Guild Wars 2

Also noone is forcing you to raid if they do get implemented. “No because i came to GW2 to escape raids” is such a cop out excuse and really selfish.

spoj.9672:

Also noone is forcing you to raid if they do get implemented. “No because i came to GW2 to escape raids” is such a cop out excuse and really selfish.

The reasons people are giving in most of these posts are much deeper than that – and explained in detail in their posts. More importantly, they are no more (or less) selfish than arguments from the other side of the debate. It is all simply opinion and discussion.

Additionally, many would be open to raids as long as there are key differences when compared to what many consider the traditional raid model.

Avster.1935:

Mala.3861:

No, a thousand times, no.

Many of us came to GW2 to escape that very thing.

Why are you so haunted by raids? It’s not going to be a conventional raid.

Before you reply, please read the previous posts that I’ve made on this thread. I’m naturally curious.

EDIT: This goes to others as well. Don’t just say “No.” give an explanation, but before you do read the posts that have been made on this thread.

Developer ressources are limited so we can’t have endless new content.
Using those ressources to create content for only maybe 5% of the playerbase
leads to less new content for the other 95%.

And of course there is always the thing that raiders think they are better and
need to get “exclusive rewards”. So 95% will also maybe get less new armor skin
because the developers have to create “exclusive” stuff for those 5%.

Then there will be all the drama that people feel they are forced to play stuff
they don’t enjoy to get that exclusive stuff .. and so on and so on ..

And yes .. even if people here maybe don’t want a gear treadmill .. the words
“exclusive rewards” were used in most of the posts in the Raid-CDI

And in the ends it comes down to something like : Why the hell should i play
that kitten if i don’t get better stuff .. and not : Oh .. playing that great content
is reward itself enough.
Or better said : Raiding itself sucks .. but i play it because i can show off my exclusive stuff .

10 is too much. The game becomes a jumbled mess of particles at that point.

I’d say 8-man. Harkens back to the original game, increases the group size, and keeps things in a reasonable balance.

Beldin.5498:

And of course there is always the thing that raiders think they are better and need to get “exclusive rewards”. So 95% will also maybe get less new armor skin because the developers have to create “exclusive” stuff for those 5%.

Then there will be all the drama that people feel they are forced to play stuff
they don’t enjoy to get that exclusive stuff .. and so on and so on ..

And yes .. even if people here maybe don’t want a gear treadmill .. the words
“exclusive rewards” were used in most of the posts in the Raid-CDI

This is a straw man attack. Not a single person in this thread has argued for exclusivity, by my count, and looking at the Raid CDI, neither did “most” of the people posting. If we’re going to discuss this, let’s avoid these types of things and focus on arguing the merits vs. demerits of what people are actually proposing, not some boogeyman system you’ve designed in your head to hate.

Tbh i don’t understand most of these complaints people put down @ this thread…
1st. People claim that it’s hard to find a 5man group for a dungeon nowadays, as far as i know you get almost instantly a full group, let alone the fact that you can just run with your guild aswell

2nd. People assosciate raiding instantly with 4hr nonstop raiding including wiping all the time and a very hardcore community that keeps on flaming on pugs. By saying that we want raids, doesn’t necesserely mean that we want this WoWish raiding system, what about FoW, UW, DoA, Urgoz, Deep? as far as i know most people loved that

3rd why people keep claiming that there is only a very small amount of players that want end content? As far as i know the majority of gw is desperately waiting for this.

4th Why do people keep complaining that having raid content is inherent on the fact that these people get way awesomer gear then other players? and even if they get it, that it is non tradeable so that non raiders can’t get these items aswell? Back in Gw1 days we did have some special rewards for these elite dungeons yea, Obby edge, VS, eternal blade etc, but the average gold per hour wasn’t that much higher then other content.

Blaeys.3102:

I think a lot of us naysayers would be open to raids in GW2 if they made sure to avoid all of the things that make them such cesspools of hate in other games. To me, that means

• They would have to be flexible. Set numbers create situations where friends have to make untenable decisions about who gets to raid with the guild and who doesnt. Im not saying let 50 people into a raid, but don’t set hard numbers either. Scaling from 8 to 15 makes the most sense to me.

• They CANNOT be more rewarding than any other content in the game. Ive explained this above, but once again, greater reward turns it into something people will feel they “have to do.” There is no way around that – and GW2 doesnt really work that way anyway.

• They cannot be the dev team’s primary focus. They have developed a fun game that the majority of us (i know Im making an assumption) really love. They need to focus efforts on ensuring the core elements of the game (open world, WvW, PvP, 5-player dungeons and fractals) are as entertaining as possible.

I realize you will most likely disagree with all or most of these points (which is fine – its a discussion), but these are the points you asked for – why we (or at least I) are against raids. If, however, they take a different approach from other games (ie, the three points I list above), I think you would find alot more people supporting the idea.

Actually, I agree with points #1 & #3 wholeheartedly,
- Flexibility can work like they have in dungeons (or maybe even better). Most dungeons are duo-able, even with a 5-party requirement. Similarly, with raids, they can have a 15-man raid, but doable by 10-man group. Raids inherently require a larger group of people. Think of the elite areas of GW1: Underworld, Fissure of Woe, Urgoz’s Warren, Domain of Anguish. People absolutely loved those – and is definitely doable by a number of people lower than the required amount.
- I do not want to be Raids to be the Dev’s primary focus. I just want it to be on their radar. There are many things that I like in this game, Open World PvE Events, Fractals & Dungeons (both are getting tedious now with lack of update), sPvP (I’ve been getting more and more active in this area of the game), more intricate jumping puzzles & WvW. Basically, I like the entire core game of GW2, and would like to have it improved upon, but I would also like to add Raids to that mix.

Now for your point #2,
- Think of it like this. The luminescent set that you can get in Silverwastes right now. It’s an upgraded skin reward, available for those who are willing to go the extra mile to earn it. Hard mode raid rewards can be something akin to this. So no, you don’t “have to do” it, because just as there are people who could care less about getting luminescent sets, there will be people who would care less about getting high-end dungeon skins.

Avster.1935:

Mala.3861:

No, a thousand times, no.

Many of us came to GW2 to escape that very thing.

Why are you so haunted by raids? It’s not going to be a conventional raid.

Before you reply, please read the previous posts that I’ve made on this thread. I’m naturally curious.

EDIT: This goes to others as well. Don’t just say “No.” give an explanation, but before you do read the posts that have been made on this thread.

Okay fine. Here’s my explanation on why I don’t like raids:

Raids don’t actually NEED to exist. They’re just there to provide content that a large amount of players can enjoy together. The problem is, not everyone has a large amount of friends to do this with. Raids were meant to test teamwork on larger scales, and having to PUG that is a bit awkward at best.

Healing classes suffer slightly in raids, especially raids that have more than 8 players in them. Why? Well, if you’ve ever played Ragnarok Online 2 and decided to go in one of its raids, you’d know that you had to deal with three parties of 6-8 players or so, and there usually wasn’t 3-4 healers, so it ended up being a clusterhell of people getting damaged and healing certain people who actually needed heals was annoying, especially when other people were healing those people, and you didn’t know who to heal and who not to heal.

Coordination decay. Like I said above, raids test large-scale teamwork, but, the more people you have, the more conflicting interests become a problem, causing coordination decay. Let’s say someone wants to go X direction rather than the fastest direction, usually if they have friends who joined the raid, those friends will tend to side with that person. This can cause an argument, and some players who like to speed run may end up killing the entire raid by forcing the players to fight something by going on ahead of the team and pulling an enemy to the raid group. I’m not a fan of speed runs, and never will be.

Hardcore / Elites VERSUS Midcore / Casuals. The age old war between hardcore and elite players and the casuals/midcores really shines when discussing raid, and even playing said content. The reason why hard / extreme / savage content (Including raids) exists is because these elite and hardcore players want to be who they are in comparison to the midcore and casuals. This can cause problems for players who just want to explore the lore / places of the game. This is precisely why Final Fantasy XIV Developers are developing a “Story Mode” version of The Binding Coil of Bahamut, the hardest “Raid” in their MMORPG. I don’t like this war, and if you’re an elite, you shouldn’t either. What if ALL the midcores and casuals left? what do you get? About a 500-1000 players on the entire megaserver at any given time? That’s not a serious MMORPG anymore.

I could go on and on and on about how Raids could negatively effect the balance in community, but I won’t.

(Also, HEY GW2Forum, why don’t you use list bbcode like vbulletin and phpBB does?)

What if the dungeon was designed so that two five person groups could enter and have to take different paths to meet at the same finish to fight a boss that needed 10 people to bring down? Different objectives needing to be met by each group before the last boss is attainable?

Just spitballing here sorry.

Beldin.5498:

Developer ressources are limited so we can’t have endless new content.

Right. How is your need for a particular content more justifiable against those who want raids?

Beldin.5498:

Using those ressources to create content for only maybe 5% of the playerbase
leads to less new content for the other 95%.

Where are you pulling the 5% player base number from? At this point in time, if you look at the poll, 63% (126) are interested and 37% (75) are not interested. Obviously it’s reflective of those who have come to visit the official forums, and not that of the entire player base.

So you cannot objectively state there are more players who don’t want raids, as much as I can’t objectively state that there are more players that want raids.

Beldin.5498:

And of course there is always the thing that raiders think they are better and
need to get “exclusive rewards”. So 95% will also maybe get less new armor skin
because the developers have to create “exclusive” stuff for those 5%.

Then there will be all the drama that people feel they are forced to play stuff
they don’t enjoy to get that exclusive stuff .. and so on and so on ..

And yes .. even if people here maybe don’t want a gear treadmill .. the words
“exclusive rewards” were used in most of the posts in the Raid-CDI

I’m going to self-quote the solution/argument I just posted on Blaeys.3102’s comment.

Avster.1935:

Now for your point #2,
- Think of it like this. The luminescent set that you can get in Silverwastes right now. It’s an upgraded skin reward, available for those who are willing to go the extra mile to earn it. Hard mode raid rewards can be something akin to this. So no, you don’t “have to do” it, because just as there are people who could care less about getting luminescent sets, there will be people who would care less about getting high-end dungeon skins.

Elite armor vs normal armor in GW1, ever heard of that?

And in the ends it comes down to something like : Why the hell should i play
that kitten if i don’t get better stuff .. and not : Oh .. playing that great content
is reward itself enough.
Or better said : Raiding itself sucks .. but i play it because i can show off my exclusive stuff .

Are you new to MMOs? Because it’s always been like this. Ask a veteran dungeon players why they run dungeons every day.

For your last point, nothing is mandatory in GW2. You can do other cool open world events, and enjoy those rewards.

Oofta.8036:

What if the dungeon was designed so that two five person groups could enter and have to take different paths to meet at the same finish to fight a boss that needed 10 people to bring down? Different objectives needing to be met by each group before the last boss is attainable?

Just spitballing here sorry.

There were two such missions in Guild Wars Factions – Vizunah Square and one other, which required two 8-man parties to meet up and beat the mission.

They were both interesting concepts, and I wouldn’t mind seeing something like that in the game.

Any new instances are a good addition for me. I love instanced play.

No raids, thank you.

Iyeru.5240:

Okay fine. Here’s my explanation on why I don’t like raids:

Raids don’t actually NEED to exist. They’re just there to provide content that a large amount of players can enjoy together.

The problem is, not everyone has a large amount of friends to do this with.

Raids were meant to test teamwork on larger scales, and having to PUG that is a bit awkward at best.

Bolded point #1: And open world PvE events are…?
Bolded point #2: This is the same issue with Guild Missions, so you know which direction ANet is going towards. For your raid needs, you can join bigger guilds.
Bolded point #3: Never asked for massive large scale raids. Anywhere between 8-10-15 people should suffice. Pugs aren’t a massive problem, because there will be guides up within a few days, so we can direct them to that.

Iyeru.5240:

Healing classes suffer slightly in raids, especially raids that have more than 8 players in them. Why? Well, if you’ve ever played Ragnarok Online 2 and decided to go in one of its raids, you’d know that you had to deal with three parties of 6-8 players or so, and there usually wasn’t 3-4 healers, so it ended up being a clusterhell of people getting damaged and healing certain people who actually needed heals was annoying, especially when other people were healing those people, and you didn’t know who to heal and who not to heal.

Don’t have anything like that in GW2. Your entire paragraph here is not relevant to GW2.

Iyeru.5240:

Coordination decay. Like I said above, raids test large-scale teamwork, but, the more people you have, the more conflicting interests become a problem, causing coordination decay. Let’s say someone wants to go X direction rather than the fastest direction, usually if they have friends who joined the raid, those friends will tend to side with that person. This can cause an argument, and some players who like to speed run may end up killing the entire raid by forcing the players to fight something by going on ahead of the team and pulling an enemy to the raid group. I’m not a fan of speed runs, and never will be.

Same argument against what we have with dungeons in this game so far. Create your own party, go with your own crew.

Chances are the speedrun raid group will not be with the normal group anyway. We already have that with “lv80 speedrun” dungeon groups going on here.

Iyeru.5240:

Hardcore / Elites VERSUS Midcore / Casuals. The age old war between hardcore and elite players and the casuals/midcores really shines when discussing raid, and even playing said content. The reason why hard / extreme / savage content (Including raids) exists is because these elite and hardcore players want to be who they are in comparison to the midcore and casuals. This can cause problems for players who just want to explore the lore / places of the game. This is precisely why Final Fantasy XIV Developers are developing a “Story Mode” version of The Binding Coil of Bahamut, the hardest “Raid” in their MMORPG. I don’t like this war, and if you’re an elite, you shouldn’t either. What if ALL the midcores and casuals left? what do you get? About a 500-1000 players on the entire megaserver at any given time? That’s not a serious MMORPG anymore.

Have you read any of my other posts? I said I’m an advocate for Normal and Hard mode. Just like they had in GW1. So there will be no war.

Aye.8392:

Any new instances are a good addition for me. I love instanced play.

Aye!! Good to see you again

Pockets.3201:

No raids, thank you.

Another person wearing rose-tinted glasses. State your argument. But before you do, read the posts made in this thread thus far.

I think if we had a real raid in this game it would be a wast of time since so few ppl would be able to do it you think that wurm fight is hard that is just a noob fight in other games
give ppl a strat like bristlebane from eq2 they would be screaming its imposable since every one HAS to work together 1 mess up every one dies and that fight has riddles to at some point you got to stop and read and find out what classes he is talking about and get them to throw a bomb at them any one who is not the right class/race he heals to max mess any thing else up every one dies and the fight it self will be 40min min

About the ‘exclusive rewards thing’, I think this hits to the core of the issue when we get down to it.

If we wanted to change it, we could say “People want special recognition for their achievements”. This is traditionally due to special rewards, unique skins, and titles.

That in and of itself is fine, but there are a few side-effects of this.

1) We’ve seen, excuses aside, that people won’t do content that doesn’t reward enough. If ‘harder’ means more time consuming, and it often does, there’s complaints that the special rewards aren’t worth the time.

2) People want their recognition to be exclusive. This also makes a lot of sense on one level, but it puts the dev in a hard spot. How do you get relatively exclusive rewards and recognition without creating content that inaccessible to the vast majority of the players? For Arenanet their primary solution is token/collection schemes. What unique boss skins they do have are recolors, because again, they want to give that recognition without throwing away too many resources.

~~~

I get why people deny the exclusivity/props motivation, it sounds selfish, and the exclusivity ends up changing it into a haves/have nots situation pitting the raiders against the non-raiders (and kidding aside, we know how those numbers go down, even in ‘raid’ games). Still, I think most of us know that without that exclusivity/props (and titles aren’t enough) those raids would be empty as hell.

~~~

Oh also, about the ‘poll’, theres multiple levels of self-selection that make it even more meaningless than usual. We’re selecting by people who both go to the official forums and care enough about raids to have an opinion on them. Most people simply don’t care and ignore it either way.

spoj.9672:

Also noone is forcing you to raid if they do get implemented. “No because i came to GW2 to escape raids” is such a cop out excuse and really selfish.

It’s not a good thing to do if the majority are not going to play it tho. They can also add some dungeons that nobody is going to play, which leads to wasted resources and time that could have been used somewhere else.

Windsagio.1340:

I get why people deny the exclusivity/props motivation, it sounds selfish, and the exclusivity ends up changing it into a haves/have nots situation pitting the raiders against the non-raiders (and kidding aside, we know how those numbers go down, even in ‘raid’ games). Still, I think most of us know that without that exclusivity/props (and titles aren’t enough) those raids would be empty as hell.

I cannot disagree with this point enough. As long as raids weren’t a complete waste of time (rewards comparable to current SW rewards per hour), I would pick raids over Silverwastes as often as the group constraints allowed. I enjoy raid content for the content, generally. Please stop generalizing the motivations of those of us who would enjoy this content.

Windsagio.1340:

Oh also, about the ‘poll’, theres multiple levels of self-selection that make it even more meaningless than usual. We’re selecting by people who both go to the official forums and care enough about raids to have an opinion on them. Most people simply don’t care and ignore it either way.

So glad you pointed that out.

As for exclusive rewards, the actual raiders who are into it will do the content only long enough to milk the rewards, and then they’re out. The rest of the players will either lag into it or avoid it entirely. Makes it kind of a waste.

Avster.1935:

Beldin.5498:

Developer ressources are limited so we can’t have endless new content.

Right. How is your need for a particular content more justifiable against those who want raids?

Beldin.5498:

Using those ressources to create content for only maybe 5% of the playerbase
leads to less new content for the other 95%.

Where are you pulling the 5% player base number from? At this point in time, if you look at the poll, 63% (126) are interested and 37% (75) are not interested. Obviously it’s reflective of those who have come to visit the official forums, and not that of the entire player base.

Beldin.5498:

And in the ends it comes down to something like : Why the hell should i play
that kitten if i don’t get better stuff .. and not : Oh .. playing that great content
is reward itself enough.
Or better said : Raiding itself sucks .. but i play it because i can show off my exclusive stuff .

Are you new to MMOs?

My first quote was answered by my second quote.

And to the question where those numbers are from i can ask you :
Are you new to MMOs ?

The latest where when Lotro canceld raids, but i read number like that in the
years i played Everquest 2 .. and you can google and find those number also
for WoW (http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/1185107-How-many-WoW-players-actually-raid )
Heck in EQ2 it was normally just 1 single guild that has beaten the hardest raid
before we got a new expansion.

Also Raider are overrepresented in Forums, that why the numbers here didn’t
say anything. Our german CM just postet a while ago that only 1% of the
players post in the forums .. and i think 3 or 5% read it.

http://massively.joystiq.com/2014/07/03/turbine-raiders-make-up-the-smallest-player-group-in-lotro/#comments

Raiders comprise the smallest, by far, group in our game. PvMP players are far larger and even they are small. in fact together the two groups wouldn’t comprise 10% of the total player base and never have (this is important. it’s not a new thing, it’s a long standing historical fact).

Forum posters comprise a slightly larger group than the combined group of PvMP and Raiders. However, Raiders and PvMP players make up the overwhelming majority of forum posters (More than half. Though raiders are the smaller group of the two (PvMP/Raiders)). So you have a tiny group, inside a small group that is grossly disproportionately represented on the forums.

Windsagio.1340:

About the ‘exclusive rewards thing’, I think this hits to the core of the issue when we get down to it.

If we wanted to change it, we could say “People want special recognition for their achievements”. This is traditionally due to special rewards, unique skins, and titles.

That in and of itself is fine, but there are a few side-effects of this.

1) We’ve seen, excuses aside, that people won’t do content that doesn’t reward enough. If ‘harder’ means more time consuming, and it often does, there’s complaints that the special rewards aren’t worth the time.

2) People want their recognition to be exclusive. This also makes a lot of sense on one level, but it puts the dev in a hard spot. How do you get relatively exclusive rewards and recognition without creating content that inaccessible to the vast majority of the players? For Arenanet their primary solution is token/collection schemes. What unique boss skins they do have are recolors, because again, they want to give that recognition without throwing away too many resources.

~~~

I get why people deny the exclusivity/props motivation, it sounds selfish, and the exclusivity ends up changing it into a haves/have nots situation pitting the raiders against the non-raiders (and kidding aside, we know how those numbers go down, even in ‘raid’ games). Still, I think most of us know that without that exclusivity/props (and titles aren’t enough) those raids would be empty as hell.

~~~

Oh also, about the ‘poll’, theres multiple levels of self-selection that make it even more meaningless than usual. We’re selecting by people who both go to the official forums and care enough about raids to have an opinion on them. Most people simply don’t care and ignore it either way.

The same arguement can be made for Triple Trouble, Tequatl and Silver Wastes. I forced myself to play those just to get a few achieves and exclusive rewards. I will never touch them again now that im done because they are just completely unfun and not worth the time. There is already exclusivity and inaccessibility in the game. I dont see why a new part which satisfies a rather neglected part of the community is suddenly so outrageous.

Beldin.5498:

My first quote was answered by my second quote.

And to the question where those numbers are from i can ask you :
Are you new to MMOs ?

The latest where when Lotro canceld raids, but i read number like that in the
years i played Everquest 2 .. and you can google and find those number also
for WoW (http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/1185107-How-many-WoW-players-actually-raid )
Heck in EQ2 it was normally just 1 single guild that has beaten the hardest raid
before we got a new expansion.

Also Raider are overrepresented in Forums, that why the numbers here didn’t
say anything. Our german CM just postet a while ago that only 1% of the
players post in the forums .. and i think 3 or 5% read it.

http://massively.joystiq.com/2014/07/03/turbine-raiders-make-up-the-smallest-player-group-in-lotro/#comments

Raiders comprise the smallest, by far, group in our game. PvMP players are far larger and even they are small. in fact together the two groups wouldn’t comprise 10% of the total player base and never have (this is important. it’s not a new thing, it’s a long standing historical fact).

Forum posters comprise a slightly larger group than the combined group of PvMP and Raiders. However, Raiders and PvMP players make up the overwhelming majority of forum posters (More than half. Though raiders are the smaller group of the two (PvMP/Raiders)). So you have a tiny group, inside a small group that is grossly disproportionately represented on the forums.

You do know you are comparing apples to oranges here right? We are not asking raids in GW2 to be similar to raids in other games, so I fail to see why you bring up such comparisons. I foresee, ANet to more or less follow GW1’s elite area approach to include both casual/hardcore groups.

This leads to the numbers you provided to be fundamentally different. So even if the numbers are correct regarding to raids in other games, it would be inapplicable in this scenario.

I should have rephrased my question. Are you new to ANet’s approach on their franchise?

You seem to be freaking out based on how OTHER MMOs have done raids, and that is NOT what we are requesting for in GW2.

EDIT: Also the fact that you didn’t provide a reply to my rebuttal against exclusive rewards, leads me to believe you agree to what I said (or just selectively quoted me, which leads me to believe you are a poor debater). So I don’t even know why you are carrying this conversation anymore.

FYI –
We already have somewhat of an elite vs. normal gear in sPvP.
Glorious vs. Glorious Hero’s Armor
We also have that in open world PvE.
Carapace vs. Luminescent

heck yeah!
Raid dungeons are so much better!
most times the bosses have extra mechanics which is a plus to a repetitive game mode.
everything hits harder and takes more

Yeah except GW2 is the only game with such a superior combat system in an MMO. Not to mention it has great cosmetics and deep lore. Instanced content was a thing at release. I dont see why everyone suddenly thinks its not part of the game anymore. I really dont have any alernatives games i want to play. Believe me ive tried. HoT looks like it might bring in some new fractal stuff so thats atleast something.

spoj.9672:

Also noone is forcing you to raid if they do get implemented. “No because i came to GW2 to escape raids” is such a cop out excuse and really selfish.

I am actually in favor of at least considering if raids can be worked into GW2 while keeping to this game’s design philosophies, but…

You are mistaken. It is not a cop out or selfish for someone to say that they specifically chose to buy a game where raids were not part of the design and would rather not have the game changed into one they wouldnt have bought in the first place.

Personally what I would like to see are slightly larger, more involved dungeons. 8-15 players. Difficulty scaling. More chances at good drops, but not exclusive drops. I mention more loot simply because the time and effort involved in organizing and running a larger dungeon/raid would make its reward/time ratio sub par otherwise. Oh, and a design that discourages skipping most of the content to get to the boss.

Ten zerkers instead of five, enemies with double the health… why… just why?

Chameleon Dude.1564:

Ten zerkers instead of five,

Irrelevant. Replace that with any new meta stat, and it’ll be the same.

OR hey, maybe ANet could build raids with mobs that are more prone to condition dmg and direct dmg. Now you have 1-2 meta stat in play!

Chameleon Dude.1564:

enemies with double the health… why… just why?

How about new monster mechanics? Molten Duo for example, was absolutely great.

That’s why.

Isn’t Teq already a potential Raid Instance where large guilds and open it for themselves? I don’t remember the details but I remember it being an option for those guilds who have over 100 active players.

I’m all for it because I’d like to do more with more of my guild members. I always feel bad when we have to leave someone out. (not looking for solutions, just saying)

spoj.9672:

Yeah except GW2 is the only game with such a superior combat system in an MMO. Not to mention it has great cosmetics and deep lore. Instanced content was a thing at release. I dont see why everyone suddenly thinks its not part of the game anymore. I really dont have any alernatives games i want to play. Believe me ive tried. HoT looks like it might bring in some new fractal stuff so thats atleast something.

You are 100% right about this. The fight system, lore and cosmetics would make for some very interesting instanced encounters.

Where it falls down for me is how unfriendly raiding made other games.

At the same time, I think there is a middle ground/compromise that could offer more for every type of player without bringing in the elitism and general hate that comes with the rigid raid model.

I would like to see them do away with any future dungeons or raids entirely and replace them with a different type of content based around the outpost/adventure/masteries concept. In this model, as players advance the map (through the objectives associated with outposts), they unlock more and more “adventures” that come in a wide array of formats.

Some would be open world, but just as many would be instanced, including 1 person, 5 person and 8-12 person encounters. Rather than long rambling treks, they might involve a single encounter or fight. Likewise, they would only be open for a limited time in each map cycle (and would fit in storywise with everything else going on).

So groups wanting to do some larger group instanced fights still could, but would also need to support map objectives first – encouraging teamwork on a much larger scale. Since they would be shorter and repeatable, groups looking to involve more friends could easily do so without shutting off a large percentage of the guild for hours or nights at a time. And, since they would be part of a larger initiative, it would be easier for individuals or smaller groups to find pugs or others working toward those goals.

Again, Im not for traditional raids like we see in other games, but I think there is a place for a raid like system (specifically like the above) in GW2.

And a quick note regarding the past few posts – those kinds of posts are exactly what got the raiding CDI shut down. Resorting to name calling and demeaning comments isnt conducive to a real conversation – its just petty, entitled and childish.

I HATE HATE..MY GOD DO I HATE dailies, if they added instanced raids, they would probably make it a “weekly” which would make me want to head into their office and beat them with…things

that’s why I quit WoW(other than the expansions killed it for me) I do not want to wait until Thursday at 8:23PM pacific time to do one 20man dungeon because that’s when the highest ranked on the server decided on that day and everyone else was forced into that cycle…

dailies, weeklies, time gates, resets…they all kitten me off to no end.
however a raid that we could do every single day of the week, or even repeatedly would be fine. we already have a RNG and diminishing returns. no reason there could not be raids that do not drop anything specific or special to that raid.

that leads me to another point. our wallet, we do not need all of those currencies or 500 vendors that sell the same crap for different costs.

the krytan assassin.9235:

btw can we please add in more speculations, preassumptions and egocentrism? I mean, adding usefull comments to get closer to eachother and maybe even help anet to design their upcoming raidsystem (if they’re planning to) would be totally rediculous right? ;p

sure..alright A-net, add raids. I think they are fun, do not put a reset timer on them, add another currency, or add any raid gear, special drops, or higher MF rate….make it exactly like open world, but without all of the strangers.

least that’s what I would like to see

spoj.9672:

The same arguement can be made for Triple Trouble, Tequatl and Silver Wastes. I forced myself to play those just to get a few achieves and exclusive rewards. I will never touch them again now that im done because they are just completely unfun and not worth the time. There is already exclusivity and inaccessibility in the game. I dont see why a new part which satisfies a rather neglected part of the community is suddenly so outrageous.

Silverwastes certainly not, they’re utterly accessible and beatable to anyone putting in the time.

Teq and worm are interesting, they’re entirely accessible just not super easy to beat. Exclusvity is there in any number of ways, but except for some fringe things (fractals) accessibility is exceptionally high.

Instanced raids raise the accessibility bar substantially by putting in an organizational and often (but certainly not always) a time-sink barrier. additional environments for the instances greatly increases the development cost.

So you’re adding content that historically hasn’t performed well (Wildstar, LoTRO) and is more expensive to develop for that poor performance.

Forgive me for not remembering but did other games have the same kind of loot systems that GW2 has? Each person gets their own loot and it isn’t part of a random drop that everyone needs but only one person gets due to a roll or DKP.

That alone would set this game apart from the rest. I’m sure there are more things that would as well.

Oofta.8036:

Forgive me for not remembering but did other games have the same kind of loot systems that GW2 has? Each person gets their own loot and it isn’t part of a random drop that everyone needs but only one person gets due to a roll or DKP.

That alone would set this game apart from the rest. I’m sure there are more things that would as well.

This loot system is rare in my experience, but not unique.

Blaeys.3102:

Avster.1935:

Mala.3861:

No, a thousand times, no.

Many of us came to GW2 to escape that very thing.

Why are you so haunted by raids? It’s not going to be a conventional raid.

Before you reply, please read the previous posts that I’ve made on this thread. I’m naturally curious.

EDIT: This goes to others as well. Don’t just say “No.” give an explanation, but before you do read the posts that have been made on this thread.

I think a lot of us naysayers would be open to raids in GW2 if they made sure to avoid all of the things that make them such cesspools of hate in other games. To me, that means

• They would have to be flexible. Set numbers create situations where friends have to make untenable decisions about who gets to raid with the guild and who doesnt. Im not saying let 50 people into a raid, but don’t set hard numbers either. Scaling from 8 to 15 makes the most sense to me.

• They CANNOT be more rewarding than any other content in the game. Ive explained this above, but once again, greater reward turns it into something people will feel they “have to do.” There is no way around that – and GW2 doesnt really work that way anyway.

• They cannot be the dev team’s primary focus. They have developed a fun game that the majority of us (i know Im making an assumption) really love. They need to focus efforts on ensuring the core elements of the game (open world, WvW, PvP, 5-player dungeons and fractals) are as entertaining as possible.

I realize you will most likely disagree with all or most of these points (which is fine – its a discussion), but these are the points you asked for – why we (or at least I) are against raids. If, however, they take a different approach from other games (ie, the three points I list above), I think you would find alot more people supporting the idea.

Wait SPvP has better rewards than WvW, so should SPvP be removed as well?

Knighthonor.4061:

Wait SPvP has better rewards than WvW, so should SPvP be removed as well?

There are actually fewer barriers of entry to pvp than to competitive wvw.

So to sum things up:

People are divided about GW2 having raids.
Most people want more challenging content.
Most people don’t want the elitism and grind that goes with a traditional raid’s gear treadmill.
So make raids (or whatever you want to call it) with GW2 style rewards. Problem solved?

Altair.8402:

So to sum things up:

People are divided about GW2 having raids.
Most people want more challenging content.
Most people don’t want the elitism and grind that goes with a traditional raid’s gear treadmill.
So make raids (or whatever you want to call it) with GW2 style rewards. Problem solved?

The question is ‘instanced or not’ when you get down to it.

The best compromise I can come up with is making a guild hall danger room that spawns private instances of world bosses.

Windsagio.1340:

Altair.8402:

So to sum things up:

People are divided about GW2 having raids.
Most people want more challenging content.
Most people don’t want the elitism and grind that goes with a traditional raid’s gear treadmill.
So make raids (or whatever you want to call it) with GW2 style rewards. Problem solved?

The question is ‘instanced or not’ when you get down to it.

The best compromise I can come up with is making a guild hall danger room that spawns private instances of world bosses.

That really shouldnt be the question. I and many players absolutely detest the fact that we are forced to play with strangers for most of our content (key word is forced). I dont mind playing with strangers for some things or on some occasions. But sometimes i dont want them influencing my gameplay and potentially ruining any fun i can have with my friends. If we are getting challenging content we should be able to control who we play with.

There really does need to be both open world and instanced content in an MMO. Its needed to keep both groups happy and prevent excessive collisions of interest. If you flat out removed dungeons and fractals from the game right now i guarantee the game would take a huge hit in popularity. People say instanced content lovers are the minority. There may be some truth to that in this game. But its certainly not a small enough minority to simply ignore. And you can bring back a huge amount of old players with new instanced content. Along with many new players.

Also GW1 was a fully instanced game. Its kind of disheartening to me for anet to go completely in the opposite direction and stop supporting instanced content rather than just branching out into both directions. After all GW1 was hugely successful especially with its elite missions and zones.

YES to raids.
And for those that don’t want/like them. Guess what? You don’t have to do them

No, I’d rather time/money and effort was used elsewhere.

Astralporing.1957:

SkylightMoon.1980:

Bump. Despite what the naysayers may say, the so called “vocal minority” actually ends up being the majority. Who would have thought

Majority? Where? Because you’re definitely not talking about gw2.

JLHiggs.6258:

2. I think this forum, anecdotally, underestimates the number of players interested in this content.

No, we don’t. It’s aleady known that even in raid-heavy games raider community usually is no bigger than 10-15%. In gw2, aimed at casuals and with no raids whatsoever, i can safely say it’s likely much smaller.

JLHiggs.6258:

4. If anything, raids will attract a different breed of player

I am quite aware of that. It’s one of the reasons why i argue against them.

Oh look another gamer who fears raids being introduced because of no reason whatsoever besides difficult content that they can’t do. Nothing new here.

With a poll of 250 votes, 2/3rds say that yes. The people who said no just happened to be more vocal about it here on the thread. Hence “vocal minority”.

spoj.9672:

Windsagio.1340:

Altair.8402:

So to sum things up:

People are divided about GW2 having raids.
Most people want more challenging content.
Most people don’t want the elitism and grind that goes with a traditional raid’s gear treadmill.
So make raids (or whatever you want to call it) with GW2 style rewards. Problem solved?

The question is ‘instanced or not’ when you get down to it.

The best compromise I can come up with is making a guild hall danger room that spawns private instances of world bosses.

That really shouldnt be the question. I and many players absolutely detest the fact that we are forced to play with strangers for most of our content (key word is forced). I dont mind playing with strangers for some things or on some occasions. But sometimes i dont want them influencing my gameplay and potentially ruining any fun i can have with my friends. If we are getting challenging content we should be able to control who we play with.

There really does need to be both open world and instanced content in an MMO. Its needed to keep both groups happy and prevent excessive collisions of interest. If you flat out removed dungeons and fractals from the game right now i guarantee the game would take a huge hit in popularity. People say instanced content lovers are the minority. There may be some truth to that in this game. But its certainly not a small enough minority to simply ignore. And you can bring back a huge amount of old players with new instanced content. Along with many new players.

Also GW1 was a fully instanced game. Its kind of disheartening to me for anet to go completely in the opposite direction and stop supporting instanced content rather than just branching out into both directions. After all GW1 was hugely successful especially with its elite missions and zones.

I understand where you are coming from spoj. One thing that i havent seen anyone mention, is that truly difficult open world content, like the wurm(basically the only one), is practically done in an instanced fashion. The organized groups that do this don’t just take their group and go into a map. They pop one or two overflows to ferry in their entire organized group so they don’t have to deal with the pugs in the open world. So basically they are trying as hard as they can to make the boss fight as instanced as possible.

SkylightMoon.1980:

Oh look another gamer who fears raids being introduced because of no reason whatsoever besides difficult content that they can’t do. Nothing new here.

Way to build your whole sentence out of mostly incorrect assumptions. Also, way to show exactly the reason why i might not want that “different breed” of players with the same attitude in this game.

SkylightMoon.1980:

With a poll of 250 votes, 2/3rds say that yes.

Oh yeah, ~150 people said yes. Out of over million players, and at least several thousand active forum posters. Great majority you have here.

Also, you really should brush up your info about MMORPG demographics. Raiders are always a minority – even in raid-heavy games, which GW2 is not. It is not an accident – you can say, it’s by design. By design, because, after all, raids are specifically made to exclude average and below-average players – they wouldn’t be challenging otherwise. That already places them as a content for minority, and that minority gets smaller and smaller the more challenging you want them to be.

If someone from top 10% wants a challenge, they would expect that challenge to be for them, not for someone of lower skill/gear plateau. If someone from top 1% wants a challenge… you get the picture.

TL/DR: Raids are a small minority content. They are a small minority content, because the raid community wants it that way. Even if they later try to fudge the numbers trying o pretend that they are more important than they really are.

The ugly fact is that there’s not much economic incentive to please the people that want instanced raids. The opposite, if anything.

That doesn’t mean you guys won’t get them, they might want to expand their variety of encounter or try something out.

Still, every trend I know of in MMOs is against instanced raiding, and GW, which never liked the concept anwyays doesn’t seem likely to take risks or buck that particular trend

I would like to see all older dungeon content made available in solo and the current system, all future content dungeon or open world based i would like to see more raid like systems but with great rewards based on those systems as the current dungeons are only for old dungeon skins which by now have had their day as the other rewards you get from those runs are normally not that good anyway

Yes, it would be awesome! Also, instanced, please.

Generally speaking, I’ve long felt I’d like to see party size increased to 10.

As for raids specifically, I lean toward saying no. My personal opinions on it are as follows:

1. Static Instanced content gets boring fast. Sure it can be cool the first few times, but after you get the routine down, you’ve seen the sights, done the things, etc, why do it 100 more times? Oh yeah ..rewards (which are always more significant than other activities).

2. Also instanced content is meaningless, in that it has no effect in the world. It’s wholly unaffiliated with anything “real”. You do it and then everything is just how it was before, as if nothing had happened. I like instances enough when it’s to advance a story and move forward to the next step. But otherwise don’t find that overly satisfying.

3. Our instanced dungeons already have enough social toxicity around them, and I avoid them largely because of it. “Proper raids” would only be worse. The fact is, there are just certain type of unsavory attitudes that breed with that stuff, out of mechanical necessity. You do things the “right” way, with the right class, gear, build, etc, or you’re not welcome. And it’s not even really the players’ faults, it’s just that the content and reward structure demands being “optimal”.

4. It would take significant time and dev resources to put this sort of thing together, at the expense of other (better) types of content. Considering this is content I would see little or none of (while hindering new content I actually would otherwise experience), ..hard to get too excited for it.

I very much favor Open World content over instanced (aside from story). I do have a possible caveat though.

I can see exceptions for Guild raids (if you want to call it that). I could imagine a certain (or maybe variable) number of players queuing up with an NPC in their Guild Hall for some fancy instanced Guild Mission. And I could go a step further and see this instance being shared with another guild who also queued up, maybe even more guilds (cough, Alliances). This could be a cooperative or competitive PVE scenario where you have different teams working toward a greater goal, or to do it better/faster than the others. It shouldn’t just be another loot farm though.

But have it be tied to something in the Open World, be it something as trivial as a public in-game leaderboard, or something more meaningful like like town ownership (like GW1 Factions). I mean if you’re going to be grinding instances, might as well have something to show for it in the world.

“Elite Zones”

• for 5 man.
• for 10 man.