Guild Wars 2

It’s funny. If GW2 was built upon the “ideals” of GW1 (which it was supposed to do), we would have had “raids” (elite missions) from the get go – there were no such things.

Devata.6589:

phys.7689:

PopeUrban.2578:

phys.7689:

The loot really isnt the main issue to discuss about raids anymore, imo.

The big issues are that;
Its the main endgame activity (challenge and goal)
It requires 10 men
It looks like it will need highly specific playstyles and builds (waiting for healer)

Feels like raids are going to highlight all the flaws of raids in other games and have little to no connection to the old gw2 ideals.

Gw2 raids should have been designed to be, easy to attempt
Able to be organically organized
Involve combat that requires reaction and short term prediction over stat crush
Designed to have many ways to solve a problem with various play types (guaranteed dmg bad)
Not require waiting for x role

Really seems like raids are at odds with gw2 design, and seems like gw2 is changing to accomodate raids rather than vice versa. Not looking forward to the effects on the game

Did you watch the stream about raid design? They specifically made a point to address that they go out of their way to design the raid so that there isn’t a situation where “need class X” is a thing.

They are designing the raids around GW2’s combat system, and the changes to the combat system and PvE roles in general have more to do with build variety than raid design.

In fact, the process of designing raids has allowed skill and profession designers to ferret out unbalanced PvE builds and generally work toward a healthier game.

The point is that up until now you only really had to play the entire combat system in PvP. In PvE all you played was damage, reflect, dodge. That was boring compared to the extremely intricate PvE systems we had in GW1 where knowing enemy abilities, key interrupts, target order, range, and party composition was actually important, and the content was actually challenging.

apparently they made a huge miscalculation, because they thought the problem was needing a specific class. It was, and has always been, needing a role that people dont enjoy playing. Coming from FFXI, where it was common to level multiple classes to max level, the problem wasnt really, no one has a healer, it was no one wants to play their healer.
Even in gw1, i had a smiting assassin sub monk. I had no problem with the monk class, but i didnt want to play healer.
The reason there is never enough healers and tanks in mmos, is because few people want to play that role.
Why is it, if they have 5 dps classes 2 healers and two tanks, that a 6 man party always has to wait for a healer? because few people wanted to play heals.

if i only had a ranger, i still wouldnt want to heal. the fact that my class can do it is completely irrelevant.

Also they are ignoring gear, which is a huge tax on inventory and will probably cost like 100 gold or more for alll the exotic pieces,

Having specific roles is a good thing and is fun.. without it you get exactly the complain you hear some much about in GW2.. everybody does the same, dps, dps, dps..

But yes, it can become a problem when there is one role you require but nobody wants to play. So you need to try and make all roles interesting to play. Personally I enjoy the healer and Tank roles, so never really had this problem in other games. But I agree it is a problem you do see.

On the other hand, that ‘problem’ is also not that big. I don’t mind having to wait a bid before having a group.

Still they should try to make all roles fun to play.

you say waiting a bit is no problem because you were the golden child. Trust that for dps waiting is not cool. we arent talking about waiting 10 minutes, wait time in ffxiv for leveling dungeons was huge. some times an hour wasnt enough.

And when it comes to guild politics, the waiting is even greater, because usually there is no wait, its basically, sorry, we dont have enough for a second team, and we are already done for the week guys.

anyhow, i wouldnt mind if they had some other challenging endgame content for smaller groups, but all signs are nope.
no new dungeons at all
no new fractals for the announceable future
no low/solo goals besides easy grind

Devata.6589:

Astralporing.1957:

PopeUrban.2578:

Did you watch the stream about raid design? They specifically made a point to address that they go out of their way to design the raid so that there isn’t a situation where “need class X” is a thing.

They also said that the raids will need specific group configurations. It may not be “Need Class X”, but it will be “Need role X”. And not only specific roles will be limited to only few classes each, but some of those roles will be roles that people in general do not like to play.

And so it seems that “LF Healer for Raid” will be a thing in the future.

We can only hope so.. because one of the problems with combat in GW2 was that it missed roles. No roles means you all kinda do the same and your participation does not feel that meaningful.. Not like where you as healer are indeed needed to heal up the group and so play an important role.

And before anybody says “but that does not fit with GW2”. That is nonsense. What GW2 did try was to give any multiple professions the ability to fulfill multiple roles, and instead of DPS, Tank, Healer they had Damage, Support, Control. Only the implementation of this horribly failed making everything DPS, and making nobody in a group really fulfilling a special role.

One may only hope they succeed in setting up a new role system for HoT. While indeed it does look like it’s not Damage Support Control anymore as they clearly talked about healers and tanks, but also about support.

As far as I know they did not revealed / told yet how they envisione it now, but to me it looks like they now try to set up.. Control, Healer, Tank. Next to that, everybody has some extent of Support and Damage.

Not sure how that will work out, but we will see.

Personally I would have loved to have seen roles more based around profession. Like pets or minion and DPS role (rangers / necro), speed and invisibility-role (mesmer and thief) and so on.

the problem with your important roles;
for healer, you arent really important, the game makes people take damage so you serve a purpose.
And a tank, could be important, the problem is his doing his job well, makes the encounter less engaging for everyone else.

GW2 wasnt made for this type of system.
If all you have to do is worry about dps, your dps options are incredibly boring, there is usually only one or 2 dps skills in a build
Games built with trinities, generally have to make each job more complex so the job isnt boring.
Healers get a heavy resource limit, and aggro management, and a host of spells that represent different healing effeciencies, and agro potential

tanks get direct agro control, and various means of mitigation

dps have multiple rotations, and in good games, the boss forces them to alter or adapt their rotations often, as well as short term defensive skills.

gw2 is built around needing to do multiple things, buff, debuff, heal avoid, move. once people only have to do a few it will be fairly rote.

I imagine this is the topic to be a little mean (it’s raid related and new random topics are frowned upon so…)

First, a little bit of rant, relating to all the hate on “berserker meta”. It’s amusing really. I see a lot, a LOT, of comments on the forums, saying “zerk meta just stand in corner and press 1”. Yeah… ask any and all of these people to stack and kill something. They will fail 100% of the time. Why? A mystery for the ages I’m sure (a fun example for this is Spider Queen in AC, after the change to her poison aoe behaviour… it was fun to see people die to her in stacking over and over lol, because they lacked the dps to burn her down before the aoe – then the meta changed and people begun killing queen in the open… pfff, way to ruin my fun lol)
A lot of the hate comes from ignorance and lack of understanding I think. Simply put some people fail to grasp the concept of min/max, which exist in ALL games in various forms (mmos, we’re talking mmos here) and thus hate on something which is unavoidably logical.
The sad thing is, Arena Net seems to have drunk the kool aid :P and join in on “destroying the evil zerk meta”, with no thought as to what that is or what does it do…
Funny thing is, it won’t go away for obvious reasons. Maybe at first, in raids, people will be all “oh you need knight trinkets for a little survivability” (which was the same stupid thing some people were saying years ago… oh well… I was full zerk before the meta lol and was surviving quite nicely learning the fights so here’s hoping raids will be somewhere in the same area).

Now, on to my actual point, which is being mean of course
Again, I find it amusing to see the giddiness some people have at “the zerk meta being gone” for raids (without seeing the content). I played for a while a different mmo, and one particular instance has traumatized me to no end… lol. And no, not the difficulty or lack thereof, but the amazing stupidity that some people exibit.
This particular raid was the “most difficult” one, I think. I might miss some details, been a long time since I played. Basically it was like this:
Boss > dps Boss to 75% (or something) > 3 adds spawn – dps check – kill adds asap as all did raid wide aoe damage > Boss starts doing super attack thingy and displays a cross on him with visible icons for roles (aka tanks and heals were supposed to distribute in front and back of boss on the cross, and dps on right and left arms of cross) > cross done correctly meant dps burn phase then rinse and repeat – cross done wrong meant some people were insta-killed and basically raid wipe.
Easy peasy no? And more then easy peasy, this was explained every kitten time What do you think happened? The majority of raid groups failed at this boss. Why? Well, I’ll give one example… people failed to identify correctly which was the bosses right arm and which was its left arm… I’ll wait a bit for the smug laughter to end.

Now in GW2, it all depends how they do the raids. Will they go for a difficulty level that high, where it’s “do exactly X action or raid wipe”? Or will they make it so it’s a “casual friendly difficulty”?
If they go for the first option, the more common one in mmos, then I look forward to laugh at all the teary eyes of the “zerk meta” haters (who will be incapable of doing any raid) even if “all zerk” won’t be the norm anymore for equipement for whatever reason. Even if I have to equip kitteng cleric, I’ll still be able to do stuff, since I have the weird habbit of using the one muscle that counts.

Summary:

• If raids are as difficult as advertised, you can probably shove your smug happiness at the “death of the zerk meta” right up your… because no matter the gear, if you’re one of the clueless, you will fail at raids

• I will be enjoying seeing the same people who are now yelling how “zerk meta stands in a corner and presses 1” being devastated by the realisation they are incapable of doing raids (even in pvt gear… or nomad… or whatever it is that’s super tanky :P )

In the broadest definition all forms of reward are bribery there is, however, a difference between effective bribery that encourages and rewards different content differently, and ineffective bribery like what you’re proposing, that only rewards the single least difficult and most efficient path toward a given reward

You’re right that all rewards are a sort of bribery, but ideally they should be bribery to “play OUR game, rather than someone else’s game.” So long as they’re playing your game, you shouldn’t care which part of that game they’re playing, so long as they’re enjoying themselves. Now, if there is an area that is significantly more efficient to farm than others, to the point that people will go there even if they do not find the experience entertaining, then its your job to nerf that source a bit, to bring it back in balance with other sources of reward, but if you’re doing your job right, people can choose the type of content they enjoy and feel rewarded for playing it.

LS2 is some of my favorite content. I have done it about five times now. However, I’m not going to run it a sixth time because At some point repeating an experience just for the experience is not fun any more

But also because LS2 relies on those “unique rewards” you guys put so much stock in, and once you have them, as you point out, there’s little reason to go back. If they were instead balanced based on repeatable rewards such that you’re 20th time through LS2 would be roughly as profitable a use of your time as Silverwastes farming, then you’d be more likely to do it, assuming it was still fun content for you.

A bad loot system says “yeah, you beat the end of the world like thirty times, here’s the same thing you could have obtained by picking flowers for three months while you watch netflix”

I think that if you actually had a strong argument, you could make it without straw men.

It is my opinion, and it seems to be the opinion of the developers of this game that all content should be rewarding, but all content should not, however, have the same rewards.

So then should they make it so that the “daisy picking” is the ONLY way to earn the Legendary armor, while the raids only offer a unique “flower in the hair” headpiece skin? You talk up the ideal of “every content should be rewarding,” but you seem to imply, but not express, the added point that “and the content I want to do should be most rewarding of all.”

The loot really isnt the main issue to discuss about raids anymore, imo.

The big issues are that;
Its the main endgame activity (challenge and goal)
It requires 10 men
It looks like it will need highly specific playstyles and builds (waiting for healer)

All those things are concerning, but it’s the loot that makes it an actual problem. Without the loot, no matter how bad those things might make the raiding experience, players would always have the option of opting out of it without penalty. “Raids suck? Ok, I won’t raid then.” With the lure of unique skins, however, players do not fairly have that option, they either have to do the raids, no matter how much they may suck, or miss out on those rewards.

apparently they made a huge miscalculation, because they thought the problem was needing a specific class. It was, and has always been, needing a role that people dont enjoy playing. Coming from FFXI, where it was common to level multiple classes to max level, the problem wasnt really, no one has a healer, it was no one wants to play their healer.

I actually enjoyed playing a healer in DCUO. The trick to it is that you need to be able to be a solid solo-capable character in a healing spec OR be able to turn the healer spec on and off at will. Being a healer in a big raid group can be interesting, but it’s no fun if it makes you worthless for anything else you want to be doing. They either need to make it so that a healer spec can keep himself healed well enough that he can solo anything anyone else can, or they need to make it so that you can build your character to be a great DPS/solo build, and then press a button and you’re a great healer-spec without having to waste a ton of time swapping traits around or have an entire second set of optimal gear.

phys.7689:

Devata.6589:

phys.7689:

PopeUrban.2578:

phys.7689:

The loot really isnt the main issue to discuss about raids anymore, imo.

The big issues are that;
Its the main endgame activity (challenge and goal)
It requires 10 men
It looks like it will need highly specific playstyles and builds (waiting for healer)

Feels like raids are going to highlight all the flaws of raids in other games and have little to no connection to the old gw2 ideals.

Gw2 raids should have been designed to be, easy to attempt
Able to be organically organized
Involve combat that requires reaction and short term prediction over stat crush
Designed to have many ways to solve a problem with various play types (guaranteed dmg bad)
Not require waiting for x role

Really seems like raids are at odds with gw2 design, and seems like gw2 is changing to accomodate raids rather than vice versa. Not looking forward to the effects on the game

Did you watch the stream about raid design? They specifically made a point to address that they go out of their way to design the raid so that there isn’t a situation where “need class X” is a thing.

They are designing the raids around GW2’s combat system, and the changes to the combat system and PvE roles in general have more to do with build variety than raid design.

In fact, the process of designing raids has allowed skill and profession designers to ferret out unbalanced PvE builds and generally work toward a healthier game.

The point is that up until now you only really had to play the entire combat system in PvP. In PvE all you played was damage, reflect, dodge. That was boring compared to the extremely intricate PvE systems we had in GW1 where knowing enemy abilities, key interrupts, target order, range, and party composition was actually important, and the content was actually challenging.

apparently they made a huge miscalculation, because they thought the problem was needing a specific class. It was, and has always been, needing a role that people dont enjoy playing. Coming from FFXI, where it was common to level multiple classes to max level, the problem wasnt really, no one has a healer, it was no one wants to play their healer.
Even in gw1, i had a smiting assassin sub monk. I had no problem with the monk class, but i didnt want to play healer.
The reason there is never enough healers and tanks in mmos, is because few people want to play that role.
Why is it, if they have 5 dps classes 2 healers and two tanks, that a 6 man party always has to wait for a healer? because few people wanted to play heals.

if i only had a ranger, i still wouldnt want to heal. the fact that my class can do it is completely irrelevant.

Also they are ignoring gear, which is a huge tax on inventory and will probably cost like 100 gold or more for alll the exotic pieces,

Having specific roles is a good thing and is fun.. without it you get exactly the complain you hear some much about in GW2.. everybody does the same, dps, dps, dps..

But yes, it can become a problem when there is one role you require but nobody wants to play. So you need to try and make all roles interesting to play. Personally I enjoy the healer and Tank roles, so never really had this problem in other games. But I agree it is a problem you do see.

On the other hand, that ‘problem’ is also not that big. I don’t mind having to wait a bid before having a group.

Still they should try to make all roles fun to play.

you say waiting a bit is no problem because you were the golden child. Trust that for dps waiting is not cool. we arent talking about waiting 10 minutes, wait time in ffxiv for leveling dungeons was huge. some times an hour wasnt enough.

And when it comes to guild politics, the waiting is even greater, because usually there is no wait, its basically, sorry, we dont have enough for a second team, and we are already done for the week guys.

anyhow, i wouldnt mind if they had some other challenging endgame content for smaller groups, but all signs are nope.
no new dungeons at all
no new fractals for the announceable future
no low/solo goals besides easy grind

I said I like the tank and healing but I was not always a tank or a healer. My main has always been the ranger / hunter class.. and that is, as you know, DPS. So I know the waiting part, and I can understand some people might not like it but I personally didn’t mind. I just continue doing other stuff.

When I try to get a dungeon-group I usually wait to get a full guild group, I will not immediately take a pug. Kinda the same.

If you have to wait 1h there is something wrong with the role making people not wanting to play it.. then that is the real issue imho. Not the fact that you need that role.

Ohoni.6057:

So then should they make it so that the “daisy picking” is the ONLY way to earn the Legendary armor, while the raids only offer a unique “flower in the hair” headpiece skin? You talk up the ideal of “every content should be rewarding,” but you seem to imply, but not express, the added point that “and the content I want to do should be most rewarding of all.”

Not at all. I’ve said, several times, that I don’t agree with the decision to only hand out legendary armor precursors from raids. Every facet of PvE should have a way to gain that kind of QoL upgrade.

That’s why I mentioned legendary armor of daisy picking and legendary armor of killing a tongue monster.

I am all for equivalent rewards. I am simply against homogenized rewards.

Your primary argument is that there are no equivalent rewards because desirability of skins is subjective, right? My opinion is that because the desirability of skins is subjective you can not use it as a balancing lever.

In the end, you are faced with two extremes, neither of which will make every player happy. You either offer all the rewards for all the things, thus removing any unique rewards from content, or you attach unique rewards to all the content so that no matter what you’re doing you have a special thing.

The end result is the same for the people made unhappy by either system. In the “get all the things anywhere” system, people that are primarily rewards focused will complain they have to do content they hate because it’s more efficient. In the “Get special things in special places” system, people that are rewards focused will complain they have to do content they hate because it’s the only way to get the specific thing they’re after.

Then we have multipage threads about it in stead of people being okay with the idea that a compromise of the two is the way to make the least amount of people completely unhappy.

GW2 as it exists right now, and probably for the forseeable future is a compromise of the two methods. Some stuff can be had via the TP by doing whatever content you want. Some stuff can only be had by doing specific content.

Tossing out either one of those reward paradigms completely would be detrimental to the overall health of the game.

Not certain if this had been linked yet, but it has relevance to the multi-page discussion on the previously focused topic.

I just saw an interesting video that I think has a lot to do with raiding, it’s a D-News video on Fraternity hazing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvknIZ00pj4

It basically makes the point that when people are subjected to unhealthy stress in order to earn something, they become more attached to that thing, and will then turn around and defend that unhealthy stress as a positive factor. Basically if you go through a hazing process (or spend weeks fruitlessly attempting a raid), then when you go get in your mind comes to defend that process as being a good thing. It kind of makes sense, I suppose.

The end result is the same for the people made unhappy by either system. In the “get all the things anywhere” system, people that are primarily rewards focused will complain they have to do content they hate because it’s more efficient. In the “Get special things in special places” system, people that are rewards focused will complain they have to do content they hate because it’s the only way to get the specific thing they’re after.

That’s a false example though. The first example you gave only applies when one method is drastically out of balance with the others. If all the methods are within a reasonable margin of balance, then players might find one to be more efficient than another, but not SO efficient that they absolutely must do it that way whether they want to or not. If one method gives out 30g per hour and most methods only give out 10g per hour or less, then you pretty much have to do the first. If all methods give out between 19 and 21g per hour, then your favorite method might not be the absolute best, but it’s at least not a horrible way to progress, you won’t fall too far behind*.

In any case, even if we accept your false example as fact, it’s still not an even situation, because in the latter case, the player literally cannot earn the item he wants via any means other than the prescribed method, 0% chance, zero opportunity, whereas in the first example, the player always CAN earn the reward he wants, through any method he wants, he just might choose not to get it that way because he decides for himself that it’s not worthwhile. Player choice. You cannot try to present these two options as being objectively equivalent, as being “equally unhappy.”

- * by saying “all,” I am speaking in generalities to refer to all high-engagement content, PLEASE try to avoid the urge to highlight strawman edge cases like “picking daisies” as something included in this “all.”

It’s not a false example at all. You’re haping on “picking daisies” so we can call it “killing open world mobs” whatever.

They’re absolutely equivalent when you’re talking about things in terms of challenge ratio. Even if farming the open world or doing a raid pay out equivalent rewards for time spent, the method with the lowest chance of failure is always the most efficient method. This idea that people would choose a more work intensive and failure prone path to the same reward is folly. It’s not equivalent and by the very nature of multiple difficulty levels, logistical requirements, and schedule differences the least difficult method will always be the most efficient, assuming that ideal time/reward ration is somehow identical.

This is why people farm COF path 1, why people farm silverwastes, and why the oft-discussed “zerker meta” is a thing.

You can not balance content around gold per hour and have wildly different difficulty levels. The equivalent but unique approach ensures that there are desirable rewards across the difficulty spectrum by not making those two pieces of content compete with one another.

Will people be upset that there’s a skin they want in content they don’t? Yes.

However, the alternative extreme is people being just as upset because they went through this whole crazyhard raid and got something they could have just done a dungeon path 15 times, or farmed 1200 mobs in the open world for. That is the root of complaints about world boss chests and the old standby “two blues and a green”.

One needs only look at this thread to see the danger of such extremism, and why it’s imperative that there exists in stead some form of compromise.

You realize you don’t get the actual armor dropped as the raid reward right??

It’s a precursor, only obtainable in raids

There is a lot more to crafting the legendary armor outside of just getting the precursor….

Just like crafting a legendary weapon, you’ll have to go all over the world to get the peices to put it together. Precursor is just one part of many.

You are flat out whining because you don’t want raids to have the precursor – you want it obtainable anywhere BUT raids…… too bad, anet made the call and I don’t see ANY HINT from anet thinking they will change it ANYTIME SOON.

So either deal with it, or quit.

you aren’t getting it your way, and you don’t deserve it your way.
This is the path set out by anet, either do it or don’t.

Asking them to feed you the way you want is ridiculous… go make your own game the way you want if thats how you feel.

You act as if there is some widespread OUTRAGE that anet placed the precursor in raid and the playerbase is rioting , as if all the social media from forums, reddit, twitter, online gaming websites/magazines , etc etc are letting the world know anet is making a big mistake….. newsflash, there is hardly ANYONE being mad about anet’s decision to put in exclusive precursors to raid…. only a handful of ppl on this thread are…

Ohoni.6057:

I just saw an interesting video that I think has a lot to do with raiding, it’s a D-News video on Fraternity hazing:

You just tried to link Raiding in MMOs to Hazing. The absurdity of such a comparison is almost breathtaking, to compare an already established entertaining end-game component found in many MMOs to an often problematic social paradigm that has resulted in accidents and even suicides.

…and ironically matches up quite well to the video’s points I linked earlier. Please go watch that video, and stop trying to push such false statements about raiding to the public. It’s disheartening that you would even make such a statement.

They’re absolutely equivalent when you’re talking about things in terms of challenge ratio. Even if farming the open world or doing a raid pay out equivalent rewards for time spent, the method with the lowest chance of failure is always the most efficient method. This idea that people would choose a more work intensive and failure prone path to the same reward is folly.

And yet people continue to play all parts of the game, even though they are currently horrendously out of balance in terms of reward. And don’t try to sell me on the idea that they only do it because they are chasing unique rewards, in many cases they already have all the unique rewards.

Again, even if we accept your premise, which I don’t, it still boils down to, if they can get the reward through any means, then they DO have a choice, even if some of the choices are better than others, while if they can only get the reward through a single means, then they have NO choice. Simple as that. Choice or not choice. Ideally the choice would be as fair as possible, but even if it’s not, it’s still a choice, and still better than no choice at all.

Still

Better

This is why people farm COF path 1, why people farm silverwastes, and why the oft-discussed “zerker meta” is a thing.

And yet there are still people that do other things. There are people that like to chase efficiency, let them chase efficiency. Try to make it hard for them, try to make the most efficient methods less efficient, and the less efficient methods more efficient, but at the end of the day, let them do what they want. If they are only motivated by reward, and they think they have an easy path, let them. for those less motivated by efficiency, less motivated by reward, they can still do their own preferred path, and it will be within a reasonable margin of error of the other method.

Still

Better

However, the alternative extreme is people being just as upset because they went through this whole crazyhard raid and got something they could have just done a dungeon path 15 times, or farmed 1200 mobs in the open world for.

And if that makes them feel bad then they shouldn’t be raiding. They should feel happy because they really enjoyed that raiding experience, because it was the most fun thing they could have been doing. They should be raiding because the feeling of having completed it is a feeling they feel like chasing. If that is not the case, then they should not be raiding, simple as that. The raid should provide a reward equivalent to other activities, but it should not have to provide more than that, and if it does, then it’s not an activity worth supporting.

You realize you don’t get the actual armor dropped as the raid reward right??

It’s a precursor, only obtainable in raids

There is a lot more to crafting the legendary armor outside of just getting the precursor….

Yes, but what alternative methods will there be for earning them? If none, then it is the exact same thing as the armor dropping from the raids, it’s still a gate. If there are alternative methods, but they are harder, then you get into the situation Pope thinks is intolerable, of having a harder path.

You are flat out whining because you don’t want raids to have the precursor – you want it obtainable anywhere BUT raids…… too bad, anet made the call and I don’t see ANY HINT from anet thinking they will change it ANYTIME SOON.

So either deal with it, or quit.

Why do you say that as if that would ever be a good thing? “Deal with it or quit” is not a successful business philosophy, because too many people would choose the latter that you could otherwise have kept on board.

You just tried to link Raiding in MMOs to Hazing. The absurdity of such a comparison is almost breathtaking, to compare an already established entertaining end-game component found in many MMOs to an often problematic social paradigm that has resulted in accidents and even suicides.

Did you watch the video? I got the impression you didn’t watch the video, or the comparisons would be self-evident. It’s only 4 minutes.

…and ironically matches up quite well to the video’s points I linked earlier. Please go watch that video, and stop trying to push such false statements about raiding to the public. It’s disheartening that you would even make such a statement.

I did watch that video. It was basically just trying to support the idea that raiding and raid-exclusive rewards are a positive thing for the GW2 community. Unsurprisingly, I disagree.

Ohoni.6057:

Did you watch the video? I got the impression you didn’t watch the video, or the comparisons would be self-evident. It’s only 4 minutes.

Did you? You are really attempting to treat raiders like they are psychologically hurting themselves to enjoy challenging content. There is no comparable point to make, and you are insane to think otherwise. There’s no cognitive dissonance with wanting to better yourself at playing a game or at anything in life and associating those with stress, that’s natural human condition.

Ohoni.6057:

I did watch that video. It was basically just trying to support the idea that raiding and raid-exclusive rewards are a positive thing for the GW2 community. Unsurprisingly, I disagree.

And unsurprising just because you disagree doesn’t make it wrong. Nothing you have said for pages now has truly contributed in any significant way for any sort of compromise (of which the word you didn’t really know the true meaning of until the definition had to be plainly established in this thread) towards the reward structures. And everything you have said shows a lack of understanding of basic reward structure to encouraging game longevity, to encouraging gamer entertainment.

And the worst part of it all is that you will still circle back to the same points as if they were an absolute truth (which we have proven again and again to be false) or mark some example we list as a Strawman (You have beaten that horse to death, quite a few examples listed were not nearly as strawman as the proclamations you believe will happen if the Raids are as dire and challenging to players as you think they will be).

I am not sure how there is any way to say that everything you have said up to now is wrong in a nice fashion. But if there is any single consistent trend in this thread, it’s that a vast vocal majority of players on the forums will agree with that sentiment. And I am fairly certain these vast amounts of vocal players can speak for their friends or guildmates or others.

Did you? You are really attempting to treat raiders like they are psychologically hurting themselves to enjoy challenging content. There is no comparable point to make, and you are insane to think otherwise. There’s no cognitive dissonance with wanting to better yourself at playing a game or at anything in life and associating those with stress, that’s natural human condition.

Yes, that is the expected response.

And unsurprising just because you disagree doesn’t make it wrong. Nothing you have said for pages now has truly contributed in any significant way for any sort of compromise (of which the word you didn’t really know the true meaning of until the definition had to be plainly established in this thread) towards the reward structures.

And nothing anyone else has said has contributed towards an actual compromise either, just “we get what we want, and you don’t.” Neither side is willing to compromise on this one, the baby cannot be split, so in the end, it comes down to only one side getting what they want. So far, that’s your side, so be happy! Unless of course it turns out that not a lot of people actually want to raid, in which case ANet will have to do something about that.

or mark some example we list as a Strawman (You have beaten that horse to death, quite a few examples listed were not nearly as strawman as the proclamations you believe will happen if the Raids are as dire and challenging to players as you think they will be).

I promise you this, very solemnly. I will stop labeling arguments as straw men the very instant people stop using straw man arguments. I swear it. As soon as people stop saying things like “you just want to give [max quality rewards] for doing [activity that has no actual gameplay element to it],” I’ll stop pointing out how that is never anything I asked for, would support, or would necessarily flow from anything I have supported. If anyone is beating that one to death, it is not me, as I’m just pointing out when it occurs. If you’d like me to stop pointing it out, stop straw men from appearing.

I am not sure how there is any way to say that everything you have said up to now is wrong in a nice fashion. But if there is any single consistent trend in this thread, it’s that a vast vocal majority of players on the forums will agree with that sentiment.

Well, a couple dozen people out of hundreds of thousands, but sure, if you want to attribute significance to that, I can’t stop you.

Ohoni.6057:

In the broadest definition all forms of reward are bribery there is, however, a difference between effective bribery that encourages and rewards different content differently, and ineffective bribery like what you’re proposing, that only rewards the single least difficult and most efficient path toward a given reward

You’re right that all rewards are a sort of bribery, but ideally they should be bribery to “play OUR game, rather than someone else’s game.” So long as they’re playing your game, you shouldn’t care which part of that game they’re playing, so long as they’re enjoying themselves. Now, if there is an area that is significantly more efficient to farm than others, to the point that people will go there even if they do not find the experience entertaining, then its your job to nerf that source a bit, to bring it back in balance with other sources of reward, but if you’re doing your job right, people can choose the type of content they enjoy and feel rewarded for playing it.

LS2 is some of my favorite content. I have done it about five times now. However, I’m not going to run it a sixth time because At some point repeating an experience just for the experience is not fun any more

But also because LS2 relies on those “unique rewards” you guys put so much stock in, and once you have them, as you point out, there’s little reason to go back. If they were instead balanced based on repeatable rewards such that you’re 20th time through LS2 would be roughly as profitable a use of your time as Silverwastes farming, then you’d be more likely to do it, assuming it was still fun content for you.

A bad loot system says “yeah, you beat the end of the world like thirty times, here’s the same thing you could have obtained by picking flowers for three months while you watch netflix”

I think that if you actually had a strong argument, you could make it without straw men.

It is my opinion, and it seems to be the opinion of the developers of this game that all content should be rewarding, but all content should not, however, have the same rewards.

So then should they make it so that the “daisy picking” is the ONLY way to earn the Legendary armor, while the raids only offer a unique “flower in the hair” headpiece skin? You talk up the ideal of “every content should be rewarding,” but you seem to imply, but not express, the added point that “and the content I want to do should be most rewarding of all.”

The loot really isnt the main issue to discuss about raids anymore, imo.

The big issues are that;
Its the main endgame activity (challenge and goal)
It requires 10 men
It looks like it will need highly specific playstyles and builds (waiting for healer)

All those things are concerning, but it’s the loot that makes it an actual problem. Without the loot, no matter how bad those things might make the raiding experience, players would always have the option of opting out of it without penalty. “Raids suck? Ok, I won’t raid then.” With the lure of unique skins, however, players do not fairly have that option, they either have to do the raids, no matter how much they may suck, or miss out on those rewards.

apparently they made a huge miscalculation, because they thought the problem was needing a specific class. It was, and has always been, needing a role that people dont enjoy playing. Coming from FFXI, where it was common to level multiple classes to max level, the problem wasnt really, no one has a healer, it was no one wants to play their healer.

I actually enjoyed playing a healer in DCUO. The trick to it is that you need to be able to be a solid solo-capable character in a healing spec OR be able to turn the healer spec on and off at will. Being a healer in a big raid group can be interesting, but it’s no fun if it makes you worthless for anything else you want to be doing. They either need to make it so that a healer spec can keep himself healed well enough that he can solo anything anyone else can, or they need to make it so that you can build your character to be a great DPS/solo build, and then press a button and you’re a great healer-spec without having to waste a ton of time swapping traits around or have an entire second set of optimal gear.

loot doesnt make content required unless you need loot to access content.

You are way too focused on access to loot. i dont have every legendary, And i never will, the time investment is too huge. I dont have every skin, the time investment is too huge.

There are some things in any large world that you simply arent going to get, because you arent willing to do them. As long as this doesnt block you from gameplay its not a big deal.

im more concerned with how raids will effect the gameplay and game development, than if i will be able to fill my collection tab

loot doesnt make content required unless you need loot to access content.

I find this faulty reasoning. This is a game, nothing is required, therefore everything is required. What actually is “required” is anything you really want. You say it isn’t required unless you need it to access content, but accessing content is not required, it is just something people might want. Likewise, accessing a skin is not required, but it might be something that someone wants just as much as you want access to that content. It’s all entirely subjective.

So you can justify restricting a skin from someone if you want, but when you do so, you can’t take the easy way out by just accepting as fact that it’s “not a big deal.” If you want to justify locking out a skin, you have to justify it on the grounds that you are locking out the single most important thing in the entire game for at least some of the players. It is not objectively less of a big deal than locking them out of content.

If you have a Key, it’s a big fancy key, and you only get one of them per account. You can use it once, and only once. One way to use it is to open a giant gate, which will grant permanent access to the raid dungeon, and there is no other way in, so not using the Key in this manner locks you out of content. Another way to use this Key would be to open a chest, from which you can select one of a handful of specific skins that can only be earned through this method.

One is content, the other is purely cosmetic, and yet you know as well as I do that a sizable portion of the playerbase would choose the latter option, all else being equal. Cosmetics are not a side show, they are a co-equal element of the game, and if you want to have any reasonable discussion on rewards, you need to accept that fact.

You are way too focused on access to loot. i dont have every legendary, And i never will, the time investment is too huge. I dont have every skin, the time investment is too huge.

And it’s fine that you feel that way, but do not project that onto others.

There are some things in any large world that you simply arent going to get, because you arent willing to do them. As long as this doesnt block you from gameplay its not a big deal.

And it’s fine that you feel that way, but do not project that onto others.

im more concerned with how raids will effect the gameplay and game development, than if i will be able to fill my collection tab

And it’s fine that you feel that way, but do not. . . whoa, deja vu.

Ohoni.6057:

loot doesnt make content required unless you need loot to access content.

I find this faulty reasoning. This is a game, nothing is required, therefore everything is required. What actually is “required” is anything you really want. You say it isn’t required unless you need it to access content, but accessing content is not required, it is just something people might want. Likewise, accessing a skin is not required, but it might be something that someone wants just as much as you want access to that content. It’s all entirely subjective.

So you can justify restricting a skin from someone if you want, but when you do so, you can’t take the easy way out by just accepting as fact that it’s “not a big deal.” If you want to justify locking out a skin, you have to justify it on the grounds that you are locking out the single most important thing in the entire game for at least some of the players. It is not objectively less of a big deal than locking them out of content.

If you have a Key, it’s a big fancy key, and you only get one of them per account. You can use it once, and only once. One way to use it is to open a giant gate, which will grant permanent access to the raid dungeon, and there is no other way in, so not using the Key in this manner locks you out of content. Another way to use this Key would be to open a chest, from which you can select one of a handful of specific skins that can only be earned through this method.

One is content, the other is purely cosmetic, and yet you know as well as I do that a sizable portion of the playerbase would choose the latter option, all else being equal. Cosmetics are not a side show, they are a co-equal element of the game, and if you want to have any reasonable discussion on rewards, you need to accept that fact.

You are way too focused on access to loot. i dont have every legendary, And i never will, the time investment is too huge. I dont have every skin, the time investment is too huge.

And it’s fine that you feel that way, but do not project that onto others.

There are some things in any large world that you simply arent going to get, because you arent willing to do them. As long as this doesnt block you from gameplay its not a big deal.

And it’s fine that you feel that way, but do not project that onto others.

im more concerned with how raids will effect the gameplay and game development, than if i will be able to fill my collection tab

And it’s fine that you feel that way, but do not. . . whoa, deja vu.

so your reasoning is, its ok to lock people away from loot based on time investment but not based on difficulty?
thats completely arbitrary. Both are things that some people are incapable of regardless to desire.

also, any design has to be created to fit its purpose first and foremost, and other considerations after.

so the question becomes
is guild wars 2 designed as a virtual item delivery mechanism first and foremost
or as a game first and foremost.

if its a game first, gameplay, and enhancing gameplay is the primary concern
if its item delivery, te primary concern is being able to deliver items to people.

for example if your goal is to make people walk up steps, you may give people clothes to walk up steps
if your goal is to give people clothes then you will give it to them regardless of them walking up steps.

problem is you think their goal is to give you clothes, when in fact they want you to walk up steps. You re like, you really could make clothes more accessible if you gave it to people for walking down the block, but they want people to walk up the steps

so your reasoning is, its ok to lock people away from loot based on time investment but not based on difficulty?

I think that difficulty and time are various balancing factors. You should not lock something absolutely behind great difficulty, or absolutely behind great time, but instead offer people options that involve more of one than the other. If content is hugely challenging, then it can offer rewards for less time investment. If content is hugely easy, then time invested in it should be significant. Most content falls someplace in between.

thats completely arbitrary. Both are things that some people are incapable of regardless to desire.

Which is why multiple options should be available. You’re right in so far as it’s impossible to make a system that would please everyone, but the goal is to please as many of the people as much as possible. You’re going to have outliers that can’t handle anything less than getting everything immediately regardless of challenge, but most people would be satisfied with having to invest a significant amount of time in advancing towards their goal, so long as they believe every step along that path is within their grasp.

so the question becomes
is guild wars 2 designed as a virtual item delivery mechanism first and foremost
or as a game first and foremost.

As a game, but not necessarily the kind of game you want it to be. I mean, you phrased that question in a way that entirely suits your purpose, an either/or in which the outcome was predetermined, but one could easily ask instead:

is guild wars 2 designed as a hardcore challenge first and foremost
or as an enjoyable gaming experience first and foremost.

Receiving the rewards you want is part of an enjoyable gaming experience. Hardcore challenges might as well, for some people, but their fun should not come at the expense of others. I believe that GW2 thrives on being an enjoyable gaming experience, and hardcore challenges can be a part of that, but ONLY when it’s as optional as possible for those who do not seek it out.

problem is you think their goal is to give you clothes, when in fact they want you to walk up steps.

No, they don’t. They want you to enjoy yourself and keep doing something, anything. They don’t benefit from you walking up steps if you don’t want to walk up steps. If you want to chill out at the bottom, that’s fine too, so long as you’re happy there. Now they might want people to walk up the stairs anyways, that is their right as the developers, but it is not in their own best interests if the players don’t want to do that.

phys.7689:

gw2 is built around needing to do multiple things, buff, debuff, heal avoid, move. once people only have to do a few it will be fairly rote.

Until you’ve played the raid and seen how the encounters work you can’t say how they’ve designed them. You might still need to do multiple things to make it through the raid, and the strict roles will be there to help, but not mandatory. I can’t imagine them doing such a complete 180 turn and reverse their original design just for raids, because it has the potential to make all content like that going forward. Scary thought

Ohoni, you completely skipped over the primary point of my last post:

Weighting too hard toward either extreme of the system is detrimental to the overall health of the game.

That means advocating for either all rewards being content exclusive, or no rewards at all being content exclusive.

You seem to be the only person advocating for 100% homogenized rewards. The people here advocating unique raid rewards (and arenanet, who designed the rewards that way) are simply saying that it is prefereable to have both reward structures present as a compromise between reward exclusivity and reward accessibility

You’re still more concerned that you, personally, by choosing not to do a type of content will not have access to a miniscule fraction of the total reward pool

Meanwhile, people advocating for unique rewards for specific content only desire that a miniscule fraction of the total reward pool are actually content exclusive rewards

In fact, I would not at all be suprised or even upset to see anet implement the non-precursor boss skins as tradable rewards. I also completely expect that beyond the precursor the shopping list for the rest of the crafting components for legendary armor require a vast array of other content, possibly including drops only accessible from the solo boss challenges from the racial mastry lines and a healthy selection of materials only accessible outside the raids if the previous legendaries are any indication.

Ohoni, you completely skipped over the primary point of my last post:

Weighting too hard toward either extreme of the system is detrimental to the overall health of the game.

That means advocating for either all rewards being content exclusive, or no rewards at all being content exclusive.

Not “skipping” so much as “disagreeing.” Again, one of my primary points is that you can’t split the baby on this one. Because aesthetics are not fungible, because every skin might be someone’s favorite skin, while you may be able to balance out a collector by saying “you can have most of them, but not these, these we’re keeping for ourselves,” and by his perspective that might be fair enough, if you tell that to someone who has several favorites within the “not for you” set, your offer of a “compromise” is nothing of the sort.

The only way that a “some are exclusive, but not all are” would actually work as a balance factor is if each player is allowed to choose which skins are excluded from him and which are not. Otherwise, you cannot say “well you can have 90% of the skins, but we’re keeping the other 10%,” any more than Solomon could say “well you can have the baby from the neck down, but we’re keeping the rest exclusive.”

You’re still more concerned that you, personally, by choosing not to do a type of content will not have access to a miniscule fraction of the total reward pool

Me and every other player in the game, yes. If that is a portion of the reward pool that will interest us, then it would be a noteworthy loss.

Meanwhile, people advocating for unique rewards for specific content only desire that a miniscule fraction of the total reward pool are actually content exclusive rewards

And yet they require that these rewards be kept away from their fellow players who might want them.

That’s the problem here, you keep trying to phrase these as two equally balanced positions, equally fair and I’m being obstructionist for not agreeing with your narrative. “We have one climate change scientist over here, and one climate change denier over here, there are equally valid arguments.” No. Even if the exclusivity players only get a small portion of the rewards fro a numerical perspective, if they are the rewards people actually care about then they are ALL the rewards. You just cannot balance it out like that and call it fair.

If exclusionaries get even a small portion of the skins as exclusive, then they get what they want, exclusive items to chase and to get and to engage in schadenfreude with. In that same scenario, unless someone is lucky enough that he is interested in none of those items, he is getting none of what he’s looking for, because the items he wants are being locked behind the exclusion wall. Why is this concept so difficult to understand.

Again, the only way to balance it out so that some things are exclusive, is if each player can choose for himself which items will be excluded from him, otherwise your proposal just does not fill its expressed purpose as a compromise.

Ohoni.6057:

Yes, that is the expected response.

Elaborate on what you mean by this.

Ohoni.6057:

And nothing anyone else has said has contributed towards an actual compromise either, just “we get what we want, and you don’t.” Neither side is willing to compromise on this one, the baby cannot be split, so in the end, it comes down to only one side getting what they want. So far, that’s your side, so be happy! Unless of course it turns out that not a lot of people actually want to raid, in which case ANet will have to do something about that.

Prior to any of the discourse with concern to compromises there was talk about homogeneralizing the rewards through things like tokens or achievements that allowed non-raiders to earn their legendary armor eventually but at a much slower rate than raiders. That was probably the closest thing to a compromise from us that you denied since the amount of time to invest would be much too long, do you still feel that way now?

Ohoni.6057:

I promise you this, very solemnly. I will stop labeling arguments as straw men the very instant people stop using straw man arguments. I swear it. As soon as people stop saying things like “you just want to give [max quality rewards] for doing [activity that has no actual gameplay element to it],” I’ll stop pointing out how that is never anything I asked for, would support, or would necessarily flow from anything I have supported. If anyone is beating that one to death, it is not me, as I’m just pointing out when it occurs. If you’d like me to stop pointing it out, stop straw men from appearing.

That’s fine and all, but know that the same applies to you as well.

Ohoni.6057:

Well, a couple dozen people out of hundreds of thousands, but sure, if you want to attribute significance to that, I can’t stop you.

I would rate it more like hundreds of people to hundreds of thousands of players as the comparison, but that’s fine.

Ohoni.6057:

Yes, that is the expected response.

Elaborate on what you mean by this.

Well, if the theory holds, the more unpleasant the initiation period (ie the attunement process and multiple failures before completing the raid), the more indoctrinated the belief that this is a virtuous cycle, that the effort was well worth it, that it was more good than harm, and that others should be subjected to the process. It’s quite fascinating, really. Someone could probably write a thesis on the subject.

Prior to any of the discourse with concern to compromises there was talk about homogeneralizing the rewards through things like tokens or achievements that allowed non-raiders to earn their legendary armor eventually but at a much slower rate than raiders. That was probably the closest thing to a compromise from us that you denied since the amount of time to invest would be much too long, do you still feel that way now?

Well, if I recall the “compromise” offer was that it might take a month or so to get it via raids, and like 2-3 years to get it via alternate means. That was never going to be a starter. Others suggested that items might be exclusive for a period of 1-6 months, which is far more reasonable, and then be available for everyone else. I think if you’re going to hard lock the exclusivity period then the items should be relatively easy to earn, while if you only make them more time consuming to earn then they can involve a lot more effort. My point is, they shouldn’t say “you can’t even begin working on them for six months, and then once it becomes available it would take another six months to earn.” If the method itself takes six months then you should be able to get started immediately.

But no, I’ve always been in favor of that method as a compromise, so long as the time and effort required for the alternative is a fair one, and not some cruel joke.

That’s fine and all, but know that the same applies to you as well.

In what sense?

I would rate it more like hundreds of people to hundreds of thousands of players as the comparison, but that’s fine.

I’m not going to tally posters, but I feel fairly secure that there haven’t been even a hundred unique posters on this specific line of discussion, and of those at least 4-10 of them were generally supportive or ambivalent to the idea of raid-alternative methods of obtaining these items. But even so, a thousand people would still be a drop in the bucket compared to the people that play the game, and in no way statistically representative of them.

Ohoni.6057:

I’m not going to tally posters, but I feel fairly secure that there haven’t been even a hundred unique posters on this specific line of discussion, and of those at least 4-10 of them were generally supportive or ambivalent to the idea of raid-alternative methods of obtaining these items. But even so, a thousand people would still be a drop in the bucket compared to the people that play the game, and in no way statistically representative of them.

If you actually tallied the posters, you’d find that there is a 41 page thread mostly consisting of everybody arguing against you.

Ohoni.6057:

I find this faulty reasoning. This is a game, nothing is required, therefore everything is required. What actually is “required” is anything you really want. You say it isn’t required unless you need it to access content, but accessing content is not required, it is just something people might want.

What is required is the ability to meet the various challenges the game poses, aka “accessing content” aka “playing the game” aka “the reason GW2 exists in the first place”. The stats necessary to do so are widely available.

This is just further proof that your suggestion of putting rewards behind pure use of time is bad. If it’s only a question of wanting then just have every skin available freely from the start. It’s much more sensible than this half-baked, flavourless nonsense.

Ohoni.6057:

Ohoni, you completely skipped over the primary point of my last post:

Weighting too hard toward either extreme of the system is detrimental to the overall health of the game.

That means advocating for either all rewards being content exclusive, or no rewards at all being content exclusive.

Not “skipping” so much as “disagreeing.” Again, one of my primary points is that you can’t split the baby on this one. Because aesthetics are not fungible, because every skin might be someone’s favorite skin, while you may be able to balance out a collector by saying “you can have most of them, but not these, these we’re keeping for ourselves,” and by his perspective that might be fair enough, if you tell that to someone who has several favorites within the “not for you” set, your offer of a “compromise” is nothing of the sort.

The only way that a “some are exclusive, but not all are” would actually work as a balance factor is if each player is allowed to choose which skins are excluded from him and which are not. Otherwise, you cannot say “well you can have 90% of the skins, but we’re keeping the other 10%,” any more than Solomon could say “well you can have the baby from the neck down, but we’re keeping the rest exclusive.”

You’re still more concerned that you, personally, by choosing not to do a type of content will not have access to a miniscule fraction of the total reward pool

Me and every other player in the game, yes. If that is a portion of the reward pool that will interest us, then it would be a noteworthy loss.

Meanwhile, people advocating for unique rewards for specific content only desire that a miniscule fraction of the total reward pool are actually content exclusive rewards

And yet they require that these rewards be kept away from their fellow players who might want them.

That’s the problem here, you keep trying to phrase these as two equally balanced positions, equally fair and I’m being obstructionist for not agreeing with your narrative. “We have one climate change scientist over here, and one climate change denier over here, there are equally valid arguments.” No. Even if the exclusivity players only get a small portion of the rewards fro a numerical perspective, if they are the rewards people actually care about then they are ALL the rewards. You just cannot balance it out like that and call it fair.

If exclusionaries get even a small portion of the skins as exclusive, then they get what they want, exclusive items to chase and to get and to engage in schadenfreude with. In that same scenario, unless someone is lucky enough that he is interested in none of those items, he is getting none of what he’s looking for, because the items he wants are being locked behind the exclusion wall. Why is this concept so difficult to understand.

Again, the only way to balance it out so that some things are exclusive, is if each player can choose for himself which items will be excluded from him, otherwise your proposal just does not fill its expressed purpose as a compromise.

Again, these are identical patterns of dissent. Not having access to a part of the rewards pool because you refuse to do certain content is just as inconvenient as having exclusive parts of the reward pool that give skins you hate.

Again, the root of that dissent isn’t the means by which the rewards are obtained, but a personal decision that doing only your absolute favorite content all the time is more important than content actually having unique and intrinsic reward value.

Your entire position is based on a position of absolute refusal to engage in compromise

The unwillingness to say “okay, if there’s a reward I like in content I don’t, I will engage in it long enough to get the reward and then put it aside”

That is literally the same position as saying “if I think only the most efficient path to a reward is fun I will only take the most efficient path, and thus the raid content I enjoy is worthless”

That rigid thinking is what creates a culture of exclusion, not the path by which rewards are gained.

The compromise approach makes the largest number of people content. Your insistence that but all the people would be happy if we nixed exclusivity is demonstrably false, given the content of this thread alone, the feedback that led to the creation and maintenance of all of GW2s reward systems.

You continue to harp on this idea that people that want exclusivity are mentally deficient, gluttons for punishment, and fundamentally damaged in some way for desiring such a reward scheme. You literally made a corrolary between fraternity hazing and raiding.

At this point you’re not championing the desires of a benign player base or attempting to posit a system which would make people happy. You’re simply interested in disenfranchising people that like something you don’t, and painting your own preference as some kind of moral authority.

Compromise is the status quo, and this entire system is one of compromise.

You, however, aren’t interested in compromise, or the desires of what appears to be if not the largest portion of the player base a portion large enough to drive the continuation of reward exclusivity.

This isn’t a new concept, and Anet has, with raid rewards, precursor masteries, and all post release legendaries firmly planted a stake in the ground and said “Certain content confers certain rewards.”

They flat out said, on stream, that every new legendary will be untradable. If you want it, you will have to go to every part of the game, pvp included, and engage in that content to demonstrate proficiency or at least familiarity with all of the content in the game.

That’s right. As of HoT, rewards exist that literally require you to play everything

If that’s not an indication that your ideal world of getting everything by only doing what you want is not only unlikely, but a scheme they are actively designing away from, I don’t know what is.

I don’t know what you’re still attempting to argue. The people in control of the reward system, the lion’s share of players willing to still engage in this conversation, and the game itself should combine to make it clear to you that your unwillingness to compromise and demand for your vision at the expense of all others is unrealistic and amounts only to pointless mudslinging at people with different play preferences than yourself.

Nokaru.7831:

If you actually tallied the posters, you’d find that there is a 41 page thread mostly consisting of everybody arguing against you.

Correction, mostly involved the same ~20-30 people arguing with each other. Yes, the raiders had a visible percentage majority in this thread, but then (as we already know) raiders are generally more active and overrepresented in forums, and it was a raid thread as well, so it’s no surprise. And if we look at total numbers, then the pro-raider group seems really small.

Astralporing.1957:

Nokaru.7831:

If you actually tallied the posters, you’d find that there is a 41 page thread mostly consisting of everybody arguing against you.

Correction, mostly involved the same ~20-30 people arguing with each other. Yes, the raiders had a visible percentage majority in this thread, but then (as we already know) raiders are generally more active and overrepresented in forums, and it was a raid thread as well, so it’s no surprise. And if we look at total numbers, then the pro-raider group seems really small.

making assumptions about the data you didnt collect really isnt logical.

one could assume anything anyone wants about people who didnt respond

The only one trying to actual balance the reward structure is Anet.

They have had exclusive rewards for skins already, and they have had plenty of skins available through multiple paths (most of them are). There are FAR LESS exclusive skins than anything else.

Anet believes there needs to be cooler rewards tied into specific content and they are absolutely right.

If they followed your logic ohoni, there would be NO BALANCE.

You expect EVERY TYPE OF REWARD (especially rewards you personally want, aka skins), to be obtainable to you in MULTIPLE PATHS (specifically, just a path you would prefer, aka path of least resistance)

You literally asking anet to break the balance on their reward structure.
They aren’t going to listen and they shouldn’t.

Astralporing.1957:

Nokaru.7831:

If you actually tallied the posters, you’d find that there is a 41 page thread mostly consisting of everybody arguing against you.

Correction, mostly involved the same ~20-30 people arguing with each other. Yes, the raiders had a visible percentage majority in this thread, but then (as we already know) raiders are generally more active and overrepresented in forums, and it was a raid thread as well, so it’s no surprise. And if we look at total numbers, then the pro-raider group seems really small.

You realize casual and non – raiders also use social media platforms like reddit, twitter, forums, etc etc etc

Go and tell me how much concern do you see from media outlets like online magazines, forums, reddit, etc etc regarding the raid????

You act as if there is some major split between the community and that anet is making a huge mistake with the direction they are taking with raids.

Did you even watch the raids presentation from twitchcon?
Nothing but excitement.

As of right now, the perception of raids have been positive. You can’t make ANY claim stating there is a lot of tension or negativity around raids right now. But sure, go ahead and try to claim that.

Astralporing.1957:

Nokaru.7831:

If you actually tallied the posters, you’d find that there is a 41 page thread mostly consisting of everybody arguing against you.

Correction, mostly involved the same ~20-30 people arguing with each other. Yes, the raiders had a visible percentage majority in this thread, but then (as we already know) raiders are generally more active and overrepresented in forums, and it was a raid thread as well, so it’s no surprise. And if we look at total numbers, then the pro-raider group seems really small.

I’m not likely to raid at all or not much if I do. Probably not enough for legendary armor unless I get really lucky and the precursor is RNG based.

Yet, I don’t agree with Ohoni. There is no problem with content having exclusive skins. So even non-raiders can want exclusive skins.

Ohoni.6057:

Ohoni.6057:

Yes, that is the expected response.

Elaborate on what you mean by this.

Well, if the theory holds, the more unpleasant the initiation period (ie the attunement process and multiple failures before completing the raid), the more indoctrinated the belief that this is a virtuous cycle, that the effort was well worth it, that it was more good than harm, and that others should be subjected to the process. It’s quite fascinating, really. Someone could probably write a thesis on the subject.

Prior to any of the discourse with concern to compromises there was talk about homogeneralizing the rewards through things like tokens or achievements that allowed non-raiders to earn their legendary armor eventually but at a much slower rate than raiders. That was probably the closest thing to a compromise from us that you denied since the amount of time to invest would be much too long, do you still feel that way now?

Well, if I recall the “compromise” offer was that it might take a month or so to get it via raids, and like 2-3 years to get it via alternate means. That was never going to be a starter. Others suggested that items might be exclusive for a period of 1-6 months, which is far more reasonable, and then be available for everyone else. I think if you’re going to hard lock the exclusivity period then the items should be relatively easy to earn, while if you only make them more time consuming to earn then they can involve a lot more effort. My point is, they shouldn’t say “you can’t even begin working on them for six months, and then once it becomes available it would take another six months to earn.” If the method itself takes six months then you should be able to get started immediately.

But no, I’ve always been in favor of that method as a compromise, so long as the time and effort required for the alternative is a fair one, and not some cruel joke.

That’s fine and all, but know that the same applies to you as well.

In what sense?

I would rate it more like hundreds of people to hundreds of thousands of players as the comparison, but that’s fine.

I’m not going to tally posters, but I feel fairly secure that there haven’t been even a hundred unique posters on this specific line of discussion, and of those at least 4-10 of them were generally supportive or ambivalent to the idea of raid-alternative methods of obtaining these items. But even so, a thousand people would still be a drop in the bucket compared to the people that play the game, and in no way statistically representative of them.

But hazing requirements are usually some combination of illegal, immoral, and dangerous (and sometimes deadly). Raiding doesn’t fall into any of those.

Hazing is also required to get access to the group. You don’t get access if you refuse. You are forced to be based. The group is synonomous with the content. Nothing in the game will be balanced around legendary armor or having a specific skin. You are not locked out of any part of the game by not having done a single raid.

Seera.5916:

Astralporing.1957:

Nokaru.7831:

If you actually tallied the posters, you’d find that there is a 41 page thread mostly consisting of everybody arguing against you.

Correction, mostly involved the same ~20-30 people arguing with each other. Yes, the raiders had a visible percentage majority in this thread, but then (as we already know) raiders are generally more active and overrepresented in forums, and it was a raid thread as well, so it’s no surprise. And if we look at total numbers, then the pro-raider group seems really small.

I’m not likely to raid at all or not much if I do. Probably not enough for legendary armor unless I get really lucky and the precursor is RNG based.

Yet, I don’t agree with Ohoni. There is no problem with content having exclusive skins. So even non-raiders can want exclusive skins.

This right here is what I’m talking about. A sensible position. Thank you for being a reasonable person, and I hope we see some laurel or open world collection based armor precursors for new sets in the future so the mechanical parts of the system are more fair for people like you.

Thank you for being okay with compromise.

If you actually tallied the posters, you’d find that there is a 41 page thread mostly consisting of everybody arguing against you.

That’s not tallying the posters.

What is required is the ability to meet the various challenges the game poses, aka “accessing content” aka “playing the game” aka “the reason GW2 exists in the first place”. The stats necessary to do so are widely available.

Again, if that’s your position then it is your position, but it is not a universal position. It stands to reason that you should be able to do at least some of the content, but being able to access ALL of the content is not necessarily the goal for everyone. There are large chunks of content in this game that I could do without entirely, and would easily sell out all rights to enter them in exchange for a cool skin or two.

Your entire position is based on a position of absolute refusal to engage in compromise

The unwillingness to say “okay, if there’s a reward I like in content I don’t, I will engage in it long enough to get the reward and then put it aside”

Two points on this. First, it assumes that this is an option a player can freely make, that they can choose to “engage in the content long enough to get the reward” and then stop. This is mostly true of currently existing content, but cannot be assumed for raiding. Raiding may require skill levels that not all players are capable of meeting, and even more likely will require concentrated doses of time spent that many players are incapable of arranging, so there likely will be many players for whom raids are not a viable option. They are not choosing not to do them, they are incapable of doing them.

Second, It’s not a complete unwillingness, exactly, I have done activities in the past that I did not enjoy, in exchange for loot I wanted. Rather, it’s a recognition of the fact that this is a degenerative game element, that it erodes enjoyment in the product, and should be avoided wherever possible when moving forward. All forcing this situation does is require players to either engage in an activity that they do not enjoy, OR never receive an item that they want, either outcome resulting in that player being less happy. Why should that be viewed as a desirable outcome by anyone?

That is literally the same position as saying “if I think only the most efficient path to a reward is fun I will only take the most efficient path, and thus the raid content I enjoy is worthless”

No, it’s not, but you insist on framing it as such. I don’t know why you insist on trading on false equivalencies, maybe you think it makes your position seem stronger to say that A is “equally good/bad” as B, but it does not. It just comes off as desperate and entirely unnecessary if your position actually had merit.

The compromise approach makes the largest number of people content. Your insistence that but all the people would be happy if we nixed exclusivity is demonstrably false, given the content of this thread alone, the feedback that led to the creation and maintenance of all of GW2s reward systems.

Removing exclusivity would not make all the people as happy as possible, because that’s impossible. What it would do is make the most people as happy as possible. It is the best possible outcome. Plenty of people would prefer exclusivity, and they would not get that, but they would at least have access to the items they want, exclusive or not, so they would receive some happiness from the outcome. In an exclusivity model, the players who could not earn the items they wanted would not get those items, resulting in no happiness from that situation. Again, nobody can promise to make everyone as happy as possible, certainly not you, but the non-exclusive path would result in the most people being the most happy that can be achieved in any single scenario.

Compromise is the status quo, and this entire system is one of compromise.

You, however, aren’t interested in compromise, or the desires of what appears to be if not the largest portion of the player base a portion large enough to drive the continuation of reward exclusivity.

Compromise is overrated. Compromise is a tool, not a goal in and of itself. The use of Compromise is to try and arrive at the best possible outcome for the most possible participants. Any compromise that fails at that is not serving a useful function. I’m not opposed to the idea of compromise, I’ve suggested and supported numerous compromise proposals, just not the one that you particularly like, and insist upon. Your “compromise” is a non-starter because it fails to address the core points of the opposing side, that is that all items need to be accessible, not just some of them or even most of them, because individual items are not fungible and quantity does not balance out quality. If you are so interested in compromise then figure out one that actually accounts for the core premise that people should have access to all items, not just some.

They flat out said, on stream, that every new legendary will be untradable. If you want it, you will have to go to every part of the game, pvp included, and engage in that content to demonstrate proficiency or at least familiarity with all of the content in the game.

That is their current stance. If players push back, they may change it. We’ll see once these things are actively being chased.

I don’t know what you’re still attempting to argue. The people in control of the reward system, the lion’s share of players willing to still engage in this conversation, and the game itself should combine to make it clear to you that your unwillingness to compromise and demand for your vision at the expense of all others is unrealistic and amounts only to pointless mudslinging at people with different play preferences than yourself.

If you’re so secure that I cannot possibly get what I want, then why are you wasting so much time arguing against me?

You realize casual and non – raiders also use social media platforms like reddit, twitter, forums, etc etc etc

In previous games raiders made up a significantly higher portion of the external communities than non-raiders. High engagement players tend to be more engaged in the outside communication of the game. It’s not at all unreasonable to assume that the opinions expressed in this thread are not representative of equivalent populations in the overall game.

Did you even watch the raids presentation from twitchcon?
Nothing but excitement.

AT TWITCHCON. Do you really believe that people who participate with Twitchcon are low engagement casual players?

Yet, I don’t agree with Ohoni. There is no problem with content having exclusive skins. So even non-raiders can want exclusive skins.

And that’s fine too, so long as you don’t get in the way of other players who do care and do want those skins.

But hazing requirements are usually some combination of illegal, immoral, and dangerous (and sometimes deadly). Raiding doesn’t fall into any of those.

Nobody said that they did.

Hazing is also required to get access to the group. You don’t get access if you refuse. You are forced to be based. The group is synonomous with the content. Nothing in the game will be balanced around legendary armor or having a specific skin. You are not locked out of any part of the game by not having done a single raid.

You are locked out from having the skins that you want. Nobody said anything about “forced,” the idea is that raiding is a harrowing experience that people tend to find unpleasant at the time, but once they make it to the other side, they develop a sort of Stockholm syndrome, reflecting positively on the experience because they made it through, and making them want to inflict that experience on others.

I like how clearly quote only things that you only twist in your words and have an answer to.

Your arguments and counterpoints are completely lazy.

You still can’t figure it out that your ideology is essentially messing up the reward balance.

You yourself said there has to be balance since you can’t please everyone.
yet here you are, still stating 100% of the skins should be available through multiple paths.

Your state is clear. You want rewards that you are interested in, available through paths that you are only interested in.

Anet placed rewards you are interested in (skins) available through a path you personally don’t like.

That is not anet’s problem if you don’t like something. They believe enough ppl will like it enough to warrant spending resources to create it.

Anet job is to BALANCE rewarding structure. There have been TONS of rewards in this game that are available through multiple paths. Theres too few exclusive rewards and Anet has acknowledged this. Hence the reason you are seeing exclusive rewards in all game modes.

Once again, your reward structure is a disaster because you are absolutely AGAINST exclusive rewards. This is an MMORPG. 99% of them have exclusive rewards/skins.

PopeUrban.2578:

Seera.5916:

Astralporing.1957:

Nokaru.7831:

If you actually tallied the posters, you’d find that there is a 41 page thread mostly consisting of everybody arguing against you.

Correction, mostly involved the same ~20-30 people arguing with each other. Yes, the raiders had a visible percentage majority in this thread, but then (as we already know) raiders are generally more active and overrepresented in forums, and it was a raid thread as well, so it’s no surprise. And if we look at total numbers, then the pro-raider group seems really small.

I’m not likely to raid at all or not much if I do. Probably not enough for legendary armor unless I get really lucky and the precursor is RNG based.

Yet, I don’t agree with Ohoni. There is no problem with content having exclusive skins. So even non-raiders can want exclusive skins.

This right here is what I’m talking about. A sensible position. Thank you for being a reasonable person, and I hope we see some laurel or open world collection based armor precursors for new sets in the future so the mechanical parts of the system are more fair for people like you.

Thank you for being okay with compromise.

You’re welcome.

@Ohoni, you want to converse with me and quote my posts in the replies, then tag my quote appropriately. I will not respond if the “quote=5540352;Seera.5916:” isn’t in your post to properly tag your quote of me. Because I personally find it rude that you do not properly tag your quotes, especially when you reply to multiple people and multiple posts in one reply. And I don’t converse with people who are acting rude.

You yourself said there has to be balance since you can’t please everyone.
yet here you are, still stating 100% of the skins should be available through multiple paths.

Yes, because that is the route that would please the most people by the most amount, as I explained. It would still leave some people less than ideally pleased, as any route would, but it would leave them less displeased than other routes would leave people.

Anet placed rewards you are interested in (skins) available through a path you personally don’t like.

That is not anet’s problem if you don’t like something. They believe enough ppl will like it enough to warrant spending resources to create it.

Of course it’s ANet’s problem, I’m a customer and they want to keep me happy. Now, for the dozenth time, if this is JUST me, if I’m the only one that actually cares, then they should not do what I’ve asked for. I am not worth it. But my belief is that a lot of other players feel the same way, and it’s to keep all of those players happy that they should do this. It is their problem if they make those players less happy and engaged in the game.

@Ohoni, you want to converse with me and quote my posts in the replies, then tag my quote appropriately. I will not respond if the “quote=5540352;Seera.5916:” isn’t in your post to properly tag your quote of me. Because I personally find it rude that you do not properly tag your quotes, especially when you reply to multiple people and multiple posts in one reply. And I don’t converse with people who are acting rude.

Ok.

Ohoni.6057:

Well, if the theory holds, the more unpleasant the initiation period (ie the attunement process and multiple failures before completing the raid), the more indoctrinated the belief that this is a virtuous cycle, that the effort was well worth it, that it was more good than harm, and that others should be subjected to the process. It’s quite fascinating, really. Someone could probably write a thesis on the subject.

False Equivalence.

Nothing you just described above is raiding, you have falsely tried to equate the two by pushing variables of raiding into the same statement describing what the variables of hazing is. There is no comparison here. Have you ever really raided?

Ohoni.6057:

Well, if I recall the “compromise” offer was that it might take a month or so to get it via raids, and like 2-3 years to get it via alternate means. That was never going to be a starter. Others suggested that items might be exclusive for a period of 1-6 months, which is far more reasonable, and then be available for everyone else. I think if you’re going to hard lock the exclusivity period then the items should be relatively easy to earn, while if you only make them more time consuming to earn then they can involve a lot more effort. My point is, they shouldn’t say “you can’t even begin working on them for six months, and then once it becomes available it would take another six months to earn.” If the method itself takes six months then you should be able to get started immediately.

But no, I’ve always been in favor of that method as a compromise, so long as the time and effort required for the alternative is a fair one, and not some cruel joke.

TBF, my solution was more like 12-18 months rather than 24+ months. You also mentioned ‘effort’ which has been devoid in your arguments up till now which have mainly been all about the amount of time invested in the game should the rewards be kitten -generalized on regardless of the content. If you intend to actually put in effort as a variable in the equation, the natural shift is that given the same amount of time invested, content that is harder rewards more. Do you disagree?

Ohoni.6057:

In what sense?

As in you, yourself, creating strawmans yet not reflecting on those while pursuing other opposing strawmans.

Ohoni.6057:

I’m not going to tally posters, but I feel fairly secure that there haven’t been even a hundred unique posters on this specific line of discussion, and of those at least 4-10 of them were generally supportive or ambivalent to the idea of raid-alternative methods of obtaining these items. But even so, a thousand people would still be a drop in the bucket compared to the people that play the game, and in no way statistically representative of them.

Strictly on the forums, between this thread, the Raid CDI, the Character Progression Horizontial CDI, SPvP CDI, all speak about needing exclusive rewards behind certain content. I rather not tally the thousands of posts, but I can easily presume well over 100 posters just on the forums have contributed. And as I stated, many have guilds, friends, colleagues in game who might not have a vested interest in going to the official forums, but to continue the discourse that your position is even a major minority would be disingenuous.

@Ohoni

Again, you’re framing it as if access to items is the only factor that contributes to player happiness. Exclusivity isn’t about getting access to all the items you want. It’s about the sense of accomplishment from earning items that can only be earned through specific content.

You insist that:

“What it would do is make the most people as happy as possible. It is the best possible outcome. Plenty of people would prefer exclusivity, and they would not get that, but they would at least have access to the items they want, exclusive or not, so they would receive some happiness from the outcome. In an exclusivity model, the players who could not earn the items they wanted would not get those items, resulting in no happiness from that situation.”

No, it would not. Access to items, and the very idea of exclusivity are two equally valid desires. Claiming that having access to items is the primarily happiness driver of everyone and that everyone would be made happier just because they could get stuff is missing the point.

I don’t know how many people have to explain this to you.

You don’t care about items having intrinsic value as trophies for content. Many people do. So many in fact that it is a primary design goal for HoT’s raid rewards and legendaries.

That desire for intrinsic reward value based on experience rather than equivalent time spent is not on any level compatible with a total lack of reward exclusivity.

You counter that “all items accessible” is the only satisfactory outcome, while your opposition states that they’re fine with only a minority of items being content exclusive.

Your unwillingness to engage in compromise completely removes any incentive to discuss the issue further with you. This conversation is about skins. It’s not about titles or trophy potions or whatever other false compromises you’ve proposed. It’s about skins, and your position is, quite literally “I want it this way and anything that isn’t 100% the way I want it is bad and for <Insert thinly veiled insult of the week> people”

Meanwhile your opposition has raised a very strong case. They want you to have 80% of what you want. However, you will never be happy unless you get 100% of what you desire and they get 0%

Doesn’t that sound selfish to you?

Nothing you just described above is raiding, you have falsely tried to equate the two by pushing variables of raiding into the same statement describing what the variables of hazing is. There is no comparison here. Have you ever really raided?

Yes. It’s predicated on the idea that it is harder and more likely to fail than most content. The most praised raids (by raiders) are the ones that are most punishing to the psyche.

TBF, my solution was more like 12-18 months rather than 24+ months.

That’s still preposterous.

You also mentioned ‘effort’ which has been devoid in your arguments up till now which have mainly been all about the amount of time invested in the game should the rewards be kitten -generalized on regardless of the content.

I must have used the word “effort” at least a hundred times in this thread, it has ALWAYS been a part of the process. I have never advocated offering the rewards via log-in, or any other super-casual methods, it would always involve active engagement in the content. Any use of time has merely been as an average assumption, that if you run the content regularly then it should take about X amount of time to earn the reward.

If you intend to actually put in effort as a variable in the equation, the natural shift is that given the same amount of time invested, content that is harder rewards more. Do you disagree?

On principle, but I don’t put raid content as being exponentially more deserving than other types of content. The alternate paths would not be picking daisies, they would be active combat and moderately challenging situations, just not raiding, so while it would be fair for them to pay out at a slower pace than raiding, it should not be by as huge a difference as some have insisted.

As in you, yourself, creating strawmans yet not reflecting on those while pursuing other opposing strawmans.

Which I have not done.

Strictly on the forums, between this thread, the Raid CDI, the Character Progression Horizontial CDI, SPvP CDI, all speak about needing exclusive rewards behind certain content.

As any reasonable person would expect given the venue and the nature of the topics. That does not mean that it’s reflective of the overall playerbase, just that it’s reflective of some portion of the players who care about those issues.

Again, you’re framing it as if access to items is the only factor that contributes to player happiness.

Well, within the context of items, it is. I mean, other contexts can be discussed, but would not be relevant here. Here we are just discussing how rewards should be distributed, so only the topic of reward distribution is relevant.

Exclusivity isn’t about getting access to all the items you want. It’s about the sense of accomplishment from earning items that can only be earned through specific content.

Which can be satisfied, if not to the same level, by other rewards, such as Achievements, Titles, Outfits, Trophies, etc. I grant that these are not as exciting as a skin, but they do fulfill that “I got this for doing X” function perfectly well, without excluding that skin from other players.

No, it would not. Access to items, and the very idea of exclusivity are two equally valid desires.

No, they are not equally valid. One is the desire to have,m and one is the desire to keep others from having, you cannot claim that the two are equally valid. They are both desires, but they are not equally valid desires, as the latter is innately selfish.

You counter that “all items accessible” is the only satisfactory outcome, while your opposition states that they’re fine with only a minority of items being content exclusive.

Yes. You seem to think that this makes their posture more virtuous, it is not.

Your unwillingness to engage in compromise completely removes any incentive to discuss the issue further with you.

Again, I am willing to engage in compromise when it suits the greater outcome, but not when it only serves the lesser outcome overall. Compromise is not inherently virtuous, it is only virtuous when it supports the best possible outcome, and the compromise you insist that I should accept would not support the best possible outcome.

Meanwhile your opposition has raised a very strong case. They want you to have 80% of what you want. However, you will never be happy unless you get 100% of what you desire and they get 0%

I don’t think you understand how unbalanced your “generous” offer is. Let me put it another way then in hopes that you will get it. You say that I should be fine if 80% of items are 100% non-exclusive, and 20% of items are 100% exclusive, right? That this is a “fair compromise” that I should be willing to accept. Well let me attempt to craft an equally “fair compromise” using those same numbers.

What if they made it so that instead 100% of individual items would be exclusive to content, but they would only be “80% exclusive” to that content? By that I mean, every item would be exclusive to specific content, buuuuut there would be a way for any of those items to also be earned through other means, 20% of the time. Do you believe that this outcome would be satisfactory compromise to those who value exclusion above all else, or would it just be paying lip service to the idea while actually providing one side with everything they wanted?

This is the ridiculousness of your proposal. You try to phrase it in a way that you see as fair, but that actually does not give the other side what they want at all, which is access to whichever items they are trying to get. You can keep talking about “compromise” all you want, but that is not actually what you offer. Your “compromise” is entirely about selfishness.

No, you’re deliberately skewing things. The correct allegory you’re looking for is not “80% exclusive” but, literally “80% of items” my perfect world would see 100% of items be content exclusive. I’m perfectly willing to settle for 20% of that perfect world. Or 10% or 5%

“Exclusive” is a binary concept. You can’t have an “80% exclusive” item. You can however have 80% of items be exclusive or non-exclusive.

The system in place is heavily weighted in the favor of your position already, but it is still not enough for you. Why?

There’s where your position falls apart. It’s either 100% or unacceptable to you. You can only see things in terms of “All” and “none” while your opposition is fine with “Some”

At the same time, nobody is actually asking asking for 100% of all items to be content exclusive because they realize that it would cut off players from the majority, not the minorty of rewards in many cases

Your “best” (and indeed, from your rhetoric, only) possible outcome is the outcome where you get 100% of what you want, and the opposing viewpoint gets 0%

And, again, you phrase this as a question of “keeping things from people”

You are either unwilling or unable to understand that content exclusivity is not about keeping rewards away from people as much as it is about having rewards that are fun and matter

Again your position about titles, etc., you openly admit “these are not as exciting as a skin”

That is the point we are trying to get you to see. Your “Solution” says that skins are somehow on a different judging point than other cosmetic rewards like titles or outfits. Again you posit no logical support for this other than that you want skins because they are the most interesting rewards

This conversation is not about titles. it is not about outfits. It is about skins.

You proposed solution is, literally “how about get 0% of what you want, while I get 100% of what I want and you also get… 100% of something you didn’t want in the first place.”

You’re attempting to frame compromise as selfishness and your personal opinion as that of a vast majority.

With that I’m leaving this conversation again. It is obvious you will never be satisfied unless someone simply says “Ohoni is right and the whole game should heel-turn to cede to his vision with no compromise for other points of view”

I’m sorry but I just don’t see it happenning, so I don’t think there’s any reason for me to get roped in to this a third time.

Pope, your arguing with someone who can’t be pleased. He can’t be bullied or bought.
If colin, our game director came and posted anet is not changing their philosophy, Ohoni would still believe anet is going down the path of destruction and the game will ultimately fail

all because 10% of the rewards HE WANTS in this game are exclusive to content he absolutely does not enjoy.

He wants 100% of items HE PERSONALLY FINDS MOST VALUABLE (aka skins) to be available through MULTIPLE PATHS HE FINDS FUN (aka, path of least resistant).
That is his point, which is comical if he believes that will ever come true.

No, you’re deliberately skewing things. The correct allegory you’re looking for is not “80% exclusive” but, literally “80% of items” my perfect world would see 100% of items be content exclusive. I’m perfectly willing to settle for 20% of that perfect world. Or 10% or 5%

Right, and I’m saying that “settling” for those things is not actually “settling,” it’s you offering less, but you’re offering less of what the other side does not want. This is not how negotiation works when the two sides want very different things. It is not a matter of amounts.

“Exclusive” is a binary concept. You can’t have an “80% exclusive” item. You can however have 80% of items be exclusive or non-exclusive.

So it works for you but can’t work for me? No. “Having the skins you want” is an equally binary concept, and that’s the fundamental point you don’t seem to understand. If you don’t have the skins you want then you don’t have the skins you want. It can no more be made “some of the things” than an item can be “some exclusive.”

If you believe that it’s fair to say that 20% of the items would be exclusive, then it is equally fair to say that 100% of the items would be exclusive, but only 80% so.

The system in place is heavily weighted in the favor of your position already, but it is still not enough for you. Why?

Because you phrase the discussion in a way where the words appear to be weighted in my favor, but without actually providing the things that I would want. It’s like I ask for chocolate ice cream, and you give me a carton of vanilla, and I complain, to which you keep piling vanilla and say “when will you be satisfied? I’m giving you so much of this vanilla!”

There’s where your position falls apart. It’s either 100% or unacceptable to you. You can only see things in terms of “All” and “none” while your opposition is fine with “Some”

And you are no less intractable on exclusivity, an item is either 100% exclusive or you won’t be satisfied.

Your “best” (and indeed, from your rhetoric, only) possible outcome is the outcome where you get 100% of what you want, and the opposing viewpoint gets 0%

And the same is true for you, you just don’t seem to realize this.

You are either unwilling or unable to understand that content exclusivity is not about keeping rewards away from people as much as it is about having rewards that are fun and matter

Ok, I’ll accept your premise. So then how would you have a system in which rewards are fun and matter, without keeping those rewards away from people that are unwilling or unable to do certain activities? If you’re right, then there must be some way of achieving that. If there is not some way of doing that, then it is about keeping those rewards away from people.

Again your position about titles, etc., you openly admit “these are not as exciting as a skin”

So you will not accept anything less than what you want? It’s “exclusive skins or nothing?” I believe “exclusive rewards, but not in the form of skins” is a fair compromise that would offer some satisfaction to both parties, why will you not accept it?

Again you posit no logical support for this other than that you want skins because they are the most interesting rewards

I have before, but maybe you didn’t read it. Skins are different because they are tools for customization and self-expression. You’ve said that stats are “important” because without them players are unable to access certain content, and you believe that matters. I would posit that to a player who enjoys customizing his character, having access to the idea skins is equally as vital. Other rewards might still be desirable, but do not serve that function, and thus are less vital.

You proposed solution is, literally “how about get 0% of what you want, while I get 100% of what I want and you also get… 100% of something you didn’t want in the first place.”

As is your own, you just lack the awareness to realize this.

Ohoni.6057:

Yes. It’s predicated on the idea that it is harder and more likely to fail than most content. The most praised raids (by raiders) are the ones that are most punishing to the psyche.

“Punishing to the psyche”? That’s greater than a hyperbole at this point, raiders aren’t actually being mentally tortured by their colleagues if they don’t live up to their expectations, nor are they under any sort of physical stress that is typically involved with hazing. You are grasping at straws trying to make this comparison work, and you won’t find any correlation.

Ohoni.6057:

That’s still preposterous.

But its definitely a solution, one that caters strictly to players who are willing to put the time into it. You aren’t going to get a better compromise on the rewards than this, although at this point the exercise is fruitless as I don’t believe Arenanet would make such rewards feasible in that manner anyways. Is it really so unsatisfactory compared to what is going to happen anyways?

Ohoni.6057:

I must have used the word “effort” at least a hundred times in this thread, it has ALWAYS been a part of the process. I have never advocated offering the rewards via log-in, or any other super-casual methods, it would always involve active engagement in the content. Any use of time has merely been as an average assumption, that if you run the content regularly then it should take about X amount of time to earn the reward.

It’s possible you could have used the word effort itself, but we have had pages of evidence suggesting what you define as ‘effort’ versus what we defined as ‘effort’ are quite different. Which brings us to…

Ohoni.6057:

On principle, but I don’t put raid content as being exponentially more deserving than other types of content. The alternate paths would not be picking daisies, they would be active combat and moderately challenging situations, just not raiding, so while it would be fair for them to pay out at a slower pace than raiding, it should not be by as huge a difference as some have insisted.

You originally suggested in our hypothetical situation about Raiding versus Silverwaste Farming some time ago where the raider would get the raiding reward after around 40 hours, and I am quoting you now:

“If that’s the case, then someone doing the Vinewrath, to completion, could perhaps expect to earn it in 50 daily runs, taking a total of maybe 50-70 hours and with possibilities of failure along the way. Now keep in mind, this would include some slight changes to how the map gets rewarded, it would require that the player run the entire event chain from near the beginning, not just map in right as the VW starts and kill it, that would, if anything, offer a significantly lesser amount of reward, and I believe the daily requirement would help limit the grind aspect. But yeah, about 50 kills would be good.”

The ‘slower’ pace you have suggested just from this example is unreasonably fast and efficient and undermines the raid content in question. It is so unbelievably out of touch I almost fell out of my seat when I first read it. There shouldn’t even be a remote comparison in earning the ‘reward for effort and time’ between something so routinely mindless versus the potentially hardest content GW2 has seen yet.

Ohoni.6057:

Which I have not done.

~Time-Warp to early September, to talking about how raids were being exclusive…~

Devata wrote – “Just ast 90 % of the rewards, and 95% of the best looking rewards are now locked behind a gold-grind.”

Ohoni wrote in response – “Pleeeeeeeeeeease stop talking about Gem store items as if they are in-game content. They are cash purchases. Every one of them is a cash purchase. You might be choosing to grind for gold rather than spending cash yourself, but ultimately that item is being purchased with cash, and if you aren’t doing it then someone else has. Stop talking about them as if they intend for players to be grinding for gold to afford them, rather than that just being a secondary method of acquiring them for players too cheap to pay in cash themselves.

The gem store will NEVER be balanced against actual gameplay, and no amount of complaining will ever change that." (Plus some stuff about HoT armor sets that isn’t quite relevant)

Where did he ever mention Gem Store items? The context of his preposition was that an extreme majority of the skins in this game could be earned through gold yet you attack his point by assuming he attributed a lot of the rewards to Gem Store. This is one of the earliest instances of your strawman, but I can keep going if you prefer. There’s a lot to go through…

Ohoni.6057:

As any reasonable person would expect given the venue and the nature of the topics. That does not mean that it’s reflective of the overall playerbase, just that it’s reflective of some portion of the players who care about those issues.

Sure, believe what you will.

“Punishing to the psyche”? That’s greater than a hyperbole at this point, raiders aren’t actually being mentally tortured by their colleagues if they don’t live up to their expectations, nor are they under any sort of physical stress that is typically involved with hazing. You are grasping at straws trying to make this comparison work, and you won’t find any correlation.

That is the expected response.

But its definitely a solution, one that caters strictly to players who are willing to put the time into it. You aren’t going to get a better compromise on the rewards than this, although at this point the exercise is fruitless as I don’t believe Arenanet would make such rewards feasible in that manner anyways. Is it really so unsatisfactory compared to what is going to happen anyways?

Any method that takes an unreasonable amount of time is unreasonable. it’s designed to be cruel, to offer hope in an unattainable form. It’s like if a poor person is being held for a crime and they offer bail, but it’s like a million dollars bail. Yes, it’s an alternative, but not one they’re intended to actually collect on, it’s one meant to taunt them. any alternative offer needs to be at least within the realm of an attainable goal.

You originally suggested in our hypothetical situation about Raiding versus Silverwaste Farming some time ago where the raider would get the raiding reward after around 40 hours, and I am quoting you now:

Fighting the Vinewrath is not Silverwaste farming, it IS effort by any reasonable definition.

The ‘slower’ pace you have suggested just from this example is unreasonably fast and efficient and undermines the raid content in question. It is so unbelievably out of touch I almost fell out of my seat when I first read it.

Why? It would be 1.5-2x the amount of time and effort spent, on a fully engaged activity, why should that not be sufficient? I think you have an overly inflated view of the value of raiding relative to other activities if you think getting the rewards in half the time is not sufficient.

Where did he ever mention Gem Store items? The context of his preposition was that an extreme majority of the skins in this game could be earned through gold yet you attack his point by assuming he attributed a lot of the rewards to Gem Store. This is one of the earliest instances of your strawman, but I can keep going if you prefer. There’s a lot to go through…

Sykper, Devata has been very clear that his personal crusade is entirely against the gem store (at least as a source of skins). He is as determined against that as I have been against raid exclusives. He may not have mentioned it in that specific posts but he’d mentioned it plenty of times in the past and I’m sure if you’d asked him he would be quite open about it. When he says “grinding for gold” he isn’t talking about using it to buy standard items, he’s talking about using to to buy BLTC skins. I was not using a straw man, I was addressing the specific points he had been making.

Can we plz stop responding to the quite obvious troll now? The reason his arguments aren’t making sense is because he’s intentionally trying to get people to respond now. Don’t give him the attention and let this reward discussion die plz. It’s over, our side has won, raids are getting exclusives 100% certainly.

As this is the general topic about raiding, let’s discuss the kitten raids, what do you guys think, will healing be needed, are we getting boss mechanics resembling other raid formats or will GW2 raids be unique? All excited for the next beta weekend raid test? What will your team setup be to tackle the first boss?

Sykper.6583:

If you intend to actually put in effort as a variable in the equation, the natural shift is that given the same amount of time invested, content that is harder rewards more. Do you disagree?

That is reasonable. As long as the difference is not too massive, and is quantitative only. So, having the harder content reward 2-3x more than the easy one is likely okay. Having it reward 10x more (or better), and/or offer exclusive rewards that cannot be acquired any other way is not.

Sykper.6583:

Strictly on the forums, between this thread, the Raid CDI, the Character Progression Horizontial CDI, SPvP CDI, all speak about needing exclusive rewards behind certain content.

At the same time, when i look at the same threads, i see significant number of people speaking against it as well. In fact, exclusivity/inclusivity argument was one of the main points that derailed Raid CDI. And while horizontal progression cdi did speak about exclusives and generally was against uniformity of rewards, there was no such agreement about locking the exclusives beyond higher levels of difficulty. Mostly it was about having region-specific drops with thematically tied skins, not about unique rewards for different endgame modes. The exclusives, even though they were to exist, also were to be reasonably accessible to an average casual player.

So no, not all speak for it. Not in the slightest.

PopeUrban.2578:

No, you’re deliberately skewing things. The correct allegory you’re looking for is not “80% exclusive” but, literally “80% of items” my perfect world would see 100% of items be content exclusive. I’m perfectly willing to settle for 20% of that perfect world. Or 10% or 5%

“Exclusive” is a binary concept. You can’t have an “80% exclusive” item. You can however have 80% of items be exclusive or non-exclusive.

The system in place is heavily weighted in the favor of your position already, but it is still not enough for you. Why?

There’s where your position falls apart. It’s either 100% or unacceptable to you. You can only see things in terms of “All” and “none” while your opposition is fine with “Some”

At the same time, nobody is actually asking asking for 100% of all items to be content exclusive because they realize that it would cut off players from the majority, not the minorty of rewards in many cases

Your “best” (and indeed, from your rhetoric, only) possible outcome is the outcome where you get 100% of what you want, and the opposing viewpoint gets 0%

And, again, you phrase this as a question of “keeping things from people”

You are either unwilling or unable to understand that content exclusivity is not about keeping rewards away from people as much as it is about having rewards that are fun and matter

Again your position about titles, etc., you openly admit “these are not as exciting as a skin”

That is the point we are trying to get you to see. Your “Solution” says that skins are somehow on a different judging point than other cosmetic rewards like titles or outfits. Again you posit no logical support for this other than that you want skins because they are the most interesting rewards

This conversation is not about titles. it is not about outfits. It is about skins.

You proposed solution is, literally “how about get 0% of what you want, while I get 100% of what I want and you also get… 100% of something you didn’t want in the first place.”

You’re attempting to frame compromise as selfishness and your personal opinion as that of a vast majority.

With that I’m leaving this conversation again. It is obvious you will never be satisfied unless someone simply says “Ohoni is right and the whole game should heel-turn to cede to his vision with no compromise for other points of view”

I’m sorry but I just don’t see it happenning, so I don’t think there’s any reason for me to get roped in to this a third time.

If you are happy with just having ‘some’ exclusive rewards then why defend the exclusive rewards in raids.. I mean you already have ‘some’ exclusive rewards, so if ‘some’ would be enough that means that the reward system is fine and there is no need to make more exclusive rewards.
However, all the complains about the rewards, and the people here defending exclusive rewards for raid, show that indeed there is a need for more exclusive rewards.
My point is: You might think you are fine with ‘some’ exclusive rewards, but trust me you are not, else people would be fine with the exclusive rewards we do have. That is why I keep the 50/50 as a minimum for content exclusive (account-bound) rewards.

Some does not work, and this threads even proofs it, so while you might think it does, trust me is does not. Why is this? Because going for such items / collecting mini’s (as an example) is not fun anymore when you know 80% of them is just a boring grind. Even if the 20% is rewarding.. simply the act of collecting is then destroyed as fun game-play. Now if it’s the other way around you can basically say.. well I grind for those 20% or, those 20% are unreachable (where time-limited) so they do not count for me.. ArenaNet even seems to understand this, seeing as how they divide the mini’s in those two groups. This is the group you can go collect, these are some special ones you might not be able to get in a ‘normal’ way.
When the act of collecting is not fun anymore, there is also less reason to go for the reward, taking the whole function of the reward away. It then only becomes interesting if you really want the mini because of the look.
This is also exactly what happened to me with GW2.. While in MMO’s collecting mini’s was one of the things I enjoyed doing, in GW2 because of the way the reward-system works, making most mini’s grinding gold or spending money, this act of collect stopped being fun game-play. Last week I got the clockwork mini.. a mini I could have easily gotten over a year ago.. an mini that fits the “exclusive to specific content” category.. But why did I then only get it last week?
Simply, it was not a mini I really wanted for the look, the game-play of collecting mini’s is destroyed for me in GW2, so there was no reason for me to purchase that mini. This is exactly why “some” will not do it.. The very least is 50/50 where then also the best looking ones should be behind the hardest content. Only then you can get the reward system back on track.
With raids there is of course the legendary armor what creates a new category.. so that is a good reason to do it, but the mini would only be interesting if it in fact is a good look mini’s people want for the looks or if it becomes fun to go after most mini’s in general (so the act of collecting becomes fun again). Else there will be not that much reason for people to actively purchase getting that mini.

Ohoni.6057:

That is the expected response.

You do realize you aren’t countering my point at all by repeating this line, right? Could you at least try, or will you take back the comparison argument between hazing and raiding unless you provide more substance?

Ohoni.6057:

Any method that takes an unreasonable amount of time is unreasonable. it’s designed to be cruel, to offer hope in an unattainable form. It’s like if a poor person is being held for a crime and they offer bail, but it’s like a million dollars bail. Yes, it’s an alternative, but not one they’re intended to actually collect on, it’s one meant to taunt them. any alternative offer needs to be at least within the realm of an attainable goal.

It’s designed to be fair, not cruel, and that analogy is misleading at best. The player who willingly gives up taking one much more difficult avenue towards a reward can take a much more slower route. It is better than being outright exclusive towards the former, under your ideals.

Ohoni.6057:

Fighting the Vinewrath is not Silverwaste farming, it IS effort by any reasonable definition.

And is it effort when compared to doing a raid? Does it seem to measure in the same quality of effort as raiders? That’s the point you need to address. In case you want to know my position on effort…

Ohoni.6057:

Why? It would be 1.5-2x the amount of time and effort spent, on a fully engaged activity, why should that not be sufficient? I think you have an overly inflated view of the value of raiding relative to other activities if you think getting the rewards in half the time is not sufficient.

…We can go back in this very same thread and mark off what additional effort and restrictions are imposed on Raiders to even attempt the raid compared to the threshold required for Silverwastes. I will tell you right now the impression that if a player from the Silverwastes only considers doubling-down on his/her efforts to ‘raid’, they are going to be in for a world of surprise. I think even the Magumma Jungle won’t be so forgiving.

Of course you can argue that I should be more specific, and I can if you want.

Ohoni.6057:

Sykper, Devata has been very clear that his personal crusade is entirely against the gem store (at least as a source of skins). He is as determined against that as I have been against raid exclusives. He may not have mentioned it in that specific posts but he’d mentioned it plenty of times in the past and I’m sure if you’d asked him he would be quite open about it. When he says “grinding for gold” he isn’t talking about using it to buy standard items, he’s talking about using to to buy BLTC skins. I was not using a straw man, I was addressing the specific points he had been making.

We can argue whether or not he meant this for a while, but the point stands that at that time during the discussion, he never strictly mentioned BLTC skins within the post. And made a position that very clearly, perhaps even a slight exaggeration as I would have to tally every skin in the game, to see if there’s a 90%+ amount of them obtainable through gold. You assumed he meant BLTC, but your response at that time should have instead targetted his argument about the currency rather than his own personal agenda.