Guild Wars 2

While learning the mechanics? I suspect most groups will break up, but average completion time will be around 6 hours.

After the mechanics are known and people are attempting to clear? I suspect most groups will take 3 hours, but the best groups will be done in 2.

After the raid is on farm status? Most people will be able to finish it within an hour, with the best groups coming in at around 45 minutes.

Obviously at first you will be wiping over and over and over again, trying to figure out positioning, team comp, mechanics, tricks, builds, etc. Only the top guilds will be able to finish at all. This takes time. Once that is all worked out then you will see times fall significantly.

The best example is teq. When teq first launched most groups got him down to ~90% by the end of the 15 minute timer. Eventually after about 24 hours, some of the top guilds had him under 75% within the 15 minutes. After about a week the top guilds had killed him with seconds to spare. After a month pretty much everyone had killed him. Now 2 years later he takes less than 5 minutes to kill with an organized guild.

So….casual here, time is usually my biggest concern. Granted, I used to do FoW and UW back in the day, I was mildly peeved when I could only do it on the weekend because it was the only point in the week that I could sink 4 hours into a single instance.

On one hand, I don’t want to see “raids” (which are supposedly supposed to be like FoW, UW, DoA, etc) turn into ‘speed clear’ fodder (as UW did. Can’t ever find an ‘old school’ group for that anymore). However, on the other hand, I don’t want it to take forever so I can only do it once a week IF I’m lucky.

Content doesn’t have to be insanely time consuming in order to offer a challenge.

Ayrilana.1396:

You referring to something like Slaver’s Exile?

Yeah, or the Mallyx reward chain, or completing a campaign story for the unique skin.

Even though technically the story wasn’t repeatable, it used the same kind of format. (not the same level of challenge obviously) You had to reset your progress if you wanted the reward again by making another character.

As to raids being hard. Absolutely! Although hard doesn’t always mean long. Liadri was hard, but it wasn’t a long fight. Length is not difficulty, but length does help tell a story and teach mechanics.

In my perfect world a fully released raid, with all wings and a boss, would be a 6-12 hour piece of content broken in to 1 hour chunks that you could leave and return to using a similar sort of checkpoint system.

I like this approach because it keeps it from feeling grindy. In stead of encouraging players to complete wing 1 40 times, then wing 2 40 times, and so on, it encourages you to complete each wing once, then the boss. You’re still repeating content, but depending on how often your raid group gets together you’re probably only repeating each wing maybe once a week, so it’s not as much of a grind.

It also keeps the earlier wings from becoming deserted content, which makes it easier to get new raiders in to the swing. In stead of telling them “oh, well good luck clearing wings 1 and 2, we’re on 3” you can say “awesome! we’ll add you to wing 1 for the next cycle and show you how it works!”

In addition the method of longer content with checkpoints has a much better feeling of progression than repeating small sections for tokens or gear to unlock the next section. Completing a wing has an intrinsic value in that it’s one step closer to the big boss every time you do it, so in stead of getting bored with a wing because you had to repeat it for a gear set or progress bar, you’re always happy to tackle it because it means you get to move to the next wing, and thus closer to the big fat boss loot, and the boss always feels like more of an epic accomplishment because it took such a journey to get to him.

This also lets you put tons more loot in the boss chest obviously, and there’s nothing better than having mad loot for killing a really hard boss at the end of an epic instance.

I myself don’t have a full opinion on the matter because I only did raids a couple times when I played Allods Online (yeah…). It’s great to read your experiences. I fully understand LanfearShadowflame concern, and agree to an extent, and I also like PopeUrban idea. I think up to 2 hours is a reasonable duration, as long as the time is worth mechanics-wise + trash mobs.

I’m specifically interested in how they’re planning to make us position in the area, and making us split up in duos or trios! Oh, and the environment. GW2 level designers and artists and all those devs responsible for that never failed me!

In Final Fantasy 11 they had a raid boss that was designed to last for a whole 48h fight… One group almost did that one but had to stop, or someone might fallen dead out of his desk chair.
I hope it’ll be more about excitment and challenge not so much about dragged out time until win or reset/retry.

Inverse.2967:

In Final Fantasy 11 they had a raid boss that was designed to last for a whole 48h fight… One group almost did that one but had to stop, or someone might fallen dead out of his desk chair.
I hope it’ll be more about excitment and challenge not so much about dragged out time until win or reset/retry.

Okay, I think I can definately say 48 hours for a single encounter is probably slightly too long.

I mean, I have to take a break every 40 hours or so.

Is a raid specific forum going to be added to the list of forums, or is it just going to be added on to the Fractals, Dungeons one?

Does the community feel that it should be separate or together?

Either way excited for the challenge!

I dont think 1 raid constitutes a subforum, esp after so many other subforums got the chop. They just need to rename and the dungeon one and include raid convos in there

Taken from- https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/designing-challenging-content/

“Masteries

With the release of Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns, the Mastery system will give you a brand-new way to progress your character. Mastery track progression will absolutely be a key part of overcoming encounters. For example, in the first release, you’re going to need to explore the air with gliding and learn a few different ways to interact with mushrooms. On top of the Mastery tracks available at release, each raid release will add more raid-specific Masteries for you to earn.

The raid-specific Masteries will serve a couple of purposes, but chiefly they allow the designers to create a feeling of progression throughout the raid content. If a player who is new to raiding joins your squad, he or she will—for the most part—be able to assist entirely in the encounters. That said, there are a number of Mastery traits attached to various facets of the raid encounters. For example, if your squad is working on the last boss of a wing, and no one has a particular and clearly stated Mastery unlocked, you’re probably going to fail spectacularly.
Because of the usefulness of Masteries within Raids, we want players to have time to be free to power up their characters. We want you guys to be able to enjoy playing the expansion without rushing to max out every Mastery in order to prepare for Raids. For that reason, we’ll be activating the first wing of our first Raid shortly following the release of Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns."

So there you have it people… you can’t progress in at least the first raid without having Gliding and mushroom masteries… Can we get a Dev to comment on this please? Though I LOVE end game progression and I my self have bought HoT, I think it’s a pretty horrible business decision to lock such a HUGE piece of content behind a paywall…

Where there ever any sort of doubt that one of the main selling points for the expansion would require the expansion?

Not to mention the fact that we already knew that Raids would need Masteries.

Don’t quite get how this is news.

You think its odd that one of the main features of an expansion requires you to buy the expansion.. Weird.

Considering that the RAIDZ{!!!} are in the Maguuma Jungle…how did people figure they were going to be able to play them without the expansion?

They may well add core-Tyria RAIDZ{!!!} later on, but the initial batch will be in the jungle. They’re already adding half of the stuff they developed for Heart of Thorns to the now-free base game…at what point, folks, is ArenaNet allowed to actually sell something they put together for Heart of Thorns?

I get how the mastery system would be beneficial… Especially one based upon progressing within the raid. My issue is Gliding and mushroom mastery can only be earned via HoT. Therefore excluding all core players from being able to progress past certain points within raids.

Blasphemy, Anet is asking money for their new content! I better quit and start playing other games, at least they offer content like raids for free!

Yea… I don’t think so.

It is not really a paywall. HoT is expansion/season pass.

Solomon Darkfury.3729:

I get how the mastery system would be beneficial… Especially one based upon progressing within the raid. My issue is Gliding and mushroom mastery can only be earned via HoT. Therefore excluding all core players from being able to progress past certain points within raids.

But they won’t have access to the raids at all in the first place. So they will not be unable to progress past a certain point. They will be unable to enter the place to begin with.

Solomon Darkfury.3729:

I get how the mastery system would be beneficial… Especially one based upon progressing within the raid. My issue is Gliding and mushroom mastery can only be earned via HoT. Therefore excluding all core players from being able to progress past certain points within raids.

Core players will literally be unable to walk into the Raid – the door is in the expansion lands… Masteries aren’t their first hurdle xD

Coulter.2315:

Solomon Darkfury.3729:

I get how the mastery system would be beneficial… Especially one based upon progressing within the raid. My issue is Gliding and mushroom mastery can only be earned via HoT. Therefore excluding all core players from being able to progress past certain points within raids.

Core players will literally be unable to walk into the Raid – the door is in the expansion lands… Masteries aren’t their first hurdle xD

Then that creates an even MORE fundamental issue… I know just in my guild alone several people who won’t be getting HoT. Will there ever be Raids getting added to Core?

To me it seems ridiculous to lock something as HUGE as raiding behind a paywall. Now for small to mid size guilds, assembling a Raid team may be much more difficult. They will need to have 10 EXCEPTIONAL people who also have HoT… Now don’t get me wrong I don’t see why people who would be hardcore enough for raiding all the time wouldn’t, my point is why exclude that many potential raiders out of the player base…

I know it’s gone F2P and all, but they need to pay for the expansion at least if they want to access content in the new expansion. That’s more than fair.

They can play a game that we’ve all been playing for 3 years and paid money for mind you, for free. You think they should also be able to play the expansions for free as well? That’s absurd.

This has to be a sarcasm post….

Your first full clear will take as longer as needed. After that a good clear with people who kinda know the raid should be around 2 hours, a clear with everyone having done it multiple times and your dragging the new guy along. Most likely an hour.

Solomon Darkfury.3729:

Then that creates an even MORE fundamental issue… I know just in my guild alone several people who won’t be getting HoT. Will there ever be Raids getting added to Core?

Even if they added raids to the core world in the future, it is rather likely that they would still require HoT (or any of the future expansions if it comes with that rather than as an extension to HoT).

Expansion content locked behind the cost of the expansion? This is a joke question right?

Solomon Darkfury.3729:

Coulter.2315:

Solomon Darkfury.3729:

I get how the mastery system would be beneficial… Especially one based upon progressing within the raid. My issue is Gliding and mushroom mastery can only be earned via HoT. Therefore excluding all core players from being able to progress past certain points within raids.

Core players will literally be unable to walk into the Raid – the door is in the expansion lands… Masteries aren’t their first hurdle xD

Then that creates an even MORE fundamental issue… I know just in my guild alone several people who won’t be getting HoT. Will there ever be Raids getting added to Core?

Are you serious?

The fundamental issue is your reading comphrension….

RAIDS are HoT only…. i’m sorry but you gotta buy the xpac if you want raids dude… its not free and it doesn’t have to be free. If you don’t like it, too bad.

You think raids are something that is easy to do for anet? doesn’t have a big cost of resources or anything? It’s a tall task for anet, so its coming in the xpac. I don’t see this as an issue.

Either get the xpac or you are not going to have the content… simple as that.. No point in whining.

Raiding shouldn’t be “expansion content” only… Raiding should be an addition to the entirety of the game… As I said I HAVE HoT. I just don’t think it’s fair to the portion of the player base that aren’t getting HoT, not to have a raid or two eventually put into core…

That they are not available for the f2p gamers and core game “premium” owners was pretty obvious, so of course the raiding friends will have to bend over and buy HoT if they want to play raids.

Pretty exciting to see if people who would not have bought HoT else wise will now grudgingly fork over the money, or if it backfires in a way that involves ragequitting.

SkiTz.4590:

Solomon Darkfury.3729:

Coulter.2315:

Solomon Darkfury.3729:

I get how the mastery system would be beneficial… Especially one based upon progressing within the raid. My issue is Gliding and mushroom mastery can only be earned via HoT. Therefore excluding all core players from being able to progress past certain points within raids.

Core players will literally be unable to walk into the Raid – the door is in the expansion lands… Masteries aren’t their first hurdle xD

Then that creates an even MORE fundamental issue… I know just in my guild alone several people who won’t be getting HoT. Will there ever be Raids getting added to Core?

Are you serious?

The fundamental issue is your reading comphrension….

RAIDS are HoT only…. i’m sorry but you gotta buy the xpac if you want raids dude… its not free and it doesn’t have to be free. If you don’t like it, too bad.

You think raids are something that is easy to do for anet? doesn’t have a big cost of resources or anything? It’s a tall task for anet, so its coming in the xpac. I don’t see this as an issue.

Either get the xpac or you are not going to have the content… simple as that.. No point in whining.

ummmm perhaps you can’t read… I have HoT… I’m only playing devil’s advocate for those who choose not to get it. It makes it appear development, at least any substantial ones, have been abandoned for core players.

Solomon Darkfury.3729:

Raiding shouldn’t be “expansion content” only… Raiding should be an addition to the entirety of the game… As I said I HAVE HoT. I just don’t think it’s fair to the portion of the player base that aren’t getting HoT, not to have a raid or two eventually put into core…

So it is not fair for a portion of the player base (that can play EVERYTHING outside of HoT for free mind you) have to pay for access to raids? Really?

Why would anyone bother paying anything at all for the game, if everything is just available for free anyway?

Solomon Darkfury.3729:

Raiding shouldn’t be “expansion content” only… Raiding should be an addition to the entirety of the game… As I said I HAVE HoT. I just don’t think it’s fair to the portion of the player base that aren’t getting HoT, not to have a raid or two eventually put into core…

It’s not fair? How is it not fair? That’s like saying “gee, I don’t think it’s fair that people who don’t have the expansion can’t go into the new zone and do all of the expansion content.”

They are a business. They just went F2P so now they have no box sales coming in. So how do they drive people to buy the expansion? Putting something valuable behind it. That’s not unfair, that’s basic business.

Worst case scenario, a portion of free to play players quit and/or don’t buy the expansion. Oh heaven forbid people that haven’t spent any money quit a game they got for free because they can’t play content that was released with the expansion.

Look folks… normally I’m on your side on these types of discussions lol but to me Raiding SHOULD NOT be expansion only content. Anything that requires a group shouldn’t be. It’s exclusionary for a MYRIAD of reasons.

Dungeons and Fractals > Dungeons, Fractals and Raids Forum =O

Solomon Darkfury.3729:

Look folks… normally I’m on your side on these types of discussions lol but to me Raiding SHOULD NOT be expansion only content. Anything that requires a group shouldn’t be. It’s exclusionary for a MYRIAD of reasons.

So they should just give it all away for free?

I somehow doubt that many players that have been playing mmos for any decent amount of time will be all that shocked that the new major content advertised in an expansion would be locked behind it.

Solomon Darkfury.3729:

Look folks… normally I’m on your side on these types of discussions lol but to me Raiding SHOULD NOT be expansion only content. Anything that requires a group shouldn’t be. It’s exclusionary for a MYRIAD of reasons.

Your logic is flawed.

According to you, all HoT should be accessible to core players than right?? right??

I mean pfft, raids are a MAIN FEATURE to the xpac. One of the main attractions to this xpac….lets go ahead and make all the main attractions for core players than huh?

This is the way it is. If you want the new content that anet spent tons of time and resources on for free, you are going to be disappointed. Too bad if your guildies can’t shell out 50 bucks for the xpac. Their loss. Not Anets. Pony up and pay. Whining about it doesn’t help…

Solomon Darkfury.3729:

Look folks… normally I’m on your side on these types of discussions lol but to me Raiding SHOULD NOT be expansion only content. Anything that requires a group shouldn’t be. It’s exclusionary for a MYRIAD of reasons.

Absolutely 110% it should be expac only content. It’s a huge incentive for ppl to get HoT. This is how MMO’s work. You want the latest dungeon/raid, then you pay for it as part of the expansion. And we knew the challenging content was locked behind HoT since the announcement back at the beginning of the year.

The sheer amount of content available for free should be enough for those ppl unhappy.

What a silly post. Of course, it’s one of the features of HoT. Are you new?

There are a lot of other exclusive HoT-only things. I’m not sure why you’re so surprised.

That’s the entire point of expansions, “to expand” – so if you want to raid, buy it and support ArenaNet.

You have got to be joking, right?

Not baited. Troll post 0/10.

Solomon. Nobody knows how the future of the game is going to go. yes, the first chunk of RAIDZ{!!!} will be expansion-exclusive. They have to sell copies of the expansion, and if they give absolutely everything in the thing away then ask for your fifty bucks as a goodwill donation…well, how’s that going to affect their ability to deliver future content?

Later on, after the new HoTness has faded somewhat? They may well add RAIDZ{!!!} into the core game. And remember – when the next expansion hits in three more years, Heart of Thorns itself will be added to the free-to-player’s repertoire. Mike O’Brian specifically said that he never wants players to have to buy more than one thing to get into the game, so when we go after Primordus or Kralkatorrik or Bubbles or what-have-you, then the Heart of Thorns content – including RAIDZ{!!!} will be thrown on the free-to-play pile with the rest of the core game.

Core players will get there. It’ll take them longer, but if they’re unwilling to so much as spare twenty bucks during one of ArenaNet’s frequent deep sales to snag a paid account and offer compensation for the hours of enjoyment they’re getting, then frankly I believe it’s fair to expect them to wait their turn while we pay their shot for them.

This original post is rubbish. Gee, maybe we shouldn’t have masteries, elite specializations, guild halls, and the revenant exclusive to the players who buy HoT. Wow. just wow. Why even post something like this?

Then what is the point of having an expansion then? What makes raids so different than all the other features of the expansion? Group content CAN be locked behind HoT. Why should only single player content be locked behind HoT?

Subjective post is very subjective & I don’t think a lot of people here agree.

Solomon Darkfury.3729:

So there you have it people… you can’t progress in at least the first raid without having Gliding and mushroom masteries… Can we get a Dev to comment on this please? Though I LOVE end game progression and I my self have bought HoT, I think it’s a pretty horrible business decision to lock such a HUGE piece of content behind a paywall…

Its not a paywall. Raids are simply part of the expansion like the new maps etc…

lordkrall.7241:

So they should just give it all away for free?

They need to give a taste of raiding, a single boss for example, to the core game. Eventually it won’t matter, but people will want to see what “raiding” in GW2 is. The lack of “endgame” content is after all why a lot of people quit back at launch. I know quite a few people (traditional raiders that have long since quit) that would raid, but probably wouldn’t buy HoT with only the promise of raiding. They’ll want to see it first, hence why it’ll eventually not matter.

So you need expansion parts to visit expansion content but you don’t want to have to get the expansion to get expansion content?

Would you be willing to buy one of the dev’s lunch for a week so he can work on the free content for you? You want the devs to give you content but you want to give nothing back?

Would you be willing to carve a wood chess set for me for free? Seems you have no trouble with someone else developing content for you so pass that feeling on. Its not like it will cost you anything beyond the tools to make it. Just go out in the woods and grab a bunch of fallen wood from trees. By the way. You’re not allowed to be compensated for your time since you don’t allow other game devs to be compensated for time.

Want to be compensated for your carving time? It’s only fair that you compensate the anet devs for their time too. Buy the expansion. It’s lunch for a week for a hungry Gaile who puts up with us.

Solomon Darkfury.3729:

Coulter.2315:

Solomon Darkfury.3729:

I get how the mastery system would be beneficial… Especially one based upon progressing within the raid. My issue is Gliding and mushroom mastery can only be earned via HoT. Therefore excluding all core players from being able to progress past certain points within raids.

Core players will literally be unable to walk into the Raid – the door is in the expansion lands… Masteries aren’t their first hurdle xD

Then that creates an even MORE fundamental issue… I know just in my guild alone several people who won’t be getting HoT. Will there ever be Raids getting added to Core?

To me it seems ridiculous to lock something as HUGE as raiding behind a paywall. Now for small to mid size guilds, assembling a Raid team may be much more difficult. They will need to have 10 EXCEPTIONAL people who also have HoT… Now don’t get me wrong I don’t see why people who would be hardcore enough for raiding all the time wouldn’t, my point is why exclude that many potential raiders out of the player base…

Welcome to every game ever that does expansions.

Welcome to every game ever that does expansions.

No kidding. I find it very odd and weird the OP is so bent over this. It was obviously going to be the biggest announced feature of the xpac. Why wouldn’t it be locked behind buying it? Also, being able to do raids will not put players on different tiers of power (unlike lets say WoW with every content patch let alone an entire xpac). Legendary gear won’t be better in stats than ascended gear which core players will have access to – just unique skins and probably the ability to change stats similar to weapons.

Also, I’m sure raiders may get unique titles, AP, etc., but will still not un-level the playing field if I were decked out in all the new gear and went to do Teq, fractals, dungeons, WvW, etc. with a core only player decked out in all Ascended.

Does this guy understand that you can’t even do the raids mastery or not without the expansion? It’s not like they are opening up the raids to core players ,but locking the masteries behind a paywall. You can’t do either without the expansion.

To me it seems ridiculous to lock something as HUGE as raiding behind a paywall. Now for small to mid size guilds, assembling a Raid team may be much more difficult. They will need to have 10 EXCEPTIONAL people who also have HoT…

Um, ok, I dropped out of WoW fairly early, but when WoW released an expansion, and that expansion included new raids, weren’t you required to buy that expansion to access those new raids? Why is this considered something unusual?

/shrug
Cash up, then.
This is a simple fact of how expansions work. This is what the players wanted.

Solomon Darkfury.3729:

…I think it’s a pretty horrible business decision to lock such a HUGE piece of content behind a paywall…

And that “HUGE” piece of content is supposed to pay for itself how?

They locked new legendaries behind the HoT paywall. Legendaries that were supposed to be out in 2013 when ArenaNet themselves said they weren’t even considering an x-pac. Same goes for Fractal content. The Fractured update was supposed to bring in the things that are now locked behind HoT’s paywall. It’s not shocking that ArenaNet would do this. It’s par for the course these days.