Guild Wars 2

Manasa Devi.7958:

How can you say it has been supported “just fine” when HoT launched with a pathetically, insultingly small amount of accessible content and nothing has been added since.

In my book, that’s the exact opposite of supporting something “just fine”.

Countless updates and fixes to those core problems, and casual content like festivals which are literally just free gold for logging in. The aforementioned Shatter Rework which is literally just another loot pinata for people to play with.

It’s like you guys are selectively ignoring the updates that have been made to the game outside of the two raid updates.

I mean, you don’t have to like the updates but to say it’s lacking support is a pretty brazen lie. It’s there, it hasn’t been diminished in any capacity. But don’t take my word for it there’s an entire subforum with updates for you to read through.

Countless updates? Which ones?

Festivals? Which ones?

MadRabbit.3179:

And guns don’t kill people. People do. But the gun helps.

Making some 5 word statement for a complex issue that can fit on the back of a bumper sticker in an attempt to drown out discussion IS distorting the issue.

Yes, people are toxic, but it’s usually for some reason or another and repeatedly failing an event, because random strangers won’t do a relatively simple act to prevent failure is a pretty good reason to get angry.

Content like WBT that is too simplistic too fail or other content where a small group of people can take on the more important roles and carry the rest has a much better atmosphere than what I find in most HoT meta maps.

Design of the game to include things like personal instances of resource nodes and a monster death not just rewarding the first player who tagged it goes a long way in creating a friendly game atmosphere, because it removes elements that lead to player conflict and thus, contributing to people being toxic.

I wasn’t around at the time to play Marionette, but Queen’s Gauntlet was content that pitted players against single monsters in a contest, not an open world event that fails repeatedly if the majority of people are too busy eating paste to fire CC at a break bar.

Referencing that content is also distorting the issue.

Oh so here’s your core problem. You actually want content that is too easy to fail ?
That’s what im getting from this, and frankly that is all of HoT. Those base maps without the inclusion of the instanced content, yeah those. It’s almost identical to core tyria only its called magus falls.

If you personally aren’t up for the challenge of getting your face kicked in until you learn not to cool, but calling for that to be removed because you don’t like it is nothing more than an act of selfishness.

Manasa Devi.7958:

Countless updates? Which ones?

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/updates/Game-Update-Notes-February-9-2016/first#post5989781

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/updates/Game-Update-Notes-February-23-2016/first#post6004136

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/updates/Game-Update-Notes-January-26-2016/first#post5957898

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/updates/Game-Update-Notes-January-12-2016/first#post5920436

Look at all this glorious world polishing and QoL for PvE, Fractals and more.

Do i need to continue ?

Healix.5819:

The problem is the focus they’re currently putting on it. It doesn’t matter how little resources they’re spending on raiding, it’s the fact that raiding is all we’re hearing about. It’s making GW2 look like every other generic MMO devoted to raiding, and for everyone that wanted something different, what GW2 used to be, it’s currently looking bad. Even HoT itself was advertised with an emphasis on raids and guilds. Now knowing that the regular releases aren’t coming for nearly a year after HoT’s release, that’s going to be one long stretch of nothing. They could at least bring back the reoccurring monthly events to overshadow it, which will probably happen in April.

So the problem from your point of view is not that there is raid, or that they are little ressouces in raid, but that Anet talk about their raid? That’s a problem?

First of all, how can you demonstrate that? Let’s take the official news on the website I guess. I got back up to the realease of spirit vale in the new. In the last 80 news on this website, 9 were about raid. 4 This week about Salvation and 4 other when Spirit Vale came online, with 1 random news about raid in the middle. During those same 80 last news, 13 were about Gem store and 22 were about PvP. 36 other news were about everything from Guild Chat, to community showcase, to balance, to shatterer, to anything else.

So about 11% of the news were about raids and this is when I only look at news between Spirit Vale and Salvation.

Anet talk about raid about 10% of the time, put about 5% of their ressouces on them. BUT OMG, raid are such a big problem that kitten everything in the game.

As for HOT. Raid was one part of what they advertised. On their website, they pointed to 8 main points. Mastery, Magguma, Elite Spec, Revenant, Guild Hall, PvP, WvW (really Anet lol), and Raid, Dungeon and Fractals.

Raid and Guild doesn’t seem to be the big majority of emphasis for HoT. It’s just some element as part of the expansion.

Reruns of festivals that were boring the first time they reran them? Polish? Fractals? Where are the new ones?

Well, to that I say:

How can you say it has been supported “just fine” when HoT launched with a pathetically, insultingly small amount of accessible content and nothing has been added since.

In my book, that’s the exact opposite of supporting something “just fine”.

Manasa Devi.7958:

Reruns of festivals that were boring the first time they reran them? Polish? Fractals? Where are the new ones?

Well, to that I say:

How can you say it has been supported “just fine” when HoT launched with a pathetically, insultingly small amount of accessible content and nothing has been added since.

In my book, that’s the exact opposite of supporting something “just fine”.

But you wanted content that was casual…Aren’t those festivals exactly what you were asking for ?

How about that shatter rework ?
How about those fractal bug fixes and reward updates ?
How about that bonus to map completion now including zones like Southsun, which literally is just a walk on the beach ?
How about that nice casual addition of Gliding in Tyria ?
How about them nice casual additions to map rewards for just playing your event trains out ?

No……okay. I see we like only specific updates to PvE, everything else can be omitted.

I’m all for content being added … though last night, I had my rear handed to me on a paper plate. :p

In time, content is tweaked so I’m not concerned if I am interested in content added now because at some point, that content will be tweaked.

Just saying i won’t be surprised if we see a decreased of the gw2 player base for the next months or a change in the spirit’s community.

maddoctor.2738:

DGraves.3720:

ODB.6891:

DGraves.3720:

Randulf.7614:

And yet those fraction still deserve content.

For all the times I’ve heard this I’ve never heard an actual justification.

You just quoted your justification? Do you deserve content since you are also a paying customer? Guess what…they are also paying customers…just like you.

That’s not justification though. No one bought this game for raids (hopefully) since they didn’t come out for three years and did so with an additional $50 expense. That’s a lot to pay just for raids. Basically it’s unlikely reasoning.

When the game was released the explorable mode of dungeons was supposed to be the end-game hard content for the hardcore players. Also, the Orr metas were supposed to be the Open World version of a Raid.

Don’t talk like people who wanted challenge shouldn’t be here in this game. Players who wanted a real challenge bought GW2 FOR THAT CHALLENGE it was supposed to have.

For people who love structured and difficult content, we developed the explorable mode for our eight dungeons. A dungeon’s explorable mode has at least three different paths that players can choose to conquer—and each path is a five-character delve into tough content that we designed to push the limits of teamwork and communication.

Source: https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/the-endgame-reimagined/

There are more blog posts like this from the pre-release era. Their dungeons simply didn’t live up to their hype, they were super hard when the players didn’t know how the combat system worked, but keep in mind that the devs didn’t know either. They didn’t know how the players will use the dynamic combat system because it was new to them as well. Once players figured it out, dungeons became easy, so rather quickly we got Fractals to give us more challenge, but that soon turned easy.

With HoT they made up their mind to create 10-man content instead of 5-man content. Say all you want, but content for 10 people has a much greater potential for challenge and teamwork than content for 5. Dungeons and instanced content has been mostly neglected since Fractured for a very long time, don’t you think those who wanted that challenge at release had the right to get something for the money they spent to buy the game, money they spent because they were promised challenging content, which they didn’t get.

Marketing ploys work well, I see. The pattern not seen is exploitation. Top guilds (I guess?) are invited to perform in these tests, they run the content, they release the content to the general public who sucks but thinks they don’t suck, they realize they suck, get better, beat the content, feel like kings, but don’t realize that the content was playtested by people significantly better.

There is no hardcore. The hardcore “farm” maybe?

That’s why Orr got nerfed. Not everyone could get through it. Even today people have issues with the Champion Risen Wraith! And since the introduction of the breakbar (I.E. “FREAKING EASY MODE”) it just gets easier and easier. All hardcore content is turning into is dps races and lowering the number of allowable mistakes. Coordination is still as simple as it was and with 10 people is even easier; you can check the forums for what is basically a standardized raid group and roles and so on.

Raids are linear content. Dungeons were linear content. Open world has to be linear content.

It just is what it is. But no one deserves linear content. That’s just punishment.

I have no intention of doing raids but I don’t see any point in not having them. There should be available content for most player style preferences.

TexZero.7910:

Manasa Devi.7958:

Reruns of festivals that were boring the first time they reran them? Polish? Fractals? Where are the new ones?

Well, to that I say:

How can you say it has been supported “just fine” when HoT launched with a pathetically, insultingly small amount of accessible content and nothing has been added since.

In my book, that’s the exact opposite of supporting something “just fine”.

But you wanted content that was casual…Aren’t those festivals exactly what you were asking for ?

I did? They are? I don’t think I did and they most definitely aren’t.

TexZero.7910:

How about that shatter rework ?

Not significant, not new.

How about those fractal bug fixes and reward updates ?

Not new content.

How about that bonus to map completion now including zones like Southsun, which literally is just a walk on the beach ?

Not new content.

How about that nice casual addition of Gliding in Tyria ?

Not new content.

How about them nice casual additions to map rewards for just playing your event trains out ?

Not new content.

TexZero.7910:

No……okay. I see we like only specific updates to PvE, everything else can be omitted.

Maybe you should read my complaint. (“HoT launched with a pathetically, insultingly small amount of accessible content and nothing has been added since.”)

Manasa Devi.7958:

TexZero.7910:

Manasa Devi.7958:

Reruns of festivals that were boring the first time they reran them? Polish? Fractals? Where are the new ones?

Well, to that I say:

How can you say it has been supported “just fine” when HoT launched with a pathetically, insultingly small amount of accessible content and nothing has been added since.

In my book, that’s the exact opposite of supporting something “just fine”.

But you wanted content that was casual…Aren’t those festivals exactly what you were asking for ?

I did? They are? I don’t think I did and they most definitely aren’t.

TexZero.7910:

How about that shatter rework ?

Not significant, not new.

How about those fractal bug fixes and reward updates ?

Not new content.

How about that bonus to map completion now including zones like Southsun, which literally is just a walk on the beach ?

Not new content.

How about that nice casual addition of Gliding in Tyria ?

Not new content.

How about them nice casual additions to map rewards for just playing your event trains out ?

Not new content.

TexZero.7910:

No……okay. I see we like only specific updates to PvE, everything else can be omitted.

Maybe you should read my complaint. (“HoT launched with a pathetically, insultingly small amount of accessible content and nothing has been added since.”)

Maybe you should read what i wrote, PvE has been supported just fine.
Also, your complaint about content is pretty laughable considering just how much content HoT shipped with. It’s literally on par with all of season 2.

I guess where we disagree is that HoT is worth a kitten with regard to content, and that supporting a game mode can be done without adding any significant content to that game mode for an extended period of time. Polishing and fixing bugs doesn’t cut it in my book.

Looks like /r/guildwars2 has arrived.

Rikkagin.9472:

Buying the GW2 and complaining about the lack of raids would be stupid, you knew it was not that kind of game before you put the money down. I suspect that a lot of people bought the game based on the original vision and were happy in the game. but a small percentage were “stupid”; they bought GW2, realised I did not have WoW’s endgame so they spent the next 3 years complaining loudly on the forums until Anet gave in and changed direction, completely disregarding all the other happy players who did not feel the need to complain.

OK, lets’ look at that. What content was marketed as the stand-in for raids? Content that would require communication, coordination and skilled play? Explorable dungeons. So, what happened. Dungeons did require skilled play — at first. However, they were abandoned. FotM was also supposed to scratch that itch. How long has it been since there’s been a new fractal? So, you had a demographic that bought the game and were left hanging by the developer. Sure, they complained — just like people are doing in this thread.

Manasa Devi.7958:

You’re describing a situation there that never existed.

Click ‘g’ 150 times, those were S1 achievements. Events that disappeared? S1 too.

The 2 week release cycle that was upheld for S2 bar the half-time break, wasn’t like that. At all.

…

Of course there were few who like that. I’d go as far as to say that no one like it, because it never happened.

I would be a lot happier with the game if there were was something new every 2 weeks. Even if it wouldn’t be amazingly groundbreaking. Because it would only have to last for 2 weeks. It would break the monotony of absolutely nothing for many weeks.

LS S2 consisted of 8 episodes. It was preceded by a 4 month hiatus (only the festivals that don’t count). After 4 episodes, there was a 3 month hiatus. After another 3, there was a 6 week break for Wintersday. Over the course of 10 months (March, 2014 to January, 2015) there were 8 LS releases.

After it ended, there was a ten month break while HoT was worked on. HoT had a complete story, comparable to LS S2 in length. It had 4 zones, compared to LS2’s Dry Top and SW. It had about 2-3 feature packs worth of features. The differences were that it was mostly all released at once, and there was a price.

I get it. People prefer more content, more often. It’s been a long time since ANet released anything I found of more than passing interest. Maybe I’m just used to that state of affairs from every bloody MMO I’ve ever played. I just don’t see why that desire — which is fine in and of itself — justifies griping that some other demographic got a small bone after almost two years of nothing for them.

Dear Santa,

Things I have done & enjoyed in GW2 in my 1000+ hrs since beta:
- PvE (mostly solo)
- completing story (some Living)
- levelling all classes to 80 (except for Rev)
- finishing most JPs
- Been There Done That!
- most dynamic group content
- some WvW (for map complete mainly)
- some dungeons (with PUGs mostly)
- crafting (in small doses)
- PvE Dailies (every day!)

Things I will never do/achieve/love in GW2:
- a legendary weapon sob
- PvP
- Raids ptoooiii
- belong to a guild that would have me as a member
- dance in LA like no one is watching!
- buy HoT

Please send gems to Nostromo.4126. Can’t wait for next Wintersday event!
Lots of love from your big hairy man. Peace out.

Bebunw.8137:

and yet until may/june , for 9 + months it’s the only pve contents we get, we don’t get more much in others aspect of the game pvp (1 back for 1 year of leagues) and wvw.

That’s not because of raids! It’s because what other PvE content they are working on atm is not at a stage where they want to reveal it. It can be LS3 or a new expansion or who knows what else. But the lack on information/content is certainly not because of raids being released now.

Bebunw.8137:

Thaddeus.4891:

And? What is the percentage of people that are playing fractal? Dungeon? WvW? PvP? Shatterer? Adventure? What is the threshold for all those content? Should we cut everything in the game that not 50% of people play?

All the content you mentionned are accesible to every players, raids are unlikely not. That’s the real problem. And it becomes a bigger problem if they focus on it for the game direction. They changed the nature of the game, what it make his succes for 3 years. The games has always been fine without raids.

Raids are 100% accesible to any and all players who purchased HoT. I don’t know where you get the ideea that raids are exclusive, untouchable content. The fact that some players are unable to finish them does not make the content exclusive or untouchable, it means they just have to get better. What other restrictions other players may put on their groups, that is their right since it’s their group and is a whole other matter and not the fault of ANet. There is nothing stopping you from starting your own thing with other like-minded people.

And ANet are not “focusing on it”, they simply alloted a small team of devs for this content.

Bebunw.8137:

maddoctor.2738:

Right. Ever read the LFG about Dungeons or Fractals? “Zerker or kick”, “ping gear”, “10k AP minimum” and so on?

I think it’s a long time you havent look the lfg tool for dungeon and fractal and besides, gearing is easily done by any player, getting eternal or 20+ insight is not to begin raiding . Doing your own group for fractal and dungeon is far more easy and accesible because the difficulty of the content is not the same, you are forced to use teamspeak and lot of others restrictions to suceed for raids.

So you are essentially saying you want to be taken in groups of experienced players while you yourself bring nothing to the table? Wanting to get carried is a very real thing, amirite?

And are you seriously complaining about the need to actively communicate with your teammates in order to succeed at something in a MMO?! Seriously?!

Deedrick.4372:

Raids are not a free loot source like dungeons were, and I think that’s the disappointment some people may have from raids.

This is spot on!

tattyana.2356:

By now that raids were a bad idea unless they do something like blizzard did with there looking for raid thing. Otherwise your creating content only a fraction of the player base will ever see………

Whilst I feel slightly aggrieved that I have to spend time downloading 600 Mb of content that I shall not play I do really hope that those who want raids will get their thirsts quenched with the three initial wings.

I am making the most of the “real content” drought and trying to get various other things in and out of the game done.

I would like to see a Raid story mode introduced. No rewards, no achievements, just the ability to go in and experience the story without the frustration of spending hours headbutting a block wall. The biggest shame I see in Raids is that the likes of Wooden Potatoes keep saying that it’s such an amazing way of telling the story….aaand it’s locked away for people with the time, contacts and staying power to participate in it.

TexZero.7910:

After all no-one screamed about toxicity during some of the most beloved and challenging content additions in Queen’s Gauntlet or Marionette.

I don’t know what Marionette instances you were in, but I wish I was in them! That event turned into a firestorm of rage whenever it failed (Which it did. A lot. Especially in overflows).

SkyFallsInThunder.8257:

Raids are 100% accesible to any and all players who purchased HoT. I don’t know where you get the ideea that raids are exclusive, untouchable content.

So you are essentially saying you want to be taken in groups of experienced players while you yourself bring nothing to the table?

You mustn’t have looked the lfg tool i saw players searching for raid group for hours, and no i don’t want to be carried by exp players but it’s just like that 95% of the raid group i saw searching for players asking for the title eternal or 20+ insights.

That guy on reddit sum up pretty well the situation for raids concerning a lot of people

For me it’s because:
I don’t really have a group to raid with.
It takes a lot of time to practice, time which I don’t really have.
I come home from work pretty tired so I’m not really up for any hardcore content, especially when other people depend on me.
Pretty sure other people are in the same situation.

Raids are AWESOME, some of the best content in the game. Only about 5-6 people work on the full-time.

Chill and don’t hate.

Bebunw.8137:

That guy on reddit sum up pretty well the situation for raids concerning a lot of people

For me it’s because:
I don’t really have a group to raid with.
It takes a lot of time to practice, time which I don’t really have.
I come home from work pretty tired so I’m not really up for any hardcore content, especially when other people depend on me.
Pretty sure other people are in the same situation.

So he doesn’t raid because he doesn’t want to. He doesn’t want to do hardcore content and prefer casual content, which is fine. Raid are still accessible.

I’m not saying raids are bad I’m just saying make raids Lil more accessible to the masses something like wow did or something clever with an Anet spin on it this way that content isn’t being wasted.

tattyana.2356:

I’m not saying raids are bad I’m just saying make raids Lil more accessible to the masses something like wow did or something clever with an Anet spin on it this way that content isn’t being wasted.

Especially considering, based on the AMA last week, we are looking at a potential 11- month release window where the only new substantial content will be raid related (including major story elements). It doesn’t make sense and makes me think that ANET is either out of touch with their customers or very disorganized and directionless at this point.

The one saving grace is that ANET does have a history of actually listening to players on the forums and REDDIT. People need to keep this topic alive.

Raids are already very accessible, there’s just this public stigma that it’s somehow impossibly difficult or takes insane amounts of time and so only elite players can experience the content. They’re even going to make the raids more accessible once they revamp the LFG tool to have sections for them.

For context, my extremely casual guild group spends less than 3 hours a week playing raids, and we’ve gotten through the entirety of wing 1 so far. All it takes is the willingness to adapt; half of us don’t even have appropriate ascended gear.

Rising Dusk.2408:

Raids are already very accessible, there’s just this public stigma that it’s somehow impossibly difficult or takes insane amounts of time and so only elite players can experience the content. They’re even going to make the raids more accessible once they revamp the LFG tool to have sections for them.

For context, my extremely casual guild group spends less than 3 hours a week playing raids, and we’ve gotten through the entirety of wing 1 so far. All it takes is the willingness to adapt; half of us don’t even have appropriate ascended gear.

From what I’ve seen in game (as someone who raids regularly – and successfully – as well), this is not the case for most raiding groups.

I understand you do not see this as an issue, but for many it very much is. The problem isnt necessarily the difficulty of the fights, but rather the restrictive nature of 10 man grouping systems (which arent worth rehashing here).

We are in the middle of what looks to be an 11 month drought on any real substantial content other than raiding – that is the issue at hand here. You can justify by saying “the raid development team is smaller” or “raids are really easy, noobs,” but that doesn’t change that, for the longest period in the game’s history, there is nothing new for huge portions of the game population.

I think the problem is that ArenaNet is horrible at multitasking. If they are working on raids then everything else is on the backburner. On top of that there release schedule is either slow or anemic. Go look at what FFXIV has put in since Heavansward launched vs HOT.

This all results in players knowing that if ArenaNet is working on raids then the rest of the game won’t see any major updates for at least 6 months. Had they built some depth into the game in the last 3 years it might not be such a big issue, but they didn’t and it sadly is.

IndigoSundown.5419:

DGraves.3720:

Randulf.7614:

And yet those fraction still deserve content.

For all the times I’ve heard this I’ve never heard an actual justification.

They paid for the game, the same way the people who don’t want to raid did. Anyone who paid for the game can come here and ask for something they want. If ANet deems it wise to provide that something, they might do so. If ANet provides it, they’re acknowledging that that demographic is large enough to warrant some dev effort.

Now, GW2 originally didn’t have raids, but it does now due in some part to demand. This works the same way demand works on other parts of the game.

Oh, and as far as the OP is concerned, 5 or 6 devs worked on this raid wing. There are 120 working on live GW2. ANet said the percentage of players who use raids was larger than in other games. Sounds about right to me.

Then either the 6 people do a terrific job and the 120 not so much, or the 120 have a much bigger workload.

It kind of annoys me to think that someone really thinks that a 3 year old easy content is as good as a new content of the same irk. It´s basically if you have invented the wheel and people who hunt the biggest game instead of stags get carts for a comfy living while the others don´t and have to drive on old one wheeled bikes.

The point that hardcore people have not got much of stuff they like is true, but it still leaves me some questions:
What are they still doing here then when the had to suffer for so long? Please keep in mind that this is actually an argument used against people opposing raids if you turn it around.
Are they really so dense that they can´t stand open world events like Marionette was because their chosen comrades could not fight all the time at their side and they had to share the exactly same loot with players they did not know?

I do not say that HoT maps are too hard for solo people or something like that, they clearly are not. But they are tedious, not that big, hard to navigate and more grindy, so they pose a greater challenge to people that like to casually explore or do things on their own at their own pace.

Where you are completely right is that the tides will turn again. It is just the question how many people will be there to be swept off that tide.

I just hope they pull up the numbers (I’m sure they have access to this information) and see that a tiny percentage of players are participating in raids content and a much larger percentage are quitting.

Then again I’m not even sure realizing raids are a poor decision for this particular game would making any difference. It’s too late, the ball is rolling.

Rising Dusk.2408:

Raids are already very accessible, there’s just this public stigma that it’s somehow impossibly difficult or takes insane amounts of time and so only elite players can experience the content. They’re even going to make the raids more accessible once they revamp the LFG tool to have sections for them.

For context, my extremely casual guild group spends less than 3 hours a week playing raids, and we’ve gotten through the entirety of wing 1 so far. All it takes is the willingness to adapt; half of us don’t even have appropriate ascended gear.

True, but like me you have a team with your. A lot of people don’t have that and need to rely on pugs. By relying on pug, they can’t improve 3 hours a weeks for several weeks. For those players, each week they try the raid, they don’t know if they gonna have a decent team that will allow them to progress or not. Maybe they will be lucky this time and get into a team that are on the same level as you, or you gonna have a team with not enough experience to complete the first boss. From time to time, most player might be happy to help other new players, but maybe they will end up on those type of team week after week. That’s why people are picky about their pugs and ask full ascended, even if they can complete it without full ascended, or that they ask for insight.

And of course then you have new players in raid that then need to create learning group to improve. But once they improve themselves and they are ready to take on VG how will they do that? They can’t go into veteran group because they don’t have insight. But if they do a learning group then they might have a bunch of new players won’t kill VG.

Another option to create a group from scratch and it’s actually the best solution for most of these people. But that can take time. I’m the one organizing our raid group and most of them are my personal friends. I have their phone numbers, I have them on facebook and we know each other in real life. And It can still be hard to make everything work. One week that guy is outside of town, the other night someone is sick and we have to find someone else quick, the other week our Druid is not here and we now need someone new to the role that need to craft another gear, etc. If I ran into all these problem with my friend, they will be worst with a bunch of 10 strangers.

That’s a lot of barrier and it’s not honest to toss them aside as they do not exist and do not push a lot of people out of raid. As a raider I want more people to raid because that might mean that instead of 5-6 devs, they could put 10-15 of them. Look the amazing raid 5-6 devs were able to create and now imagine if they could double or triple that numbers.

Thaddeus.4891:

That’s a lot of barrier and it’s not honest to toss them aside as they do not exist and do not push a lot of people out of raid. As a raider I want more people to raid because that might mean that instead of 5-6 devs, they could put 10-15 of them. Look the amazing raid 5-6 devs were able to create and now imagine if they could double or triple that numbers.

There is some false equivocation going on here.

Are there “some” barriers ? Yes.
Does removing them help the community ? Debatable and entirely depends on which barriers you remove. Gearing should never be one of them as all you need is exotics to raid. Better community tools like a proper LFG and LFGuild Tools would help move players to the right spots for them.

Does this mean the raid team needs new members ? No.
Does this mean the raid team with more members will produce something grander ? No. There’s a very old adage about “Too many cooks in the kitchen”, this really applies to raids as they have a very direct scope and adding too much people in there actually tends to dilute and slow down the creation process.

Thaddeus.4891:

True, but like me you have a team with your. A lot of people don’t have that and need to rely on pugs. By relying on pug, they can’t improve 3 hours a weeks for several weeks. For those players, each week they try the raid, they don’t know if they gonna have a decent team that will allow them to progress or not. Maybe they will be lucky this time and get into a team that are on the same level as you, or you gonna have a team with not enough experience to complete the first boss. From time to time, most player might be happy to help other new players, but maybe they will end up on those type of team week after week. That’s why people are picky about their pugs and ask full ascended, even if they can complete it without full ascended, or that they ask for insight.

And of course then you have new players in raid that then need to create learning group to improve. But once they improve themselves and they are ready to take on VG how will they do that? They can’t go into veteran group because they don’t have insight. But if they do a learning group then they might have a bunch of new players won’t kill VG.

Another option to create a group from scratch and it’s actually the best solution for most of these people. But that can take time. I’m the one organizing our raid group and most of them are my personal friends. I have their phone numbers, I have them on facebook and we know each other in real life. And It can still be hard to make everything work. One week that guy is outside of town, the other night someone is sick and we have to find someone else quick, the other week our Druid is not here and we now need someone new to the role that need to craft another gear, etc. If I ran into all these problem with my friend, they will be worst with a bunch of 10 strangers.

That’s a lot of barrier and it’s not honest to toss them aside as they do not exist and do not push a lot of people out of raid. As a raider I want more people to raid because that might mean that instead of 5-6 devs, they could put 10-15 of them. Look the amazing raid 5-6 devs were able to create and now imagine if they could double or triple that numbers.

I think this is a very well thought out and bipartisan response.

To me, there are two questions that can be (and should be) discussed.

The first is, what the hell is taking so long with all of the other non-raiding related content?

While many (including myself) have been quick to link that delay to raid development and a change in development philosophy, there may be (and probably are) deeper issues involved.

It doesn’t change the fact, however, that we are experiencing the longest content drought (other than raids) in the game’s history – which is something they need to address and fix sooner rather than later.

The second, and one you express eloquently, is “how can ANET make raids more appealing and accessible to more players?”

I think this one is important, but it is also extremely hard to discuss without people getting defensive and, in some cases, aggressive. There is a subset out there that want raids to be their thing – something special separated by a difficulty barrier from the masses. While I can kinda understand that, it doesn’t make sense from a business or community building perspective.

Bottom line, the only way to open raids to more players is to offer some kind of difficulty scaling. The hard part is doing that without taking away the special feeling the more hardcore players get when they do something unique. I still think that is possible (through scaling rewards – most notably some kind of gold/silver/bronze system).

I know me saying this will be unpopular with many people (even some of the people I raid with), but if the goal is to make raiding more popular – and justify it’s position in the GW2 end game, then it really is the only practical solution, no matter how easy or accessible some people feel the content is now.

Torolan.5816:

Then either the 6 people do a terrific job and the 120 not so much, or the 120 have a much bigger workload.

Raid = small map, a few mobs, 3 bosses with novel mechanics; rewards; achievements. LS Episode = modify existing map or new zone (See DT and SW); multiple dynamic events; multiple champions with novel mechanics; rewards; story step(s); achievements; maybe a jumping puzzle, and other stuff. It’s likely that story is the main culprit, as most everything else hinges on what the story is.

It kind of annoys me to think that someone really thinks that a 3 year old easy content is as good as a new content of the same irk. It´s basically if you have invented the wheel and people who hunt the biggest game instead of stags get carts for a comfy living while the others don´t and have to drive on old one wheeled bikes.

I agree that old content is old, no matter if you prefer raids or not.

The point that hardcore people have not got much of stuff they like is true, but it still leaves me some questions:

What are they still doing here then when the had to suffer for so long? Please keep in mind that this is actually an argument used against people opposing raids if you turn it around.

“Their” content was supposed to be explorable dungeons, which were never quite as challenging as might have been preferred, and which have been abandoned for a long time; then FotM, which have seen new fractals with great frequency (/sarcasm). There was supposed to be something for “them” along with stuff for everyone else. “Their” investment in GW2 is the same as every other demographic’s.

Are they really so dense that they can´t stand open world events like Marionette was because their chosen comrades could not fight all the time at their side and they had to share the exactly same loot with players they did not know?

Instanced content was adopted in other games for raids for a variety of reasons, including developer control of difficulty balance (set number of players cannot “outnumber” the content as they can in a zone); developer ability to make sure that different groups of players cannot interfere with others’ objectives (see SW map progression v. chest farm) and player control over who they play with.

I do not say that HoT maps are too hard for solo people or something like that, they clearly are not. But they are tedious, not that big, hard to navigate and more grindy, so they pose a greater challenge to people that like to casually explore or do things on their own at their own pace.

Agreed. I always feel like I’m in the way of other players who want to complete events and push a meta if I’m there to do something else. The verticality is also an issue for me in terms of “can’t get there from here.”

Where you are completely right is that the tides will turn again. It is just the question how many people will be there to be swept off that tide.

That last is likely to be influenced by what other options are out there. There just aren’t a lot of MMO’s that offer what GW2 does.

Other comments in italics.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Raid = small map, a few mobs, 3 bosses with novel mechanics; rewards; achievements. LS Episode = modify existing map or new zone (See DT and SW); multiple dynamic events; multiple champions with novel mechanics; rewards; story step(s); achievements; maybe a jumping puzzle, and other stuff. It’s likely that story is the main culprit, as most everything else hinges on what the story is.

So why not set 5-6 other people aside to make a few living story chapters that use small maps, a few mobs, a few bosses with novel mechanics, rewards and achievements? Exactly what raids are, but balanced for a single player, which, incidentally, is exactly what most of the LS2 instances were.

A stand-alone story in 3 chapters (instead of “wings”) to tide things over until the next “big thing” that will apparently take hundreds of people 11 months to kick off. If 5-6 people can pull off these raids, I don’t see why this can’t be done as well.

It’s all a matter of prioritisation, and obviously, raids have a high priority because they were marketed as being a part of HoT. They can give us whatever they want. They chose not to, for reasons I can only guess at.

Danikat.8537:

What’s so bad about the LFG system?

I agree it needs a raids category, but other than having to sort through all the open world stuff to find raid groups it seems to work well whenever I’ve used it.

Edit: I’ve never played WoW so please don’t just say it needs to be like theirs. I’d like to know what about their system makes it better.

You can queue for raids and do them whenever you want, even solo. I prefer that to sitting for 4-5 hours at a time. Yes, it’s “easier” but it’s still part of the game.

I haven’t set food in GW2’s raid and I probably won’t no matter how many e-mails they send asking me to log in again.

I’ve never been mistaken for an Elite, Likely never will. If Raids are Elite Only, np.
I’m loveing my Dragon updates, more please. Loving my Glider, and I doubt I’ll ever bother getting up to lv 2; Bought HoT, have Glider, done with HoT. Would love to see decent loot in Dungeons again; why should I Dungeon when I can make Much more gold on the world boss circuit? and believe me I do, I have friends/Guild Mates who love Dungeons so I go, to explore, to see good maps to be a good guild mate; but its not profitable. I dont go a day without wanting to whallop a (Virtual) Dev with my Mace.

One thing I would say, Devs please stop herding us towards new content; (Say HoT, Raids) new is draw enough for most, dont punish those of us happy where we are for not following the herd. But the game has players of all stripes, and needs content for all stripes. Ok one for the elites, maybe something for the rest of us. Jormag Rework maybe?

Bebunw.8137:

SkyFallsInThunder.8257:

Raids are 100% accesible to any and all players who purchased HoT. I don’t know where you get the ideea that raids are exclusive, untouchable content.

So you are essentially saying you want to be taken in groups of experienced players while you yourself bring nothing to the table?

You mustn’t have looked the lfg tool i saw players searching for raid group for hours, and no i don’t want to be carried by exp players but it’s just like that 95% of the raid group i saw searching for players asking for the title eternal or 20+ insights.

That guy on reddit sum up pretty well the situation for raids concerning a lot of people

For me it’s because:
I don’t really have a group to raid with.
It takes a lot of time to practice, time which I don’t really have.
I come home from work pretty tired so I’m not really up for any hardcore content, especially when other people depend on me.
Pretty sure other people are in the same situation.

Just because you are ignoring my entire argument does not make you right, nor me wrong. Raids are accessible. That you have to step up your game for them is not an excuse to complain. Groups can be made, guilds can be joined. There is even a section on this forum for this!

That guy on reddit has his reasons and they are good ones in his case, but they come from him and not the raids, so how does that make the raids exclusive?! By that logic the entirety of gw2 content is exclusive and inaccesible for the people who have no time to log in at all…

Andulias.9516:

Only about 5-6 people work on the full-time.

Lol, read what was actually said, because this isn’t true.
(Hint: it’s 5-6 people from core Raid team doing Salvation pass. With other teams helping out)

That guy on reddit has his reasons and they are good ones in his case, but they come from him and not the raids, so how does that make the raids exclusive?!

Because he’s not alone, those reasons hold true for a majority of GW2 players.

SkyFallsInThunder.8257:

Just because you are ignoring my entire argument does not make you right, nor me wrong. Raids are accessible. That you have to step up your game for them is not an excuse to complain. Groups can be made, guilds can be joined. There is even a section on this forum for this!

That guy on reddit has his reasons and they are good ones in his case, but they come from him and not the raids, so how does that make the raids exclusive?! By that logic the entirety of gw2 content is exclusive and inaccesible for the people who have no time to log in at all…

But if you are not interested in putting forth the effort required (because of other priorities, perceived lack of fun, whatever) the existence of raiding still has no value for them personally. And while they are of course still available to people in theory, do you really expect them to appreciate you giving them something they did not ask for or want? If I go to a restaurant to order a steak, and then receive a dish with fish, I am unlikely to return. Even if the fish is well cooked and can theoretically fill my hunger. :p

This is the case for me at least. Sure, I could put in the effort and presumably succeed. But 10-man content doesn’t interest me, and thus has no value (to me). Of course not everything has to be relevant to everyone, but HoT has been very light on content since release from a “casual” pve small group standpoint, and I imagine the content has been used up by most people. I know I have outside farming skins that don’t interest me, and I have been playing around 8-10 hours a week on average which is hardly much in mmo terms.

The argument on the release of HoT was that the expansion would be system heavy and the content would follow afterwards. Now it seems there will be at least around a year without any new non-raid PvE content (Also according to the AMA no elite specs outside expansions, so not much going on there to utilize their shiny new system either).

Are raids to blame here? Hard to say without an inside look at how resources are spent within ArenaNet, but it is easy for people to look at the content currently coming out and say “this is not what I wanted”, especially when they don’t feel they have gotten a particularly good deal lately. I think that is probably mostly what is happening here, rather than “raiders are not supposed to have nice things”.

This issue is due to ANet trying to appeal to a wide variety of player types. The downside is when something is released to one group, all the others gripe about how they didn’t get anything. Next time we get a PvE update, WvW and PvPers will complain. When the inevitable WvW update comes, and if it’s good, PvE and PvPers will complain. We get LS, Fractal and Dungeon players will complain.

The only way to vaguely win is with an expansion that has content for everyone but then the cry is it’s too little. Maybe it’s trying to be too much of a Jack of all Trades.

IndigoSundown.5419:

So, here’s a question for those who are on about the content “drought” since HoT released. Would GW2 be a better game if they went back to the 2 week release cycle, with “click F 150 times for achievement” play and a couple of events that disappeared two weeks later? It seems to me that there were few who liked that, with many complaints about quality, temporary content and the sheer monotony of the busy-work that made up most of it. What would ANet have to provide?

For me that was at least the best time of the game when we had actually ever
2 week something new to do. The LS2 instances, even if replayable, i have
absolutely no interst in playing more than once, and i often even had to force
myself to do them once.

The problem is that ANet seems to listen to the vocal minority of the forums
all the time and since there is always a vocal part that dislikes something they
change there content style all day long and have totally lost any direction.

In the end now it has changed to the MMO for people that don’t like MMOs
more or less to just another boring raid game .. and i found i better go back
to hack’n’slay.

Blude.6812:

Don’t care about Raids, but requiring you to play to get a mastery point is just wrong.

raids aside there are already enough mastery points in game that if you got all of them and unlocked all the masteries you would still have spare. this is an invalid complaint because you DONT have to do the raid to get enough mastery points, you dont even have to complete all the non raid mastery points to get enough

Goatjugsoup.8637:

Blude.6812:

Don’t care about Raids, but requiring you to play to get a mastery point is just wrong.

raids aside there are already enough mastery points in game that if you got all of them and unlocked all the masteries you would still have spare. this is an invalid complaint because you DONT have to do the raid to get enough mastery points, you dont even have to complete all the non raid mastery points to get enough

Two of the mastery points are only for raiding and the raid contains 3 mastery points. If you’re never going to raid, you absolutely don’t need those masteries.

Goatjugsoup.8637:

Blude.6812:

Don’t care about Raids, but requiring you to play to get a mastery point is just wrong.

raids aside there are already enough mastery points in game that if you got all of them and unlocked all the masteries you would still have spare. this is an invalid complaint because you DONT have to do the raid to get enough mastery points, you dont even have to complete all the non raid mastery points to get enough

That´s true. Diversity is there, but it kind of stinks in its own way.

You also can do gated adventures, some gated HP and some really good accessible and fun stuff.^^

A big part of the issue with Wildstar is that they focused on the hardcore players at max level. That left the more casuals with nothing new to do.

Now GW2 is following the same path. They are releasing new raid content which is of interest to a minority of the players, , and is mostly a once a week activity for most of those who actually do play it.

So, why is ANET going down this path? There is nothing wrong with adding raid wings. the problem is when it is the ONLY content being released.

The Anet people are themselves hardcore players. They are thus biased toward the viewpoint of the hardcore customer players. I think that they are confusing what they want to play with what the majority of the customers want to play.

I think focusing on the hardcore is a good option for Anet. Hardcore players burn through things quickly and are more apt to get bored and leave. Casual play can be sustained on more of a budget. The mistake Anet made was to not release anything else with the second wing of the raid and no plans until summer.

style.6173:

A big part of the issue with Wildstar is that they focused on the hardcore players at max level. That left the more casuals with nothing new to do.

Now GW2 is following the same path. They are releasing new raid content which is of interest to a minority of the players, , and is mostly a once a week activity for most of those who actually do play it.

So, why is ANET going down this path? There is nothing wrong with adding raid wings. the problem is when it is the ONLY content being released.

Yes, because 1 raid split into 3 wings being released over 1 year is comparable to the massive amount of content which got released over the last 3.5 years and with the expansion.

Are you serious?

redcomyn.4651:

The Anet people are themselves hardcore players. They are thus biased toward the viewpoint of the hardcore customer players. I think that they are confusing what they want to play with what the majority of the customers want to play.

You must not have any experiance with software developement. Being a game dev and working on a game in usually 8-12 hour shifts (not counting release date crunch times) does not equal gaming for 6-12 hours per day. Usually most game developers are way more casual in their gaming time since you know, working on something the entire day usually leaves you with the desire to unwind after work. Not to mention social comitments, family, friends, etc.

And the complete feeling of escaping your work is gone if you go home to play gw2 as one of the dev’s.