Guild Wars 2

Warruz.8096:

Zeldain.5710:

Raids are not inherently tied to gear progression.

Raids are simply large-scale organized group/guild PvE content.

Something this game DESPERATELY needs.

This so much, I love raiding . While I have become more casual with it over time I still enjoy the group dynamics of working together which of course comes with a social aspect desperately needed.

The social aspects I recall from raiding involve standing around for half an hour while the stragglers file in, trying to pretend that I wouldn’t rather be doing anything else but sitting on my hands; shrieking at the newbs for making newb mistakes; then wheedling, complaining and ultimately crying, over loot drops.

There are times I would have given my left arm, just for the opportunity to beat my fellow raiders over the head with it until the bleating stopped. I never, ever, ever want to be forced to play with people I don’t want to play with, in order to access game content I’ve paid for. Never again.

Raiding belongs to WoW and they both belong in the gutter. Better Blizzard continues to copy ArenaNet’s ideas than the other way around.

Blacklight.2871:

Warruz.8096:

Zeldain.5710:

Raids are not inherently tied to gear progression.

Raids are simply large-scale organized group/guild PvE content.

Something this game DESPERATELY needs.

This so much, I love raiding . While I have become more casual with it over time I still enjoy the group dynamics of working together which of course comes with a social aspect desperately needed.

The social aspects I recall from raiding involve standing around for half an hour while the stragglers file in, trying to pretend that I wouldn’t rather be doing anything else but sitting on my hands; shrieking at the newbs for making newb mistakes; then wheedling, complaining and ultimately crying, over loot drops.

There are times I would have given my left arm, just for the opportunity to beat my fellow raiders over the head with it until the bleating stopped. I never, ever, ever want to be forced to play with people I don’t want to play with, in order to access game content I’ve paid for. Never again.

Raiding belongs to WoW and they both belong in the gutter. Better Blizzard continues to copy ArenaNet’s ideas than the other way around.

Perhaps our experience is different but getting 10 people together wasnt hard and at that amount its enough to have a solid working machine. Raids dont have to be 25 or 40 people I never cared for those large amounts but 10 is a good number its small enough to know everyone and large enough to require higher coordination.

Also nothing is stopping them from being accessible hell all you have to do is modify slightly wows current difficulty teirs. Rather then dropping better loot in terms of stats you just make the 3 difficulties (easy , medium , hard) give more ornate gear.

I could take it or leave it really.

If they were to add some structured content that took more than 5 people to complete and it wasn’t necessary to optimize your character stats, they could have at it.

I’ve run raiding deep into the ground for so many years in so many games, I’m fine with never doing it again. Fine with others doing so though.

Well, I’m hoping the new guild quest can be something like a raid (more than 5 ppl dungeon-ish style). The reward can be many things, such as tokens for new skins (countess anise, I’m looking at your clothes.. err), guild-related buffs/influence/titles/achievements/etc.

Raids don’t mean additional item tiers, and I hope ascended is the last of it (imagine GW2 with many item tiers, the colors will be like an aftermath of an oil spill).

I think groups bigger than 5 in GW2 simply won’t work because of how the game is built.

GW2 seems to work for soloing, small groups or zergfests.

Even GW1 has raid style content needing 8-12 players. But in GW2 we see that the combat system, the lack of roles (like it or not) and the lack of mechanics in instances make larger groups than 5 not viable in my view.

Let’s say they added dungeons for groups of 10. Look at what dungeons are like now and what more would it offer than larger boss areas with lots of red circles and kiting around? The thing is, without roles and more distinct mechanics, why would you need 10 people? I think there is a clear reason that 5 is the group size, because more doesn’t really work or add anything. Everybody plays roughly the same role (DPS/support) and has to dodge circles and run around using mostly auto attack. Some bosses take a bit more than that but in general boss fights are not complicated and it doesn’t matter who joins really as far as roles are concerned.

In fact in GW2 we see that classes are not shunned because of roles but about who does the most DPS basically. Warrior or Necro? Necro will work but warrior has more DPS. End of story.

So all in all for larger groups than 5, there is only zerg. DE’s and dragons are basically large group content and WvW. And we know that that’s usually zergfest. Now, that isn’t necessarily bad for everyone. WvW is considered very enjoyable by many, so why not. But it does seem that GW2 stifled its own success by not offering enough options to different player groups.

In another game that I do play, there are 8 and 16 man raids. In a group of 8 you would normally have 2 tanks, 2 healers, 2 ranged dps and 2 melee dps. These are 4 distinct roles that each have their specific tasks.

Now I understand Anet wanted to get away from the roles and just let anyone do anything but the drawback is that raiding is basically not viable in such a system. It may not be a drawback for everyone but for those who like to be in guilds and do group activities that require a bit more than select target and go smash, GW2 simply is not the right game.

I do think though that in return for raid content and a more active gear progression, there is not enough that came in return for that.

So all in all, I think GW2 is not set up for raid content. If they do add content in the future for larger groups, I think they will have to do some really different things to make it interesting to do.

The only other MMO I have played besides GW2 is GW1. I have never participated in a raid, so I have no idea what they’re really like. That being said, the anti-raid people are not making strong arguments as to why they should not be included in GW2.

GW1 had several “raid-like” instances, and I enjoyed them. Urgoz’s Warren and The Deep were both 12-man instances and there were at least two story missions (Vizunah Square and Unwaking Waters off the top of my head) where two parties played in tandem. By my count, that’s 16 players in an instance.

I would love to see dungeon-type content in GW2 where more than 5 people participate. Even if it’s like the two-party story missions in GW1 where two teams of 5 start in different locations, performing different tasks, and then meet up for a final encounter.

The only thing I don’t want to see is content that takes an excessive amount of time to complete. I’ve read that the average raid times in WoW are 2-4 hours. To me, that’s too long. Arah story-mode and Arah path 4 are too long in my opinion, and they’re 1.5-2 hours (or longer on path 4, depending on Dwayna).

I’d like content tuned to 10-man groups, or possibly even bigger groups, if it gave the same rewards as 5-man. But I’d only like it with an appropriate interface, showing health/boon/conditions of the team.

Gluttony.2017:

For raids to be succesfull and be anti-zerg they would have to make them difficult, meaning that the majority will QQ because everything that involves strategy or listening is to complicated, thus having to be nerfed to a point were a mindless AI zerg could do it aswell as a group of players.
So, if they introduce a raid that is not pug-able the amount of QQ would be bigger then when Asc. gear was introduced, and if it is pug-able you might as well go do the dragons.
Anet should rather focus on releasing some more quaggan items, that seems more appealing to the majority of the player-base + allows them to milk out some more cash.

Which just means that you should go back to your previous game to get your raid fix…and quit trying to make everything you play into a WoW clone.

TBH GW2 is lack some big dynamic type PVE content. I would like to see some sort of raid type thing in game. Dont have to be dungeon type raid. Just something you can do as a guild working in a group.

I dont even mention wow clone. Not interested. Raids are good for teamwork and guild work.

IceCold.5172:

TBH GW2 is lack some big dynamic type PVE content. I would like to see some sort of raid type thing in game. Dont have to be dungeon type raid. Just something you can do as a guild working in a group.

I dont even mention wow clone. Not interested. Raids are good for teamwork and guild work.

I feel like all the people in this thread have never done one of the metaevent chains in Orr. These things REQUIRE 20+ people to get done, have multiple stages, and massive endbosses.

Stop complaining b/c it’s not in an instance and there aren’t lockout timers. If you want to raid go to a game built around raiding. If you want to find raid-like elements in this game, they’re THERE!

I would not mind if cosmetic raids were added.

As for those who would quit if raids were added, I totaly detest any form of PvP in MMO’s but I would not quit GW2 because it has PvP in it. I dislike jumping puzzles, but I would not quit GW2 because they are in the game.

why cant people just live and let live and not force everyone else to play “thier game”

I bet Anet just love it when people tell thier customers to “go away and play something else”

Im sorry but hearing people say “I dont want raids because they wouldnt be available to everyone” and “I dont like the idea of waiting around for randoms” is starting to annoy me.

Firstly they would be just as accessible as the Fractals are now. Multiple difficulties with very little difference in the loot you get between those levels. With raids you could even just make all the drops roughly the same and have a server-wide shoutout to the group that completes the hardest difficulty, maybe the names of those people posted somewhere in game for everyone to see. People would do it just for the prestige!

Secondly you queue for WvW….you queue while regular dungeon parties are formulated… you queue while waiting for DEs etc etc. There is no difference because while you are queuing you can be doing something else. It doesnt literally mean waiting in a lobby afk for 10/20/30mins.

I think raids, providing theyre done the ‘GW2 way’, could be amazing for both PuGs and guilds/groups whether theyre organised or not. Having content that brings with it ‘bragging rights’ for guilds/groups is exactly what the game needs because it doesnt have to bring gear progression. Players will attempt these raids to get their name recorded in the history of the server (at high difficulty levels). Providing you put lower difficulty levels in its not gating content for anyone any more than the fractals are!

Guild wars 2 is as advertised when we bought it. They should fine tune and improve the game and not re-engineer it because people want hugely complex additions to the game that run against the stated philosophy.

I wish they could introduce something like competitive fractals or cooperative fractals.

1. Competitive: two groups of five queue up and get the same order of fractal maps; all loot is dropped like normal but the team that finishes first gets some special prizes (I don’t know what the prizes should be).

Could even have a leaderboard based on points earned (perhaps points are earned by a combination of number of mobs killed plus total time taken to clear maps [the faster the more points])

It’s a rough idea but seems like itd be fun in concept

2. Cooperative fractals: perhaps 10 player fractal runs…. Could be the same maps made harder or new maps altogether made specially for more people.

Just some ideas.

I don’t really care if they add more gear… I just want more competitiveness. I think having leaderboards and/or competitive pve content could be a start.

could just add raids and call them missions…boom people wont kitten about that since it does not have the word raid in it…like GW1

Grunties.6841:

Guild wars 2 is as advertised when we bought it. They should fine tune and improve the game and not re-engineer it because people want hugely complex additions to the game that run against the stated philosophy.

Its like arguing with a brick wall sometimes! How is introducing ‘gw2 style raids’ against the core philosophy? Hell even if it went against the philosophy but was good for the vast majority of players in the game id want to see it brought in! You dont even know what ‘GW2 style raids’ would involve yet youre saying they go against the philosophy!

marnick.4305:

Nappychappy.7046:

CobaltSixty.1542:

How many tiers does WoW have now? 16? 17?

No.

And where will ascended gear be at in 8 years?

Hopefully still at exactly the same stat level as it is right now. Anything else will not be taken lightly by the majority. Stat levels really need a top tier as a constant to keep casual players in the game. Having a definitive end goal is what makes this game attractive, even if it takes years to get the coveted legendary.

[cut] Edited by Moderator

Do you know why FotM was implemented?

Get your LUBE-N-WALK ready!!

Vae Victus.3678:

Amos.8760:

I agree, although most GW1 players won’t. I do miss the drive to get better gear, and the teamwork needed to raid. I really miss feeling a part of a team like I felt in WoW.

Luckily for you, there’s a convenient list of MMOs that are heavily based on raiding that you can play instead of GW2.

List: http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm

I hate coments like this you asume that thoughs other MMO’s also do everything ells like gw2 than???

theres a tone of stuff people like about this game that it dose differently than other MMO’s its lack of raiding is vary low on that list of why people like this game

alot of what GW2 dose right could be moved into a bigger team focused instance ((ever one gets gear, the gear is no better than what you get in the world, Guilds get points for guild stuff like skins, or guilds get to mount big ugly dragon heads on the walls of there upcomeing guild halls ETC))

Vae Victus.3678:

Amos.8760:

I agree, although most GW1 players won’t. I do miss the drive to get better gear, and the teamwork needed to raid. I really miss feeling a part of a team like I felt in WoW.

Luckily for you, there’s a convenient list of MMOs that are heavily based on raiding that you can play instead of GW2.

List: http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm

If you manage to find a decent online rpg without a gear treadmill system, I bet a lot of us would be very interested in knowing about it. I’ve been searching for one since GW1 stopped releasing new content.

Thereon.3495:

Its like arguing with a brick wall sometimes! How is introducing ‘gw2 style raids’ against the core philosophy? Hell even if it went against the philosophy but was good for the vast majority of players in the game id want to see it brought in! You dont even know what ‘GW2 style raids’ would involve yet youre saying they go against the philosophy!

When people talk about the core philosophy of end game they are referring to this blog post by Arenanet.

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

Here are a couple quotes:

When we looked at the concept of “endgame” for Guild Wars 2, we designed it the same way. We didn’t want the endgame to be something you could only experience after a hundred hours of gameplay or after you reached some arbitrary number. We wanted it to be something that players got to experience every step along the way, spread out across the entire world of Tyria, so we’ve introduced game elements that you’d normally associate with “endgame” at every level and every possible opportunity.

Sure, once your character reaches max level, we’ve created new and interesting ways to challenge you as a player, but we didn’t want to force you to master an entirely new subset of the game.

Their philosophy is simple. What you do while leveling is endgame. Raids are not part of the leveling process and so they are not part of the game. It is a simple as that. Feel free to disagree but that is the argument.

My opinion is I would prefer raids not be added. I raided early on in WoW and now hate it. It is not enjoyable. I have not stepped into one PvE dungeon in GW2 and I have been playing since the first day of the game’s launch. I focus on WvW, the open world, and sPvP.

The fact that ascended gear has been available only to PvE dungeon players is a disgrace. Yes, they are remedying the problem but it should have never happened in the first place. I know a lot of people that have left the game since the introduction of ascended gear. My biggest complaint is that PvE players are currently getting a gear advantage in PvP (WvW). That is unacceptable. Others I know simply do not want there to be a gear grind at all.

I mention the ascended gear because if raids were to be introduced then players would want to be rewarded. Players already complain about their efforts not being rewarded with loot/better gear drops. In raids you would be adding more players together and asking them to divy the loot up themselves.

Simply put, in my opinion, anything added with raids would need to be made available elsewhere. The PvP’ers would want the same rewards added to WvW. Casuals would want the same rewards for karma and open world events. Are you willing to do raids even if those rewards are available elsewhere?

Also, here is a list of reasons why people probably do not like raids. At least reasons I can think of:
- Loot – Not enough loot to go around and players have to divide it up. Players already complain about “grind” in GW2.
- Time Investment – Guilds/Players/Groups create set days and times to play these raids. It can quickly turn into a second job. Which in turn makes it feel more like a chore than fun.
- Repetitiveness – Some players get mind numbingly bored doing the same thing over and over.
- Vertical Progression – New raids typically introduce new levels of gear progression. Yes, GW2 could try and give different rewards but with their latest dungeon they introduced ascended gear. There is a segment of the population that would simply not trust Arenanet at this point. They would assume new vertical progression would be coming.

Maybe one day Arenanet will introduce their vision of what a raid could be. I personally hope not but who knows. If they were to do it they would need to do serious PR work with their player population. Convince them it won’t harm the game they love. I am not trying to be inflammatory or anything real negative. I just hope I gave a better picture of the problem.

Thank you, Frellin. I was intending to fetch that blog article myself once I got back today.

Thereon, Direksone, that’s really the crux of the argument right there. Warcraft’s endgame consists entirely of activities which have nothing whatsoever to do with the rest of the game, and the rest of the game provides no training or context at all for these massive events which are all you ever do once you hit the cap. It’s crap, it wastes all those hours you spend getting to said cap, and it leaves you completely unprepared for what you’re actually supposed to be doing. Ugh.

Rather than try to mimic another game’s endgame/challenge content, “but with a GW2 twist!”, I would rather we try to mimic our own endgame content. Read: I want the Underworld back. Or the Fissure of Woe. Or some of these other endgame areas which were entire zones that could be explored. Can you imagine what the DE system could do in a high-level, high-challenge zone tuned for an organized group of five close friends instead of having to be able to scale from one complete boob to the thousand nations of the Persian Empire? God, it makes my pants tighter just thinking about it! I loved every second of the time I spent in those zones back in the day; I’d kill to be able to do a GW2 version of the ol’ Pink Party in the Underworld.

Take everything we’ve already come to enjoy about GW2 and distill it into a high-level area – a real high-level area, price of admission and everything. Give us dynamic events seeded throughout a powerful, hostile zone; give us an overarching meta-event to “win” the zone, give us all the bells and whistles of the rest of the game in that zone, all taken to the highest level. It’d be so friggin’ boss...o_o…

Or…we could, y’know…do the same thing every other MMO always resorts to in the end, just with…like, more zombies than usual. That…works, I suppose. If one has a weird definition of ‘works’.

So what youre saying is that because you do not like dungeons they should release no new dungeon content? I dont like sPvP but I dont come onto the forums demanding that they spend less time developing that side of the game! As I said, brick wall.

There is nothing in any post here that suggests that because they could develop GW2 raids that they couldnt improve open world events as well. Hell, id love to see more world bosses with awesome sprawling DE’s leading up to the main battle! I also think that there needs to be some way to take a large group into an instanced zone and have them be on their own to accomplish a task. You could argue that the latter is slightly more epic!

Nowhere have I personally said anything should be forced. There’s nothing forcing you to do dungeons (ignoring fractals which theyre fixing) so why does it mean youre forced to do these large group ‘raids’ (and im using the term ‘raid’ carefully here as a GW2 raid could be anything!).

Another thing- dividing loot? What, where, how, why?! You dont divide loot in dungeons so why would you need to ina raid…..oh wait, youre thinking of WoW raids. This isnt WoW, this is GW2 and GW2 raids can have any format the devs can think of including just using the current system employed by dungeons.

Repetitiveness? I refer you back to dungeons and the fractals. Its ok to have repeating events so long as the players are rewarded. This reward doesnt have to be in gold and can be bragging rights only! A sense of achievement in doing something on a grand scale (plus the odd drop here and there) would be enough to get people playing.

A sense of achievement in doing something on a grand scale (plus the odd drop here and there) would be enough to get people playing.

The first time, absolutely. The second time, certainly. The third time, probably.

The thirty-fourth time some wide-eyed noob in your l33tz0rz raiding guild is all like “when’s the next raid going down?! O_O”, you’ll be wanting some serious scratch for putting up with such a massive, unwieldy piece of content as a high-capacity raid again.

Congratulations – we have arrived once again at World of Warcraft.

Seriously. Are capital-R RAIDZ the only things that are allowed to fill a gap in endgame content? What’s wrong with taking a normal-sized group into an instanced zone and leaving them on their own to be big dang heroes? Or, to put it in as plain a set of terms as I can:

Why do I have to dredge up five (or significantly more!) additional jackholes whose existence in this world do not mortally offend me, over and above the four jackholes I already need to dredge up for every other content type in the game? Trust me, just finding four jackholes I can put up with for more than a few minutes at a time was hard enough!

Bullfrog.1324:

The only other MMO I have played besides GW2 is GW1. I have never participated in a raid, so I have no idea what they’re really like. That being said, the anti-raid people are not making strong arguments as to why they should not be included in GW2.

GW1 had several “raid-like” instances, and I enjoyed them. Urgoz’s Warren and The Deep were both 12-man instances and there were at least two story missions (Vizunah Square and Unwaking Waters off the top of my head) where two parties played in tandem. By my count, that’s 16 players in an instance.

Yeah… I find it quite interesting that quite a few of those concerns are only correlated to raiding but not directly connected, such as gear grinds and elitism. Too many knee-jerk and overly aggressive reactions.

Frellin.6318:

Their philosophy is simple. What you do while leveling is endgame. Raids are not part of the leveling process and so they are not part of the game. It is a simple as that. Feel free to disagree but that is the argument.

You can bring level one players into fractals. You can start sPvP within minutes of creating a character. Your character is automatically level 80 in three dubs. Inclusiveness not mutually exclusive with raiding, and there are several mechanics in place in this game that would naturally add inclusiveness, depending on how accessible they want the encounter to be (I can’t do Caudecus’ Manor until my character is lvl40. Is that somehow against their design philosophy?).

Raiding could EASILY be part of the leveling process, if it were designed that way.

This thread should be closed. We are NOT AND NEVER WILL BE wow. we are better then wow, we are hotter then wow, were the cool kid on the block, were not some cartoony fake wannabe

Well joining an active guild or finding friends to party with will solve your personal issues with regards to finding players worth partying with.

I do understand that at the 24th time of running a raid youre going to need a reason to run the dungeon. There is a need for some kind of system where youre rewarded for your time. An old MMO I used to play had one single ‘raid style’ dungeon that was so hard only two guilds had ever completed it. Their reward was that each member had a one in twenty chance of having a unique armour skin drop. This armour had stats that no armour had in the game, but were far below BiS.

Now read my lips (text!) I am not saying we need to rely entirely on RNG to reward people like this old MMO did, but giving a chance to get something really cool, added to the prestige of doing something amazingly hard and having your name written down in the history of the server as well as raid dungeon tokens and drops you get would keep people playing. Not grinding no, but playing. Plus it would add some much needed ‘epicness’ to the game in my opinion.

There are few downsides providing theyre implemented correctly by ANET!

5 man runs is perfect. No need to wait for specific builds or all that crap. A crappy mes can run with 4 other epic people and still provide.

Why I don’t want raids in gw2:
1. Raids are for most people huge content gates. And people are already complaining about fotm and ascended items (I don’t but still consider raids as ultimate content gate).
2. There are already few Raid heavy MMO’s out there. So why to bother and do the same thing again? This isn’t what I expect from ArenaNet and their game.

Salacious.7358:

5 man runs is perfect. No need to wait for specific builds or all that crap. A crappy mes can run with 4 other epic people and still provide.

Id argue that specific builds are more useful in smaller parties than larger ones as if there are a handful of useless players in large parties they have even less of an impact.

HiddenNick.7206:

Why I don’t want raids in gw2:
1. Raids are for most people huge content gates. And people are already complaining about fotm and ascended items (I don’t but still consider raids as ultimate content gate).
2. There are already few Raid heavy MMO’s out there. So why to bother and do the same thing again? This isn’t what I expect from ArenaNet and their game.

Read my posts please! PLEASE!

Thereon.3495:

Salacious.7358:

5 man runs is perfect. No need to wait for specific builds or all that crap. A crappy mes can run with 4 other epic people and still provide.

Id argue that specific builds are more useful in smaller parties than larger ones as if there are a handful of useless players in large parties they have even less of an impact.

I refuse to stand there and wait for a healer like build or some mass dps aoe avoiding build. When I know as a mes I could tweak some of my stuff on the fly if needed by the party.

builds are exscuse to exclude the weaker players and the casual players from playing with the more elite players which is why Anet made dungeons five man and made all classes more or less – balance (in quotes)

Thereon.3495:

Now read my lips (text!) I am not saying we need to rely entirely on RNG to reward people like this old MMO did, but giving a chance to get something really cool, added to the prestige of doing something amazingly hard and having your name written down in the history of the server as well as raid dungeon tokens and drops you get would keep people playing. Not grinding no, but playing. Plus it would add some much needed ‘epicness’ to the game in my opinion.

Your describing raids as one time thing. And it should be something with a lot of replayability. There is no point at spending a lot of resources just to create a dungeon that a lot of people complete in a matter of days. After that they will go straight to the forums and wine again about how they have no more things to do.

I think AN needs to be smarter.

You all can talk as much crap as you want about old school raiding via WoW and the likes… but GW2 will never touch the feeling you had of 40 guild mates coming together and clearing Molten Core, then finally taking down Ragnaros for the first time. Or having a massive guild in Everquest charge in and engage Innoruuk before another guild got to him first (probably wiping in the process because of trains) hoping someone in your guild got the loot.

Obviously I like GW2 since I’m here, but EQ and WoW helped start it, show some respect to your elders.

Oh… And no to raids, unless it’s some kind of “open world” type of thing where everyone can be included.

HiddenNick.7206:

Thereon.3495:

Now read my lips (text!) I am not saying we need to rely entirely on RNG to reward people like this old MMO did, but giving a chance to get something really cool, added to the prestige of doing something amazingly hard and having your name written down in the history of the server as well as raid dungeon tokens and drops you get would keep people playing. Not grinding no, but playing. Plus it would add some much needed ‘epicness’ to the game in my opinion.

Your describing raids as one time thing. And it should be something with a lot of replayability. There is no point at spending a lot of resources just to create a dungeon that a lot of people complete in a matter of days. After that they will go straight to the forums and wine again about how they have no more things to do.

I think AN needs to be smarter.

Thats what people do already, they kitten fractals was to easy or that cof is being repeated over and over again with speed clears.

AN needs to get off the fact of dungeons and provide more story. Dungeons only serve the loot grind. where as if they put that into the story people would have a lot of things to do.

Thereon.3495:

Read my posts please! PLEASE!

Could you PM me the ones you think I should read? You wrote a lot…

Id argue that specific builds are more useful in smaller parties than larger ones as if there are a handful of useless players in large parties they have even less of an impact.

This swings the other way, too. A single awesome player is sorta drowned out by nine mediocre cheesewheels in a large ramble of players, with little to no chance to actually display his abilities. It’s one reason damage calculators and the like became popular in Warcraft – people couldn’t naturally tell who on their team was sucking the stovepipe when there were so many candidates to choose from without third-party assistance.

More story? As much as id like 500 hours of story to be put into the game its not going to happen! Dungeon content takes a fraction of the time to create than does story mode and will keep the majority entertained for longer.

DevilLordLaser.8619:

Id argue that specific builds are more useful in smaller parties than larger ones as if there are a handful of useless players in large parties they have even less of an impact.

This swings the other way, too. A single awesome player is sorta drowned out by nine mediocre cheesewheels in a large ramble of players, with little to no chance to actually display his abilities. It’s one reason damage calculators and the like became popular in Warcraft – people couldn’t naturally tell who on their team was sucking the stovepipe when there were so many candidates to choose from without third-party assistance.

have you seen the fights these nerds get into when you start to suck? I start to suck in a dungeon and people laugh it off or try and help me out, I suck in wow and I get my kitten chewed out and kitten by a big man named buba

DevilLordLaser.8619:

Id argue that specific builds are more useful in smaller parties than larger ones as if there are a handful of useless players in large parties they have even less of an impact.

This swings the other way, too. A single awesome player is sorta drowned out by nine mediocre cheesewheels in a large ramble of players, with little to no chance to actually display his abilities. It’s one reason damage calculators and the like became popular in Warcraft – people couldn’t naturally tell who on their team was sucking the stovepipe when there were so many candidates to choose from without third-party assistance.

This is GW2…its not as ‘hard’ as other MMOs. All you would have to do is introduce a scaled difficulty. Those doing the hardest difficulty would be expected to be skilled just like in the highest level of fractals. You generally dont take PuGs into high level content so the highest difficulties would be reserved for guilds/groups that think/know each member is skilled enough. Simples!

Thereon.3495:

DevilLordLaser.8619:

Id argue that specific builds are more useful in smaller parties than larger ones as if there are a handful of useless players in large parties they have even less of an impact.

This swings the other way, too. A single awesome player is sorta drowned out by nine mediocre cheesewheels in a large ramble of players, with little to no chance to actually display his abilities. It’s one reason damage calculators and the like became popular in Warcraft – people couldn’t naturally tell who on their team was sucking the stovepipe when there were so many candidates to choose from without third-party assistance.

This is GW2…its not as ‘hard’ as other MMOs. All you would have to do is introduce a scaled difficulty. Those doing the hardest difficulty would be expected to be skilled just like in the highest level of fractals. You generally dont take PuGs into high level content so the highest difficulties would be reserved for guilds/groups that think/know each member is skilled enough. Simples!

this ^

sorry if i repeat something i only read first few posts but does anyone not remember

Sorrws Furnace
Urgoz
the luxon one
DoA – pre ursan blitz builds
???

raiding doesnt have to be dependent on gear upgrades they can be a chest like the dragons we kill so often … and a challenge for those to do more at end game levels just saying …

Kraggy.4169:

Direksone.3867:

People like coming together in a group of 10, it creates a bond among them. I can remember after weeks of wiping on the Lich King that we finally killed him, it was a glorious day indeed.

Some of course think the only real raiding content in WOW was the 40-man stuff.

It was way different, it was cool for sure, but took too long imo. Lowering it to 10 and 25man was a good move to be honest and allowed for more people to be able to do it. It was easier to get a guild together or a group together to do it.

Thereon.3495:

So what youre saying is that because you do not like dungeons they should release no new dungeon content? I dont like sPvP but I dont come onto the forums demanding that they spend less time developing that side of the game! As I said, brick wall.

Snip

My post was partially in response to your post. You asked about core philosophy so I gave you their blog post. You need to realize that you are not just arguing for or against what GW2 could do with raids. You are fighting against people’s perceptions and expectations of what they have been and are right now in other games.

My response to you was not a brick wall. I never said Arenanet should not design new dungeons. Five person dungeons are a core feature of the game and, while I choose not to do them, new ones should definitely be created.

Arenanet also made WvW and the open world core parts of their game. You can acquire exotic gear through many different methods. Though WvW is currently the most limited. This is why ascended gear should have been made available through other methods from the start. That is how the game was originally designed and they broke their own rules when the gear became only available from the new dungeon.

The forced aspect comes in with the way raids have always been done in the past. If you want to stay competitive you have to do it. If raids don’t give vertical gear progression would enough people be willing to do them? If the rewards are unique enough and can’t be obtained through other methods then it becomes forced.

Silentsins.3726:

Raiding could EASILY be part of the leveling process, if it were designed that way.

They could have done it and chose not to. You are asking them to re-design the core of their game.

Thereon.3495:

This is GW2…its not as ‘hard’ as other MMOs. All you would have to do is introduce a scaled difficulty. Those doing the hardest difficulty would be expected to be skilled just like in the highest level of fractals. You generally dont take PuGs into high level content so the highest difficulties would be reserved for guilds/groups that think/know each member is skilled enough. Simples!

So I do get you now. Your thinking about making raids just like fotm. This is some kind of solution… But still I do think that AN should do something different then raids. If they put their efforts on raids, people will always compare gw2 with games that also focus on that. That’s why AN should make things different.

For me dungeons are fun addition but should stay the way they are now. And AN should focus on making open world gameplay as appalling as possible.

A lot of 5 year old arguments made by the ‘anti raiding group’. “I don’t like raids, so I don’t want them implemented.” Embarrassing really. The people against it make no decent arguments at all. If those people don’t like it, why do they even care? They would not be in it anyway. Ridiculous.

Direksone.3867:

A lot of 5 year old arguments made by the ‘anti raiding group’. “I don’t like raids, so I don’t want them implemented.” Embarrassing really. The people against it make no decent arguments at all. If those people don’t like it, why do they even care? They would not be in it anyway. Ridiculous.

Do you want to have a discussion or would you rather insult people?

A discussion is not possible with those people to begin with. Plus, as so eloquently put by Mr. Corey Taylor: “If I offended you, you needed it.”. Get over yourself.

Frellin.6318:

If raids don’t give vertical gear progression would enough people be willing to do them? If the rewards are unique enough and can’t be obtained through other methods then it becomes forced.

First off im glad you asked a question as opposed to stating outright that people wouldnt be interested. I am one of 3 million people so im not going to sit here and say that the community would embrace raids without vertical progression, im just here to state my opinions and the more important fact that raids do not HAVE to have vertical progression. ANET can make their raids the way that they want to.

Secondly its a downer im afraid- having items in game that are solely acquirable in certain areas, but DO NOT give stat gains over regular gear, doesnt mean youre forced to do these areas. No one is forced to do dungeons for the dungeon armours so why would they be forced to raid for the raid armour? Just create some unique raid armour sets with the same old boring stats as we currently have on named exotics and thats it!

I personally would love an RNG based set but thats my own personal preference based on the fact I actually like RNG in games! But thats besides the point im trying to make.

Dire, there have been arguments put forth. You’re ignoring them in favor of your own position. Well, here’s another argument for you, one I narrowed down after going and talking to a buddy of mine who still does a lot of raiding in Warcraft and who raises an excellent point.

World of Warcraft, and games like it, are built for raiding. The Holy Trinity class system is specifically tailored to allow groups of players to handle enemies far stronger than any individual player can be, and the game has had eight years to refine its formula, to come up with bigger badder bossier bosses, more epic raid stages, more intricate boss mechanics, all that jazz. You’re not going to top that. Guild Wars, as a game, is simply not built to support the sort of larger-than-oneself ‘Epic Content’ you’re asking for. You can’t outdo Warcraft in its element, and if ArenaNet put out ‘raids’ that were – as they would inevitably be - just pale, kitten poor imitations of the original, they would invite just exactly the sorts of comparisons they don’t need.

The strength of GW2 is the weakness of Warcraft – varied and engaging open-world/leveling content and the ability to explore anywhere you like with a self-sufficient character. The game is admittedly weak when it comes to massive raid-style bosses, its combat and class mechanics are going to guarantee it always will be next to strict Trinity games…so why are we trying to recenter the game’s level-cap content around its weakest point? Why not instead try and create new endgame content which takes advantage of Guild Wars 2’s strengths, instead? The game does better with smaller encounters against tougher foes, that’s what it was built for. So…do that!

Bring back the Underworld, or a counterpart thereof. Bring back the Domain of Anguish, the Fissure of Woe. Give us high-level instanced areas – entire areas – tuned for a coordinated five-man group. Gate them behind an entrance fee if you like – that worked out well enough for GW1. Hell, since we’re going to get level cap increases whether we want them or not, tie those areas into crafting improvements! Put gathering nodes for materials exclusive to those high-level areas in there so that players are rewarded, at least in part, with highly marketable commodities – sorta like how it worked before, in a game we already know worked? Give us another hundred points of crafting discipline and make the stuff in those levels require some HLZ materials.

Put merchants in there – gold, karma, laurels, hardeys, whatevers - which only spawn in those instances, and which only spawn after completing a certain number of events/a certain chain of set events. They sell Cool Stuff you can’t get anywhere else (but only at exotic strength, because I still say frog Ascended gear anyways). Sorta like how Obsidian armor crafters only showed up once you cleared the Fissure?

MY GOD THE IDEAS. Why, exactly, is it so hard for people to envision a game in which they can do something other than raid for endgame?

I think this is the issue at hand:

Some of us want raids or more challenging content, but we don’t want the rewards for this challenging content to be stronger gear than most people can obtain. It’s fairly obvious that item skins are hardly enough incentive to get people motivated to do the content as well.

So, with that said, what sort of reward for this challenging content are we looking for IF said content was placed within the game?

Direksone.3867:

A lot of 5 year old arguments made by the ‘anti raiding group’. “I don’t like raids, so I don’t want them implemented.” Embarrassing really. The people against it make no decent arguments at all. If those people don’t like it, why do they even care? They would not be in it anyway. Ridiculous.

I wrote something about just that part earlier on in this thread. Are you actually reading what “the people against it” are saying?

The very existence of raids can put stress and pressure on people, especially in small guilds that might not always have ten people online to complete a raid group. Others who don’t really care about raids might feel obliged or pressured into joining because they don’t want to let people down, when there is always just one or two missing and bad experiences with random players have happened.
It creates stress that I’d much much rather do without, because I’ve seen it all happen before and I appreciate the fact that there are no raids to worry about in this game to begin with.

I’d even go as far as assuming that there are a lot of of the people who think and feel the same, as one of the lines about GW2 that comes to my mind straight away is “if you hate MMOs, check out this…” cause it just works without all the stuff we hate in other games. Raids are definitely high on the list for me, and the mentality they create in a playerbase as well.

Even if I never set foot in a raid in GW2, I am very sure that their very existence would already affect me and my gaming experience in a negative way.