Guild Wars 2

Forum bug? 15 chars.

laokoko.7403:

Lux Dominatoris.3941:

Give me concrete numbers for your examples. Links, statements, official responses. How do you know the hardcore community is 1%? Stop the parallels with WoW, even if they would copy paste the raids from there it would still be totally different since this game does not have a hard, forced trinity.

It was originally posted by a developer during wow 2.0. During the panda expansion, I believe it is stated again on an interview. You can also check wowwiki.

http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/2688-Other-Press-Tour-Interviews-A-Night-in-Mists-of-Pandaria-Blue-Posts-MoP-Screenshot

http://wow.gamepedia.com/Sunwell_Plateau

LOTRO pulling the plug of raiding. Because the raiding group is too small.

http://www.engadget.com/2014/07/03/turbine-raiders-make-up-the-smallest-player-group-in-lotro/#comments

Wildstar fail to deliver the game to a wider audience. They thought hardcore raiding is the answer. But it is totally wrong

https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/2qnhuj/only_03_of_wildstars_players_have_cleared_the/

Oh I did not mention. I apologize. I was referring to the statement you made in which the Guild Wars 2 hardcore community is 1% of the game’s active population. Since I find your comparisons interesting, I would argue that all those games follow a hard forced trinity gameplay type. Since Guild Wars 2 does not, the gameplay core itself is vastly different. Being it berserker only or with a druid and condi engi, it is still very different.

This being said, the hardcore community, is in my opinion, way bigger than a mere 1% and composed from what I would classify as the core players, the ones that are returning with the raid announcement, the ones that did not play at all due to lack of endgame content and the ones that want at least out of curiosity to try engame content, raids, with this type of active gameplay. TERA would be a candidate when it comes to gameplay but I believe the rest of that game puts everyone off.

This is why I am asking you for something to justify your 1% because I do not throw around numbers just for the sake of typing and if I do, I make sure to add in my opinion so they do not seem facts.

Except as it is right now the raid isn’t even hard. We have random pug groups getting the first boss under 50% an hour after the raid is released. It doesn’t look like anyone is going to be excluded at this point and you could probably run the first boss in all rares if you wanted to.

Wrong forum section, bro.

So is the entire game being removed with the addition of Raids?
From what I understand all open world maps, events, jumping puzzles etc. will be removed and replaced with Raids.
After the release of HoT, Raids will be the only content type in GW2.
Furthermore, from what I heard and read, players who don’t own an ascended set will be disabled from forming their own parties to do the Raids.

That’s really unfortunate.

Tigaseye.2047:

Lux Dominatoris.3941:

@Tigaseye So the only “toxic” (in the lack of a better word) replies are mine and the one I am replying to is perfectly rational, not selfish and represents the good side? C’mon man, when I make a mistake I admit it. But do you truly believe that the bad guys (from replies) are only the hardcore people? The so called casuals are having the utter most perfected and logical arguments and we are the barbarians? There’s a saying in my country, “You laugh at the straw in that person’s eye while not seeing the crowbar in your own.”

I know what I have read from you and yes, I can’t help but draw my own conclusions.

Your entire position goes against everything I believe, but the way you have presented that position is even less socially acceptable, to me, than the position itself.

I’m not anti-raiding.

I “real” raided in WoW previously, so I don’t mind there being harder levels of raids in games.

But, my heart lies in MoP LFR, where I could play with a random selection of people, at any time I felt like it, for as long as a felt like it.

People of all ages, abilities, backgrounds, family/relationship and job situations, experience of the game and so on.

A word that represents my outlook on life is “inclusive”; not exclusive.

So, of course I find a lot of what you say distasteful.

This is a game, it’s not supposed to replicate, in horrible detail, the worst parts of the “haves and have-nots” of real life.

The real life situation in that respect is horribly extreme, ATM and most people want to get away from all that in games.

But, even if your position was equally valid and as many people were on your side of the fence (which they, almost certainly, are not – even though they will probably say a lot less), as I say, the way you have voiced it is really not acceptable to me, at all.

I understand that you’re from a different culture and that will have affected your outlook, but that doesn’t mean I have to like the way you talk to, or about, people.

Fair enough. Differences will be differences. Nothing wrong here. It is true, I was very aggressive. I cannot help it. My situation is this: I am playing a franchise since 2005. The last installment took the difficulty to a very low standard. I personally enjoy a challenge in my hobbies, videogames being one of them. I am currently playing an installment in which, IMO, at least 90% of its content is dedicated to a casual crowd. I crave for a challenge. The company decides to give me and the ones like me 1%. The rest are acting like we are given 100% and tries their best through extremism and victimization to make the company scrap their plans. How do you think I feel? Not good if I might say so. Not good at all. Especially knowing that the content is in no way restricted to them.

Ascended gear was not confirmed as required just recommended, no one can say how long it will take to clear a wing but given past examples, I sincerely doubt it will take 10+ hours or something so extraordinary and regarding the difficulty…well, one of the trash bosses was soloed in 20 mins I believe?

I am in a situation in which after 3 years I get a bone and the whole world acts like the end of the days are coming. I am at fault, I am the barbarian, the elitist, the bad apple. I am sorry, I will not accept this.

I am an uber casual player. I have absolutely no problem with not being able to participate in raids. Raids are there for the people who love raids. They should be able to do their raids, and encourage others to get on board with doing raids, and have loads of fun doing raids, and get Cool Stuff for the effort they put into raids.

Raids are awesome, as long as they are optional; like World Bosses or Dungeons or Fractals or WvW & PvP.

However, if it gets to the point where I am functionally required to participate in raids in order to access general content, or major portions of storyline, then it is an issue.

Pockets.3201:

Ayrilana.1396:

Players are not really being excluded in the sense that they can always learn the raids and get better. The raids are permanent content so that have as much time as they need.

Learning and time cannot fix every issue that may keep people from raiding.

True. They need to have a willingness to try and adapt.

Nick.6972:

So is the entire game being removed with the addition of Raids?
From what I understand all open world maps, events, jumping puzzles etc. will be removed and replaced with Raids.
After the release of HoT, Raids will be the only content type in GW2.
Furthermore, from what I heard and read, players who don’t own an ascended set will be disabled from forming their own parties to do the Raids.

That’s really unfortunate.

The point is, that if the dev team is mainly focussing on non queue-able raid content, for the small percentage of people who tend to participate in that kind of stuff, they will, obviously, have less time and resources to spend on the rest of the game, in future.

Thus, it becomes the majority of the players, effectively, paying for content done only by the few.

This is exactly what happened in WoW, pre-LFR (and even post-LFR, now they have trivialised it and its rewards) and is what people are now expecting from GW2.

Raids are fine so long as ANet respects that there are those of us who won’t be doing them under any circumstances. ANet has form on trying to shove everyone into everything – which is bad for players who don’t like the content and bad for those who do, because it gets diluted to be manageable by the majority and not the group that actually wants it.

Eleri Tezhme.3048:

I am an uber casual player. I have absolutely no problem with not being able to participate in raids. Raids are there for the people who love raids. They should be able to do their raids, and encourage others to get on board with doing raids, and have loads of fun doing raids, and get Cool Stuff for the effort they put into raids.

Raids are awesome, as long as they are optional; like World Bosses or Dungeons or Fractals or WvW & PvP.

However, if it gets to the point where I am functionally required to participate in raids in order to access general content, or major portions of storyline, then it is an issue.

^^^ This ^^^

According to this:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/3n9uu7/bwe3_raid_guide/

It looks like the raid is a big gear/build/skill check. Boon removals, condition damage and healing for unavoidable damage, I’m willing to bet another mechanic will require projectile reflect, another condition removals and so on and so on.

In other words, those who will finish the raid would have players that can do all that at the same time, finding a good team composition that has an answer to all of the mechanics. It appears though that if you do not have what is needed, you cannot beat the mechanics at all.

Weird,

This seems to be a thread about raids in general, not HoT specifically.

Are threads just moved at random without being read at all ?

Raids will be hard core for a short period of time. Once the guides come out and metabattle has the builds we will find that the raids will be face rolled with ease. Look at Teq and TT. Now you can join a map, and you are pretty much guaranteed to down them.

Anyone who thinks raid will be for the hard core only, clearly has never raided before, ever.

Lol, I love it. Although I sometimes think that I am looking at an old episode of Punk´d from MTV when entering here.

People really have the opinion that the most versatile and best reward should be gated by a hard raid, but flip out if they have to level crafters for ascended armor. Where is your effort should be rewarded mantra here?
People think it is ok when massive quantities of people are locked out of said content by time/skill restrains. You can only hope that you are snowflakey enough to be within the ranks of those who can do the raid, or you will find yourself sitting in the last row of the bus seats.
People think that losing your job is a chance first, not something you are depended upon if you´re not an investment banker, politician or something like that. That only barely needs an explanation, at least that is what I hope.

I agree with this. If raiding was easy, we’d just have another dungeon. It’d be a loot train (which they’d have to nerf because of the economy). I want there to be content that pushes my limits as a player. That’s fun. It’s like pvp, wvw and pve. As it stands, I never do wvw (not for any particular reason save for me not liking the idea of just running around in a zerg). That content isn’t exclusive. I’m not prohibited from playing, I just choose not to. Likewise, if I had a choice in fractals, I’d never do Mai Trin or Ice Ele. The mechanics in those fights were very poorly designed and they punish you for playing correctly. Some people like that it’s hard. But I wouldn’t ask them to remove content that I don’t personally enjoy. I have never asked anet to remove wvw bc zergs aren’t according to my tastes. Likewise, raids should be left difficult. There’s plenty to do in this game and each facet doesn’t appeal to everyone.

Ashen.2907:

Weird,

This seems to be a thread about raids in general, not HoT specifically.

Are threads just moved at random without being read at all ?

Raids are unique to Heart of Thorns. It’s totally fine to be here.

sharkswithlazers.7632:

I agree with this. If raiding was easy, we’d just have another dungeon. It’d be a loot train (which they’d have to nerf because of the economy). I want there to be content that pushes my limits as a player. That’s fun. It’s like pvp, wvw and pve. As it stands, I never do wvw (not for any particular reason save for me not liking the idea of just running around in a zerg). That content isn’t exclusive. I’m not prohibited from playing, I just choose not to. Likewise, if I had a choice in fractals, I’d never do Mai Trin or Ice Ele. The mechanics in those fights were very poorly designed and they punish you for playing correctly. Some people like that it’s hard. But I wouldn’t ask them to remove content that I don’t personally enjoy. I have never asked anet to remove wvw bc zergs aren’t according to my tastes. Likewise, raids should be left difficult. There’s plenty to do in this game and each facet doesn’t appeal to everyone.

Just because you probably use the exploit with Ellen Kiel to make it a faceroll, the actuall mechanic of Mai Trin is for skilled players(dodges, field uses, rather hard opponent). If you want to complain about something, think about the endboss in the Ice Fractal or the lets hide in a corner stuff of the aether fractal, which is ridiculusly easy to make even if you´re new to it.

sharkswithlazers.7632:

I agree with this. If raiding was easy, we’d just have another dungeon. It’d be a loot train (which they’d have to nerf because of the economy). I want there to be content that pushes my limits as a player. That’s fun. It’s like pvp, wvw and pve. As it stands, I never do wvw (not for any particular reason save for me not liking the idea of just running around in a zerg). That content isn’t exclusive. I’m not prohibited from playing, I just choose not to. Likewise, if I had a choice in fractals, I’d never do Mai Trin or Ice Ele. The mechanics in those fights were very poorly designed and they punish you for playing correctly. Some people like that it’s hard. But I wouldn’t ask them to remove content that I don’t personally enjoy. I have never asked anet to remove wvw bc zergs aren’t according to my tastes. Likewise, raids should be left difficult. There’s plenty to do in this game and each facet doesn’t appeal to everyone.

Raids will not be hard for long. I give it 2 months tops before everyone can do them. Guides and metabattle will help this happen. Anyone who thinks differently is kidding them self’s, and deep down they know it them self’s.

Getting the required level of masteries’ will be the hard part, and what will gate the raids.

Torolan.5816:

sharkswithlazers.7632:

I agree with this. If raiding was easy, we’d just have another dungeon. It’d be a loot train (which they’d have to nerf because of the economy). I want there to be content that pushes my limits as a player. That’s fun. It’s like pvp, wvw and pve. As it stands, I never do wvw (not for any particular reason save for me not liking the idea of just running around in a zerg). That content isn’t exclusive. I’m not prohibited from playing, I just choose not to. Likewise, if I had a choice in fractals, I’d never do Mai Trin or Ice Ele. The mechanics in those fights were very poorly designed and they punish you for playing correctly. Some people like that it’s hard. But I wouldn’t ask them to remove content that I don’t personally enjoy. I have never asked anet to remove wvw bc zergs aren’t according to my tastes. Likewise, raids should be left difficult. There’s plenty to do in this game and each facet doesn’t appeal to everyone.

Just because you probably use the exploit with Ellen Kiel to make it a faceroll, the actuall mechanic of Mai Trin is for skilled players(dodges, field uses, rather hard opponent). If you want to complain about something, think about the endboss in the Ice Fractal or the lets hide in a corner stuff of the aether fractal, which is ridiculusly easy to make even if you´re new to it.

I think you misunderstood me. I said the mechanics were dumb and I don’t like them. Mai trin punishes (big time) those who stand close to her. But if you stand away from her, she teleports out of the blue aoe. The best solution is to pack together and avoid the big bleed she does while cleansing ally’s condis. It’s hard, but I think that it’s mostly hard because there wasn’t a clear design. Generally you should have a much easier go at a dungeon/raid if you know the mechanics and avoid the bad stuff. But it’s really not like that for mai, it just sucks always. Likewise, the Ice Elemental is incredibly punishing. You can’t crit the boss so it takes a while, there’s a persistent damage when you’re cold. The boss just spams cc and wide aoe cripples. The adds have 1 shot aoes (dodge the red circle, duh) but there’s a bit harder to avoid when you’re out of endurance from dodging from the boss’ aoe.

My beef with those dungeons is simply this: knowing the fight’s mechanics doesn’t necessarily make the fight easier or smoother. You are punished for doing the “right” thing and punished harder for doing the “wrong” thing. It’s often a die, rez, continue mechanic with most pugs. A good group can avoid dying altogether, but that’s not the norm.

Though, I should note, I totally agree, the hiding in the corner for any dungeon is ridiculous. We do that because we don’t have dedicated tanks to keep the enemies grouped together. Anet should design dungeons that can accommodate this lack of tanking while making the fights organic and interesting. It’s a little inexcusable to have a game out for 3 years with so many buggy dungeons in which each fight has its own cheese to avoid mechanics and circumvent the difficulty.

Brother Belial, (god I can’t believe I’m doing this) let’s look at WoW. I haven’t played in years, but supposing I made a max level, geared toon today. I could look up guides for each fight, but that doesn’t guarantee we’ll be able to do the fight first try with no problems.

But yeah, once it’s been out for a bit, people will be able to do the raid without wiping often. That’s normal. What we want though, is to have an enjoyable raid.

I do fractals everyday because the loot is so darned good. But, as I’m sure you’ve read, there are just parts of every fractal that irk me. The underwater mines, the absurd damage output of fire ele, the sheer abundance of cc and persistant damage from ice ele, the fact that in each fractal, one teammate will be selected for like… all the aggro. In cliffside, you’ll get jailed over and over and over while your teammates never once get jailed… etc.

I’m hoping that raids are fun, rewarding encounters that are demanding for skill, but whose mechanics can be learned and beaten. I don’t want more mai trins, I want more Firestorm and Berserker. That fractal is simply perfect. You can learn the mechanics and you can win by knowing what to do.

If raids are going to be only for those who have the time and ambition to get a group of people together and learn the ins and outs of each encounter in order to beat it, I am totally fine with it even if that would make it highly unlikely I ever get to do a raid.

If raids are only for those who have the time to grind full ascended gear with eveything upgraded and best in slot for enough different professions so that they can always have the only viable group composition for each encounter, then I start having issues with it. Because at that point there IS a gear threshold that requires such a time investment only those with an abundance of spare time can accomplish it – rather than being good at their chosen build.
And was exactly the reason I quit WoW – in that game it was never about skill, but about who has the most free time to get the best gear as soon as possible.

GW2 is the most casual MMORPG out there. Not one of, but THE MOST.

If you are having a whine because you don’t feel good enough to do Raids and threaten to quit – good luck finding some other game to play, you sensitive flower you.

This coming from someone who won’t do Raids – atleast not right away – due to an aversion to voice chat.

98% of the game is built for casuals like you. 2% is now being diverted for other players.

You still got the majority of the pie. Silverwaste grinding isn’t going anywhere. World Boss farming isn’t going anywhere. You still have your casual content to sleep through.

Theloseronian.2075:

And was exactly the reason I quit WoW – in that game it was never about skill, but about who has the most free time to get the best gear as soon as possible.

Raids aren’t temporary content to my knowledge so having the “best” gear as fast as possible makes no sense.

Nick Lentz.6982:

What about the hardcore players? the ones who want hard content?

They are undermining themselves by asking that the rewards casuals want should be locked by their “hardcore” content. And then by making posts by which it seems that the main “hardcore” thing that they want is not actual difficulty, but gating the content so that as many players as possible will give up before even attempting it.

That of course always meets with the obvious response from all other players, who start to ask for the rewards behind the content to be made accessible, and do it long enough and loud enough until the content gets nerfed into oblivion.

So, basically, if the hardcore players want hardcore content for themselves, they should ask for a content for themselves, not for something casuals might have a reason to attempt.

Nick Lentz.6982:

I hope Anet continues with this mind set, I am glad they finally stopped catering to casuals.

The BWE3 nerf to the mobs speaks otherwise. Get prepared for the same happening to raids eventually.

laokoko.7403:

Lux Dominatoris.3941:

Give me concrete numbers for your examples. Links, statements, official responses. How do you know the hardcore community is 1%? Stop the parallels with WoW, even if they would copy paste the raids from there it would still be totally different since this game does not have a hard, forced trinity.

It was originally posted by a developer during wow 2.0. During the panda expansion, I believe it is stated again on an interview. You can also check wowwiki.

Before Wrath of the Lich King came out, less than one percent of the playerbase actually experienced Sunwell.

I was actually the 1 percent that done Sunwell but wasn’t able to finish. When the guild leader says they want to extend raiding time to do Sunwell I told them I wasn’t able to commit and was kick out of the guild. This left a trauma for me that I quit mmorpg for a while.

http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/2688-Other-Press-Tour-Interviews-A-Night-in-Mists-of-Pandaria-Blue-Posts-MoP-Screenshot

http://wow.gamepedia.com/Sunwell_Plateau

LOTRO pulling the plug of raiding. Because the raiding group is too small.

http://www.engadget.com/2014/07/03/turbine-raiders-make-up-the-smallest-player-group-in-lotro/#comments

Wildstar fail to deliver the game to a wider audience. They thought hardcore raiding is the answer. But it is totally wrong

https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/2qnhuj/only_03_of_wildstars_players_have_cleared_the/

I’m not certain about the other games, but LotRO I do know a little about. They stopped adding raids, and their numbers have dropped immensely. There are constant complaints by the community that there is nothing to do, no end game, etc. The entire player-base seems to be composed of people who spend all of their time twirling around at festivals (which are almost a constant occurrence there), instead of playing the actual game.
There is a significant enough PvP player-base there, but nobody acknowledged that either until they all moved to one server and basically crowded out the server.
This 1% thing that you’re trying to push, is utter nonsense.

There is nothing wrong with having content for people who like a challenge. It brings people to the game. It keeps people playing the game. Stop trying to exclude people who like to play differently than you do. That “1%” matters just as much as you do. Their money spends just as well.

My 2 cents:
I don’t mind if the Raid can’t be beaten by players for even 3 months; I just want a challenge… No downscaling too just cause we can’t beat it in 3 months.

I believe there needs to be at least 1 general thing in the game that is optional and gives people reason to be happy about being able to accomplish it; but also be available for others to accomplish.

Also, “3 months” is a general time length. Even it if takes an year I don’t mind.

Reluctantly, I’m going to have to agree with at least part of what the OP said. While I think that a raid Lite with appropriately lite rewards should be considered so that non raiders are not completely excluded, the game should have something hard for the 1%. It already has content that I have little interest in (WvW and PvP). A game that attracts and keeps the most people has something for a large range of interests. While it’s bad for a game to cater too much for the ones that want extremely hard content, it’s equally bad for it to cater to much for those who don’t.

Since they are expanding fractals to level 100 as well as adding raids they must have the numbers (or the hopes) that this will both attract and keep more players. If they are wrong, then the wasted money for the developement of content that is underutilized will be enough to convince them to discontinue adding more hard content. If they are right, then more people will come to the game and stay, which will benefit all. Even people like me who wouldn’t go into a raid on a bet.

sharkswithlazers.7632:

Brother Belial, (god I can’t believe I’m doing this) let’s look at WoW. I haven’t played in years, but supposing I made a max level, geared toon today. I could look up guides for each fight, but that doesn’t guarantee we’ll be able to do the fight first try with no problems.

But yeah, once it’s been out for a bit, people will be able to do the raid without wiping often. That’s normal. What we want though, is to have an enjoyable raid.

I do fractals everyday because the loot is so darned good. But, as I’m sure you’ve read, there are just parts of every fractal that irk me. The underwater mines, the absurd damage output of fire ele, the sheer abundance of cc and persistant damage from ice ele, the fact that in each fractal, one teammate will be selected for like… all the aggro. In cliffside, you’ll get jailed over and over and over while your teammates never once get jailed… etc.

I’m hoping that raids are fun, rewarding encounters that are demanding for skill, but whose mechanics can be learned and beaten. I don’t want more mai trins, I want more Firestorm and Berserker. That fractal is simply perfect. You can learn the mechanics and you can win by knowing what to do.

I to, hope they will be fun. But I really don’t see everyone being able to do them. Every one will be able to at some point. January, February next will will give us a good idea if raids are working as ANet intends them to. By that point, any one who wants to do them, will most probably, more often than not being doing them first time.

Azure Prower.8701:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Pockets.3201:

It also tells some players that they can’t play the endgame, so they should find another game to play.

My friend. That’s like someone saying “college is too hard, I’ll go work in a fastfood joint instead”. IF someone invests time in themselves, THEN it pays off. Anet can’t change a player’s mindset. The drive comes from within.

So basically this game should be a treated as a job to be able to play?

Yeah and I thought games should be fun, I have played since GW1 and beta GW2, never been in a guild.

I do feel many people such as myself will be excluded from some of this content.

Might be time to “jog on”.

Raids won’t last 6 months at release difficulty.

I’ll tell you why: aNet built a casual game. This game is for casuals, not hardcore players.

How do I personally define casual vs hardcore?

A Casual player is someone who wants everything to be achievable at a casual and easy pace (Think World Boss farming, Glints Cave Solo, etc. content like that)

While a Hardcore player wants exclusive rewards locked behind challenging content (So there is a reward at the end of the tunnel). The journey is the biggest part, but the reward makes it worthwhile.

People who just want extremely hard content regardless of reward are what I would call Elites. These are the ones doing legit solo runs of current ‘hard’ content. They’ll mesh with the Hardcore subset, but are different. You’ll see these guys doing solo attempts on the Raids.

They are adding Raids to keep players wanting a challenge to continue playing. Nothing else in the game is aimed towards them outside highlevel Fractals, which simply don’t have the right difficulty/reward setup for hardcore. Pushing the level to 100 is an attempt to placate the Elite subset I’m guessing.

Casuals will get upset (see already) at the idea of Raids, since by their own lack of action, it will be unavailable to them.

They won’t want to put the time into that kind of content (Hard/Challenging) for fear of messing up, or whatever arbitrary complaint they have.

They’ll continue to kitten about it and aNet, as always, will listen to them and nerf it.

Look at BWE 2 and compare it to BWE3 – they nerf’d the every living kitten outta the mobs in the map, and burnt the difficulty of the events down to ash.

All because casuals complained that smokescales were too hard.

So yeah, expect Raids to be nerf’d.

In most games, Casuals are the majority. In GW2, Casuals are the game.

Tigaseye.2047:

As a developer, you make the casual side of your player base feel undervalued at your own peril.

it’s not like there’s another game out there that catered to the “veterans” and “hardcore” players who flunked badly cause once you lvled up there wasn’t much to do as a casual, and then casuals left it in droves, and it went under and then it relaunched just four or five days ago as a free to play advertising how much of a casual frendly experience it has become. nopes, nothing of the sort, cough wildstar cough

Lux Dominatoris.3941:

If we do the actual content too fast, casuals complain. If we do it alone, they complain. If we want profit on this hard work, casuals complain. If we get raids, casuals complain. If I want to play berserker casuals complain. All of this while over 90% of the game is pure casual. But we destroy the game. We are the problem. We want our corner. Without you. I have the right, as much as you do, to request this. […] You hate that a certain part of the community is gaining attention from Arena-net. You hate us. Our fun, our community, our friendships, our skills, our dedication. You hate that we have time that you do not. […] I am at fault, I am the barbarian, the elitist, the bad apple. I am sorry, I will not accept this.

Dude, uhm… you’re really a bit oversensitive about all of this.
You presented yourself as the victim of the discriminatory majority before anyone even said anything against so called “hardcore players”. I’ve never heard a single casual player ever say anything remotely close to “I hate hardcore players and they don’t deserve a place in the game”.

The things is, because of our capitalist society Anet needs to earn money. Whenever Anet develops something new, they invest money to do so. And if they start to invest a lot of money into things that the majority of the playerbase has no interest in, that’ll negatively impact the game as a whole. That’s why they pay a lot of attention to feedback from the playerbase.

I myself am really looking forward to raids. And I think most people do. They were presented to us as hard content, nevertheless I still think that they feel appealing to the majority of the playerbase. And once people learn how to kill the bosses and get better at doing so, raids will be the ‘new tequatl’.

And by the way, if “This boss needs to be cc’d? I’ll switch to my cc build. This boss needs a lot of condition removal? I’ll switch to my condition removal build. This boss needs us to split up into two groups? Let’s just do it then” is considered the ‘little corner for hardcore players’… then I can’t help but feel a little sorry, in my opinion there’s nothing hardcore about that.

I know this must be hard to swallow for you, but maybe not even everyone that has the time to do raids likes to do them too?
And even with that thought, I would not even have objected to the people that like raids if Anet had not broken the two things that kept casuals and hardcore people distant but not overly hostile to each other, availability by different methods and the all are equal and nobody is a gypsie thought.

It started with ls2 where you had to suffer through content over and over again or you just did not get the armor and the reward for it. No big deal at all you may say, there are other ascended pieces to obtain elsewise. Exactly, spot on. Give me the opportunity to get legendary armor in a different way than with raids and I´ll shut up and be a happy customer.

When you divide your playerbase into the able and disabled, aka accepted and barely tolerated people, you get the gypsie or refugee problem. Gypsies in Western and especially Eastern Europe stand in the highly questionable reputation of being thiefs, liars, con artists and even hired killers. The predisposition to these folks is so overwhelmingly negative that they could settle nowhere for long, even if they wanted so they travel from place to place like a circus.
Would you like to be treated like a gypsie in a game? I don´t know about you, but I would probably give up joining a society at some point and either stay just with my people(other casuals in their own guild), try to get away from the problem itself by changing my name and settle in the city that hated or just tolerated me some time ago(play different) or move away from my people and the other people to set up camp in a place where nobody dislikes me(leave the game).

Azumi.9572:

In most games, Casuals are the majority. In GW2, Casuals are the game.

qft

i think i’m gonna copy paste this all over the place, and spread the light of truth and water of wisdom that’s contained in this sentence right here

also i’m adding it to my singature to save me some trouble manually putting it everywhere i go in this forum

OP, in what part of your argument Agony Resistance or Masteries level is doable only by “pro/hardcore” players?
It seems more like of a grind, that anyone in this game is able to do…if he likes to or has the necessary amount of spare time to waste on it.
I’m sure that there are lots of good players who can’t afford to gather materials for crafting/gold 4-5hrs/day for months, or that don’t find it fun.
Grind is grind. period.
skilled vs non-skilled is another question, and there is no mmorpg that values skill.
Play counterstrike or dota, if you want to find “skill”.
And again, define casual. casual because cannot play 24/7? or because doesn’t know how to use a class/skill?

Here, the real issue is that anet goes on with talking about horizontal preogression and other stuff while giving tons of grind.
The have just to choose what kind of audience want to satisfy, as they cannot put agony resistance/grindsceded and raids and still talk about " it doesn’t make you spend hours preparing to have fun rather than just having fun"

Difficulty in open world didn’t even last until launch, so I doubt difficulty in raids will last either.

How does anyone (excluding wvw/pvp only players) not have ascended armor yet?

I hate the exclusivity of raids. Difficult, fine. unique skins, fine. Legendaries for raids only? no. extreme difficulty to the point where only 1% of the playerbase will ever even want to try them? No.

I wholeheartedly think the idea of exclusionary content is bad. For lore, for gameplay, for whatever reason. If this game was aimed at those who played at the highest difficulty, it would be absolutely fine because the entire market around the game would be focused on hard-core gameplay.

but it’s not. GW2 is a refreshing breath of air in it’s ability to make content inclusive for all player types. and now that’s changed with raids and even fractals before it. However, ArenaNet actually had the grace to include difficulty levels in fractals so that casual players like myself could experience content and get rewards at a slower pace, so it’s definitely a much better system since it doesn’t exclude anyone (though even the difficulty of level 1 fractals could be said to be difficult for a lot of people, including me, but i finished my first fractal feeling good). content should have the ability to interest all players while allowing some wiggle room for those who don’thave the time/skill/ability for much harder content and for those who do wish for the uber hard content still have it within their grasp.

But raids gate content. raids prevent casual players from even trying to join an PUG group because it’s supposed to be uber hard and only dedicated players may take on the challenge and succeed. it’s a very bad play by arenanet in my opinion. they had a good system, and then they listened to the vocal minority.

Raids are fine in the long run and may even be healthy for the game, but not in it’s current implementation. Difficulty tiers with fewer rewards for lower difficulties but still granting methods for those who wish to get legendaries and provide a surefire method for them to get it if they choose to put the grinding in it and a method of forming PUGs. Also unique skins for those who complete the content at the highest level of difficulty and perhaps a larger loot table of unique skins for those who do harder levels of raids than those who do the easier levels.

let players make the decision themselves whether they wish to participate in harder content or not, but don’t arbitrarily gate off the overwhelming majority of players from specific types of content for the sake of the few.

paintpixie.7398:

laokoko.7403:

Lux Dominatoris.3941:

Give me concrete numbers for your examples. Links, statements, official responses. How do you know the hardcore community is 1%? Stop the parallels with WoW, even if they would copy paste the raids from there it would still be totally different since this game does not have a hard, forced trinity.

It was originally posted by a developer during wow 2.0. During the panda expansion, I believe it is stated again on an interview. You can also check wowwiki.

Before Wrath of the Lich King came out, less than one percent of the playerbase actually experienced Sunwell.

I was actually the 1 percent that done Sunwell but wasn’t able to finish. When the guild leader says they want to extend raiding time to do Sunwell I told them I wasn’t able to commit and was kick out of the guild. This left a trauma for me that I quit mmorpg for a while.

http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/2688-Other-Press-Tour-Interviews-A-Night-in-Mists-of-Pandaria-Blue-Posts-MoP-Screenshot

http://wow.gamepedia.com/Sunwell_Plateau

LOTRO pulling the plug of raiding. Because the raiding group is too small.

http://www.engadget.com/2014/07/03/turbine-raiders-make-up-the-smallest-player-group-in-lotro/#comments

Wildstar fail to deliver the game to a wider audience. They thought hardcore raiding is the answer. But it is totally wrong

https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/2qnhuj/only_03_of_wildstars_players_have_cleared_the/

I’m not certain about the other games, but LotRO I do know a little about. They stopped adding raids, and their numbers have dropped immensely. There are constant complaints by the community that there is nothing to do, no end game, etc. The entire player-base seems to be composed of people who spend all of their time twirling around at festivals (which are almost a constant occurrence there), instead of playing the actual game.
There is a significant enough PvP player-base there, but nobody acknowledged that either until they all moved to one server and basically crowded out the server.
This 1% thing that you’re trying to push, is utter nonsense.

There is nothing wrong with having content for people who like a challenge. It brings people to the game. It keeps people playing the game. Stop trying to exclude people who like to play differently than you do. That “1%” matters just as much as you do. Their money spends just as well.

And yet it was a Lotro dev who told us straight out that 10% of the population only ever raided. The same dev told us raiders account for 50% of forum posts.

Source: http://www.mmobomb.com/news/ex-lotro-dev-dishes-turbines-missteps/

DresdenAllblack.1249:

How does anyone (excluding wvw/pvp only players) not have ascended armor yet?

time? life? is it so preposterous to you that people may not fully put their time into GW2 and in fact spend their time elsewhere?

castlemanic.3198:

DresdenAllblack.1249:

How does anyone (excluding wvw/pvp only players) not have ascended armor yet?

time? life? is it so preposterous to you that people may not fully put their time into GW2 and in fact spend their time elsewhere?

There’s an elsewhere? Who knew?

Lux Dominatoris.3941:

You say you need dozens of hours. Did you play all the raids? Extraordinary! Enlighten me! What about the ones that do have the necessary time and will to dedicate to raids? Why shouldn’t they get some content? After all, except lvl 50 fractals give me one single example of challenging content is this forsaken game? We must lower ourselves in killing Lupi with no armor just for the sake of a challenge. And even there you attack us! Dungeons are meant to be played this way, and the selling of a dungeon is an exploit.

It’s a false dichotomy. If raids had a difficulty setting (even just “Normal” and "Hardcore), then they could cater to everyone just fine.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Pockets.3201:

It also tells some players that they can’t play the endgame, so they should find another game to play.

My friend. That’s like someone saying “college is too hard, I’ll go work in a fastfood joint instead”. IF someone invests time in themselves, THEN it pays off. Anet can’t change a player’s mindset. The drive comes from within.

It’s a game not a life choice lol….

But I’m curious what your examples of “skilled players” are, is it knowing NPC rotations well or curb stomping everyone in PvP? I’m going to assume it’s the first one due to some of your elitism comments regarding raids in PvE.

Why would you need Legendary armor if you are not going to do the hardest content? You don’t.

This is pure entitlement, and it kittenes me off. It’s the reason I have such a low view of the casual playerbase – the entitlement seeping from their pores is something that gets under my skin.

I cannot stand entitlement.

It’s like someone paying $400 for a PS4 while you pay $100 for a PS3 but you want to do the exact same things as the person who shelled out the $300 extra for a PS4. You want the PS4? Buy it.

You want Legendary Armor? Do the content you need to do to acquire it.

And this is coming from someone who won’t do Raids due to a personality quirk.

Azumi.9572:

Why would you need Legendary armor if you are not going to do the hardest content? You don’t.

This is pure entitlement, and it kittenes me off. It’s the reason I have such a low view of the casual playerbase – the entitlement seeping from their pores is something that gets under my skin.

I cannot stand entitlement.

It’s like someone paying $400 for a PS4 while you pay $100 for a PS3 but you want to do the exact same things as the person who shelled out the $300 extra for a PS4. You want the PS4? Buy it.

You want Legendary Armor? Do the content you need to do to acquire it.

And this is coming from someone who won’t do Raids due to a personality quirk.

How is it entitlement if i’m suggesting it would take a longer time to achieve for casual players than hardcore players? Currently casual players have the capability of achieving legendary weapons and even ascended armour, is it so distateful to wish that the same be extended to legendary armour that can be achieved through raids only? The legendaries still STAY in raid content. but just like all other legendaries, they’re available to casual players too!

i’m not asking for a vendor outside of raids to provide free legendaries, there’s still going to be work and a lot of it too, but mix the raid with the tangible progress system that they’re implementing for legendary weapons (again leaving certain drops or even all drops needed for legendary armour to come ONLY from raids) gives everyone the ability to gain access to all kinds of gear.

Azumi.9572:

98% of the game is built for casuals like you. 2% is now being diverted for other players.

You still got the majority of the pie. Silverwaste grinding isn’t going anywhere. World Boss farming isn’t going anywhere. You still have your casual content to sleep through.

I mean, it’s not like there’s 6 new sets of armor skins (as many as the entire rest of the expansion, I might add!) representing an entire new tier of armor locked behind raiding or anything.

castlemanic.3198:

Azumi.9572:

Why would you need Legendary armor if you are not going to do the hardest content? You don’t.

This is pure entitlement, and it kittenes me off. It’s the reason I have such a low view of the casual playerbase – the entitlement seeping from their pores is something that gets under my skin.

I cannot stand entitlement.

It’s like someone paying $400 for a PS4 while you pay $100 for a PS3 but you want to do the exact same things as the person who shelled out the $300 extra for a PS4. You want the PS4? Buy it.

You want Legendary Armor? Do the content you need to do to acquire it.

And this is coming from someone who won’t do Raids due to a personality quirk.

How is it entitlement if i’m suggesting it would take a longer time to achieve for casual players than hardcore players? Currently casual players have the capability of achieving legendary weapons and even ascended armour, is it so distateful to wish that the same be extended to legendary armour that can be achieved through raids only? The legendaries still STAY in raid content. but just like all other legendaries, they’re available to casual players too!

i’m not asking for a vendor outside of raids to provide free legendaries, there’s still going to be work and a lot of it too, but mix the raid with the tangible progress system that they’re implementing for legendary weapons (again leaving certain drops or even all drops needed for legendary armour to come ONLY from raids) gives everyone the ability to gain access to all kinds of gear.

It is entitlement. You want the exact same thing as Y, without doing the hard work of X.

Exclusive content is a must.

Including exclusive PvP armors and weapons, Exclusive WvW armors and weapons (Focus put heavily on Guild emblems), PvE armors and weapons (World Boss weapon/armor sets, etc.)

Legendary PvE Armor coming from Legendary PvE Content (Raids, hardest content in game) makes sense.

Getting Legendary PvE Armor without doing Legendary PvE content is a joke.

The only way I’ll budge on this is with WvW since the ability to switch stats would be extremely helpful there. Maybe add in a Legendary WvW armor set.

Let me ask all you Casuals a question – and be honest:

What is really stopping you from doing the Raids? What reason do you have for not wanting to do that content?

Hyper Cutter.9376:

Azumi.9572:

98% of the game is built for casuals like you. 2% is now being diverted for other players.

You still got the majority of the pie. Silverwaste grinding isn’t going anywhere. World Boss farming isn’t going anywhere. You still have your casual content to sleep through.

I mean, it’s not like there’s 6 new sets of armor skins (as many as the entire rest of the expansion, I might add!) representing an entire new tier of armor locked behind raiding or anything.

You don’t need that armor if you are not going to do the hardest content in the game.

Sorry. You don’t get to play with this toy unless you put forth an effort.

You have 98% of the rest of the sandbox to play in.

This little slice is theirs. Stop throwing a tantrum and knocking down their sand castles.

another question before: what is really stopping me from doing fractals? a huge, steamy heap of money and crafting ingredients to stack AR.
what will stop me from raids? with pretty good probability, still not having ascendeds + capped masteries.