Guild Wars 2

Jerus.4350:

nexxe.7081:

Dahkeus.8243:

Good. There’s a reason I left WoW at Cataclysm.

Pug raids are miserable. They’re either an organizational disaster or they’re pitted against content that’s made easy enough for a pug clear.

The latter of those two options is the worst.

Here’s the moment I decided to quit raiding:

I was entering the Deatwing’s Lair raid with a Raid LFG. We breezed through every boss, downing them without a wipe. I defeated Deathwing by doing almost nothing but tab targetting and following the mob of pugs. When the great and legendary Deatwing died to this group…I realized that there was nothing to be proud of.

Deathwing suddenly felt like a pushover schmuck and there was nothing any challenging hard mode could do to fix his ruined reputation.

Please ArenaNet. Please, please, keep this content challenging and don’t ever build out a group finder. Don’t just cater to casual content and don’t just cater to hardcore content. Provide both and embrace a complex and diverse playerbase!

PUG raids work well in GW2. Teq and Wurm, and Vinewrath aren’t “disasters”.

They also aren’t very challenging.

I should’ve clarified. I meant it works well in organizing. As for “challenging”, it works well in WoW, since there’s different difficulty levels: LFR (easiest), Normal (regular guilds), and Mythic (for highly organized and progression guilds). GW2 is only catering to the latter, neglecting the former groups.

nexxe.7081:

Jerus.4350:

nexxe.7081:

Dahkeus.8243:

Good. There’s a reason I left WoW at Cataclysm.

Pug raids are miserable. They’re either an organizational disaster or they’re pitted against content that’s made easy enough for a pug clear.

The latter of those two options is the worst.

Here’s the moment I decided to quit raiding:

I was entering the Deatwing’s Lair raid with a Raid LFG. We breezed through every boss, downing them without a wipe. I defeated Deathwing by doing almost nothing but tab targetting and following the mob of pugs. When the great and legendary Deatwing died to this group…I realized that there was nothing to be proud of.

Deathwing suddenly felt like a pushover schmuck and there was nothing any challenging hard mode could do to fix his ruined reputation.

Please ArenaNet. Please, please, keep this content challenging and don’t ever build out a group finder. Don’t just cater to casual content and don’t just cater to hardcore content. Provide both and embrace a complex and diverse playerbase!

PUG raids work well in GW2. Teq and Wurm, and Vinewrath aren’t “disasters”.

They also aren’t very challenging.

I should’ve clarified. I meant it works well in organizing. As for “challenging”, it works well in WoW, since there’s different difficulty levels: LFR (easiest), Normal (regular guilds), and Mythic (for highly organized and progression guilds). GW2 is only catering to the latter, neglecting the former groups.

Mhm, and having diffrent tiers of difficult is good for this. But it takes more work and it’s not what GW2 has in mind. Not knowing exactly how much work either option takes but do you think your players who would use LFR would in general want a raid or another open world area or open world boss? What is that demographic’s playtime focused? So is it worth building that easy mode raid that you could complete with the LFR tool? Or is it better to spend those resources elsewhere where they would appreciate them more?

Jerus.4350:

nexxe.7081:

Jerus.4350:

nexxe.7081:

Dahkeus.8243:

Good. There’s a reason I left WoW at Cataclysm.

Pug raids are miserable. They’re either an organizational disaster or they’re pitted against content that’s made easy enough for a pug clear.

The latter of those two options is the worst.

Here’s the moment I decided to quit raiding:

I was entering the Deatwing’s Lair raid with a Raid LFG. We breezed through every boss, downing them without a wipe. I defeated Deathwing by doing almost nothing but tab targetting and following the mob of pugs. When the great and legendary Deatwing died to this group…I realized that there was nothing to be proud of.

Deathwing suddenly felt like a pushover schmuck and there was nothing any challenging hard mode could do to fix his ruined reputation.

Please ArenaNet. Please, please, keep this content challenging and don’t ever build out a group finder. Don’t just cater to casual content and don’t just cater to hardcore content. Provide both and embrace a complex and diverse playerbase!

PUG raids work well in GW2. Teq and Wurm, and Vinewrath aren’t “disasters”.

They also aren’t very challenging.

I should’ve clarified. I meant it works well in organizing. As for “challenging”, it works well in WoW, since there’s different difficulty levels: LFR (easiest), Normal (regular guilds), and Mythic (for highly organized and progression guilds). GW2 is only catering to the latter, neglecting the former groups.

Mhm, and having diffrent tiers of difficult is good for this. But it takes more work and it’s not what GW2 has in mind. Not knowing exactly how much work either option takes but do you think your players who would use LFR would in general want a raid or another open world area or open world boss? What is that demographic’s playtime focused? So is it worth building that easy mode raid that you could complete with the LFR tool? Or is it better to spend those resources elsewhere where they would appreciate them more?

Well, if they don’t know their own demographics, all this raid stuff is irrelevant. GW2 was designed for open-world encounters, dungeons, and events, not instanced raids. Past experience, from other MMOs, says that different tiers of difficulty, is the best route for all playstyles. This shouldn’t even be debated. It’s common sense.

It’s like having an e-sport tournament for hardcore pvp players only, neglecting all the casual pvp’ers who play ranked & unranked games. Should the latter be denied new maps and modes unless they meet the criteria of an e-sport tournament?

Developing only for the hardcore guilds will eventually drive players away like it did in Wildstar.

Jerus.4350:

nexxe.7081:

Jerus.4350:

nexxe.7081:

Dahkeus.8243:

Good. There’s a reason I left WoW at Cataclysm.

Pug raids are miserable. They’re either an organizational disaster or they’re pitted against content that’s made easy enough for a pug clear.

The latter of those two options is the worst.

Here’s the moment I decided to quit raiding:

I was entering the Deatwing’s Lair raid with a Raid LFG. We breezed through every boss, downing them without a wipe. I defeated Deathwing by doing almost nothing but tab targetting and following the mob of pugs. When the great and legendary Deatwing died to this group…I realized that there was nothing to be proud of.

Deathwing suddenly felt like a pushover schmuck and there was nothing any challenging hard mode could do to fix his ruined reputation.

Please ArenaNet. Please, please, keep this content challenging and don’t ever build out a group finder. Don’t just cater to casual content and don’t just cater to hardcore content. Provide both and embrace a complex and diverse playerbase!

PUG raids work well in GW2. Teq and Wurm, and Vinewrath aren’t “disasters”.

They also aren’t very challenging.

I should’ve clarified. I meant it works well in organizing. As for “challenging”, it works well in WoW, since there’s different difficulty levels: LFR (easiest), Normal (regular guilds), and Mythic (for highly organized and progression guilds). GW2 is only catering to the latter, neglecting the former groups.

Mhm, and having diffrent tiers of difficult is good for this. But it takes more work and it’s not what GW2 has in mind. Not knowing exactly how much work either option takes but do you think your players who would use LFR would in general want a raid or another open world area or open world boss? What is that demographic’s playtime focused? So is it worth building that easy mode raid that you could complete with the LFR tool? Or is it better to spend those resources elsewhere where they would appreciate them more?

Good question. Generally I suspect big things blowing up big time is something that many people like to go watch, especially among customers of a MMO fantasy game with big dragon fight story.
And please don’t ask for that lame kitten LFR-mode. While it did the trick for that competitor to make content more accessible, it did so in a very boring way.
I bet ANet can do content accessibility better than “dumbing it down”.
Very Hard Difficulty does not equal inaccessible, unless you intentionally design it to be so.

Jerus.4350:

nexxe.7081:

Jerus.4350:

nexxe.7081:

Dahkeus.8243:

Good. There’s a reason I left WoW at Cataclysm.

Pug raids are miserable. They’re either an organizational disaster or they’re pitted against content that’s made easy enough for a pug clear.

The latter of those two options is the worst.

Here’s the moment I decided to quit raiding:

I was entering the Deatwing’s Lair raid with a Raid LFG. We breezed through every boss, downing them without a wipe. I defeated Deathwing by doing almost nothing but tab targetting and following the mob of pugs. When the great and legendary Deatwing died to this group…I realized that there was nothing to be proud of.

Deathwing suddenly felt like a pushover schmuck and there was nothing any challenging hard mode could do to fix his ruined reputation.

Please ArenaNet. Please, please, keep this content challenging and don’t ever build out a group finder. Don’t just cater to casual content and don’t just cater to hardcore content. Provide both and embrace a complex and diverse playerbase!

PUG raids work well in GW2. Teq and Wurm, and Vinewrath aren’t “disasters”.

They also aren’t very challenging.

I should’ve clarified. I meant it works well in organizing. As for “challenging”, it works well in WoW, since there’s different difficulty levels: LFR (easiest), Normal (regular guilds), and Mythic (for highly organized and progression guilds). GW2 is only catering to the latter, neglecting the former groups.

Mhm, and having diffrent tiers of difficult is good for this. But it takes more work and it’s not what GW2 has in mind. Not knowing exactly how much work either option takes but do you think your players who would use LFR would in general want a raid or another open world area or open world boss? What is that demographic’s playtime focused? So is it worth building that easy mode raid that you could complete with the LFR tool? Or is it better to spend those resources elsewhere where they would appreciate them more?

i dunno bout an LFR tool, but i will tell you its possible to complete high end, difficult raids in a LFG system. It depends primarily on the community, and how they choose to use the tool. In FFXIV it was possible to beat hard raids through party finder, i know because i did it.

It is however true the harder it was, the more lfg failure tended to occur.

maddoctor.2738:

In WoW 70% of the population is actually raiding (who knew?) that’s not a minority of the population of the game with the largest player base. Stop thinking that raids in GW2 will be Mythic difficulty that only 2% of the WoW population does.

But if it will be comparable to LFG numbers you mentioned, the raid crowd will call it a failure – and they will be right. Content that 50% of the population can finish won’t be difficult enough for the top 5% after all (and remember, only one difficulty tier).

It’s the Heroic and Mythic difficulties that raiders are asking for, not LFG.

Mind you, the numbers you have are a bit skewed. It’s the percentage of people that did/finished a raid at certain difficulty at least once. It’s not the percentage of people that are actually running them on more consistent basis. Also, WoW doesn’t really have any other content besides raids, which makes people more likely to try them (and make people not interested in raids more likely to pick other games over WoW… GW2 for example).

Edit: and as mentioned in later post by Inverse, the sample was already skewed towards raiders (guild members, active in a game where guild membership and activity is most likely to revolve around raids)

maddoctor.2738:

Lotro, SWTOR, Wildstar raids failed for a simple reason. They didn’t have multiple difficulties for their raids, the hardcore players found them too easy and the casuals too hard. Having multiple difficulty levels is what made WoW a good raiding game and the only game that actually survives with raids.

…well, that doesn’t bode well for the GW2 raids, then, does it?

Substatic.6958:

“YOU can’t have this mode because I don’t LIKE IT! ME ME ME!”

There’s only one person that actually says that, and he’s not an anti-raider but a troll. All other posters bringing that up are for the raids.

maddoctor.2738:

70% of the 2.3 mil sample is 1610000 accounts raiding.

Not raiding. Attempting a raid once. In a game where raiding is the main and most important content.

maddoctor.2738:

That’s why I’m saying Anet’s raids should never ever be Mythic quality (or even Heroic-difficulty) because it’s proven that kind of difficulty is bad for a game. However, lower difficulty raids tend to attract a LOT of people (~70% at least trying them), which means it’s an huge untapped potential for Anet.

Except “LFG difficulty” is not what raiders are asking for.
I mean, have you actually seen how LFG is treated by the more dedicated part of WoW raiding community? On the second thought, never mind – just look at how raid proposers are speaking about it in this very thread.

I mean, i just might be ok if the coming raids turned out to be the GW2 equivalent of lfg (especially with that 50% completion rate you mentioned), but in the end that would only mean that everyone asking for raids now would scream bloody murder. And ask for a real challenging content to be implemented.

Natto.5819:

Its time to make friends who are good at this game. Then you don’t have to worry about fining raid partners.

I don’t know about you, but i make friends with people i like, not for utilitarian reasons. Those are not friends.

Jerus.4350:

Not knowing exactly how much work either option takes but do you think your players who would use LFR would in general want a raid or another open world area or open world boss?

Well, in that case we get back to raids being a content for only few percent of the population, yet demanding resources and attention way bigger than their share.

phys.7689:

Jerus.4350:

nexxe.7081:

Jerus.4350:

nexxe.7081:

Dahkeus.8243:

Good. There’s a reason I left WoW at Cataclysm.

Pug raids are miserable. They’re either an organizational disaster or they’re pitted against content that’s made easy enough for a pug clear.

The latter of those two options is the worst.

Here’s the moment I decided to quit raiding:

I was entering the Deatwing’s Lair raid with a Raid LFG. We breezed through every boss, downing them without a wipe. I defeated Deathwing by doing almost nothing but tab targetting and following the mob of pugs. When the great and legendary Deatwing died to this group…I realized that there was nothing to be proud of.

Deathwing suddenly felt like a pushover schmuck and there was nothing any challenging hard mode could do to fix his ruined reputation.

Please ArenaNet. Please, please, keep this content challenging and don’t ever build out a group finder. Don’t just cater to casual content and don’t just cater to hardcore content. Provide both and embrace a complex and diverse playerbase!

PUG raids work well in GW2. Teq and Wurm, and Vinewrath aren’t “disasters”.

They also aren’t very challenging.

I should’ve clarified. I meant it works well in organizing. As for “challenging”, it works well in WoW, since there’s different difficulty levels: LFR (easiest), Normal (regular guilds), and Mythic (for highly organized and progression guilds). GW2 is only catering to the latter, neglecting the former groups.

Mhm, and having diffrent tiers of difficult is good for this. But it takes more work and it’s not what GW2 has in mind. Not knowing exactly how much work either option takes but do you think your players who would use LFR would in general want a raid or another open world area or open world boss? What is that demographic’s playtime focused? So is it worth building that easy mode raid that you could complete with the LFR tool? Or is it better to spend those resources elsewhere where they would appreciate them more?

i dunno bout an LFR tool, but i will tell you its possible to complete high end, difficult raids in a LFG system. It depends primarily on the community, and how they choose to use the tool. In FFXIV it was possible to beat hard raids through party finder, i know because i did it.

It is however true the harder it was, the more lfg failure tended to occur.

I think you are so right.
Stuff does not need to be made easy for everyone to have fun.
But a good step up the usefulness of the LFG tool to actually craft a group from the crowd without the need of silly meta-announces or unfriendly default-kicking would be just right.
Also a group lead for such an event group would need better ingame tools to explain and command the flock. Yes things can be done with voice chat, but although most people have it that is an unneccessary entry hindrance. You should still use it.
But just put in some proper “raid announce” tools for the raid party manager, so he can easily paint strategy info in the map and trigger proper “raid-announce” text commands into player’s viewport (localized please).
That would make it rather feasible to make, instruct, manage and command a raid group built from LFG tool.

Ascended gear when it was implemented was used to solve two problems:

1. How fast people got exotics. There needed (well, they thought) to be a tier higher that requires more time.

2. The gap between acquiring exotics and legendaries.

And to a degree, it has solved both problems to some extent… It does take considerably longer than getting exotics. Though the gap between exotics and legendaries, well, honestly, it didn’t solve, since the gap was always the RNGensus of getting a precursor (not so much the mats and whatnot) or saving up for one… Now this gap has/is being resolved with the ability to craft precursors. Which means, one of the points for implementing ascended has been kind of nullified.

The remaining point is that it needs to take more time than the exotics…

Without a doubt ascended gear, due to the stats increase (small, I know, but it’s there) over exotics, will become required by the hardcore raiding crowd. Even the slightest stat increase will now have a more dramatic effect, since raids will (or at least should) take much longer than dungeons… And every little bit will help get through them faster and safer (less time spent in a fight with a boss, means chances to screw up the mechanic means less chances to wipe/restart)…

I personally think that it would be a good idea to have Ascended tokens drop/obtained from the raids, which can be exchanged for ascended gear just like our dungeon tokens…

It’s a bit backwards, as in, if ascended gear becomes a requirement for raiding (by the hardcore crowd) and is obtained from raids…. But hopefully that will mean that they will take someone under-geared to get geared…

It will also still satisfy the only remaining point of the Ascended gear being implemented and that is taking longer to get than the exotics – raids should be longer/harder to do than dungeons, right?

(No infusion slots for agony resist is not a point, exotic gear could have been modified to support that. And I have to dig it up, but if memory serves, the 2 points that I’ve mentioned were their 2 points for implementing it.)

@Nexxe/Astralporing, Again we don’t know how many resources are taken for anything. I know in one of my old games simply creating all the links and zone connections as well as instance creation took apparently half the time when making a new raid (not counting any new artwork, this was just from the developers time). I thought that was pretty interesting and certainly highlighted how ignorant I am about that and how assuming something is easy is quite silly.

And Astralporing it’s not “would it be worth it to create an easier version” it’s “would it be better to create something more fitting of that demographic” If adjusting values and difficulty as well as creating the new links and instance option for the raid took the same time as creating 5 new open world bosses for the next LS release, which would that demographic prefer? I won’t even venture a guess but I think that was the decision making process as well as avoiding the nastiness of creating different rewards for the different difficulty levels (and ohh god I’m sure I’m going to get crucified for even bringing that up).

@Phys, I’m sure everyone would agree a better LFG tool is long due. And back in DCUO we did PUG raids all the time, we didn’t even have different difficulty levels set in. It’s just that thanks to gear treadmill as well as general knowledge advancing players overall power within a couple months the raids were far more accessible, and the higher end guilds were knocking out the achievements(or doing speed runs) for them while the LFGs were just getting them done.

Substatic.6958:

Vlad Morbius.1759:

Inverse.2967:

LFF: Looking for friends, META Raid only, PING Build+ Gear :P

WoW all over again, I didn’t miss it in fact it’s why I left. Completely unimpressed about the announcements this past weekend. Raiding which I didn’t think was necessary or needed c/w content gated legendary armor to boot. I can here the elitism crap flooding TeamSpeak and map chat already.

GW2 already has this in all of its instanced PVE content. Nearly every dungeon/fractal asks for metazerk.

You should have left years ago in this case.

I would like an exact percentage on what “nearly every” means. 95%? 99%? Or are you just pulling this out of nowhere to support your (fallacious) argument?

cthaeh.2168:

Substatic.6958:

Vlad Morbius.1759:

Inverse.2967:

LFF: Looking for friends, META Raid only, PING Build+ Gear :P

WoW all over again, I didn’t miss it in fact it’s why I left. Completely unimpressed about the announcements this past weekend. Raiding which I didn’t think was necessary or needed c/w content gated legendary armor to boot. I can here the elitism crap flooding TeamSpeak and map chat already.

GW2 already has this in all of its instanced PVE content. Nearly every dungeon/fractal asks for metazerk.

You should have left years ago in this case.

I would like an exact percentage on what “nearly every” means. 95%? 99%? Or are you just pulling this out of nowhere to support your (fallacious) argument?

Click on LFG-tool, browse a while. Make yourself a picture. It is common.

Inverse.2967:

cthaeh.2168:

Substatic.6958:

Vlad Morbius.1759:

Inverse.2967:

LFF: Looking for friends, META Raid only, PING Build+ Gear :P

WoW all over again, I didn’t miss it in fact it’s why I left. Completely unimpressed about the announcements this past weekend. Raiding which I didn’t think was necessary or needed c/w content gated legendary armor to boot. I can here the elitism crap flooding TeamSpeak and map chat already.

GW2 already has this in all of its instanced PVE content. Nearly every dungeon/fractal asks for metazerk.

You should have left years ago in this case.

I would like an exact percentage on what “nearly every” means. 95%? 99%? Or are you just pulling this out of nowhere to support your (fallacious) argument?

Click on LFG-tool, browse a while. Make yourself a picture. It is common.

Common != Nearly Every

As someone who PUGs a full dungeon/fractal tour daily and joins almost exclusively metazerk groups, I’d say it’s not even the majority of groups that advertise for “metazerk only”. Of course, that’s just one person’s perspective. Without data we’re all equally uninformed and our views will always be expressed through the prism of our biases.

cthaeh.2168:

Common != Nearly Every

Yes that’s the reasoning I chose this word in that context.

And it is also common to see “all welcome” party searches, but
whenever I have opened the tool over the last months,
the amount of META announces in the list was definitely prevalent at all times.

Maybe they stay longer in the tool, because finding members takes longer ? Or they often show up for a long time because they are more. Does not change the fact this type of group advertisment is common.

Well ask ANet for a breakdown of average numbers of successfully made groups through LFG classified by type of advertisment interest, if you like to thoroughly research this.
For my part I don’t.
Facts stand pretty firm without that deep analysis:
- LFG often has lots of META-announces up.
- Also filling explicit non-meta groups on LFG works super good.
My conclusion from that is: Dungeon LFG is working right now, even though the UI is rather simplistic.

I think they could have done a much better job differentiating raiding from what we see in other games, especially when it comes to making it easier to actually form raids in guilds. As it stands, I see more drama and hurt feelings among friends than fun coming from this model.

That said, I do plan to work within the system they are building to offer raiding in my guild. That will mean running multiple groups a night to ensure – consecutively if we have anything other a multiple of 10 people. I am hoping that each individual raid is fairly short yet very difficult. That way we can cycle people in between wipes to ensure we all get to play together.

That is my only concern with the way they are doing raiding. Notice I said nothing about the difficulty of the raid – it is just the logistics that concern me. I led hardcore progression 10 and 25 player raids for 6 years before growing tired of them (because of the drama that comes from logistics) before coming to GW2.

And note that I am not talking about flexible raid numbers in this post (even though I still believe that would be possible – Im just ready to concede that ANET feels differently). And I am not advocating for a lesser difficulty in any way.

Short and manageable. That is my only hope. I have no problem leading groups for weeks before downing a boss. I just don’t want to have to leave friends out when we form groups. GW2 is about playing with my guild. I want to be able to play large scale difficult content without having to worry about any of them getting left out.

And, I respect that people feel differently about that. It is every bit as important to me as what you are looking for is to you. Please respect that opinions differ and that is what forums are for before making a knee jerk response yelling about how people want to nerf or water down your content. Most do not.

Blaeys.3102:

I think they could have done a much better job differentiating raiding from what we see in other games, especially when it comes to making it easier to actually form raids in guilds. As it stands, I see more drama and hurt feelings among friends than fun coming from this model.

That said, I do plan to work within the system they are building to offer raiding in my guild. That will mean running multiple groups a night to ensure – consecutively if we have anything other a multiple of 10 people. I am hoping that each individual raid is fairly short yet very difficult. That way we can cycle people in between wipes to ensure we all get to play together.

That is my only concern with the way they are doing raiding. Notice I said nothing about the difficulty of the raid – it is just the logistics that concern me. I led hardcore progression 10 and 25 player raids for 6 years before growing tired of them (because of the drama that comes from logistics) before coming to GW2.

And note that I am not talking about flexible raid numbers in this post (even though I still believe that would be possible – Im just ready to concede that ANET feels differently). And I am not advocating for a lesser difficulty in any way.

Short and manageable. That is my only hope. I have no problem leading groups for weeks before downing a boss. I just don’t want to have to leave friends out when we form groups. GW2 is about playing with my guild. I want to be able to play large scale difficult content without having to worry about any of them getting left out.

And, I respect that people feel differently about that. It is every bit as important to me as what you are looking for is to you. Please respect that opinions differ and that is what forums are for before making a knee jerk response yelling about how people want to nerf or water down your content. Most do not.

Best post of the whole thread, I wished I had nailed it down so spot on as you just did.

SkiTz.4590:

Gibson.4036:

The final nail in the coffin to bury the GW2 dream.

Your version of GW2 dream is not the same as others.

Obviously.

Its the final nail in Gibsons GW2, not mine or many others.

Which is why I posted it. Clearly there are people who don’t agree. It only makes sense for me to post the opinion I have.

The players who wanted GW2 to be more like standard MMORPGs have their victory.

Bye.

Bye.

Blaeys.3102:

I think they could have done a much better job differentiating raiding from what we see in other games, especially when it comes to making it easier to actually form raids in guilds. As it stands, I see more drama and hurt feelings among friends than fun coming from this model.

That said, I do plan to work within the system they are building to offer raiding in my guild. That will mean running multiple groups a night to ensure – consecutively if we have anything other a multiple of 10 people. I am hoping that each individual raid is fairly short yet very difficult. That way we can cycle people in between wipes to ensure we all get to play together.

That is my only concern with the way they are doing raiding. Notice I said nothing about the difficulty of the raid – it is just the logistics that concern me. I led hardcore progression 10 and 25 player raids for 6 years before growing tired of them (because of the drama that comes from logistics) before coming to GW2.

And note that I am not talking about flexible raid numbers in this post (even though I still believe that would be possible – Im just ready to concede that ANET feels differently). And I am not advocating for a lesser difficulty in any way.

Short and manageable. That is my only hope. I have no problem leading groups for weeks before downing a boss. I just don’t want to have to leave friends out when we form groups. GW2 is about playing with my guild. I want to be able to play large scale difficult content without having to worry about any of them getting left out.

And, I respect that people feel differently about that. It is every bit as important to me as what you are looking for is to you. Please respect that opinions differ and that is what forums are for before making a knee jerk response yelling about how people want to nerf or water down your content. Most do not.

Couldn’t agree more. I think it’s worth mentioning DCUO here, we had exactly what you describe. Raids once on farm mode were generally 10-30 mins long, of course this is after spending a week doing 5 hours a night just to learn them before finally getting wins then like ~1h runs for a while before mastering them. But, the ~30 min run allows you to do it, and not feel like you’re wasting time doing it again with friends to get them their win.

We also had replay tokens in that game, which was cool you could reset your timelocked reward so you could get rewards doing it a second, third… 20th time that week. However, that system was pretty lame in all honesty, I think GW2 would be far better served by just having decent non time locked rewards, leave a solid reward for just doing it, timelock the special stuff.

Having shorter raids certain quelled the drama as we would usually run things multiple times within the timelock so that everyone in the guild got it. It wasn’t nearly as bad as back when I was doing the night long raids where if you had to sit out you just lost out for the week, it was an issue.

Vlad Morbius.1759:

Inverse.2967:

LFF: Looking for friends, META Raid only, PING Build+ Gear :P

WoW all over again, I didn’t miss it in fact it’s why I left. Completely unimpressed about the announcements this past weekend. Raiding which I didn’t think was necessary or needed c/w content gated legendary armor to boot. I can here the elitism crap flooding TeamSpeak and map chat already.

It’s already in the game! I was in the dungeon LFG earlier and saw a post for Arah Dungeon, “80|EXP|Zerker PING Gear”. I should have taken a screen shot of it. Sadly, the “gear” check will be more transparent.

Goldberg.4831:

Substatic.6958:

Vlad Morbius.1759:

Inverse.2967:

LFF: Looking for friends, META Raid only, PING Build+ Gear :P

WoW all over again, I didn’t miss it in fact it’s why I left. Completely unimpressed about the announcements this past weekend. Raiding which I didn’t think was necessary or needed c/w content gated legendary armor to boot. I can here the elitism crap flooding TeamSpeak and map chat already.

GW2 already has this in all of its instanced PVE content. Nearly every dungeon/fractal asks for metazerk.

You should have left years ago in this case.

Somewhat true, there is a zerker group, but there is also the other side to that. Thats why LFG is nice, I can choose one closer to what I am looking for, if not, I create one.

inb4 map chat in Lions Arch

“7 zerker warriors, 2 zerker thiefs, need 1 zerker mesmer for time warp, and skipping, ping gear, achievement points, or gtfo.

I don’t see what the achievement points prove; that you have obtain this many x,y,z towards your achievement? That has nothing to due with skill, gameplay, or even knowing your class. lol

StrangerDanger.3496:

I really don’t see how 10 man (raids? seems a bit small for a"raid") dungeon is going to scratch anyones itch for Raids.

Raids typically are the pinnacle of coordinated group efforts where everyone has an exact role to play, and needs to play that role near perfect for the instance to go well.

This game specializes in everyone running around DPS’ing stuff. There are no set healers or agro tanks really…those some can occasionally fill that roll slightly, for a short time.

Really I get why they are doing this, just I don’t think its going to be executed in a manner that will satisfy anyone who takes a break from this game to raid in another game.

They should be piling on content that is coordinated with how this game plays. Make more epic, insane, difficult, world events, designed for masses of people to complete…make some of those even more coordinated ect.

You cant have a proper raid when you lack the trinity. Skyforge did this (little know game that came out recently) and lacks a trinity system (less so than this game) and it was just coordinated DPS targeting…as you cant really do much more than that.

UNLESS…they have special items in the raid that actually allow someone to become a tank and healer (like a healing staff on the ground and a tank shield, that bestow unique skills for whoever equips them) which would be cheesy imo

The problem with all of this is that it can’t possibly be difficult. If an encounter is going to be designed for this game, it must be possible to complete the encounter with any combination of anything. No one is responsible for anything but DPS.

Like, in other games you can make a boss that will one shot anyone but a tank. If anyone but the tank gets hit by the boss, it’s probably a wipe. It turns into a tight rope walk with fire popping up every now and again, and eagles swooping in to try to knock you off.

In GW2 no boss can do more damage than any given character is able to tank / self heal. That’s why pve is and always will be a joke.

You can try to put jump puzzles in, or gliders, or force us to /dance on a sparkling pony as it rides the sky to never never land, it doesn’t matter.

No risk, no interdependence, no gear upgrades, no point.

They should have gone with persistent open world land ownership and construction with a political system and world pvp or something.

Guild wars 2 is just not built for dungeons / raids.

Hotstreak.5360:

StrangerDanger.3496:

I really don’t see how 10 man (raids? seems a bit small for a"raid") dungeon is going to scratch anyones itch for Raids.

Raids typically are the pinnacle of coordinated group efforts where everyone has an exact role to play, and needs to play that role near perfect for the instance to go well.

This game specializes in everyone running around DPS’ing stuff. There are no set healers or agro tanks really…those some can occasionally fill that roll slightly, for a short time.

Really I get why they are doing this, just I don’t think its going to be executed in a manner that will satisfy anyone who takes a break from this game to raid in another game.

They should be piling on content that is coordinated with how this game plays. Make more epic, insane, difficult, world events, designed for masses of people to complete…make some of those even more coordinated ect.

You cant have a proper raid when you lack the trinity. Skyforge did this (little know game that came out recently) and lacks a trinity system (less so than this game) and it was just coordinated DPS targeting…as you cant really do much more than that.

UNLESS…they have special items in the raid that actually allow someone to become a tank and healer (like a healing staff on the ground and a tank shield, that bestow unique skills for whoever equips them) which would be cheesy imo

The problem with all of this is that it can’t possibly be difficult. If an encounter is going to be designed for this game, it must be possible to complete the encounter with any combination of anything. No one is responsible for anything but DPS.

Like, in other games you can make a boss that will one shot anyone but a tank. If anyone but the tank gets hit by the boss, it’s probably a wipe. It turns into a tight rope walk with fire popping up every now and again, and eagles swooping in to try to knock you off.

In GW2 no boss can do more damage than any given character is able to tank / self heal. That’s why pve is and always will be a joke.

You can try to put jump puzzles in, or gliders, or force us to /dance on a sparkling pony as it rides the sky to never never land, it doesn’t matter.

No risk, no interdependence, no gear upgrades, no point.

They should have gone with persistent open world land ownership and construction with a political system and world pvp or something.

Guild wars 2 is just not built for dungeons / raids.

Ye, and in other games tank cant lose aggro if they arent literally braindead.

GW2 combat shines in PvP where it matters, PvE is fluff no matter which game.

Killing overgrown pinatas is pretty much on its way out. It was very insightful of them 3+ years ago to NOT build GW2 for failing model of dungeons/raids.

But since then….they just want to jump on bandwagon thats running towards cliff and is about to crash (ascended, raids…..)

Thaddeus.4891:

symke.3105:

What is/was challenging content and why?
You say dungeons and fractals are easy and that’s something that contradicts my experience, so I was wondering what you find challenging enough and why that is so?

A lot of us can solo most dungeon and trio fractals so not really that hard. But that’s the thing. Challenging will depend on each person. That’s why I REALLY REALLY hope that the difficulty will be variable. So that casual can complete the content, but that elite players can still have a challenge to face in a year.

Were you able to solo dungeons or rush through fractals from the start? Meaning first time you tried them?
Please, correct me if I am wrong, but I would guess you weren’t.

So, if that is true, dungeons and fractals were challenging when they were fresh and new. When no one new which parts to skip, where to stand to circumvent mechanics and when there were no other known exploits. They were made unchallenging by exactly those that were searching for shortcuts and ways of finishing it faster by 1 sec.
We are talking about a game. Where almost everything is predetermined, where all actions, steps, mechanics have very limited set of possibilities. And once you develop understanding of all those possibilities, it’s normal that things turn from challenging, exciting and new into “been there, done that”.

There is a MMO, launched last year, that has turned into such a walk in the park, the only advice players can give to those that complain about the game being too easy (entire PVE experience), to go naked and disable large part of their abilities in order to find a challenge.
Believe me, GW2 is faaar from that.

I understand everyone that says there is not enough challenge in grouped or other content in GW2. But I find that perfectly normal, considering the way all these players handled the game. I don’t believe there are many players among that group that finished certain dungeon or fractal once or twice. I believe most, if not all, of those that find GW2 not challenging enough, are the ones that played the heck out of the game. Finished every dungeon hundreds of times and achieved fractal lvl 50 long ago. And there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s their decision how much or how hard they play and no one can hold that against them. But you can’t seriously expect something you’ve done hundreds of times while actively searching for ways to do it faster and easier, to stay challenging.

I predict that he same group of players that find GW2 not challenging enough now, will find raids, no matter how hard they will be at start, equally not challenging after they’ve exploited every possible way of finishing them. It may take a while, with little luck even months of playing, but that moment will come.

My question of “what you find challenging enough” was meant to understand players that feel like that in order to establish what are the ways of making challenging content.
Do you do dungeons and fractals with less then optimal gear?
Do you skip content and use known exploits to finish them?
Do you PUG?
Do you always use the same skill rotations and ways of combat?
These and many other questions can determine what, exactly, is the thing that makes something challenging?
But even without those questions, there is one single thing anyone can do to make it so. In or out of the game. Change the way you do things. You might be surprised.

I also don’t understand why people are suddenly afraid of the “challanging” cotnent called raids.
I mean let’s be honest guys – this is still Guild Wars 2 and I’m pretty sure it will be very similar to"hard" cuasal content like Aetherpath which is full of puzzles and gimmicks where you need 10 people for.While probably the bosses will have 10 times more hp because you have 4 more elementalists with frostbow.

I promise you, you have to walk around with a flamethrower killing plants, defending a npc on different spots which is the reason for must having 10 people etc.
I also promise you that this raid will be different by far from those raids you guys are afraid of or those people, who like the challange ,would like to have.

JEM.3574:

Vlad Morbius.1759:

Inverse.2967:

LFF: Looking for friends, META Raid only, PING Build+ Gear :P

WoW all over again, I didn’t miss it in fact it’s why I left. Completely unimpressed about the announcements this past weekend. Raiding which I didn’t think was necessary or needed c/w content gated legendary armor to boot. I can here the elitism crap flooding TeamSpeak and map chat already.

It’s already in the game! I was in the dungeon LFG earlier and saw a post for Arah Dungeon, “80|EXP|Zerker PING Gear”. I should have taken a screen shot of it. Sadly, the “gear” check will be more transparent.

Exactly and it is something they should be targeting to fix and eliminate not propagate! This is just another step away from their original vision all for the sake of more profit and at the end of it all it will just one step closer to sinking GW2 into the same cesspool of elitist behavior that has taken hold in most MMO’s.
Their focus should have been making the content viable to reduce the need for this stupid zerker meta and to ensure that all builds have equal viability not create another foothold for it.
Regardless it’s done now and the deterioration of the community will just be exponentially faster because of it, mark my words. GW2 didn’t need raids what it needed was more complex AI interaction to pump up the need for build diversity. Raids will be run, metas fixed into place for speed runs and in a month the content will no longer be a challenge and then come the cries for more raids, wasting more development time and focus. They’ve stepped onto the escalator to MMO never land now and it’s too late to turn back.

Their focus should have been making the content viable to reduce the need for this stupid zerker meta and to ensure that all builds have equal viability not create another foothold for it.

sorry but your comment is so much nonsense.
There will always be the best composition and that’s why there will always be the search for it in the lfg.

If cleric would be the best you will find “lfg clerics only” and you will have a stupid cleric meta

if 2 cleric,1berserk and 2 condis would be the best you will find sth. like “lf 2clerics,2 condis,1 zerk gearcheck or kick” and you will have another stupid meta

As I said there will always be a meta which is the most efficient way to play and the people will kick everyone who is not willing to play meta.
Atm. Zerker is meta but when the meta changes nothing will change but the meta.

Pls think before you write.

Sorry but you’re wrong. The AI needs to be able to change or rotate through it’s types of attacks and defenses and thereby eliminating the ability to stick to one type of build or gear. There has already been content that is immune to conditions and there has been AI developed that is immune to physical attacks, this goes as far back as MMOs developed in1999. Therefore there can be many different types of such content developed so not one particular meta is always dominant. It needs to change and that is where the crux of development should be concentrated so it will continue to make GW2 a different MMO, not one that is stuck in the same rut as all the other games out there.

Vlad Morbius.1759:

… to ensure that all builds have equal viability not create another foothold for it.

That is impossible lol. There is no such thing as equal viability for all builds. The game lack of distinction between roles.

he just doesn’t understand that there will always be an optimum.
Every build /gear is in PvE viable but only the meta is the optimum.
If you change the AI in that way that for example cleric gear becomes the best, you just have another meta. Maybe zerker meta changes to cleric meta then.
Maybe Soldier gear + berserker trinkets will be the best , maybe 1 condition player + 4 zerkers – who cares? Then you will have just another optimum meaning another meta, which is pretty much the same and doesn’t change the fact that there will always be ONE way to play, ONE class composition and ONE Gear mix which is the BEST

Viable /= optimum

again pls think before you write.

“MMORPG: One of the things GW2 gets flak for is its dungeons. Everyone loads up on ‘zerker stats and just runs into the wall, dies, and then runs into the wall again until the bosses drop and people get their loot. Is that something you’re trying to avoid in Raids?

Colin: I think that extends far beyond raids. I think that that is, when I look at the things we want to do better, and one of those is the creature encounters across the entire game. So we’re designing everything in this expansion, not just raids, to fully task players to use all of the skills and abilities we have available to us.

MMORPG: Like the recent introduction of interrupt armor.

Colin: Yep, and there are a bunch of different ways to fight different creatures. I’m most proud of that stuff, I think in this expansion. The jungle is a huge step forward to show that our combat system really shines when it uses all of the abilities. Fractals are one example of this, but Raids will really highlight this, as well as the overall expanse of the Maguuma zones."

Obviously I’m not the only one who recognizes that meta systems are not the right path and this is what I was suggesting. Make certain that no one meta is the best by changing the encounters as you go through them. Yes one or two might be the most viable but the more this can be disrupted the better the chance of making real challenging content.
Will it eliminate elitism, no there will always be idiots in every game that propagate that behavior but these concepts should help curb it somewhat.

Like I’ve said before, it really depends on how far Anet are willing to push the difficulty. There is no balance to classes, so if they make it extremely difficult, some classes just won’t cut it. Much like the rest of the content in the game and each game modes “meta”.

Here are some recent WoW numbers for discussion:

http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/4924-Blackrock-Foundry-Stats-Blue-Tweets-Setup-of-the-Month-Symmetra-Gameplay

These numbers are from 2.1 million accounts (an extremely large sample statistically speaking), and are a per account, not per character (so someone killing bosses on an alt doesn’t count twice). They are also biased towards raiders as anyone not in a guild won’t show up (but I don’t think this is that big of a number considering how much guild invite spam you get in WoW if you ever aren’t in a guild)

Context of the different difficulties:

LFR – This is queued, automatically formed raids, extremely easy. Think silverwastes level of difficulty. Very few boss mechanics need to be payed attention to by the majority of the players.
Normal – This is manually formed groups, mostly pugs through a browser like the LFG finder in gw2. Generally requires groups to actually do boss mechanics, but is fairly lenient.
Heroic – Also manually formed groups, some pugs some guilds. Similar to normal but everything has more health and hits harder.
Mythic – Completely intended for serious organized guilds with scheduled raids multiple nights a week with months of wiping for slow progress.

LRF: ~46-56% of players
Normal: ~25-30% of players for most bosses, ~12-20% for harder ones
Heroic: ~20% of players for most bosses, ~10-15% for harder ones
Mythic : ~3-5% of players for easier bosses, <1% for harder ones

Keep in mind these numbers are in a game that has had raiding for over a decade, and there is currently very little pve content in the game outside of raiding.

Undertow.2389:

Here are some recent WoW numbers for discussion:

http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/4924-Blackrock-Foundry-Stats-Blue-Tweets-Setup-of-the-Month-Symmetra-Gameplay

These numbers are from 2.1 million accounts (an extremely large sample statistically speaking), and are a per account, not per character (so someone killing bosses on an alt doesn’t count twice). They are also biased towards raiders as anyone not in a guild won’t show up (but I don’t think this is that big of a number considering how much guild invite spam you get in WoW if you ever aren’t in a guild)

Context of the different difficulties:

LFR – This is queued, automatically formed raids, extremely easy. Think silverwastes level of difficulty. Very few boss mechanics need to be payed attention to by the majority of the players.
Normal – This is manually formed groups, mostly pugs through a browser like the LFG finder in gw2. Generally requires groups to actually do boss mechanics, but is fairly lenient.
Heroic – Also manually formed groups, some pugs some guilds. Similar to normal but everything has more health and hits harder.
Mythic – Completely intended for serious organized guilds with scheduled raids multiple nights a week with months of wiping for slow progress.

LRF: ~46-56% of players
Normal: ~25-30% of players for most bosses, ~12-20% for harder ones
Heroic: ~20% of players for most bosses, ~10-15% for harder ones
Mythic : ~3-5% of players for easier bosses, <1% for harder ones

Keep in mind these numbers are in a game that has had raiding for over a decade, and there is currently very little pve content in the game outside of raiding.

Read the thread. Already been covered. Or are you THAT lazy.

MikaHR.1978:

Read the thread. Already been covered. Or are you THAT lazy.

This thread has 14 pages.

Ok as in the title, 2 questions:
1- Is it possible to know how many main missions and how many hours of main missions content we will have in HOT?
That would be amazing to know, so that people like me that like Pve would understand if the expansion is worth it.

2- I’m in a small guild with just a few friends always playing the game (I think I’m not the only one in this situation). Most of the time we manage to have 5 or 6 people connected. I was really disappointed when I heard about the 10 people team for the raids, I was hoping for more content for small groups, something that would make it easier to play some exciting content with groups from 5 to 10.
And be honest, nobody would like to take random people in for a raid if you’re a small group with ts and so on…it makes things too complicated…
So….would it be possible to have the scaling system? Or can we expect something different for small groups in the expansion?

Dantert.1803:

Ok as in the title, 2 questions:
1- Is it possible to know how many main missions and how many hours of main missions content we will have in HOT?
That would be amazing to know, so that people like me that like Pve would understand if the expansion is worth it.

2- I’m in a small guild with just a few friends always playing the game (I think I’m not the only one in this situation). Most of the time we manage to have 5 or 6 people connected. I was really disappointed when I heard about the 10 people team for the raids, I was hoping for more content for small groups, something that would make it easier to play some exciting content with groups from 5 to 10.
And be honest, nobody would like to take random people in for a raid if you’re a small group with ts and so on…it makes things too complicated…
So….would it be possible to have the scaling system? Or can we expect something different for small groups in the expansion?

1) We won’t know unless ANet themselves answer, or the entirety of the expansion is made available to test in a BWE, which is unlikely. So unfortunately, the answer to that will likely not come until the expansion is released.

2) I doubt scaling under 10 people will ever be introduced, but scaling over 10 people is a possibility (from my speculation). Dungeons are always intended to be 5-man content, and so I presume Raids will always be intended to be 10-man content, and I highly doubt they would make them available in 5-man also.

1. Nope
2. With scaling comes huge balance problems so probably nope.

rotten.9753:

MikaHR.1978:

Read the thread. Already been covered. Or are you THAT lazy.

This thread has 14 pages.

And to your defense, this thread is made up of a conglomeration of merged threads. The conversation does not exactly flow.

I guess raid is just another thing I will never try because I’m an anti-meta Necro.

MikaHR.1978:

Read the thread. Already been covered. Or are you THAT lazy.

I did read it. You posted numbers from siege of orgrimmar (after it was out for an entire year) and a lot of people were dismissing them as garbage because of your extreme negativity and hyperbole in other posts.

I posted further, more recent numbers from blackrock foundry (which actually support you) and gave context of the gameplay styles of the different difficulties involved.

IMO it is illogical and irrational (for the game as a whole) to spend significant development time and money going for 1 difficulty content at the “mythic” level. That is, organized guilds only, scheduled, repeated, practiced progress slowly over time, while thoroughly min/maxing and analyzing all facets of performance with intense scrutiny. Even in a raiding game like WoW, the numbers show maybe 5% of the playerbase wants to play like this.

On the other hand it could possibly be acceptable if the raids turn out to be around the WoW “normal” difficulty level. Which would certainly be “difficult and challenging content requiring organization” relative to other GW2 pve content. Where any 10 random players couldn’t be thrown in blind and faceroll win. But after a few weeks, with common strats online and vids on youtube, you could see pugs forming the the LFG listing, with a leader and a plan that needed to be followed in order for success. I could see maybe ~15% of the gw2 playerbase (up to this point a thoroughly non-raiding game) participating in that.

Unfortunately I don’t think many of the raiding elitists in this thread would be satisfied with anything but full on mythic mode. It’s up to Anet though.

While it may not scale to under 10, there may be with skill the ability to run it with fewer than 10 members. Depends on the mechanics of the raid and if there are any number of player checks.

In the same situation as OP – I’ve hated raids in almost every game for this very reason. I’m locked out of a large part of the content and rewards because I like to play with my friends, for fun. Larger guilds are an uncomfortable environment for me; a raiding group just becomes a job and randoms either try to lick the AoE circles or spout annoying stuff in the chat (my experiences from trying to do larger group content in other games over the years).

Now both of my favourite games have introduced raids, I might have to go outside.

Chameleon Dude.1564:

In the same situation as OP – I’ve hated raids in almost every game for this very reason. I’m locked out of a large part of the content and rewards because I like to play with my friends, for fun. Larger guilds are an uncomfortable environment for me; a raiding group just becomes a job and randoms either try to lick the AoE circles or spout annoying stuff in the chat (my experiences from trying to do larger group content in other games over the years).

Now both of my favourite games have introduced raids, I might have to go outside.

You guys are being silly. 10 People is not a “Large” amount of people. 20-25+ is a Large amount of people. As for the OP if you have 5-6 people on regularly you are more then halfway to that 10. PuG 4 more require that they have TS so you can at least communicate with them and bam you are in a raid. Get social its an MMO that’s what it is all about.

Undertow.2389:

Unfortunately I don’t think many of the raiding elitists in this thread would be satisfied with anything but full on mythic mode. It’s up to Anet though.

Exactly my first thoughts when I saw hardcore raiders groan here for raids. They can´t be satisfied, it is either too long, too short, too small, too X. Ask them to really name what they want and all they can give you is a vague picture like “challenging” content with a boss mecnanic that is “good”. A select view can give you exactly what they want, but how could it be challenging for them if it is tailormade and not surprising at all. Total randomization of a given raid would be their only chance to be challenged, but that is impossible by default becasue nobody would ever accomplish it.

So trying to satisfy the more hardcore raiders is like kittening against the niagara falls in the hope that they turn yellow. Best of luck with that, Anet. ^^

Completely different discussions, merged in one single 3d…and also posts put in the wrong order, so that the meaning is totally screwed up.
Well done. Last post on this forum

Hey guys!

Before raids announcement, and even more now, people have been complaining about how much time it might take to finish a raid, specially when you consider it will probably have more than 1 or 2 bosses, along with trash mobs. Many existing players claim if raids take more than one hour it will be just the same thing, but will only require more time, therefore rendering long raids as simply time-consumers, and that time does not equal to quality of combat.

I’d like to know if this line of thought is still true, and if a single raid takes, say, 2 hours it will be seen as a bad design decision. Considering raids will have a progress, and this progress will never be “erased” on a weekly basis (like most MMOs), are long raids a poorly-designed content? Is it a perception issue from a certain type of player (casual)? How much time is it good to finish a raid?

Considering nothing lasts anywhere near two hours unless you’re in a horrible group, I don’t see that being an issue. I’m expecting something around 30 min.

Considering, even when running WoW’s LFR, the lead up to the raid time took about as long as the raid itself…?

Say the formula follows: trash, trash, boss, trash, trash, boss. Raid done.

Trash encounters shouldn’t be more than a minute each. 4 minutes. Maybe 2 minutes, to be generous. 8 minutes total. Add in a shrug-worthy amount for travel time.
If a boss goes on more than 5 minutes, something’s gone wrong, either in the design, the execution, or the team composition. 10 minutes total.

So, a two-boss raid really shouldn’t be more than 30 minutes once the group is together. An organized guild should be able to slap a group from start to finish in an hour.

Add more bosses, add more time, but at that point, do the whole thing in chunks and fragment the rewards appropriately.

I think I’d be fine with a 3-boss raid and about a 1-2 hour estimate depending on performance.

I’d like to see the raids formatted like the EOTN dungeons, Mallyx or the GW1 main storylines.

A fully successful “cycle” of the raid would take many hours, but the content is broken up in to chunks that can be done in thirty minutes to an hour each.

So, basically, you have “completion checkpoints” for each wing, with a reward chest or account based switch that says ‘complete’ with a waypoint or key or whatever that lets you come back to that point later.

So, for instance, to fully complete a raid and get the end reward, you need to complete all of its “wings” either in sequential order, or in whatever order you choose depending on how the story and structure of the raid is set up. Completing all the wings grants entry to the final boss wing, and defeating that boss gives you the ultimate master reward (I guess an armor precursor?)

Thus, you have a long and involved raid, but you can do a wing today, come back in a few days for another wing, and so on until you’ve checked all the boxes for your party to have access to try the final boss wing. When you complete that boss wing, progress is reset, so to open that boss chest again you’d also need to complete all the wings again.

So, basically, I think fully completing a raid should be a long and involved process lasting many hours, but that the experience should be broken up in to discreet checkpoints with their own mini-rewards so that you don’t have to do the entire raid in one sitting or small timeframe and still come away from each of those sessions with some sort of possibly non-unique but valuable reward, while keeping the boss rewards unique so as to discourage farming the sub-wings and encourage doing the entire set of diverse content.

You referring to something like Slaver’s Exile?

A raid is a long and challenging fight. If it is not at least an hour to two hours (much like WoW raids) then I think the concept will have been given a grave injustice. These are not going to be and should not be, like Dungeons, where you can move, stack, kill, move, stack kill, done in 15 minutes.

Raids need to be long because of the challenging content, not because the content is grindy but because the fights are intense, and mechanically difficult. Knowing ANET from GW1 days, and from some Fractals, I think this can be done by them. I hope this can be done.