode would be a waste of resources by a company that has in the past struggled to put out content on a regular enough basis to retain all of its player base.
WoW LFR works because of welfare epics. Also, that game is heavily dependent on raids as the be-all and end-all of their endgame. Raids in GW2 are a tiny part of the endgame pursuits available.
Some time ago an Anet raid dev commented in the dungeon subforum that they were looking at ways to make the lore bits (and I do mean bits) in raids available to non-raiders. For those of you who want access to that lore, why not wait and see what they come up with?
Cause we also need to complete raid masteries…
it’s this luck based mystic toilet that we’re all so sick of flushing our money down. -Salamol
MMO’s survive by using reward systems to foster content repetition. ANet has been adamant about keeping the raid rewards exclusive. So, what rewards would be put into story mode to foster the type of repetition we see in normal raids? Without such rewards, a story mode would be a waste of resources by a company that has in the past struggled to put out content on a regular enough basis to retain all of its player base.
WoW LFR works because of welfare epics. Also, that game is heavily dependent on raids as the be-all and end-all of their endgame. Raids in GW2 are a tiny part of the endgame pursuits available.
Some time ago an Anet raid dev commented in the dungeon subforum that they were looking at ways to make the lore bits (and I do mean bits) in raids available to non-raiders. For those of you who want access to that lore, why not wait and see what they come up with?
Cause we also need to complete raid masteries…
More normal rewards. Zone currencies. Tokens for anything. There are plenty of rewards that could be added. The point is most people dont’ repeat sotry mode dungeons but those are in the game. And the personal story, all 50 chapters of it, aren’t repeatable at all.
There’s precedent to create a story mode, particularly because most of the design work is already done. They don’t have to recreate the raids themselves.
“We’re investigating different methods to make the story more accessible. I can’t share any details at this time, but wanted to let you know we’re exploring a few potential options internally. As with everything in development, this isn’t a guarantee. I want to set expectations accordingly.”
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/A-Plea-for-a-Raid-Story-Mode/first#post6416831
A story mode for Raids is similar to adding a build save/load to the game. They know the players want them, the devs say they are discussing them internally. But I don’t think any amount of new threads on those subjects would speed up the process. They’ll come when they are done.
Is it similar? Hopefully they won’t come before they’re done. But I disagree about new threads. I think that as long as the devs know that their customers are still talking about it, the higher priority it will get.
Agreed.
Players should post their feedback and let ANet decide how to organize and respond to it.
Going silent, because you think its all been said before, just gives the impression that interest has dropped.
For those uncertain of what the ANet raid team actually said about tiered raids.
“This comes up a lot so I’m going to jump in quickly since it’s a new post.
Tier systems for Raids come up a lot as a result of what Fractals did. I worked on the original Fractals team and a tiered system with increased difficulty scaling was always part of the original plan for that team. It was never a plan for Raids. They are, and should remain, the most difficult content in the game.
Accessibility in terms of difficulty is something we talk a lot about internally. We’ve made efforts to help players get in by delivering entry level encounters that ease you into the content (STK) and you’ll see more of that in the next release. You’ll still see encounters that live up to previous raid expectations for mid tier and final bosses. And if you think Matthias is a chump then we have something for you as well.
Accessibility in terms of “Hey, my 5 man Fractal group wants to try raids, but we can’t find 5 other players!” is also something we talk about. It’s just a much more difficult problem to solve."
https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/5dldnt/crystal_reid_about_raid_accesibility_and_tiers/
So, there’s no definitive, “Will remain as is,” but there is a “Should remain as is.” Tiered raids beyond the variable difficulty inherent in easier vs. harder encounters would require a base philosophy shift. Also. at the moment ANet has created a solution for accessibility due to difficulty, it’s just that some posters don’t like it.
@ Djinn
The best solution to the level-ding reward gap can be achieved (and ought to be) by creating a repeatable level ding XP track that can be selected instead of a Mastery track. That solution would mean that anyone who wanted to could choose that option regardless of their interest in raids, or whether they care to max any given Mastery line they find more tedious than useful.
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