Guild Wars 2

Now that raids are coming to the game, can we please add some build locking into them?

The last thing we need is having to go through the same thing we ’re going through in the fractals were people switch around traits, gear, abilities and weapons from boss to boss.

Or even worst classes. There’s nothing challenging about that, it’s just a massive annoyance that you have to do before each fight.

Can the raids we get, build/class lock you when you enter, so people can enjoy the content without changing stuff around all the time.

And what’s so bad about changing your build midway through?

Don’t like it, you don’t have to do it.

From the statement, I kind of got the impression that not only will they allow it, they intend for you to NEED to do it at some points.

Why?

Well, imagine a raider with good celestial gear. Average all around. But boss X here requires lots of burst damage to take down, so you need a good set of Berserker gear for him. And then you enter area Y, where it’s all condition damage time. So, you need a third set of gear. And you’re going to have to earn ALL of them if you want to be at your best in this raid.

Changing your traits is easy. But when you need to change your gear as well, then you’re looking at a time sink. A big one if you want ascended gear. Gold sink, too. This will slow down raiders and make it harder without requiring bosses far stronger than anything GW2 should have. It’s a way to turn two hours of content into dozens of hours of focused play.

I like build locking. It makes the trait choices harder and more interesting.

Bearhugger.4326:

I like build locking. It makes the trait choices harder and more interesting.

Agreed, but I’ve given my reasons why I think they won’t be doing it in the raids.

No – to build locking I say No.

Guild Wars 2 is a fast paced game that encourages a flowing, organic combat – just like you’re supposed to adapt to all sorts of things during combat the game encourages you to tweak and change your build as you move from encounter to encounter in order to improve your performance and get better results.
This is intended and it’s fine – build locking is a silly mechanic that forces you to bring a build that’s catered to one role and one role only – you can’t change or adapt to the flow of combat or the encounters themselves.

What if you’re getting knocked down too much? Being able to bring more stability or swap out some traits to bring more support is crucial.

Build locking is a tired and old mechanic – there’s simply no point to limit player freedom. Adapting along the way is certainly what I believe the devs have in mind with raids – and is certainly what they’ve encouraged with the game so far.

I mean – we had build locking in the game at release – to change traits you had to go to a vendor and buy an item that allowed you to do it – it was tedious and the community wanted it changed – so the devs listened and agreed it was an impractical system – so it was changed to what we have today.

It would be a step back in a wrong direction to introduce it now – as far as I’m concerned.

If the act of swapping itself is what annoys you then maybe allowing players to save different builds and item loadouts might be a solution.

On the other hand if you think players should not be allowed to swap once they enter the dungeon/raid in order to create an additional layer of challenge than that would be more difficult to address.

Seera.5916:

And what’s so bad about changing your build midway through?

Don’t like it, you don’t have to do it.

It’s too much of a hassle for some players – so instead of choosing not to do it let’s take it away from everybody else so it’s not even an option.

That way players who don’t want to do it don’t need to feel like they’re not doing something they could be doing because this way you’re taking the option away from everybody else – which is totally fine with them.

Palador.2170:

Changing your traits is easy. But when you need to change your gear as well, then you’re looking at a time sink. A big one if you want ascended gear. Gold sink, too. This will slow down raiders and make it harder without requiring bosses far stronger than anything GW2 should have. It’s a way to turn two hours of content into dozens of hours of focused play.

You make a good argument, but what you’re describing there, doesn’t sound, fun, challenging or anything really, but a chore.

If they go down that road, raids will probably fail (opinion, for the easily confused, i’m no prophet).

by not having to change everything around, they can make the fights more intresting and engaging instead of “we’re approaching the condition vuln boss. everybody switch up”

but you’re probably right, still, it’s worth the effort

ReiCH.6273:

Palador.2170:

Changing your traits is easy. But when you need to change your gear as well, then you’re looking at a time sink. A big one if you want ascended gear. Gold sink, too. This will slow down raiders and make it harder without requiring bosses far stronger than anything GW2 should have. It’s a way to turn two hours of content into dozens of hours of focused play.

You make a good argument, but what you’re describing there, doesn’t sound, fun, challenging or anything really, but a chore.

If they go down that road, raids will probably fail (opinion, for the easily confused, i’m no prophet).

by not having to change everything around, they can make the fights more intresting and engaging instead of “we’re approaching the condition vuln boss. everybody switch up”

but you’re probably right, still, it’s worth the effort

But that also limits what they can put into the raid design wise. In lowers the variety within a single raid. Because players can’t change their builds.

If they can change their builds, designers have more freedom.

It also means if PUGs enter the dungeon they don’t have to completely leave the raid and restart it if they realize they should have more traits that provide stun breakers or stasis, etc.

Straylight.7529:

If the act of swapping itself is what annoys you then maybe allowing players to save different builds and item loadouts might be a solution.

On the other hand if you think players should not be allowed to swap once they enter the dungeon/raid in order to create an additional layer of challenge than that would be more difficult to address.

Yes swapping pre made templates alleviates lots of the sillyness of the thing. but they’ve made it clear that we’ll get no “dual specks” or template savers …

Plus maybe they’ll design something interesting that requires skill with your build instead of swapping around stuff. There’s nothing challenging about that. With build locking they might make the raid dance more interesting

ReiCH.6273:

Straylight.7529:

If the act of swapping itself is what annoys you then maybe allowing players to save different builds and item loadouts might be a solution.

On the other hand if you think players should not be allowed to swap once they enter the dungeon/raid in order to create an additional layer of challenge than that would be more difficult to address.

Yes swapping pre made templates alleviates lots of the sillyness of the thing. but they’ve made it clear that we’ll get no “dual specks” or template savers …

Plus maybe they’ll design something interesting that requires skill with your build instead of swapping around stuff. There’s nothing challenging about that. With build locking they might make the raid dance more interesting

Have they given reasons why they won’t do dual-specs?

And what do you mean with “requires skill with your build”? Do you mean encounters that require a player to take certain synergizing talents or he/she won’t be able to beat the encounter?

Straylight.7529:

Have they given reasons why they won’t do dual-specs?

And what do you mean with “requires skill with your build”? Do you mean encounters that require a player to take certain synergizing talents or he/she won’t be able to beat the encounter?

Iirc they said that it would require lots of work on the technical side of things, and it would be difficult to implement in a meaningful way at this time.

Skill with one’s build. I mean to know what to do when, when to dodge and when to dps, to have that instinct on what to do at any moment to get the max out of your build. Theoretically with a very active boss that for each time you do combat with “chooses” different mehcanics from a larger pool, that would be your skill that comes into play. Does that makes sense?

ReiCH.6273:

Now that raids are coming to the game, can we please add some build locking into them?

The last thing we need is having to go through the same thing we ’re going through in the fractals were people switch around traits, gear, abilities and weapons from boss to boss.

Or even worst classes. There’s nothing challenging about that, it’s just a massive annoyance that you have to do before each fight.

Can the raids we get, build/class lock you when you enter, so people can enjoy the content without changing stuff around all the time.

I don’t understand why it’s bad to have the option to swap builds.

• If you don’t want to swap your build, don’t.
• Those of us who do work at doing it fast enough so that it doesn’t slow down the group.
• Those of us who don’t care about slowing down the group already do other “selfish” stuff, so locking builds doesn’t really affect them.

I far prefer build swapping because I’m not forced into one style of play and if the group needs me to, I can offer more DPS, more support, or whatever.

I’m willing to change my mind on the topic. For that, I want to see an argument based on how this would be better for the community — so far, all I see is how some people don’t like it.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

I don’t understand why it’s bad to have the option to swap builds.

Because when you allow for it, it’s not an option anymore. It’s a necessity. Cause one of 2 things will happen, either the content will not require it, and thus when you switch you’ll trivialize it, or it will require it, and thus by not switching you’re becoming a burden in your team.

ReiCH.6273:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

I don’t understand why it’s bad to have the option to swap builds.

Because when you allow for it, it’s not an option anymore. It’s a necessity. Cause one of 2 things will happen, either the content will not require it, and thus when you switch you’ll trivialize it, or it will require it, and thus by not switching you’re becoming a burden in your team.

Except that hasn’t proven to be the case so far. You’ve offered an issue that doesn’t exist: I don’t feel forced to swap builds now. I don’t feel the content is trivialized by swapping and I don’t feel that people on my team are are burden if they don’t switch.

On the contrary, if people discover part way through that their build doesn’t synergize well with the current team, they can swap their build, thus eliminating a problem that existed in this game at launch: people locked into an “incorrect” build for the situation.

(The issue of trivialized content is different and more complicated: encounters are the same for each path and so there can be optimized setups, the AI is artificial-not-intelligent and so can be gamed easily, and challenges scale poorly or not at all. Locking builds doesn’t address any of those issues, just slows people down who are no longer challenged by the content itself and are therefore interested in the challenge of speeding things up.)

So a group of casual players who are strangers decide to do a raid for the first time and enter it with their current builds. They don’t care about efficiency so they don’t check the guides before starting. They are not casuals due to time available to play.

They get into the raid and they’re progressing slowly. They’ve wiped some but they’re learning the tricks. They’re about 2 hours into and they realize they can beat the current boss if they had more stability. Unfortunately, the only way to do this is to change up their builds.

Oh wait, they’re build locked. They’ll have to leave the raid and come back in, in order to change their build. Group decides to just disband as they don’t want to have to repeat the past two hours worth of work for a possible two hours more in the raid. As they have no idea how long the raid is.

But without the build locking, a few of them can swap out to offer more stability and the group defeats the boss and finishes the raid in about 4 hours from start to finish.

Which scenario would you prefer? The one where a group of casuals has to restart midway through the raid just to switch builds to be able to complete the content at the group’s skill level? Or one where the group of casuals can change their build up in order to complete the content at the group’s skill level?

I know I prefer the latter. No one likes being forced to waste time. It’s like when you stupidly forget to save a game after defeating a hard boss only for the power to blip and you lose it.

Seera.5916:

So a group of casual players who are strangers decide to do a raid for the first time and enter it with their current builds. They don’t care about efficiency so they don’t check the guides before starting. They are not casuals due to time available to play.

They get into the raid and they’re progressing slowly. They’ve wiped some but they’re learning the tricks. They’re about 2 hours into and they realize they can beat the current boss if they had more stability. Unfortunately, the only way to do this is to change up their builds.

Oh wait, they’re build locked. They’ll have to leave the raid and come back in, in order to change their build. Group decides to just disband as they don’t want to have to repeat the past two hours worth of work for a possible two hours more in the raid. As they have no idea how long the raid is.

But without the build locking, a few of them can swap out to offer more stability and the group defeats the boss and finishes the raid in about 4 hours from start to finish.

Which scenario would you prefer? The one where a group of casuals has to restart midway through the raid just to switch builds to be able to complete the content at the group’s skill level? Or one where the group of casuals can change their build up in order to complete the content at the group’s skill level?

I know I prefer the latter. No one likes being forced to waste time. It’s like when you stupidly forget to save a game after defeating a hard boss only for the power to blip and you lose it.

I’m sorry, did you just said that a group of 10 complete strangers decide to go raiding one night? I thought we were talking about the super hard challenging content people were asking for soooo long. This post is for that content.

Honestly speaking 10 random strangers shouldn’t be able to progress at all in there. They shouldn’t expect any reasonable progress in their first attempts, when they don’t even know the mechanics, their attempt would only be for laughs and giggles.

ReiCH.6273:

I’m sorry, did you just said that a group of 10 complete strangers decide to go raiding one night? I thought we were talking about the super hard challenging content people were asking for soooo long. This post is for that content.

Honestly speaking 10 random strangers shouldn’t be able to progress at all in there. They shouldn’t expect any reasonable progress in their first attempts, when they don’t even know the mechanics, their attempt would only be for laughs and giggles.

The guardians of the galaxy were also random strangers who met on a chance encounter and they saved the galaxy!

Straylight.7529:

The guardians of the galaxy were also random strangers who met on a chance encounter and they saved the galaxy!

touché!

I stand corrected

ReiCH.6273:

Seera.5916:

So a group of casual players who are strangers decide to do a raid for the first time and enter it with their current builds. They don’t care about efficiency so they don’t check the guides before starting. They are not casuals due to time available to play.

They get into the raid and they’re progressing slowly. They’ve wiped some but they’re learning the tricks. They’re about 2 hours into and they realize they can beat the current boss if they had more stability. Unfortunately, the only way to do this is to change up their builds.

Oh wait, they’re build locked. They’ll have to leave the raid and come back in, in order to change their build. Group decides to just disband as they don’t want to have to repeat the past two hours worth of work for a possible two hours more in the raid. As they have no idea how long the raid is.

But without the build locking, a few of them can swap out to offer more stability and the group defeats the boss and finishes the raid in about 4 hours from start to finish.

Which scenario would you prefer? The one where a group of casuals has to restart midway through the raid just to switch builds to be able to complete the content at the group’s skill level? Or one where the group of casuals can change their build up in order to complete the content at the group’s skill level?

I know I prefer the latter. No one likes being forced to waste time. It’s like when you stupidly forget to save a game after defeating a hard boss only for the power to blip and you lose it.

I’m sorry, did you just said that a group of 10 complete strangers decide to go raiding one night? I thought we were talking about the super hard challenging content people were asking for soooo long. This post is for that content.

Honestly speaking 10 random strangers shouldn’t be able to progress at all in there. They shouldn’t expect any reasonable progress in their first attempts, when they don’t even know the mechanics, their attempt would only be for laughs and giggles.

Doesn’t mean there won’t be PUG groups and I never said it would be easy for them or not.

They may get completely turned off of raids if they get halfway through several hours later only to be forced to have to restart the raid to change their build to adjust their strategy.

And is that something we should be wanting for this game?

Seera.5916:

Doesn’t mean there won’t be PUG groups and I never said it would be easy for them or not.

They may get completely turned off of raids if they get halfway through several hours later only to be forced to have to restart the raid to change their build to adjust their strategy.

And is that something we should be wanting for this game?

I’m going to be honest with you here.

This is something that I, personally, didn’t ask or want for this game (I = me, myself as an individual)

However it’s here whether we like it or not. And it’s here because people asked for it.
We asked for it. We got it. And along with it legendary armor. So now that it’s here, I want it to be what it was asked and promised. Hard and challenging. So yes, that’s something we not only want for this game, that’s something we have been asking for. (We = the community, or at least a large portion of it, if colin and the people in the forums tell the truth)

ReiCH.6273:

Seera.5916:

Doesn’t mean there won’t be PUG groups and I never said it would be easy for them or not.

They may get completely turned off of raids if they get halfway through several hours later only to be forced to have to restart the raid to change their build to adjust their strategy.

And is that something we should be wanting for this game?

I’m going to be honest with you here.

This is something that I, personally, didn’t ask or want for this game (I = me, myself as an individual)

However it’s here whether we like it or not. And it’s here because people asked for it.
We asked for it. We got it. And along with it legendary armor. So now that it’s here, I want it to be what it was asked and promised. Hard and challenging. So yes, that’s something we not only want for this game, that’s something we have been asking for. (We = the community, or at least a large portion of it, if colin and the people in the forums tell the truth)

Build locking shouldn’t be the difference between content being easy vs content being challenging. If build locking would make it challenging, then it’s too easy already.

It should be challenging either way. I personally want the less frustrating one of no build locking.

I’d rather quit midway because it’s too difficult for the group I’m in with the intent to try again later with the same group or a different group than quit midway just to change builds to try again without knowing if the new build is good enough for my group to make it through to the end of the raid.

This is a very good question but it will probably be not locked. This will even further support a meta for each encounter meaning each boss will be even easier to finish (if you have the right gear and profession).

If anet intends and forces you to have different builds and gear that really doesn’t sound like “play what you want”. That would also mean you have to farm all kinds of gear and at the end it will end up anyway with stuff like profession A is better than B.

I have no idea how anet wants to do that. Either the content will be too easy with the perfect setup (meta setup) or you will NOT be able to play what ever you want. You can’t avoid both.

Seera.5916:

I’d rather quit midway because it’s too difficult for the group I’m in with the intent to try again later with the same group or a different group than quit midway just to change builds to try again without knowing if the new build is good enough for my group to make it through to the end of the raid.

Then wait 2 weeks for the guide to come out. Don’t know what else to tell you, really.

ReiCH.6273:

Seera.5916:

I’d rather quit midway because it’s too difficult for the group I’m in with the intent to try again later with the same group or a different group than quit midway just to change builds to try again without knowing if the new build is good enough for my group to make it through to the end of the raid.

Then wait 2 weeks for the guide to come out. Don’t know what else to tell you, really.

Not all casuals read guides as some feel that removes the challenge.

But build locking shouldn’t be what makes a raid hard or not. Therefore since the only function it would have is to frustrate players, it does not need to be added. Players who wish to have the challenge of not changing their builds once they enter it are free to do so. But it does not need to be made a requirement for all groups just because you feel it cheapens the experience. In my view it does not. It only leads to frustration.

Raids are gonna be hardcore. If you can’t trust the people you’re raiding with you might as well not even go in. It doesn’t sound like a very PUG kind of content. Maybe plan on making friends who play in the same timezone as you and forming a regular raid night group.

Mo Mo.1947:

Raids are gonna be hardcore. If you can’t trust the people you’re raiding with you might as well not even go in. It doesn’t sound like a very PUG kind of content. Maybe plan on making friends who play in the same timezone as you and forming a regular raid night group.

Build locking or not has nothing to do with whether it’s PUGable or not. PUG’s will still attempt it. I’d rather players decide raids are not for them because the content is too hard for them. Not because they got tired of having to quit mid-raid because they were missing one crucial trait.

And really, if whether it’s challenging or not is down to whether builds or locked or not, then the content would be easily done by PUG’s.

I would not be opposed for an optional forced build lock on the instance. Where you could choose before going in if it’s a build locked run or a build unlocked run. Nor would I be opposed to the build locked run having better rewards since it would be harder.

It just shouldn’t be forced on anyone nor be described as something that will make or break whether or not the content is challenging.

Harper.4173:

No – to build locking I say No.

Guild Wars 2 is a fast paced game that encourages a flowing, organic combat – just like you’re supposed to adapt to all sorts of things during combat the game encourages you to tweak and change your build as you move from encounter to encounter in order to improve your performance and get better results.
This is intended and it’s fine – build locking is a silly mechanic that forces you to bring a build that’s catered to one role and one role only – you can’t change or adapt to the flow of combat or the encounters themselves.

What if you’re getting knocked down too much? Being able to bring more stability or swap out some traits to bring more support is crucial.

Build locking is a tired and old mechanic – there’s simply no point to limit player freedom. Adapting along the way is certainly what I believe the devs have in mind with raids – and is certainly what they’ve encouraged with the game so far.

I mean – we had build locking in the game at release – to change traits you had to go to a vendor and buy an item that allowed you to do it – it was tedious and the community wanted it changed – so the devs listened and agreed it was an impractical system – so it was changed to what we have today.

It would be a step back in a wrong direction to introduce it now – as far as I’m concerned.

Yes – to build locking I say Yes.

Guild Wars 2 is a fast paced game that encourages a flowing, organic combat – its mechanics allow you to adapt to all sorts of things during combat through weapon swapping, your utility skill choices, and a general flexible array of abilities. Having to tweak and change your build from encounter to encounter is cumbersome and disturbs that flow. GW2’s combat is flexible enough that it allows you to fulfill multiple roles even if your builds is very specialized, allowing you to change and adapt to the flow of combat or the encounters themselves without having to change your build each fight.

If you’re getting knocked down too much? In a group of 10, surely someone in your group will have the tools in their build necessary to deal with that mechanic, and any group with any sort of origination will have brought some form of AoE stab to deal with the eventuality of CC. Being strong as a group, not as an individual, is the crux of challenging group content.
Not to mention “build locking” doesn’t necessarily prohibit everything. Traits and gear could be locked, but not utility abilities, allowing you to switch those for more stab. There’s more to the discussion of build locking then a binary “yes/no”. There’s “how much should be locked”.

Build locking is a tried and true mechanic, operating within limited parameters is the defining characteristic of any challenge. A sport is nothing more then a list of limitations that you must operate within. The same for any game. A jumping puzzle is only challenging because you can’t fly to the end. Surely the devs recognize that GW2’s innately flexible combat is what needs to be leveraged. Changing builds at every encounter promotes “build wars”-style min-maxing, something the devs have discouraged with the game so far.

We had build locking in the game at release – to change traits you had to go to a vendor and buy an item that allowed you to do it. It was tedious and the community wanted it changed because it was a senseless mechanic in the open world environment. So the devs listened and agreed it was an impractical system on those grounds, and it was changed to what we have today.

It would be a step in the right direction to introduce it in raids – as far as I’m concerned.

If they would just implement the GW1 system of saving builds so you could quick swap I think that would eliminate a lot of the gripes and grumbles. That being said I do understand how locking builds in an instance increases the challenge and forces people to think more from the start and plan a solid individual and team build. However as we have seen this usually ends up in a single build option such as all the zerker dungeon builds, and prevents the class diversity that ANET is looking for.

I think a happy medium is possible.

ReiCH.6273:

Now that raids are coming to the game, can we please add some build locking into them?

The last thing we need is having to go through the same thing we ’re going through in the fractals were people switch around traits, gear, abilities and weapons from boss to boss.

Or even worst classes. There’s nothing challenging about that, it’s just a massive annoyance that you have to do before each fight.

Can the raids we get, build/class lock you when you enter, so people can enjoy the content without changing stuff around all the time.

Why do you think Legendary Armor is coming, so that builds can be changed on the fly, to make people change from zerker god mode only, this will also be backed by the new fractal system which will force people to change builds,

The entire skill/trait system is designed so that you have to adapt to the current battle, locking skills/traits would be a bad move and completely against the current, trait/skill setup system.

Ok I Did It.2854:

Why do you think Legendary Armor is coming, so that builds can be changed on the fly, to make people change from zerker god mode only, this will also be backed by the new fractal system which will force people to change builds,

The entire skill/trait system is designed so that you have to adapt to the current battle, locking skills/traits would be a bad move and completely against the current, trait/skill setup system.

Because if the reward isn’t percieved as worthy, we’d all do the challenging content once or twice for the experience, and then maybe once a month when we’re bored and that’s that. Now dangle that legendary armour in front of our faces and watch us grind that baby for the new shinies.

If the company seriously doesn’t want the dps role to be the only role there is, then maybe they shouldn’t keep designing stuff that only need dps to go down. Build locking or not doesn’t matter. They’ve already spoken about a soft trinity of support control and dps. They still haven’t told us exactly how they imagine that would work, but, build anarchy isn’t the answer. If you think build locking will force everyone into zerker, I say build anarchy will force people into that one dps meta build that the number crunchers will produce. Not to mention the constant pain of switching this for that, put that in leave that out, the nagging on mummble cause someone forgot one skill or trait or whatever. It actually goes against their own statement that we shouldn’t be staring at the UI. Switching builds constantly is exactly that.

Locking classes and traits is the absolute minimum they can do to make this challenging, to allow the oportunity for the good players to distinguish themselves from the poor, and to come up with new more flexible builds for our raiding, instead of the super specialized, we’ll end up with build anarchy.

Locking your build was actually something ArenaNet wanted. That was why you had to pay to change your traits, which they talked about pre-launch. Like GW1, they didn’t want you to swap for every boss in a dungeon. The cost however made people not want to experiment, so that was eventually dropped. Now traits have evolved into something that is pretty much meant to be swapped. Whether they actually want you to however, you can only guess.

Unless they want to require NPCs to change your traits, there’s really no way to even lock them without punishing either yourself or the entire group.

ReiCH.6273:

Ok I Did It.2854:

Why do you think Legendary Armor is coming, so that builds can be changed on the fly, to make people change from zerker god mode only, this will also be backed by the new fractal system which will force people to change builds,

The entire skill/trait system is designed so that you have to adapt to the current battle, locking skills/traits would be a bad move and completely against the current, trait/skill setup system.

Because if the reward isn’t percieved as worthy, we’d all do the challenging content once or twice for the experience, and then maybe once a month when we’re bored and that’s that. Now dangle that legendary armour in front of our faces and watch us grind that baby for the new shinies.

If the company seriously doesn’t want the dps role to be the only role there is, then maybe they shouldn’t keep designing stuff that only need dps to go down. Build locking or not doesn’t matter. They’ve already spoken about a soft trinity of support control and dps. They still haven’t told us exactly how they imagine that would work, but, build anarchy isn’t the answer. If you think build locking will force everyone into zerker, I say build anarchy will force people into that one dps meta build that the number crunchers will produce. Not to mention the constant pain of switching this for that, put that in leave that out, the nagging on mummble cause someone forgot one skill or trait or whatever. It actually goes against their own statement that we shouldn’t be staring at the UI. Switching builds constantly is exactly that.

Locking classes and traits is the absolute minimum they can do to make this challenging, to allow the oportunity for the good players to distinguish themselves from the poor, and to come up with new more flexible builds for our raiding, instead of the super specialized, we’ll end up with build anarchy.

If the difference between build locking or not means the content is easy or hard, then raids have failed before they even started. Content can be made difficult with the ability to change builds. Build locking shouldn’t be what makes it difficult or not. So why force everyone to build lock? When a good number of players will never have experienced that in GW2, when it will only frustrate the casuals.trying out raids? And if you want ANet to invest in raids, then you need more than the hardcore elite doing them. Which means you can’t chase the casuals away. And build locking would likely chase the casuals away. They won’t want to risk long hours inside only to realize that they need a trait that no one in the group has so they have to restart in order to be able to complete the raid.

But if they made it optional setting that increased quantity or quality of the reward, then most casuals would be fine with that. They can work out what traits are needed in the build unlocked side and switch over to the build locked side when their group feels comfortable with their builds. And the hardcore can start with the build locked side for the challenge and risk.

Nah I hope they require trait/armor/weapon changing so raids force me to use builds I don’t usually use. I’m the type of player who gets stuck playing one build forever, but I’m always surprised when other builds are fun to play as well.

It just seems artificially limiting to lock builds tbh, and create an artificial type of difficulty instead of making the content itself challenging.

Seera.5916:

If the difference between build locking or not means the content is easy or hard, then raids have failed before they even started. Content can be made difficult with the ability to change builds. Build locking shouldn’t be what makes it difficult or not. So why force everyone to build lock? When a good number of players will never have experienced that in GW2, when it will only frustrate the casuals.trying out raids? And if you want ANet to invest in raids, then you need more than the hardcore elite doing them. Which means you can’t chase the casuals away. And build locking would likely chase the casuals away. They won’t want to risk long hours inside only to realize that they need a trait that no one in the group has so they have to restart in order to be able to complete the raid.

But if they made it optional setting that increased quantity or quality of the reward, then most casuals would be fine with that. They can work out what traits are needed in the build unlocked side and switch over to the build locked side when their group feels comfortable with their builds. And the hardcore can start with the build locked side for the challenge and risk.

If they include gear swap it is FAR from being casual. Hey you want to do this? You need gear A, B and C. Go farm that!
Also build swaps is more a tryhard thing. I’m pretty sure casuals rarely swap their skills for a coming fight.

Neox.3497:

Seera.5916:

If the difference between build locking or not means the content is easy or hard, then raids have failed before they even started. Content can be made difficult with the ability to change builds. Build locking shouldn’t be what makes it difficult or not. So why force everyone to build lock? When a good number of players will never have experienced that in GW2, when it will only frustrate the casuals.trying out raids? And if you want ANet to invest in raids, then you need more than the hardcore elite doing them. Which means you can’t chase the casuals away. And build locking would likely chase the casuals away. They won’t want to risk long hours inside only to realize that they need a trait that no one in the group has so they have to restart in order to be able to complete the raid.

But if they made it optional setting that increased quantity or quality of the reward, then most casuals would be fine with that. They can work out what traits are needed in the build unlocked side and switch over to the build locked side when their group feels comfortable with their builds. And the hardcore can start with the build locked side for the challenge and risk.

If they include gear swap it is FAR from being casual. Hey you want to do this? You need gear A, B and C. Go farm that!
Also build swaps is more a tryhard thing. I’m pretty sure casuals rarely swap their skills for a coming fight.

True, but if they were doing raids and realized they needed more X and a trait change could give them more X, then build locking would frustrate them and they’d likely eventually stop doing raids even if the content itself is fun. They would stop because 9 times out of 10, the group ends up missing a trait that makes it doable at their skill level and they have to restart the raid. And since they’re casual they don’t ask the stuff at the beginning as they don’t think to do so.

I’m a casual, but if I’m finding something hard, I look at my traits and skills and gear and go: is there an option that would make this content easier for me?

Build locking only punishes casual players for making bad gear/trait/skill choices. The hardcore look at it as a challenge and try to overcome it and it won’t take a hardcore group too long to redo the work if they decide to restart while learning. The casuals may not know that X is the skill/trait/gear they need to make the content doable at their skill level. So they may go from Y to Z and still not succeed. This will just frustrate the casuals who have now spent hours in the raid with nothing to show for it. And a good majority of casuals will stop doing raids if they aren’t in it for the rewards and will not continue once they’ve gotten the rewards they want.

And if people want raids to be something they add more of instead of going the way of the dungeon, then raids need to be completable by casuals. Hard to do, yes, but doable without adding in things that would only frustrate them as they are learning to do them. And a good number of casuals don’t read guides so them being out there doesn’t really help. Nor should they be required to read guides to avoid frustration from something as simple as having the wrong build. To me, that kind of frustration is unnecessary and more hurtful than helpful.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

I don’t understand why it’s bad to have the option to swap builds.

• If you don’t want to swap your build, don’t.
• Those of us who do work at doing it fast enough so that it doesn’t slow down the group.
• Those of us who don’t care about slowing down the group already do other “selfish” stuff, so locking builds doesn’t really affect them.

I far prefer build swapping because I’m not forced into one style of play and if the group needs me to, I can offer more DPS, more support, or whatever.

I’m willing to change my mind on the topic. For that, I want to see an argument based on how this would be better for the community — so far, all I see is how some people don’t like it.

I wanted to answer this specifically because it’s a reasonable question, and one that speaks to my own opinion on this subject.

For me, the build-swapping that goes on in high-level stuff, where a player keeps five sets of armor and uses every trait in their class, quick-swapping between pretty much every fight…it destroys player/character identity. You don’t really have a build, no thing-I’m-doing that the player works hard to perfect and master. You’re essentially playing five or six different i.e. Guardians at once, switching to whatever Guardian is marginally better for whatever encounter you’re doing so you can shave those last few half-seconds off your clear time.

That’s valid, and I try to remember that speedrunners do, in fact, have fun speedrunning…but you’re effectively eliminating the vast majority of players from your chosen playstyle. If you feel like not doing this is detrimental to the group – and you clearly do, since that ‘selfish’ word came up here – then anyone who, like me, prefers to rig up one build and take it to the absolute maximum we can get out of it are essentially voted off the island. We can’t do that and still play with people who do the swap-for-every-fight thing, because to you guys we’re being selfish and bad at GW2.

As a more concrete example: my favorite Engineer is built in the original GW1 toolbox mindset – I tried to create a highly synergistic build with as many answers and options in it as I could, and when I play Lilyana I try to improve my ability to run that build as much as possible – learn new ways to use what I’ve got, get better at using what I’ve got quicker, identify what I’m best suited to taking out and what I should avoid until/unless I need to handle.

I love it; it’s turned a character that sat on her duff on my start screen for nearly a year into one of my top three. Lilyana’s a superb Silverwastes cruiser and more than holds her own in guild dungeon/Fractal runs. Every time I play her I feel like I’m getting a better grip on the best Swiss army knife I’ve built in this game to date. It gives me something extra to do – I’m still screwing with gear and precise loadout on her, trying to find the ideal balance point to maximize her ability to do pretty much anything I ask her to out of the box, without having to swap to an entirely new set of gear and completely change out all nine of my traits.

But if I wanted to play Lilyana outside my guild/solo work? I’d have to get rid of that build entirely. I’d need a set of pure Berserker armor, a set of pure Sinister armor, and a set of pure Celestial armor, and I’d need to abandon my flexible, all-in-one approach in order to go for a super-narrow razor focus on every one of the dozen sub-pseudobuilds I’m supposed to switch to between encounters. It would destroy the character and any reason I had to play it. If I needed to run Lilyana like that to get through content…well, I’d never get through that content.

Heh…now, it’s very true that this is all subjective opinion, and no real reason to lock builds in future instanced content. But by your own words, one of us is being selfish and unhelpful to the group by sticking to what we love to do in GW2. I find that opinion telling; it’s one of the major reasons why it’s so difficult for me to keep remembering that speedrunners do, actually, have fun doing what they do. Considering that this is the Friendliest and Most Helpful Community in MMOs, telling someone they’re a bad player for doing what is, in fact, the normal thing in every other online game out there, and what this game itself often encourages, seems backwards to me.

It’s not that people want to stop you from doing what you like in GW2, Na. Not in my mind. It’s more like…the rest of us would like to be able to do what we love doing in GW2 without being pariahs for it. The only way for that to happen is if build locking kicks in somewhere. Unfortunate but true.

I my eyes build locking would be a very horrible decision. It would harm raids severely. I n last consequence it would degenerate GW2 raids into trinity raids. Build locking would cause many issues.

You are losing variety. You would be chained to a certain role during the whole wing. There would be no possibilty to swap the role at certain bosses or mob groups if you want or it is needed if some player feels uncomfortable in a certain role.

Build blocking would also destroy the variety of boss encounters and mob groups. The first encounter in the wing would determine the following encounters like in a trinity dungeon. You had to build the encounters around group composition. But it should be the other way around the group has to adapt to the encounter (Boss or mob group).

The strength of GW2 is the flexibility of the classes. You can easily switch weapons, skills, traits and gear to change or refine your role. Why should this strength be given up?

DevilLordLaser.8619:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

I don’t understand why it’s bad to have the option to swap builds.

• If you don’t want to swap your build, don’t.
• Those of us who do work at doing it fast enough so that it doesn’t slow down the group.
• Those of us who don’t care about slowing down the group already do other “selfish” stuff, so locking builds doesn’t really affect them.

I far prefer build swapping because I’m not forced into one style of play and if the group needs me to, I can offer more DPS, more support, or whatever.

I’m willing to change my mind on the topic. For that, I want to see an argument based on how this would be better for the community — so far, all I see is how some people don’t like it.

I wanted to answer this specifically because it’s a reasonable question, and one that speaks to my own opinion on this subject.

For me, the build-swapping that goes on in high-level stuff, where a player keeps five sets of armor and uses every trait in their class, quick-swapping between pretty much every fight…it destroys player/character identity. You don’t really have a build, no thing-I’m-doing that the player works hard to perfect and master. You’re essentially playing five or six different i.e. Guardians at once, switching to whatever Guardian is marginally better for whatever encounter you’re doing so you can shave those last few half-seconds off your clear time.

That’s valid, and I try to remember that speedrunners do, in fact, have fun speedrunning…but you’re effectively eliminating the vast majority of players from your chosen playstyle. If you feel like not doing this is detrimental to the group – and you clearly do, since that ‘selfish’ word came up here – then anyone who, like me, prefers to rig up one build and take it to the absolute maximum we can get out of it are essentially voted off the island. We can’t do that and still play with people who do the swap-for-every-fight thing, because to you guys we’re being selfish and bad at GW2.

As a more concrete example: my favorite Engineer is built in the original GW1 toolbox mindset – I tried to create a highly synergistic build with as many answers and options in it as I could, and when I play Lilyana I try to improve my ability to run that build as much as possible – learn new ways to use what I’ve got, get better at using what I’ve got quicker, identify what I’m best suited to taking out and what I should avoid until/unless I need to handle. I love it; it’s turned a character that sat on her duff on my start screen for nearly a year into one of my top three. Lilyana’s a superb Silverwastes cruiser and more than holds her own in guild dungeon/Fractal runs. Every time I play her I feel like I’m getting a better grip on the best Swiss army knife I’ve built in this game to date.

But if I wanted to play Lilyana outside my guild/solo work? I’d have to get rid of that build entirely. I’d need a set of pure Berserker armor, a set of pure Sinister armor, and a set of pure Celestial armor, and I’d need to abandon my flexible, all-in-one approach in order to go for a super-narrow razor focus on every one of the dozen sub-pseudobuilds I’m supposed to switch to between encounters. It would destroy the character and any reason I had to play it. If I needed to run Lilyana like that to get through content…well, I’d never get through that content.

Heh…now, it’s very true that this is all subjective opinion, and no real reason to lock builds in future instanced content. But by your own words, one of us is being selfish and unhelpful to the group by sticking to what we love to do in GW2. I find that opinion telling; it’s one of the major reasons why it’s so difficult for me to keep remembering that speedrunners do, actually, have fun doing what they do. Considering that this is the Friendliest and Most Helpful Community in MMOs, telling someone they’re a bad player for doing what is, in fact, the normal thing in every other online game out there, and what this game itself often encourages, seems backwards to me.

It’s not that people want to stop you from doing what you like in GW2, Na. Not in my mind. It’s more like…the rest of us would like to be able to do what we love doing in GW2 without being pariahs for it. The only way for that to happen is if build locking kicks in somewhere. Unfortunate but true.

But they’ll still exclude you if you don’t have the right gear. Build locking isn’t suddenly going to get rid of the meta or the players who like to play the meta and prefer to play with others who like to play the meta.

What they’ll do is kick you from the group when they discover it, as they’ll know quickly if you aren’t meta, and then restart the raid after getting someone else.

Seera.5916:

But they’ll still exclude you if you don’t have the right gear. Build locking isn’t suddenly going to get rid of the meta or the players who like to play the meta and prefer to play with others who like to play the meta.

What they’ll do is kick you from the group when they discover it, as they’ll know quickly if you aren’t meta, and then restart the raid after getting someone else.

True. There’s always going to be exclusion and bullying in the highest-efficiency brackets of the game, the whole ‘go Zerk or go home’ thing. Heh, I’m well aware that there’s no real ‘take it easy’ with those guys – ‘taking it easy’ frustrates them, throws them off their game, and gets them mad at how unnecessarily long a thing is taking.

In my eyes, though? There should be room in this game for playing a build instead of a one-character grab bag of the entire class. I should have space in which to run a build I’ve worked hard to optimize and trim up to my own requirements and abilities. It may not be the same hard work that the Berzerker Flash-Run Kings have put in, but I’ve put that work in regardless. It doesn’t feel good to be denigrated and scorned for that work, and yet guys like me are. Constantly.

It sounds petty, and I suppose it is. But having at least one space in the game where that work is actually valuable would be nice. Likely not raids; unfortunmately, nobody’s going to get through those without five sets of Ascended gear and a hundred hours’ practice quick-swapping traits, and that sucks. A lot. But maybe sometime, somewhere, the rest of us can have something cool to do that the speedrunners don’t take over and subsequently ruin for everyone else?

DevilLordLaser.8619:

Seera.5916:

But they’ll still exclude you if you don’t have the right gear. Build locking isn’t suddenly going to get rid of the meta or the players who like to play the meta and prefer to play with others who like to play the meta.

What they’ll do is kick you from the group when they discover it, as they’ll know quickly if you aren’t meta, and then restart the raid after getting someone else.

True. There’s always going to be exclusion and bullying in the highest-efficiency brackets of the game, the whole ‘go Zerk or go home’ thing. Heh, I’m well aware that there’s no real ‘take it easy’ with those guys – ‘taking it easy’ frustrates them, throws them off their game, and gets them mad at how unnecessarily long a thing is taking.

In my eyes, though? There should be room in this game for playing a build instead of a one-character grab bag of the entire class. I should have space in which to run a build I’ve worked hard to optimize and trim up to my own requirements and abilities. It may not be the same hard work that the Berzerker Flash-Run Kings have put in, but I’ve put that work in regardless. It doesn’t feel good to be denigrated and scorned for that work, and yet guys like me are. Constantly.

It sounds petty, and I suppose it is. But having at least one space in the game where that work is actually valuable would be nice. Likely not raids; unfortunmately, nobody’s going to get through those without five sets of Ascended gear and a hundred hours’ practice quick-swapping traits, and that sucks. A lot. But maybe sometime, somewhere, the rest of us can have something cool to do that the speedrunners don’t take over and subsequently ruin for everyone else?

I’m all for an optional build locking mode or one of the later raids to have build locking. But the first should be something to appeal to all players to get people interested in running raids.

And who knows, the raids currently may not need a ton of gear/build swapping around from boss to boss for non-speed runners.

But if you do build lock, you have a lesser variety of encounters you can put into a raid. Because the players can’t adjust.

Edit: And even with build locking, there will be people who eventually try to see just how fast they can clear a build locked raid. Don’t think that build locking will remove that aspect either.

Palador.2170:

From the statement, I kind of got the impression that not only will they allow it, they intend for you to NEED to do it at some points.

Why?

Well, imagine a raider with good celestial gear. Average all around. But boss X here requires lots of burst damage to take down, so you need a good set of Berserker gear for him. And then you enter area Y, where it’s all condition damage time. So, you need a third set of gear. And you’re going to have to earn ALL of them if you want to be at your best in this raid.

Changing your traits is easy. But when you need to change your gear as well, then you’re looking at a time sink. A big one if you want ascended gear. Gold sink, too. This will slow down raiders and make it harder without requiring bosses far stronger than anything GW2 should have. It’s a way to turn two hours of content into dozens of hours of focused play.

Alternatively lock it and then you’ll need to bring more classes than just Ele.

Arewn.2368:

Harper.4173:

No – to build locking I say No.

Guild Wars 2 is a fast paced game that encourages a flowing, organic combat – just like you’re supposed to adapt to all sorts of things during combat the game encourages you to tweak and change your build as you move from encounter to encounter in order to improve your performance and get better results.
This is intended and it’s fine – build locking is a silly mechanic that forces you to bring a build that’s catered to one role and one role only – you can’t change or adapt to the flow of combat or the encounters themselves.

What if you’re getting knocked down too much? Being able to bring more stability or swap out some traits to bring more support is crucial.

Build locking is a tired and old mechanic – there’s simply no point to limit player freedom. Adapting along the way is certainly what I believe the devs have in mind with raids – and is certainly what they’ve encouraged with the game so far.

I mean – we had build locking in the game at release – to change traits you had to go to a vendor and buy an item that allowed you to do it – it was tedious and the community wanted it changed – so the devs listened and agreed it was an impractical system – so it was changed to what we have today.

It would be a step back in a wrong direction to introduce it now – as far as I’m concerned.

Yes – to build locking I say Yes.

Guild Wars 2 is a fast paced game that encourages a flowing, organic combat – its mechanics allow you to adapt to all sorts of things during combat through weapon swapping, your utility skill choices, and a general flexible array of abilities. Having to tweak and change your build from encounter to encounter is cumbersome and disturbs that flow. GW2’s combat is flexible enough that it allows you to fulfill multiple roles even if your builds is very specialized, allowing you to change and adapt to the flow of combat or the encounters themselves without having to change your build each fight.

If you’re getting knocked down too much? In a group of 10, surely someone in your group will have the tools in their build necessary to deal with that mechanic, and any group with any sort of origination will have brought some form of AoE stab to deal with the eventuality of CC. Being strong as a group, not as an individual, is the crux of challenging group content.
Not to mention “build locking” doesn’t necessarily prohibit everything. Traits and gear could be locked, but not utility abilities, allowing you to switch those for more stab. There’s more to the discussion of build locking then a binary “yes/no”. There’s “how much should be locked”.

Build locking is a tried and true mechanic, operating within limited parameters is the defining characteristic of any challenge. A sport is nothing more then a list of limitations that you must operate within. The same for any game. A jumping puzzle is only challenging because you can’t fly to the end. Surely the devs recognize that GW2’s innately flexible combat is what needs to be leveraged. Changing builds at every encounter promotes “build wars”-style min-maxing, something the devs have discouraged with the game so far.

We had build locking in the game at release – to change traits you had to go to a vendor and buy an item that allowed you to do it. It was tedious and the community wanted it changed because it was a senseless mechanic in the open world environment. So the devs listened and agreed it was an impractical system on those grounds, and it was changed to what we have today.

It would be a step in the right direction to introduce it in raids – as far as I’m concerned.

In case you missed it Anet clearly said that Raids will not require any pre-determined composition – that means that any comp can complete.

The issue with stability for example is that only three four as far as I know grant AOE stability – and three are Guardian skills with the 4th being a 2 second stab on a Ele trait.

So unless your party fields a guardian you have no access to group-wide stability and must bring your own. Not being able to swap between having and not having it is absurd and even more cumbersome since you’re now completely reliant on having a guardian – so there’s your forced team composition right there.

Being strong as a group, not as an individual, is the crux of challenging group content.

I agree – but there are ways to be strong as a team without being crippled as an individual.
There should never be a situation in which your class/build mean that you basically go “ok I have no chance at this – I’m screwed”.
You can have strong team coordination through other means – simultaneous tasks, splits and other clever interactions – limiting what you can bring in and forcing you to have someone else bring it is the laziest way to promote strong teamplay.

I really really don’t see how “build wars” min-maxing has been discouraged considering how the devs themselves took out a severe limitation on builds when they allowed you to switch traits without the need for NPC interaction.

Anther issue is that build locking will create a whole new set of issues – mainly with how you implement it.
I mean – if you get DCD what’s to stop you switching and coming back in? What’s to stop a player switching characters?
Sure you could make it that you can’t rejoin – but that would make Raids incredibly frustrating for anyone with anything but a stellar PC and ISP.

More restrictions are never as far as I’m concerned a good idea – the more you restrict players the more they’ll find ways around it and try to enforce those – the more damage done to the community overall.

DevilLordLaser.8619:

It’s not that people want to stop you from doing what you like in GW2, Na. Not in my mind. It’s more like…the rest of us would like to be able to do what we love doing in GW2 without being pariahs for it. The only way for that to happen is if build locking kicks in somewhere. Unfortunate but true.

The problem here is that you don’t realize you’re free to do as you please – what you essentially want is for the game to be changed in a way that others are forced to take you along even though they dislike your method of playing.
You’re trying to force yourself into parties that don’t want you and don’t want your type of player – which is absurd and sad.

If you want to play a certain build or a certain way – you are free to do it – and if you want to play with others – find others that want to play like you and enjoy it.

I could just as well advocate that meta gear and builds made mandatory and that all non-meta players should be forced to run meta builds. Would you like that?

Meta players are fewer than non-meta players – that’s obvious to everyone – so why can’t you bother to find your own parties and stop trying to impose on others and change the way they play and enjoy the game?

DevilLordLaser.8619:

Seera.5916:

But they’ll still exclude you if you don’t have the right gear. Build locking isn’t suddenly going to get rid of the meta or the players who like to play the meta and prefer to play with others who like to play the meta.

What they’ll do is kick you from the group when they discover it, as they’ll know quickly if you aren’t meta, and then restart the raid after getting someone else.

True. There’s always going to be exclusion and bullying in the highest-efficiency brackets of the game, the whole ‘go Zerk or go home’ thing. Heh, I’m well aware that there’s no real ‘take it easy’ with those guys – ‘taking it easy’ frustrates them, throws them off their game, and gets them mad at how unnecessarily long a thing is taking.

In my eyes, though? There should be room in this game for playing a build instead of a one-character grab bag of the entire class. I should have space in which to run a build I’ve worked hard to optimize and trim up to my own requirements and abilities. It may not be the same hard work that the Berzerker Flash-Run Kings have put in, but I’ve put that work in regardless. It doesn’t feel good to be denigrated and scorned for that work, and yet guys like me are. Constantly.

It sounds petty, and I suppose it is. But having at least one space in the game where that work is actually valuable would be nice. Likely not raids; unfortunmately, nobody’s going to get through those without five sets of Ascended gear and a hundred hours’ practice quick-swapping traits, and that sucks. A lot. But maybe sometime, somewhere, the rest of us can have something cool to do that the speedrunners don’t take over and subsequently ruin for everyone else?

You’re getting into these issues because you insist on playing with people that don’t like your way of playing and want nothing to do with them.
I’m curious – how do you end up interacting with meta players? Why not just avoid them?

Why not join a strictly non-meta guild – form strictly non-meta parties and have fun.

Your work’s value is subjective – it depends on your vision and what you give value to – to you it might be a great achievement – to another it might be nothing.

You’re forgetting that people play for different reasons – some to relax and lay back and others to farm and get gold.

Your build might be the pinnacle of complex cross-trait and cross-skill interaction but if it doesn’t make as much gold per hour as a cookie-cutter simple build what worth does it have to a farmer? none. And there’s nothing wrong with that.
Different goals for different folks – nobody is necessarily right or wrong – just let people enjoy what they want.

Speedrunners haven’t taken over anything – actually speed runners – the people who run dungeons for records are some of the nicest and most open people in the game.

Farmers are what you’re trying to refer to – and to them you’re a hindrance because your presence is costing them gold and ruining their game experience.

Imagine it sort of like this – that one guy in a full Role Play party that constantly breaks your role play and ruins your immersion – that’s what non-farmers are to farmers.

And farmers haven’t taken over anything – they do their thing and want nothing more than to play with players as themselves. I don’t see how non-farmers keep ending up in farm parties considering farmers are pretty good at finding and teaming up with other farmers.

@Harper:

I am in a ‘non-meta’ guild, one I like very much in fact. I play the game solo, or I play it with GTFC. I don’t end up in ‘meta’ or ‘farmer’ parties – if I can’t handle it alone, or if I can’t work up a guild team to tackle the content, I don’t do that content. Kinda specifically for the reasons you state; ‘LFG’ parties are exclusively farming parties or speedrun clears, I know I don’t meet either of those goals, so I just don’t bother with the LFG tool.

If that’s the game working as intended, then oh well for me, I suppose. I just wish there was more room for, y’know…casual play, in the MMO touted by developers and reviewers alike as the greatest bastion of casual MMO players on the Internet.

The Silverwastes is fantastic for that, and easily my favorite place in GW2 right now, but from what I’ve gathered most of the farmers/speedrunners are pushing for Silverwastes-style full-zone events to be heavily disincentivized or even completely removed in favor of trying to force players into the instanced raid content if they want to do stuff other than stand around an empty zone doing nothing.

Why?

LFG’ parties are exclusively farming parties or speedrun clears, I know I don’t meet either of those goals, so I just don’t bother with the LFG tool.

Maybe have a better look at the LFG tool – I’ve seen plenty of non-meta parties and “casual run” advertisements for almost all content – including FOTM 50.

Perhaps have a bit of patience or maybe post your own group – simply type in – “non-meta whatever” and press Create. People will join.

The game is currently working as intended because it’s not forcing players with different goals and means together. If there isn’t room for your particular play style ( although there’s a lot of room as I mentioned above) maybe consider switching it up and adopting something more popular?

It’s an MMO – not a single player role playing game – if people consistently don’t want to play with you perhaps it’s time to look and try to find the reason why.
And it’s not the gear or the build – it’s the goals – you play the game for a very different reason than other players – there’s really no wonder they won’t want to play with you.

GW2 is the greatest bastion of casual MMO – and there’s plenty of room for casual play – but casual players don’t even want to go to the effort of finding each other or starting their own groups.
You said it yourself – if you can’t find guild mates or a group you won’t make one. Why?
Why do you expect someone else to already be there and cater to what you need instead of trying to make it happen yourself?

Actually you’ve got it all wrong – no farmer in their right mind would push against maps like SW – it’s an incredibly easy and consistent way of getting gold. I assure you those that are against it are not true farmers. People that really care about gold in this game will push to have as many fast and easy means of obtaining it as possible and right now SW is one of the best.

Speed runners have really little to say about SW – they’re pretty much focused on the content they enjoy – I don’t see how SW affects them.

There is a push from veteran and hardcore players for more instanced hardcore content – but that doesn’t mean these players (myself included) want to take content away from the casuals – we simply want our own silverwastes-like oasis where we can hang out and play among ourselves.
At least that’s how I understand it – nobody is saying stop making content for casual players – from what I’ve seen is they’ve just been asking for content for veterans and hardcore players too.

Raids are Anet’s answer to that call – it isn’t going to replace the open world. It’s just going to give us more invested players something to do more appropriately tied to goals and wishes regarding GW2.

By getting raids nobody is taking anything from you.

Seera.5916:

And who knows, the raids currently may not need a ton of gear/build swapping around from boss to boss for non-speed runners.

That, simply, cannot, happen. Raids were brought in the game to satisfy the needs of the hardcore crowd. If build swapping is allowed, you can bet your important personal asset that it will be required. If it’s not, then those who tailor made their builds, will find minimal challenge in the whole affair and after a while the complaints will start. How arena net didn’t offer what was asked. To top it off, if it’s not required to finish the content that means casuals will be able to do it also, further devaluing an already devalued aspect of the game and raids will be considered another “failure”.

Understand this please, hard and challenging content -cannot- be completed by the majority of the players in the game, if it does, it simply isn’t challenging. Content like that is there for the few, those who will put in the time, effort and persistence. It’s like asking for everyone on the pvp ladder to be able to reach the top tier. It cannot happen. It devalues the thing. Please don’t ask for raids to cater to the 10 strangers who met at queensdale and decided to go raiding.

DevilLordLaser.8619:

If that’s the game working as intended, then oh well for me, I suppose. I just wish there was more room for, y’know…casual play, in the MMO touted by developers and reviewers alike as the greatest bastion of casual MMO players on the Internet.

That my friend, died, the day raids were announced. Things changed.