Guild Wars 2

Raids are like higher tier pvp, everyone has a shot at it if they make a group and progress. Theres no stat hinderance between higher tiered and low, ascended is the final stat that isnt surpassed by legendary. This game offers vast content types and now finally something to work for, something this game needs to peak interest, while not being the sole focus and doesnt exclude players since we are all on the same stat field. Kids and grownups are easily spoiled.

nacario.9417:

Raids are like higher tier pvp, everyone has a shot at it if they make a group and progress. Theres no stat hinderance between higher tiered and low, ascended is the final stat that isnt surpassed by legendary. This game offers vast content types and now finally something to work for, something this game needs to peak interest, while not being the sole focus and doesnt exclude players since we are all on the same stat field. Kids and grownups are easily spoiled.

Except we aren’t on the same stat field. So in that way it is highly unlike PvP. sPvP is all about skill, while raids seem to put greater emphasis on gear.

Having read through this thread I do think some are getting unnecessarily upset about their perceived future enjoyment of the game – which may or may not become reality. I would advise that you try not to get quite so bent out of shape as in my opinion some of the most frustrating things about raiding in other MMOs in the past are unlikely to occur in GW2. The concerns fall into 2 main categories so I’ll share my thoughts / suggestions below for each.

1. I have raided in a number of MMOs for the last 12 years or so and almost without exception the most common and difficult hurdle to overcome in gaining access to a raid has been gearing. As others in the thread have pointed out, stats are a non-issue as exotics are reasonably cheap to craft and ascended rings/accessories etc are available with relatively little effort. As such, your stat choice and skill/build setup is going to have far bigger influence on your impact in the raid than the tiny difference in stats between fully ascended kitted characters and exotic ones.
2. The next issue is the “skill” factor and in a different category altogether, the “elite 0.0001%er mentality”. There is no way to really say this gently so to those complaining that there is nowhere in the game for hardcore players, guess again. GW2 has pvp tournaments (it’s very own version of the Olympics) where you can go compete for the GW2 version of the gold medal – a legendary weapon for each member of the winning team. If you’re so convinced you’re the best and strongly desire to compete, why not go prove it against other players? Anyways, I’m getting besides the point here (I really enjoy pvp myself btw). What I’m trying to say here, is that “skill” is really something that the vast majority of players do have. With some listening skills and following a leader, people can do all the “complex” things in the game like positioning themselves correctly, blasting fields and dodging a devastating attack. With reference to the 30-40hrs/week some think are required for raids (I was GM for a raiding guild in WoW WotLK), firstly that was mostly for gearing requirements to ensure that team members progressed at the same rate and didn’t hold each other back since people can read up on the fights in their own time and learn the general tactics. Usually a few tries is enough to get someone into the swing of things once they’ve read up on the fight. Secondly I don’t recall ever spending 40hrs/week for a raid, maybe 20, 25 at a push. So I hate to suggest it, but maybe the guild was the problem? Now I know many of the WvW guys DO spend 40+hrs/week “raiding” in there. This isn’t the same kind of raid so no offence intended.

Long story short, when the devs say raids are going to be “hard”, I think what that means is that you’re going to have to spend a little time studying and practicing the content. Without the gear stat curve to contend with though, sooner or later repetition will kick in and you’ll be completing it smoothly. Be positive, this sort of thing is very much mind over matter

Didn’t really have time to read the entire thread, but I generally agree with OP. Though, I would reword it by not saying that content “excludes” someone, rather that it “provides opportunity for a certain group of players”,

e.g. I don’t play WvW because I’m simply not very good at it currently. WvW doesn’t exclude me from logging into it; it simply requires a skill-set I don’t have. If I wanted to, I could learn said skill-set and do well in it. Raids are just the same. They require a skill-set that a section of the player-base will have to learn. Simply because it requires personal development on the player’s part does not mean it ‘excludes’ anybody. Just my two cents. =P

Raids are NOT exclusionary. They simply require knowledge of the mechanics and the ability to listen to a leader. This is the same as any area of the game (World Bosses, Dungeons, Fractals, etc.). Are Raids hard? Yes, they are meant to be. Can anyone do them? Yes! Anyone can do them if you want to learn, and if you want to get better, anyone can. There is no exclusion here. The only gate that Raids have is on skill level.

True, its not the raid that hates and excludes people.
That would be the raiders.

But yeah, keep on excluding and pushing people away from it, the faster you push everyone else to go away the faster ArenaNet will realize the extremely vocal but otherwise tiny raider minority doesn’t pay the bills and abandon raids like they did dungeons.

Actually people do have the reasons to be alarmed. In almost all MMORPG games, raids = time sinks. Just google raids and time sinks and you will find many articles. Anet hasn’t said how different raids in GW2 will be, so people can assume that raids are highly likely to become time sinks in GW2 as well.

There are two types of players who currently think it is perfectly fine to have raids in GW2:

1. Those who think that the raid boss available in the beta weekend is the only and final boss in the raid. They are misinformed.

2. Those who think it is okay to spend the required amount of time to raid in other games. One person said: "With reference to the 30-40hrs/week some think are required for raids (I was GM for a raiding guild in WoW WotLK), firstly that was mostly for gearing requirements to ensure that team members progressed at the same rate and didn’t hold each other back since people can read up on the fights in their own time and learn the general tactics. Usually a few tries is enough to get someone into the swing of things once they’ve read up on the fight. Secondly I don’t recall ever spending 40hrs/week for a raid, maybe 20, 25 at a push. So I hate to suggest it, but maybe the guild was the problem? "

For the above argument, I would first say that almost all raid guilds in WoW indeed required 30+ hours per week for raids, before raids are made shorter in WoW WotLK. A guild who was learning BWL and farming MC at the same time often had 5 raid nights per week, and each raid night required 6-7 hours. Therefore, people who experienced raiding in vanilla WOW were telling the truth.

Second, Even if a raid wing in GW2 requires 25 hours to clear, it is still not okay as the progress is reset every week. If a player can raid 25 hours, then he probably will play 35 hours a week at least. This is equivalent to have another full-time job. How many people here with a full time job and a family can fit another full-time job into their daily life?

One can argue that you can find a raid guild who already has the raid on farm status and take a three-week vacation do the raids. Even if you can do that (assuming that you wife and kids can understand your choice of using your vacation time for raids), wouldn’t it be selfish? You were not there when guild members kept wiping to learn raid encounters (otherwise 3 weeks’ vacation wouldn’t be enough), and you wouldn’t even help the guild maintain active raid activities after you finished the raid for yourself and your vacation time was over.

In a previous post, someone used college studies as an example to show that people should make this kind of commitment to raids. Let me ask this question instead: how many college students managed to maintain a GPA of A+ while finishing all the raids that were available in the MMO game that he played during his four years of studies? I don’t know any.

Blizzard realized this problem later, and that’s why in Cataclysm, they implemented LFR. People can use LFR to do easier versions of each raid, and this easier version contains shorter but more wings, so that each wing can be done in 60-90 minutes. They did this because they respect players’ real-life commitments.

Therefore, it is not true that players who are skillful enough are able to finish the raid as long as they are willing to. Among players who have enough skills, I think at most 10% of them have enough free time for raids. For the 10% who have the time now, 90% of them will not stop having this amount of time in a few years when they have challenging jobs or growing families.

gricks.1897:

Raids are NOT exclusionary. They simply require knowledge of the mechanics and the ability to listen to a leader. This is the same as any area of the game (World Bosses, Dungeons, Fractals, etc.). Are Raids hard? Yes, they are meant to be. Can anyone do them? Yes! Anyone can do them if you want to learn, and if you want to get better, anyone can. There is no exclusion here. The only gate that Raids have is on skill level.

Yeah, the only gate is the skill. And if you don’t have the right gear, you will fail due to enrage timer regardless of your skills.
Oh wait…

MyriadStars.5679:

Actually people do have the reasons to be alarmed. In almost all MMORPG games, raids = time sinks. Just google raids and time sinks and you will find many articles. Anet hasn’t said how different raids in GW2 will be, so people can assume that raids are highly likely to become time sinks in GW2 as well.

There are two types of players who currently think it is perfectly fine to have raids in GW2:

1. Those who think that the raid boss available in the beta weekend is the only and final boss in the raid. They are misinformed.

2. Those who think it is okay to spend the required amount of time to raid in other games. One person said: "With reference to the 30-40hrs/week some think are required for raids (I was GM for a raiding guild in WoW WotLK), firstly that was mostly for gearing requirements to ensure that team members progressed at the same rate and didn’t hold each other back since people can read up on the fights in their own time and learn the general tactics. Usually a few tries is enough to get someone into the swing of things once they’ve read up on the fight. Secondly I don’t recall ever spending 40hrs/week for a raid, maybe 20, 25 at a push. So I hate to suggest it, but maybe the guild was the problem? "

For the above argument, I would first say that almost all raid guilds in WoW indeed required 30+ hours per week for raids, before raids are made shorter in WoW WotLK. A guild who was learning BWL and farming MC at the same time often had 5 raid nights per week, and each raid night required 6-7 hours. Therefore, people who experienced raiding in vanilla WOW were telling the truth.

Second, Even if a raid wing in GW2 requires 25 hours to clear, it is still not okay as the progress is reset every week. If a player can raid 25 hours, then he probably will play 35 hours a week at least. This is equivalent to have another full-time job. How many people here with a full time job and a family can fit another full-time job into their daily life?

One can argue that you can find a raid guild who already has the raid on farm status and take a three-week vacation do the raids. Even if you can do that (assuming that you wife and kids can understand your choice of using your vacation time for raids), wouldn’t it be selfish? You were not there when guild members kept wiping to learn raid encounters (otherwise 3 weeks’ vacation wouldn’t be enough), and you wouldn’t even help the guild maintain active raid activities after you finished the raid for yourself and your vacation time was over.

In a previous post, someone used college studies as an example to show that people should make this kind of commitment to raids. Let me ask this question instead: how many college students managed to maintain a GPA of A+ while finishing all the raids that were available in the MMO game that he played during his four years of studies? I don’t know any.

Blizzard realized this problem later, and that’s why in Cataclysm, they implemented LFR. People can use LFR to do easier versions of each raid, and this easier version contains shorter but more wings, so that each wing can be done in 60-90 minutes. They did this because they respect players’ real-life commitments.

Therefore, it is not true that players who are skillful enough are able to finish the raid as long as they are willing to. Among players who have enough skills, I think at most 10% of them have enough free time for raids. For the 10% who have the time now, 90% of them will not stop having this amount of time in a few years when they have challenging jobs or growing families.

False. WoW added LFR because the majority of their ongoing content is raids, and as such they were bleeding casual players because they had not given those casual players enough to do. Thus, they had to figure out how to keep pushing their raid content so as not to make a massive fulcrum shift in the direction of the game while expanding the content for those less hardcore players. LFR was the result.

The majority of GW2’s ongoing content is soloable living story and open world zones. Raids are a minimal portion and as such are unlikely to have the same effect on GW2’s casual population.

GW2 basically already future proofed against the “hardcore doomsday” scenario be ensuring that when they release content, the vast majority of it is accessible to the widest portion of the player base.

PopeUrban.2578:

GW2 basically already future proofed against the “hardcore doomsday” scenario be ensuring that when they release content, the vast majority of it is accessible to the widest portion of the player base.

exactly. vast majority and widest portion is not 100% users.
thats the reason of all this flames and whines.

GW2 was born as the no raid no grind no BiS game.
It was sold with this specs, to people like me who desired to do open world events, living story, cosmetic grind.

To me and to this people, the implementation of FOTM AR and ascended had already been a kick in the teeth. So much that many of I knew quitted immediately, while others continued to login and enjoy the other contents, that are enough for a while.

However, now everything about raids, gear requirements to do it sound again like a betrayal. I don’t care if it’s 5% of the total contents of the expansion, still there it is.
Don’t care if anet was forced to do it to keep logged that part of players who require hardcore endgame content and a long, slow progression towards better performance.
It’s something some of us can’t stand at all.

I understand that devs must cover a huge range of users’ desires, but they made unsatisfied exactly those players they sold the game to at the very beginning.

I know: “it was 3years ago” “things change” “they found that people got bored of no progression after few weeks” “you can just skip raids or ascended” “probably you can close a raid naked if you’re very skilled” “there is enough other content to play many hours”.

I don’t care if someone thinks that “casuals don’t deserve endgame” “casuals shoudn’t worry about endgame because even if properly geared, they certaily would lack skills” (I’m not sure of that, indeed. maybe that a “pro” just fears it, that without that shiny weapon, their skill is exactly the same of that dirty noob?) “casuals would whine also if properly geared they’re melted by raid boss” (maybe, but i prefer to blame myself knowing that it’s my fault, and not my gear’s)

Simply, don’t want to feel behind anyone because of gear. Don’t want to work towards a long term objective, if that objective represents a gate to anything.
I chose this game and not any other game because of it.

The bad, bad, bad thing is that is exactly that part they now exclude from endgame who they had addressed with their launch advertising.

If GW2 had been like this from the beginning, me and many other filthy casuals would never have been here whining about what had been promised to them and would have skipped it as any other MMO I skipped in the past, knowing time and grind they need to be played properly.
And yes, gw2 is a bit different, but not enough.
(too tough for me to arrange this thought in words, i apologize for my grammar, I’m not english.)

PopeUrban.2578:

False. WoW added LFR because the majority of their ongoing content is raids, and as such they were bleeding casual players because they had not given those casual players enough to do. Thus, they had to figure out how to keep pushing their raid content so as not to make a massive fulcrum shift in the direction of the game while expanding the content for those less hardcore players. LFR was the result.

What I said about LFR is true. About 1 year before they implemented it, I wrote a long formal proposal in their suggestions forum, to suggest something similar. In the motivations section, I clearly wrote that I made the proposal because many players who have the skills for raids do not have the time for raids, and many players who once had the time for raids ended up quitting the game when they no longer had such time. I think Blizzard took such proposals including mine into consideration when implementing LFR. Of course, when they did implement LFR, they also took care of some of the players whose skills were not sufficient to give them some chance of seeing the content. I think it is absolutely fine for them to shoot two birds with one stone, since the rewards for LFR are inferior. No pains, no gains, and gains = rewards, not the content itself.

Why would Blizzard make each raid wing in LFR doable in 60-90 minutes, if their only goal was to take care of players who have enough free time but do not have sufficient skills? Of course Blizzard cut raids into smaller raid wings in LFR because they respect people’s real-life commitments, and this aspect of LFR had nothing to do with player skills.

In fact, it is false that the majority of the ongoing content of WoW is raids. They added many dungeons over time, which are not raids. How many new dungeons did GW2 add since release? There is more to do in WoW than in GW2, even for people who do not raid.

raids = time sinks. You just have to google raids & time sinks and you will find many articles. I think it is now the time for Anet to learn from Blizzard about how to respect players’ real-life commitments, and it used to be the other way around.

By the way, I am totally shocked that many posts suggest that casuals = no skills. In the days of vanilla WoW, people tended to think that casuals = players who cannot spend a lot of time gaming due to real-life commitments, and it had nothing to do with skills. There were many people with amazing skills in WoW claimed themselves to be casuals.

I’m a casual player that plays fairly often, and I find the prospect of raids and the difficulty they entail to be exciting. I left the game for a while because I hit 80, got my map completion, and got bored. You can only run the same events so often before they get boring, particularly when the rewards are minimal. The game has never been a stat treadmill, so unless you value the experience itself, you’ve got nothing to aspire to. There’s nothing wrong with valuing the experience, but some people do get bored of it.

Fractals, WvW, and PvP cater to different groups inside of the community but they’re available to everyone. If you enjoy PvE, why complain about WvW? If you enjoy dungeons, why complain about Fractals? What’s wrong with ANet offering content that other people would find engaging? All told, the game offers a little of everything to everyone, allowing the players to focus on what they want to spend their time on – and that’s good.

Raids are the same thing. Don’t like raiding? Don’t do them. Enjoy the story and Verdent Brink maps to your hearts content. Want to experience raiding? Give it a go – nothing’s stopping you. The only requirement is a little bit of gold and greater attention to game mechanics. It’s not gated nearly as drastically as raids in other mmos – ANet has done a great job of making it accessible to those who want to participate in it.

Bottom line though, we don’t know what the raids will be like or how long they’ll take to complete. ANet’s concept of ‘hard’ isn’t much to go by. They redesigned Tequatl to be ‘hard’ yet there are maps full of people who take him down at server reset every night. We’ll see once more details are released just how difficult these raids will be and what effect they’ll have on the community.

MyriadStars.5679:

By the way, I am totally shocked that many posts suggest that casuals = no skills. In the days of vanilla WoW, people tended to think that casuals = players who cannot spend a lot of time gaming due to real-life commitments, and it had nothing to do with skills. There were many people with amazing skills in WoW claimed themselves to be casuals.

Yeah, I hate how that word has become twisted by people. Hardcore and casual refer to the amount of time you have available to play a game. A casual player is not a bad player, I’ve met plenty of “hardcore” players that are frankly terrible at these games and lots of “casuals” that are excellent.

I know the saying is “practice makes perfect” but playing something a lot doesn’t necessarily make you any better at it. It’s true in every other game and it’s true here.

Ancelas.8216:

Fractals, WvW, and PvP cater to different groups inside of the community but they’re available to everyone.

Fractals, WvW, and PvP have one thing in common: they are not time sinks. You can enjoy them even if you play the game for under 1 hour a day (Fractals may require more time, but they are going to change that in HOT so that you can choose to do 1 instance instead of 4 random ones). However raids = time sinks for almost all MMORPG games without a proper implementation of LFR. If they indeed want to give players a viable way to clear a raid by raiding one hour every few days even if players have to spread the effort over multiple years, they should have advertised it since this will be very different from raids in other MMO.

MyriadStars.5679:

Fractals, WvW, and PvP have one thing in common: they are not time sinks. You can enjoy them even if you play the game for under 1 hour a day (Fractals may require more time, but they are going to change that in HOT so that you can choose to do 1 instance instead of 4 random ones). However raids = time sinks for almost all MMORPG games without a proper implementation of LFR. If they indeed want to give players a viable way to clear a raid by raiding one hour every few days even if players have to spread the effort over multiple years, they should have advertised it since this will be very different from raids in other MMO.

I think they chose to market raids this way deliberately to appeal to that specific community of gamers. They’ve also chosen to advertise their lack of gating and went so far as to suggest ascended items, not require them (although I may not have up to date information). In this way, they’re splitting the difference by appealing to players who have the ability to spend a lot of time on difficult content while also keeping that content open to players who may want to experiment with them.

There are plenty of alternative MMOs out there, so if ANet wants GW2 to succeed, they need to keep diversifying their content and drawing in new players. They’ve chosen not to compromise their current player base to do so by making all their content accessible, if challenging. I think it’s too easy to forget that when we get up in arms about them trying to keep the game successful.

Ancelas.8216:

They’ve chosen not to compromise their current player base to do so by making all their content accessible, if challenging.

They can still create very challenging content that can be enjoyed by people who play the game 1 hour a time, but they chose to create raids that are challenging in the sense that it is difficult for many to come up with sufficient amount of time for it. This has nothing to do with player skills.

MyriadStars.5679:

They can still create very challenging content that can be enjoyed by people who play the game 1 hour a time, but they chose to create raids that are challenging in the sense that it is difficult for many to come up with sufficient amount of time for it. This has nothing to do with player skills.

You say that they can still create challenging content that can be enjoyed 1 hour at a time – I think I need some examples. What elements of the PvE world are challenging yet take less than an hour to complete?

For the sake of argument, let’s ignore any content that utilizes zergs, like worldbosses. Zerg gameplay isn’t challenging.

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.

No, that applies to life, not to games. Life is about improving yourself to improve society, games are about having fun. There is no inherent value to improving yourself in a game, unless you personally enjoy it.

Besides, there’s other end game available to those who can’t beat a Raid. If someone chooses to leave the game, they can come back at any time, since there’s no subscription fees.

Just so long as the rewards are the same, that’s a fair point. If they make the rewards different, however, that is a moot point.

Smooth Penguin I agree with you 100%. I wish there were more people with a Open mind like this. An I, as a Hardcore player am glad they are bringing challaging content to the game, that we as hardcore/elite players want. Its really sad imo that ppl frown upon it like its a bad thing, to want to be reward for your hard earned efferts. An casuel/normal players should respect this. because for 3 years Hardcore/elite players have had nothing challanging enough to go on. An with this content we as the hardcore/elite part of the commenity will have something to do. Personally I dont need to say more because Smooth has taken the words right out of mouth. An im Glad. Keep it up Anet.

Edit: They need to add the fractel system to raids so casual/normal players can do raids for the lore.

The boss we faced in the beta only takes like 10 minutes to kill if you do it right so it’s hard to imagine a raid taking 40 hours to complete.

I am hardly some master elite player in GW2. Half the reason I stay here is I got tired of raids in other MMO’s. But my experience this weekend leads me to believe that raids in GW2 are going to be reasonably accessible, and challenging without being impossible.

Yes, you’ll need good gear, but that’s not too difficult. Between crafting, karma, and laurels, even someone who doesn’t like PvP can get Exotics or better.

And yes, you’ll need to set your character(s) up for playing specific roles in raids. Anyone who’s been playing a while should already have a good idea how to play at least some of the roles. And sometimes learning to be good at that role can be half the fun. In the raid I was in this weekend I was already set up reasonably for a role, but as I played I figured out ways I could do it better.

And yes, raids will need skill, but any advanced content should require skill. But, again, I’m not an elite player, but I was able to hold my own pretty well once I understood what I needed to do.

Raids may not be everyone’s cup of tea. But from what I saw this weekend, they will only be “exclusive” if you let them be.

paintpixie.7398:

Edit: If you read one link, out of the slew of the ones I posted, read this one:

http://www.containsmoderateperil.com/we-dont-need-you-anyway/

It has the most relevance, I think, to this topic in general, and thus can best be applied to this game in particular.
Quoted from one of the comments on the above article:
“The absurdity of the Rick Heaton numbers was pointed out by many people in many ways. It was a terrible move from a customer relations standpoint as well. I think the final nail in the coffin for that argument was Turbine’s own actions two years later as they, after a mass exodus of players, began making group instances and are now releasing a new PVP map. If only Rick Heaton were still around to face the players as his ‘resource allocation criteria’ were contradicted by Turbine’s own development.”

I read that one. The thing that stuck out to me was this one:
“Yet I would argue, that in these times of MMO tourism, where playerbases are incredibly transitory, raiders and PvPers are likely two of the types of players who are invested for the long term, and have probably been playing and paying for a while. That’s got to be worth something right? What sort of community are you left with when a large segment of your long term players are gone, effectively told the game isn’t for them anymore?”

Raiders and PvP players tend to stick to a game. They don’t pick up a 3-year old game for a single raid instance and then stick to it: they go back to the game they’ve BEEN playing, the one that has been serving their wants and needs for the last several years. meanwhile, the people who HAVE been playing GW2, who have been enjoying the game for what it is, are being disenfranchised. We are being told that there is shiny new raid content, which is fine. There are also new rewards, which are gated behind the content that we really never wanted and never missed not having.

There have been a lot of MMO’s that,somewhere along the line, decided to change their core philosophy in order to chase some demographic. It rarely works out well, because the people who are ALREADY playing the game, ALREADY enjoying the game, and ALREADY making the game money are unlikely to enjoy a paradigm shift away from the game that they like. Meanwhile, the new demographic almost never materializes: they have games that were built from scratch that meet their needs already, and no incentive to simply uproot themselves to a new game where their favored content is just a bolt-on addition.

Games that have included raids for the last 3 years have raiding communities. They have far more than a single raid instance worth of content. They have guilds built for raiding, experienced raiders, a dev team that has spent years refining and developing those raids. Why in the world would raiders come to a game that has none of that? I made a prediction in another thread that the raiders will come, they will beat the content, and they’ll basically say “And that’s it? I’m going back to my main game, then.”

If GW2 becomes all about the raiding, where if you don’t raid, you don’t matter, then as a long-time player of this game, I personally will have to move on. I bought a game I enjoyed, and if this game is going to become “raiders are more important, they get exclusive access tot he best stuff,” then it is no longer the game I bought, and no longer a game that interests me.

Eh, cancelled my preorder. I was only interested in this game because it didn’t feature raiding and was more about open world challenges and pvp. It came out as my interest in raiding in WoW after 8 years was starting wane (still managed to beat Seigecrafter Blackfuse 10-man before nerfs before quitting static raiding completely though). Its bad enough this expansion looks like a glorified patch and I still don’t like the dependence on crafting to get cool kitten in this game.

Long story short, Imma just stick with Wildstar (open world and pvp) and Final Fantasy 14 (HM 4-mans and casual raiding) as both feature systems that get me cool gear without crafting and automated grouping tools that respect my free time and still net me great gear (FF14 LFR gear is 10 ilvls below the actual raid but majority of the playerbase is super casual so yeah, makes sense).

I’ll come back if raids fail or Anet gets the common sense to finally add in automated grouping tools.

Sayonara!

No actually it’s not ok, there should at least be a story version like all of the 5 mans had.

Ancelas.8216:

You say that they can still create challenging content that can be enjoyed 1 hour at a time – I think I need some examples. What elements of the PvE world are challenging yet take less than an hour to complete?

It’s trivial to come up with an example. If the raid that they will create will be challenging and it contains 10 bosses (not including mini-bosses), then create 10 instances and put each boss in one instance. It’s going to be same boss and same mechanism, and no nerfing is required. You need to have the achievement of beating the first boss before entering the second instance later, but you need not kill the first boss again each time you want to enter the second instance. Then players who know the fights can get a group and finish one instance in one hour.

MissKitty.9054:

Edit: They need to add the fractel system to raids so casual/normal players can do raids for the lore.

That’s exactly what I think is needed for raids in GW2. Put each boss in one instance, so that people without enough free time can attempt one boss a time and spread the effort over many months.

By the way, I think people who have enough free time for raids should realize that having a fractals-like system for raids will ultimately be good for themselves. Many players bought GW2 because GW2 was advertised as a game without typical MMO traps (e.g., raids which are time sinks). Many will leave if raids are implemented as time sinks in typical MMOs. If the game becomes dead because too many players leave, then no matter how much free time you have, it’s not fun to play in a dead MMO.

Astralporing.1957:

nacario.9417:

Raids are like higher tier pvp, everyone has a shot at it if they make a group and progress. Theres no stat hinderance between higher tiered and low, ascended is the final stat that isnt surpassed by legendary. This game offers vast content types and now finally something to work for, something this game needs to peak interest, while not being the sole focus and doesnt exclude players since we are all on the same stat field. Kids and grownups are easily spoiled.

Except we aren’t on the same stat field. So in that way it is highly unlike PvP. sPvP is all about skill, while raids seem to put greater emphasis on gear.

And classes. Some are worthless in raids.

MyriadStars.5679:

By the way, I think people who have enough free time for raids should realize that having a fractals-like system for raids will ultimately be good for themselves. Many players bought GW2 because GW2 was advertised as a game without typical MMO traps (e.g., raids which are time sinks). Many will leave if raids are implemented as time sinks in typical MMOs. If the game becomes dead because too many players leave, then no matter how much free time you have, it’s not fun to play in a dead MMO.

Yes. I find this funny. Remember when GW2 was all about NO raids, NO gear grind, NO trinity, etc?

Now it’s raids, gear grinding and advertising for tanks, healers and DPS. I hope thier gigantic turnaround doesn’t drive away players. It cannot, nay will not, survive on the back of the 1%’er hardcore elitist types.

Like it or not, this game is bankrolled by casuals. Alienate them at your peril.

MashMash.1645:

MyriadStars.5679:

By the way, I think people who have enough free time for raids should realize that having a fractals-like system for raids will ultimately be good for themselves. Many players bought GW2 because GW2 was advertised as a game without typical MMO traps (e.g., raids which are time sinks). Many will leave if raids are implemented as time sinks in typical MMOs. If the game becomes dead because too many players leave, then no matter how much free time you have, it’s not fun to play in a dead MMO.

Yes. I find this funny. Remember when GW2 was all about NO raids, NO gear grind, NO trinity, etc?

Now it’s raids, gear grinding and advertising for tanks, healers and DPS. I hope thier gigantic turnaround doesn’t drive away players. It cannot, nay will not, survive on the back of the 1%’er hardcore elitist types.

Like it or not, this game is bankrolled by casuals. Alienate them at your peril.

Actually the addition of a more involved game mode will likely attract and keep players they don’t currently have. Why do people say “raids exist => the game is changed beyond my liking” when clearly if you don’t like them you can just not do them and the game is exactly the same.

Coulter.2315:

Actually the addition of a more involved game mode will likely attract and keep players they don’t currently have. Why do people say “raids exist => the game is changed beyond my liking” when clearly if you don’t like them you can just not do them and the game is exactly the same.

because it’s no longer a matter of just “if you don’t like the content, you can not do them”, it’s now a multifaceted issue revolving the lack of fractal mechanics for differently skilled players to experience content, content gating by gear, content gating by skill level and group composition, content gating by other players who don’t meet their standard of skill level and/or gear checks, the fact that there’s a FULL armour set of legendaries that nobody BUT raiders can get and no other alternatives of getting those legendaries and the potential for other types of content to be affected by the mentality of the elitist jerks who want to keep content away from most players

MashMash.1645:

MyriadStars.5679:

By the way, I think people who have enough free time for raids should realize that having a fractals-like system for raids will ultimately be good for themselves. Many players bought GW2 because GW2 was advertised as a game without typical MMO traps (e.g., raids which are time sinks). Many will leave if raids are implemented as time sinks in typical MMOs. If the game becomes dead because too many players leave, then no matter how much free time you have, it’s not fun to play in a dead MMO.

Yes. I find this funny. Remember when GW2 was all about NO raids, NO gear grind, NO trinity, etc?

Now it’s raids, gear grinding and advertising for tanks, healers and DPS. I hope thier gigantic turnaround doesn’t drive away players. It cannot, nay will not, survive on the back of the 1%’er hardcore elitist types.

Like it or not, this game is bankrolled by casuals. Alienate them at your peril.

Nobody is forcing the casuals to do the raids chances are raids will only offer different skins and not a stat boost, so why does it matter? It’s the same argument people had about not being able to get legendaries, nobody is forcing you to grind one out, but if you want it then you have to grind for it. Likewise if you like the skins offered in raids, take the time to learn how to do it.

“Everybody is a winner” is not possible nor should a game try to attempt achieving it.

castlemanic.3198:

Coulter.2315:

Actually the addition of a more involved game mode will likely attract and keep players they don’t currently have. Why do people say “raids exist => the game is changed beyond my liking” when clearly if you don’t like them you can just not do them and the game is exactly the same.

because it’s no longer a matter of just “if you don’t like the content, you can not do them”, it’s now a multifaceted issue revolving the lack of fractal mechanics for differently skilled players to experience content, content gating by gear, content gating by skill level and group composition, content gating by other players who don’t meet their standard of skill level and/or gear checks, the fact that there’s a FULL armour set of legendaries that nobody BUT raiders can get and no other alternatives of getting those legendaries and the potential for other types of content to be affected by the mentality of the elitist jerks who want to keep content away from most players

There is no gating by gear because they never said that armor would have better stats. The only gating which already exists is skill and you know if you just put in the time you could learn the fights…

GrapeGatsby.6937:

Nobody is forcing the casuals to do the raids chances are raids will only offer different skins and not a stat boost, so why does it matter? It’s the same argument people had about not being able to get legendaries, nobody is forcing you to grind one out, but if you want it then you have to grind for it. Likewise if you like the skins offered in raids, take the time to learn how to do it.

The difference is that legendaries are rewards while raids are content. It’s fine to have less rewards or to get rewards at a much slower pace if you play less, but it’s not fine to have access to less content if you don’t have the kind of gaming time per week that is enough for a 2nd full-time job.

MyriadStars.5679:

GrapeGatsby.6937:

Nobody is forcing the casuals to do the raids chances are raids will only offer different skins and not a stat boost, so why does it matter? It’s the same argument people had about not being able to get legendaries, nobody is forcing you to grind one out, but if you want it then you have to grind for it. Likewise if you like the skins offered in raids, take the time to learn how to do it.

The difference is that legendaries are rewards while raids are content. It’s fine to have less rewards or to get rewards at a much slower pace if you play less, but it’s not fine to have access to less content if you don’t have the kind of gaming time per week that is enough for a 2nd full-time job.

Don’t join a highly focused raid guild then, get a casual guild group and work your way through at your own pace. You decide how much of your time you invest in the game, when you make this decision you also need to understand you won’t be getting things at the speed people who invest more do.

The only gates are choices of yourself and those you choose to play with.

MyriadStars.5679:

GrapeGatsby.6937:

Nobody is forcing the casuals to do the raids chances are raids will only offer different skins and not a stat boost, so why does it matter? It’s the same argument people had about not being able to get legendaries, nobody is forcing you to grind one out, but if you want it then you have to grind for it. Likewise if you like the skins offered in raids, take the time to learn how to do it.

The difference is that legendaries are rewards while raids are content. It’s fine to have less rewards or to get rewards at a much slower pace if you play less, but it’s not fine to have access to less content if you don’t have the kind of gaming time per week that is enough for a 2nd full-time job.

I think you’re overestimating the time and commitment that raids in Heart of the Thorn are going to require. Also there are always groups that don’t complete raids or do one to two bosses to get materials which would take less time. Not sure about this one but did they say that the materials for the legendary precursor are bound to account? If not you could always just buy off of the marketplace.

Coulter.2315:

MyriadStars.5679:

GrapeGatsby.6937:

Nobody is forcing the casuals to do the raids chances are raids will only offer different skins and not a stat boost, so why does it matter? It’s the same argument people had about not being able to get legendaries, nobody is forcing you to grind one out, but if you want it then you have to grind for it. Likewise if you like the skins offered in raids, take the time to learn how to do it.

The difference is that legendaries are rewards while raids are content. It’s fine to have less rewards or to get rewards at a much slower pace if you play less, but it’s not fine to have access to less content if you don’t have the kind of gaming time per week that is enough for a 2nd full-time job.

Don’t join a highly focused raid guild then, get a casual guild group and work your way through at your own pace. You decide how much of your time you invest in the game, when you make this decision you also need to understand you won’t be getting things at the speed people who invest more do.

The only gates are choices of yourself and those you choose to play with.

In games like WoW, I would say that more than 99.99% players who cleared a raid instance did so with a raid guild for which a raid night = 5-7 hours of game play without any major breaks, and there are several raid nights per week.

It’s difficult to get a fixed group of 10 players to learn raid encounters by playing 1 hour a time. If you would like to limit your game play time to ideally an hour a day, then most likely it’s because you have a challenging job or other real-life commitments. If this is the case, it is likely that you will play the game when you have the time and need for relaxing, and it won’t be exactly the same time very night. Because of this, you cannot join most of the per-arranged raids with 9 other players.

If you pug, then the weekly reset will get in the way. It should be easy to pug the first couple of bosses, but let’s say that the bosses become very difficult starting from the 3rd boss. Then you will wipe many times before you can kill a boss in a pug. This means that if you want to kill one difficult boss, it will require many tries and thus a few hours at least. This would be a problem if your progress is reset every week but you don’t have several hours’ time every day for gaming. If you choose to pug the entire raid instance by killing one difficult boss per day, you many need to play 4+ hours per day for 7 days in a row. That’s a lot of time and it even requires more time than doing the raid in a raid guild.

Therefore, to prevent raids from becoming time sinks, some in-game mechanisms are needed. Cutting the raid into smaller pieces so that people can attack each piece at their own pace would be a viable solution, and no “nerfing” is needed. I don’t mind wiping many times before everyone in the pug team learns a particular encounter, as long as I can spread the effort over as many months as needed.

One quick action that could be taken is to let players keep their current raid progress indefinitely if they choose to. This is not as good as providing more in-game mechanisms to help players attempt one boss a time, but it will help to some degree.

GrapeGatsby.6937:

There is no gating by gear because they never said that armor would have better stats. The only gating which already exists is skill and you know if you just put in the time you could learn the fights…

except that they’ve explicitly recommended that players should have ascended gear, which translates into gear gating by elitist jerks. plus elitist jerks WILL kick less skilled players from groups, not giving them the chance to even try to learn the content. on top of that they’ve made raids dedicated to hardcore players and have removed the possibility of pugging it, so there’s also a skill check involved and a group composition check on top of all of that by the game itself.

you see where i’m going with this?

MyriadStars.5679:

Coulter.2315:

MyriadStars.5679:

GrapeGatsby.6937:

Nobody is forcing the casuals to do the raids chances are raids will only offer different skins and not a stat boost, so why does it matter? It’s the same argument people had about not being able to get legendaries, nobody is forcing you to grind one out, but if you want it then you have to grind for it. Likewise if you like the skins offered in raids, take the time to learn how to do it.

The difference is that legendaries are rewards while raids are content. It’s fine to have less rewards or to get rewards at a much slower pace if you play less, but it’s not fine to have access to less content if you don’t have the kind of gaming time per week that is enough for a 2nd full-time job.

Don’t join a highly focused raid guild then, get a casual guild group and work your way through at your own pace. You decide how much of your time you invest in the game, when you make this decision you also need to understand you won’t be getting things at the speed people who invest more do.

The only gates are choices of yourself and those you choose to play with.

In games like WoW, I would say that more than 99.99% players who cleared a raid instance did so with a raid guild for which a raid night = 5-7 hours of game play without any major breaks, and there are several raid nights per week.

It’s difficult to get a fixed group of 10 players to learn raid encounters by playing 1 hour a time. If you would like to limit your game play time to ideally an hour a day, then most likely it’s because you have a challenging job or other real-life commitments. If this is the case, it is likely that you will play the game when you have the time and need for relaxing, and it won’t be exactly the same time very night. Because of this, you cannot join most of the per-arranged raids with 9 other players.

If you pug, then the weekly reset will get in the way. It should be easy to pug the first couple of bosses, but let’s say that the bosses become very difficult starting from the 3rd boss. Then you will wipe many times before you can kill a boss in a pug. This means that if you want to kill one difficult boss, it will require many tries and thus a few hours at least. This would be a problem if your progress is reset every week but you don’t have several hours’ time every day for gaming. If you choose to pug the entire raid instance by killing one difficult boss per day, you many need to play 4+ hours per day for 7 days in a row. That’s a lot of time and it even requires more time than doing the raid in a raid guild.

Therefore, to prevent raids from becoming time sinks, some in-game mechanisms are needed. Cutting the raid into smaller pieces so that people can attack each piece at their own pace would be a viable solution, and no “nerfing” is needed. I don’t mind wiping many times before everyone in the pug team learns a particular encounter, as long as I can spread the effort over as many months as needed.

One quick action that could be taken is to let players keep their current raid progress indefinitely if they choose to. This is not as good as providing more in-game mechanisms to help players attempt one boss a time, but it will help to some degree.

That’s a reasonable argument, but did they say that the materials for legendary precursors are locked to certain bosses? If not then nothing is stopping you from farming just the first few bosses in the raid every week.

GrapeGatsby.6937:

MyriadStars.5679:

GrapeGatsby.6937:

Nobody is forcing the casuals to do the raids chances are raids will only offer different skins and not a stat boost, so why does it matter? It’s the same argument people had about not being able to get legendaries, nobody is forcing you to grind one out, but if you want it then you have to grind for it. Likewise if you like the skins offered in raids, take the time to learn how to do it.

The difference is that legendaries are rewards while raids are content. It’s fine to have less rewards or to get rewards at a much slower pace if you play less, but it’s not fine to have access to less content if you don’t have the kind of gaming time per week that is enough for a 2nd full-time job.

I think you’re overestimating the time and commitment that raids in Heart of the Thorn are going to require. Also there are always groups that don’t complete raids or do one to two bosses to get materials which would take less time. Not sure about this one but did they say that the materials for the legendary precursor are bound to account? If not you could always just buy off of the marketplace.

Well, I am afraid that you misunderstood my post. I don’t mind not having legendary armor, but I do think it wrong to restrict access to content (raid encounter itself) based on the amount of free time that one has, in a game advertised as one without “typical MMO traps”.

MyriadStars.5679:

GrapeGatsby.6937:

MyriadStars.5679:

GrapeGatsby.6937:

Nobody is forcing the casuals to do the raids chances are raids will only offer different skins and not a stat boost, so why does it matter? It’s the same argument people had about not being able to get legendaries, nobody is forcing you to grind one out, but if you want it then you have to grind for it. Likewise if you like the skins offered in raids, take the time to learn how to do it.

The difference is that legendaries are rewards while raids are content. It’s fine to have less rewards or to get rewards at a much slower pace if you play less, but it’s not fine to have access to less content if you don’t have the kind of gaming time per week that is enough for a 2nd full-time job.

I think you’re overestimating the time and commitment that raids in Heart of the Thorn are going to require. Also there are always groups that don’t complete raids or do one to two bosses to get materials which would take less time. Not sure about this one but did they say that the materials for the legendary precursor are bound to account? If not you could always just buy off of the marketplace.

Well, I am afraid that you misunderstood my post. I don’t mind not having legendary armor, but I do think it wrong to restrict access to content (raid encounter itself) based on the amount of free time that one has, in a game advertised as one without “typical MMO traps”.

Oh you want to do the content by significantly altering the content? (then you wouldn’t be doing the content because its now different content)

I think you’ll be able to get some guildies interested in giving it a try. WoW raid guilds don’t all start at speed clears and LKHeroic, people take time to get into it and if you want to raid you can build up a group of your friends who like it and look out for good players you meet (giving use to guilds and socialising).

MyriadStars.5679:

GrapeGatsby.6937:

MyriadStars.5679:

GrapeGatsby.6937:

Nobody is forcing the casuals to do the raids chances are raids will only offer different skins and not a stat boost, so why does it matter? It’s the same argument people had about not being able to get legendaries, nobody is forcing you to grind one out, but if you want it then you have to grind for it. Likewise if you like the skins offered in raids, take the time to learn how to do it.

The difference is that legendaries are rewards while raids are content. It’s fine to have less rewards or to get rewards at a much slower pace if you play less, but it’s not fine to have access to less content if you don’t have the kind of gaming time per week that is enough for a 2nd full-time job.

I think you’re overestimating the time and commitment that raids in Heart of the Thorn are going to require. Also there are always groups that don’t complete raids or do one to two bosses to get materials which would take less time. Not sure about this one but did they say that the materials for the legendary precursor are bound to account? If not you could always just buy off of the marketplace.

Well, I am afraid that you misunderstood my post. I don’t mind not having legendary armor, but I do think it wrong to restrict access to content (raid encounter itself) based on the amount of free time that one has, in a game advertised as one without “typical MMO traps”.

I mean I guess they could do what WoW did and just make multiple difficulties of the same raid and just give rewards based on difficulty, but for some reason I feel like people would end up complaining about that too.

Coulter.2315:

Oh you want to do the content by significantly altering the content? (then you wouldn’t be doing the content because its now different content)

If each boss were put into a separate instance, then:

1. The amount of player skill required is not changed

2. The boss mechanism is not changed

3. The story is not changed if you are required to get the achievement of completing the previous instances before entering the next (but you don’t have to do them in the same week)

Everything that is related to the lore and player skill remains unchanged, so I don’t see any issue of altering the content in this way.

GrapeGatsby.6937:

MyriadStars.5679:

GrapeGatsby.6937:

MyriadStars.5679:

GrapeGatsby.6937:

Nobody is forcing the casuals to do the raids chances are raids will only offer different skins and not a stat boost, so why does it matter? It’s the same argument people had about not being able to get legendaries, nobody is forcing you to grind one out, but if you want it then you have to grind for it. Likewise if you like the skins offered in raids, take the time to learn how to do it.

The difference is that legendaries are rewards while raids are content. It’s fine to have less rewards or to get rewards at a much slower pace if you play less, but it’s not fine to have access to less content if you don’t have the kind of gaming time per week that is enough for a 2nd full-time job.

I think you’re overestimating the time and commitment that raids in Heart of the Thorn are going to require. Also there are always groups that don’t complete raids or do one to two bosses to get materials which would take less time. Not sure about this one but did they say that the materials for the legendary precursor are bound to account? If not you could always just buy off of the marketplace.

Well, I am afraid that you misunderstood my post. I don’t mind not having legendary armor, but I do think it wrong to restrict access to content (raid encounter itself) based on the amount of free time that one has, in a game advertised as one without “typical MMO traps”.

I mean I guess they could do what WoW did and just make multiple difficulties of the same raid and just give rewards based on difficulty, but for some reason I feel like people would end up complaining about that too.

After wow did that, I think the most complaints are from elite players who are not happy that players with less time can also see the content…at least according to the forum posts that I read at battle.net

MyriadStars.5679:

Coulter.2315:

Oh you want to do the content by significantly altering the content? (then you wouldn’t be doing the content because its now different content)

If each boss were put into a separate instance, then:

1. The amount of player skill required is not changed

2. The boss mechanism is not changed

3. The story is not changed if you are required to get the achievement of completing the previous instances before entering the next (but you don’t have to do them in the same week)

Everything that is related to the lore and player skill remains unchanged, so I don’t see any issue of altering the content in this way.

Except it kinda kills the epic feeling of doing a Raid (which is kinda what they are going for).

Mechanically I suppose it doesn’t change much but how a game makes you feel is important.

Coulter.2315:

MyriadStars.5679:

Coulter.2315:

Oh you want to do the content by significantly altering the content? (then you wouldn’t be doing the content because its now different content)

If each boss were put into a separate instance, then:

1. The amount of player skill required is not changed

2. The boss mechanism is not changed

3. The story is not changed if you are required to get the achievement of completing the previous instances before entering the next (but you don’t have to do them in the same week)

Everything that is related to the lore and player skill remains unchanged, so I don’t see any issue of altering the content in this way.

Except it kinda kills the epic feeling of doing a Raid (which is kinda what they are going for).

Mechanically I suppose it doesn’t change much but how a game makes you feel is important.

I agree that the epic feeling may go away, but you do realize that most people who prefer such epic feelings and have sufficient time for raids now will not have enough time to raid in a few years because of real-life commitments?

Well, I think both versions of raids (fractals-like and long epic ones) can co-exist, requiring the same amount of player skills but different amount of free time. Two versions of the same content is fine…We do have 50 versions of fractals now and there will be 100 versions in HOT (I am talking about scales).

After some thinking, I think it would be best for Anet themselves if they implement two forms of raids in game: the long epic one, and a fractals-like one which contains one instance per boss. After half a year, they will have the statistical data that shows which form is more popular. They can then concentrate more on that particular form. I would estimate that the latter form would be more popular.

The fact that people are taking the ascended “requirement” scares me the difference between the 2 is laughable and arguably impossible to truly optimize a raid around

Turbotef.9203:

Eh, cancelled my preorder. I was only interested in this game because it didn’t feature raiding and was more about open world challenges and pvp. It came out as my interest in raiding in WoW after 8 years was starting wane (still managed to beat Seigecrafter Blackfuse 10-man before nerfs before quitting static raiding completely though). Its bad enough this expansion looks like a glorified patch and I still don’t like the dependence on crafting to get cool kitten in this game.

Long story short, Imma just stick with Wildstar (open world and pvp) and Final Fantasy 14 (HM 4-mans and casual raiding) as both feature systems that get me cool gear without crafting and automated grouping tools that respect my free time and still net me great gear (FF14 LFR gear is 10 ilvls below the actual raid but majority of the playerbase is super casual so yeah, makes sense).

I’ll come back if raids fail or Anet gets the common sense to finally add in automated grouping tools.

Sayonara!

you realize nobody is forcing you to do raids right? have fun aggressively ignoring the other 96% of the game that’s still available to you i guess