Guild Wars 2

Bob.7189:

Not to mention you contradicted your original post: “Raids…exclude some people….”

You have completely baffled me as to the point of your thread.

You need to read more to understand, and not skip over everything except a key sentence or two.

The point of this thread is to help people understand that Raids are not for everyone, never will be for everyone, and there’s nothing wrong with that. If Legendary armor is exclusive to completing Raid content, that’s a bonus to those players who are skilled enough, coordinated enough, and geared properly.

Anet created content that caters to a small group of players. But they don’t lock you out of trying. This way, if you try a Raid and fail, you can keep trying and grow as a player. The more you fail, logically the more you learn. In a round about way, Raids are a learning tool to help increase the skill levels of all who enter.

People need to remember that we’re not Entitled to having everything in this game handed to us. There are some things that must be earned. Anet understands this, and is now making all the new Legendary weapons account bound. No more arguing over the price of a Precursor. Now you need to play all the different types of content, travel throughout the world to fill collections, and succeed in meeting all the requirements. God Bless you Anet for adding more Challenges to GW2.

You must not play other MMOs which have had easier raid options for a few years (WoW, for longer than that) now and they’re bigger than GW2. The point is, people aren’t stupid and they know better options for raiding is featured in other MMOs and they have variable difficulty options for various levels of skill and time. These options were implemented because making content for an very small portion of the player base turned out to be a huge waste of time and money when your bigger portion of non-raid players get stuck with nothing and no means to improve your character.

You can spout out how exclusive this this and that should remain as such but after playing MMOs for 15+ years (and raiding for 9 of those years) I know better and one of several options WILL occur:

1. It actually succeeds and everything you’re fighting for hasn’t been for naught! Yay! Go you!

This is the least probable outcome btw

2. It flops, hard and they stop making raids and go back to focusing on fractals and maybe even making some actual dungeons as well and a new queuing system for them so more people actually do them this time.

I’m sure you see where this is going, right?

3. They make an easier (i.e random queue version with a slightly worse reward, maybe) version of the raid after they discover that raid attendance turns out to be atrocious. They then do whatever it takes to try and salvage it and then their true motives are finally shown if this occurs.

Well see what happens but I still feel that variable difficulty options from the start would be in their best interest instead of learning the hard way or outright getting rid of it. Its seems they don;t know how to learn from their peers and would rather be know it all hipsters about the whole things.

I know I’ll be here with my popcorn watching how it unfolds while I raid the new casual content in next months FFXIV patch along with minion battles!

Turbotef.9203:

You must not play other MMOs which have had easier raid options for a few years (WoW, for longer than that) now and they’re bigger than GW2. The point is, people aren’t stupid and they know better options for raiding is featured in other MMOs and they have variable difficulty options for various levels of skill and time. These options were implemented because making content for an very small portion of the player base turned out to be a huge waste of time and money when your bigger portion of non-raid players get stuck with nothing and no means to improve your character.

You can spout out how exclusive this this and that should remain as such but after playing MMOs for 15+ years (and raiding for 9 of those years) I know better and one of several options WILL occur:

1. It actually succeeds and everything you’re fighting for hasn’t been for naught! Yay! Go you!

This is the least probable outcome btw

2. It flops, hard and they stop making raids and go back to focusing on fractals and maybe even making some actual dungeons as well and a new queuing system for them so more people actually do them this time.

I’m sure you see where this is going, right?

3. They make an easier (i.e random queue version with a slightly worse reward, maybe) version of the raid after they discover that raid attendance turns out to be atrocious. They then do whatever it takes to try and salvage it and then their true motives are finally shown if this occurs.

Well see what happens but I still feel that variable difficulty options from the start would be in their best interest instead of learning the hard way or outright getting rid of it. Its seems they don;t know how to learn from their peers and would rather be know it all hipsters about the whole things.

I know I’ll be here with my popcorn watching how it unfolds while I raid the new casual content in next months FFXIV patch along with minion battles!

All I want to mention here is, if you really want to consider raiding difficulties a benefit to WoWs raiding community, you seem to not have been a successful hardcore raider.

What Blizzards streamlined raid service has done is open up “raiding” to a vast majority of their playerbase. That’s good as far as themepark MMOs go.

At the same time, and due to the nature of how scaling in these situation works, it has had a detrimental effect on raiding mechanics and uniquness.

Not to mention that the easier raid difficulties are themeparks or lootpiniatas to please the masses. Just because it’s called Looking For Raid does not mean its raiding. It’s more like gather x amaount of random players, show them the cool level design, reward them some shinies and bye.

Let’s not embarasse ourselves and call that raiding, please.

[/quote]
The point of this thread is to help people understand that Raids are not for everyone, never will be for everyone, and there’s nothing wrong with that. If Legendary armor is exclusive to completing Raid content, that’s a bonus to those players who are skilled enough, coordinated enough, and geared properly.[/quote]

This is really wrong lock legendary armour behind raid…
Skilled www/pvp player?
And the story? Unskilled ppl need to check youtube for see what happen?

Cyninja.2954:

All I want to mention here is, if you really want to consider raiding difficulties a benefit to WoWs raiding community, you seem to not have been a successful hardcore raider.

What Blizzards streamlined raid service has done is open up “raiding” to a vast majority of their playerbase. That’s good as far as themepark MMOs go.

At the same time, and due to the nature of how scaling in these situation works, it has had a detrimental effect on raiding mechanics and uniquness.

Not to mention that the easier raid difficulties are themeparks or lootpiniatas to please the masses. Just because it’s called Looking For Raid does not mean its raiding. It’s more like gather x amaount of random players, show them the cool level design, reward them some shinies and bye.

Let’s not embarasse ourselves and call that raiding, please.

Eh, I find that its mostly the wannabe hardcores and tryhards that make these kind of arguments and assumptions tbh but I’ll bite still.

Cleared 10 and 25-man Ulduar and ICC on my enhance shaman in 2009 and 2010, I then main tanked (after my one main tank quit the game) and cleared heroic 10-man Firelands, Dragon Soul, and the first three conjoined raids of MoP, then switched servers and switched back to my shaman as melee and did the rest of the expansion in the 10-man heroic and stopped at Heroic Garrosh pre-nerf. I stopped raiding in WoW with 3 Mythic bosses under my belt and almost all of heroic BRF done. Came in the top 10 10-man DPS parses a few times as well. But that’s cool guy, you keep making assumptions.

I just don’t like raiding anymore with a static group and just prefer the randoms now. I do fight the non-DF (their version of LFR which is actually way harder than WoW’s) bosses on FFXIV here and there though. Its gets old after doing it with various groups over 10+ years, and yes, its still raiding regardless of what you say or any other salty individual wannabe hardcore says on other forums.

There is nothing wrong with options is all I’m saying and it will not hurt the game to have them no matter what anyone says. I still however think its stupid shoehorning raiding of this sort into a game like this though. I bought this game because it didn’t have this type of content in it. This I cancelled my preorder of HoT. I’ll snag it on a $10 sale later after they wise up or fail.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

The point of this thread is to help people understand that Raids are not for everyone, never will be for everyone, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

Agreed.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

If Legendary armor is exclusive to completing Raid content, that’s a bonus to those players who are skilled enough, coordinated enough, and geared properly.

Well, by definition. Still doesn’t make the exclusivity okay however.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

People need to remember that we’re not Entitled to having everything in this game handed to us. There are some things that must be earned.

Now, it is your time to actually read what is being said, instead of skipping. We’re not asking about Legendary armor to be handed to us. We are perfectly okay with earning it. We just don’t want to earn it in raids. Because, as you have said, raids are not for everyone.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

God Bless you Anet for adding more Challenges to GW2.

Exclusive rewards do not make a challenge.

Cyninja.2954:

All I want to mention here is, if you really want to consider raiding difficulties a benefit to WoWs raiding community, you seem to not have been a successful hardcore raider.

You may have misunderstood. He was talking about the benefit for the community as a whol, not for the Raiding community.
Of course, hardcore raiders do not benefit from it (not directly anyway). They could do raids just fine before, after all.
It’s the rest of the community that benefits. And incidentally, even in such a raid-heavy game as wow, that nonhardcore rest is a huge majority.
(also incidentally, raiders also benefit indirectly from having that majority happy – because it affects the game income and prospects).

Cyninja.2954:

What Blizzards streamlined raid service has done is open up “raiding” to a vast majority of their playerbase. That’s good as far as themepark MMOs go.

At the same time, and due to the nature of how scaling in these situation works, it has had a detrimental effect on raiding mechanics and uniquness.

Not to mention that the easier raid difficulties are themeparks or lootpiniatas to please the masses. Just because it’s called Looking For Raid does not mean its raiding. It’s more like gather x amaount of random players, show them the cool level design, reward them some shinies and bye.

Let’s not embarasse ourselves and call that raiding, please.

So, you agree. It did benefit WoW community (at the small cost of offending some hardcore raiders’ aestethics).

Seth.8906:

The point of this thread is to help people understand that Raids are not for everyone, never will be for everyone, and there’s nothing wrong with that. If Legendary armor is exclusive to completing Raid content, that’s a bonus to those players who are skilled enough, coordinated enough, and geared properly.

I can agree with raids not being for everyone, but who are they for? What type of player (wants challenging content, wants exclusive rewards, plays > 3 h/day,…) or character(class, trait line, type of gear, number of gear sets, …) are they for?

Smooth Penguin.5294:

tl;dr – Raids are good for this game because it allows high skilled players to earn rewards worthy of their efforts, gives incentives to grow and become a better player, and gives Hardcore players content that they can enjoy.

The issue here, is that Raids take significant development time. So, basically, for each raid… We’re “giving up” other features and content. (WoW’s dev team has essentially said as much, by stating “we can do this, but it’ll cost you a raid.”)

Let’s face it: Using high-end fractals as the only current example of “challenging content,” the majority of players have determined that it’s just not for them (in terms of reward-vs-time or grind or difficulty). I’d say it’d be generous to assume that people running scale 50 Fractals probably represent only 10% of the player-base.

If we use 10% as a base-line for people that are going to be dedicated-enough to do raids, how can ANet justify building content (especially story-based content) for 10% of the player base?

That, effectively, leaves 90% of the players in the dark in terms of story and without content additions. (Assuming the Living Story “becomes” raids, which may or may not be the case… But I can’t imagine them having consistent simultaneous releases between LS episodes and raids.)

If 90% of the player-base has nothing to do… They get bored and stop playing.

WoW solved this conundrum with a “raid-finder” version of the raids that are easier, but have lower-tier rewards.

However, Colin has explicitly stated that there will “never” be a raid finder.

TL;DR: I can’t imagine ANet finding a monetary justification to develop content exclusively for a small fraction of the game’s population. (This very fact is likely why we’ve had vastly more PvE content released, than any other game type.)

It’s an easy fix.

Have various selections of difficulty with relevant reward aka “Hard mode” in GW1.

The hardcore difficulty players after “shinies!!!” rocking full ascended on every toon get what they want while the players that just want to enjoy the content and couldn’t care less about the chest at the end or gear-grind get their enjoyment.

Win/win.

normal/hard mode won’t fix the whining if the boss specific skins and armor precursor are removed from normal mode, but if they drop in both modes hard mode is pointless

Miellyn.6847:

normal/hard mode won’t fix the whining if the boss specific skins and armor precursor are removed from normal mode, but if they drop in both modes hard mode is pointless

I disagree with that. Ascended gear is still a decent drop.

If the “easy” mode still had a chance to drop Ascended while the “hard” mode gave Ascended AND precursors for Legendary armor… I think that’d be acceptable.

WoW gives “lesser” versions of the armor for easier versions of the raid.
The harder content rewards you with flashier armor.
No one really complains, because they expect that harder content gives better rewards.

The issue I have with all of this is that Colin had basically denied any plans to have a “raid-finder” easy version. (Granted, he’s also said other things that changed later in development.)

Turbotef.9203:

Eh, I find that its mostly the wannabe hardcores and tryhards that make these kind of arguments and assumptions tbh but I’ll bite still.

Cleared 10 and 25-man Ulduar and ICC on my enhance shaman in 2009 and 2010, I then main tanked (after my one main tank quit the game) and cleared heroic 10-man Firelands, Dragon Soul, and the first three conjoined raids of MoP, then switched servers and switched back to my shaman as melee and did the rest of the expansion in the 10-man heroic and stopped at Heroic Garrosh pre-nerf. I stopped raiding in WoW with 3 Mythic bosses under my belt and almost all of heroic BRF done. Came in the top 10 10-man DPS parses a few times as well. But that’s cool guy, you keep making assumptions.

I just don’t like raiding anymore with a static group and just prefer the randoms now. I do fight the non-DF (their version of LFR which is actually way harder than WoW’s) bosses on FFXIV here and there though. Its gets old after doing it with various groups over 10+ years, and yes, its still raiding regardless of what you say or any other salty individual wannabe hardcore says on other forums.

There is nothing wrong with options is all I’m saying and it will not hurt the game to have them no matter what anyone says. I still however think its stupid shoehorning raiding of this sort into a game like this though. I bought this game because it didn’t have this type of content in it. This I cancelled my preorder of HoT. I’ll snag it on a $10 sale later after they wise up or fail.

I have never seen someone simultaneously call others out for being tryhards/hardcores while flaunting how hardcore they themselves are, gratz on that cognitive dissonance.

Also FF14 is not the best example of a well designed game currently. Heavensward had so little content outside the new Alex raids that people are already bored af and its been less than two months since they launched the xpack, lets see if 3.1 gives some real content back to that game.

ANet has not “shoehorned” in Raids, they listened to their player base who wanted “challenging content” and decided Raids would fill that void in their game world. Heart of Thorns has plenty of other content for the more casual crowd to enjoy without ever having to go into the Raids.

I will probably never do enough Raiding to get the legendary armor as I enjoy sPvP and WvW much more than PvE content. However, I also do not feel the need to come here and tell others that the content they enjoy should be watered down or that the rewards from that content should be made trivial out of some misplaced need for my own kitten enlargement.

Minos.5168:

Miellyn.6847:

normal/hard mode won’t fix the whining if the boss specific skins and armor precursor are removed from normal mode, but if they drop in both modes hard mode is pointless

I disagree with that. Ascended gear is still a decent drop.

If the “easy” mode still had a chance to drop Ascended while the “hard” mode gave Ascended AND precursors for Legendary armor… I think that’d be acceptable.

WoW gives “lesser” versions of the armor for easier versions of the raid.
The harder content rewards you with flashier armor.
No one really complains, because they expect that harder content gives better rewards.

The issue I have with all of this is that Colin had basically denied any plans to have a “raid-finder” easy version. (Granted, he’s also said other things that changed later in development.)

people will cry, their problem isn’t ascended gear, there are more than sources for it
the problems are the boss specific skins and and legendary armor which you can only get through raids
and WoW is a pretty bad example, its declining since the introduction of multiple difficulties, its the prime example that this model actually doesn’t work same for scaling raids

Astralporing.1957:

Cyninja.2954:

What Blizzards streamlined raid service has done is open up “raiding” to a vast majority of their playerbase. That’s good as far as themepark MMOs go.

At the same time, and due to the nature of how scaling in these situation works, it has had a detrimental effect on raiding mechanics and uniquness.

Not to mention that the easier raid difficulties are themeparks or lootpiniatas to please the masses. Just because it’s called Looking For Raid does not mean its raiding. It’s more like gather x amaount of random players, show them the cool level design, reward them some shinies and bye.

Let’s not embarasse ourselves and call that raiding, please.

So, you agree. It did benefit WoW community (at the small cost of offending some hardcore raiders’ aestethics).

Oh absolutely, I never said otherwise (if Blizzards “throw item at player” reward system fancies you). Just that it did not benefit the raiding aspekt of the game.

If I switched cars from an Toyota to a BMW I’d still be upgrading my car, but besides both being cars, the vehicles would have very little in common.

I simply stated that I object to calling most of what people consider “raiding” to be actual raiding any more. It’s a wannabe raiding themepark so people can feel good about themselves for getting their shinies.

EDIT: actually I need to add to this that I’m not even sure it benefited the game in retrospect. It helped Blizzard streamline their game, but at the same time it also made players burn through content (which is now more and more similar in design) faster. Maybe a more specialised less massproduction approach might have kept the game more interesting, maybe not. Current state of WoW though is that it can barely retain it’s subscribers longer than 3-4 months post expansion.

In all fairnes, it is an over 10 year old game though.

Turbotef.9203:

Cyninja.2954:

All I want to mention here is, if you really want to consider raiding difficulties a benefit to WoWs raiding community, you seem to not have been a successful hardcore raider.

What Blizzards streamlined raid service has done is open up “raiding” to a vast majority of their playerbase. That’s good as far as themepark MMOs go.

At the same time, and due to the nature of how scaling in these situation works, it has had a detrimental effect on raiding mechanics and uniquness.

Not to mention that the easier raid difficulties are themeparks or lootpiniatas to please the masses. Just because it’s called Looking For Raid does not mean its raiding. It’s more like gather x amaount of random players, show them the cool level design, reward them some shinies and bye.

Let’s not embarasse ourselves and call that raiding, please.

Eh, I find that its mostly the wannabe hardcores and tryhards that make these kind of arguments and assumptions tbh but I’ll bite still.

Cleared 10 and 25-man Ulduar and ICC on my enhance shaman in 2009 and 2010, I then main tanked (after my one main tank quit the game) and cleared heroic 10-man Firelands, Dragon Soul, and the first three conjoined raids of MoP, then switched servers and switched back to my shaman as melee and did the rest of the expansion in the 10-man heroic and stopped at Heroic Garrosh pre-nerf. I stopped raiding in WoW with 3 Mythic bosses under my belt and almost all of heroic BRF done. Came in the top 10 10-man DPS parses a few times as well. But that’s cool guy, you keep making assumptions.

I just don’t like raiding anymore with a static group and just prefer the randoms now. I do fight the non-DF (their version of LFR which is actually way harder than WoW’s) bosses on FFXIV here and there though. Its gets old after doing it with various groups over 10+ years, and yes, its still raiding regardless of what you say or any other salty individual wannabe hardcore says on other forums.

There is nothing wrong with options is all I’m saying and it will not hurt the game to have them no matter what anyone says. I still however think its stupid shoehorning raiding of this sort into a game like this though. I bought this game because it didn’t have this type of content in it. This I cancelled my preorder of HoT. I’ll snag it on a $10 sale later after they wise up or fail.

Great, so the multiple reward system works for you, you get your shinies and feel not anoyed by the fact that any difficult content which should require group coordination can now be done by throwing together random players. More power to you. Ofcorse it just might be that you’ve outgrown or gotten tired of raiding and now cling on to scraps just so you can relive old glory times of raiding.

Not sure your raiding “accomplishments” are much to brag about though, maybe if you had come here with Naxx clear in vanilla or some world firsts on aq40 I’d have been impressed. But hey, times change and everything gets made easier and more accessible. Which is fine if people aknowledge it and do not pretend that everything is fine when dumbing stuff down to the most common denominator, and we are back to my complaint about how raiding and its design gets affected by multiple difficulties.

Cyninja.2954:

Astralporing.1957:

Cyninja.2954:

What Blizzards streamlined raid service has done is open up “raiding” to a vast majority of their playerbase. That’s good as far as themepark MMOs go.

At the same time, and due to the nature of how scaling in these situation works, it has had a detrimental effect on raiding mechanics and uniquness.

Not to mention that the easier raid difficulties are themeparks or lootpiniatas to please the masses. Just because it’s called Looking For Raid does not mean its raiding. It’s more like gather x amaount of random players, show them the cool level design, reward them some shinies and bye.

Let’s not embarasse ourselves and call that raiding, please.

So, you agree. It did benefit WoW community (at the small cost of offending some hardcore raiders’ aestethics).

Oh absolutely, I never said otherwise (if Blizzards “throw item at player” reward system fancies you). Just that it did not benefit the raiding aspekt of the game.

If I switched cars from an Toyota to a BMW I’d still be upgrading my car, but besides both being cars, the vehicles would have very little in common.

I simply stated that I object to calling most of what people consider “raiding” to be actual raiding any more. It’s a wannabe raiding themepark so people can feel good about themselves for getting their shinies.

EDIT: actually I need to add to this that I’m not even sure it benefited the game in retrospect. It helped Blizzard streamline their game, but at the same time it also made players burn through content (which is now more and more similar in design) faster. Maybe a more specialised less massproduction approach might have kept the game more interesting, maybe not. Current state of WoW though is that it can barely retain it’s subscribers longer than 3-4 months post expansion.

In all fairnes, it is an over 10 year old game though.

it’s not the age of the game, it’s just the fact that everyone can complete the content and there is nothing outside of raids, which is btw a side product that everyone can see all content so you don’t need extra content for different groups

Turbotef.9203:

Random.4691:

I am casual, it did not take me 6 months to obtain ascended, put some effort in, spend some gold, or … enjoy your other game that will have more of a grind for you to participate in raids.

looks at the other two raid MMOs he plays, WoW and FFXIV and notes that he can do a weeks worth of dungeons or outdoor content in both and have everything needed for the newest tier of raiding

Not to mention that my shaman is still raid ready for the current heroic raid and I quit playing WoW back in February.

looks at GW2 and hates the crafting system as its inferior to FFXIV’s system and has to grind longer than a couple weeks to make everything or has to buy $20-$40 worth of gems to just buy the mats

Now if they were to make ascended drop of champion mobs and events this wouldn’t be an issue for a lot of people, but Anet are pretty kitten stubborn for whatever reason on a lot of weird things.

:D

If you’re this unhappy and feel it’s inferior to the other two game then by all means feel free to stop complaining and go play them.

Miellyn.6847:

people will cry, their problem isn’t ascended gear, there are more than sources for it
the problems are the boss specific skins and and legendary armor which you can only get through raids

Well, to me the issue is exactly ascended:
A long long grind, that force you to max crafting and spend a lot of gold and time.
Yes, legendary may be a QoL and aesthetic improvement, but as long as they’re “equivalent” to ascended in stats and slots and AR, I can deal with it.
But giving me a chance to acquire in another way the ascended i need and give me the opportunity to test my skills in raids and high level fractalss without being excluded because of gear would be a nice idea…probably sufficient to make me buy the expansion.

Pockets.3201:

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

Either they can’t play the endgame or they don’t take the time to learn it. Besides, raiding is just one piece of a grand part of the MMO.

Malkavian.4516:

Pockets.3201:

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

Either they can’t play the endgame or they don’t take the time to learn it. Besides, raiding is just one piece of a grand part of the MMO.

There isn’t that much else HoT brings to the PvE end game though, so far as we have been shown. And raids have been promised regular updates, if I remember correctly.

I wouldn’t be surprised if we see most of what the new zones offer in under a month or so. Depends on if the travel masteries gate much of the area. Then its back to doing events for rewards and grinding XP to fill out said masteries.

If the “easy” mode still had a chance to drop Ascended while the “hard” mode gave Ascended AND precursors for Legendary armor… I think that’d be acceptable.

No, other way around, if hard mode had a chance of dropping Ascended and easy mode had a chance of dropping Legendary Precursors then that would be acceptable. The Precursors are the important part, regular Ascended armor can be found elsewhere.

WoW gives “lesser” versions of the armor for easier versions of the raid.
The harder content rewards you with flashier armor.

That only works because WoW is a geargrind game, in which better gear makes for effortless raiding. In GW2 gear can matter, but it isn’t likely to allow players to coast through the content.

Lakanna.2073:

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.

(Sorry for taking so long to respond to this. I sortof lost track of this thread…hehe)

But I do think that you make a very good point. One that I hadn’t actually looked at from that particular angle before.

A common tendency of a lot of gamers (myself included), is to have a sort of “main” game, and then bounce around and try out all the new games, eventually going back to that main game. I totally understand that. And you are definitely right that those gamers are most likely to play the game that they have grown to love the best.

A dramatic change in any direction, excluding your current, long-term playerbase, isn’t necessarily a smart decision. Hopefully, they won’t make that mistake here. Trying to encourage other players to come and try out the game is all well and good, but never at the expense of your current customers. You risk losing both the old and the new that way.

Ohoni.6057:

That only works because WoW is a geargrind game, in which better gear makes for effortless raiding. In GW2 gear can matter, but it isn’t likely to allow players to coast through the content.

Thanks now go post this in the “Ascended Gear Required for Raiding” thread you’re crying in…

Ohoni.6057:

If the “easy” mode still had a chance to drop Ascended while the “hard” mode gave Ascended AND precursors for Legendary armor… I think that’d be acceptable.

No, other way around, if hard mode had a chance of dropping Ascended and easy mode had a chance of dropping Legendary Precursors then that would be acceptable. The Precursors are the important part, regular Ascended armor can be found elsewhere.

As i said earlier, most people who cry about raids and demand multiple difficulties just want the shinies
if there are multiple difficulties, precursors and specific boss weapons / tokens for them should only drop in the highest difficulty and the rest should work like a tourist mode like WoWs LFR was intended

As legendary armor has the same stats as ascended and without the option to switch runes on demand its just another skin, so there is no need to hand it out to people who want the easy mode

Cyninja.2954:

Not sure your raiding “accomplishments” are much to brag about though, maybe if you had come here with Naxx clear in vanilla or some world firsts on aq40 I’d have been impressed. But hey, times change and everything gets made easier and more accessible. Which is fine if people aknowledge it and do not pretend that everything is fine when dumbing stuff down to the most common denominator, and we are back to my complaint about how raiding and its design gets affected by multiple difficulties.

Oh yeah, going to keep raising that goalpost for little ol’ me? (seriously guy, world first kitten? WTF are your own examples if you’re going in this absurd direction) No, I mostly PVPed in Vanilla and quit the game until xrealm BGs came back out but after I came back I did clear MC, BWL, and half of AQ40. Also cleared the two 20-man raids as well. Vanilla was easy and I tire of players holding it to some high difficulty rating. Only hard thing about it was herding 25-30 of your “cats” until the harder bosses in the raids. Each expansion raid after vanilla harder than the last. That is fact. Remember that and stop repeating BS.

Random.4691:

If you’re this unhappy and feel it’s inferior to the other two game then by all means feel free to stop complaining and go play them.

I do? Pssst, I play 3-4 MMOs (Currently TERA, Wildstar, GW2, and FFXIV-my main MMO) at a time.

I’m not going to stop complaining though, sorry. That goes against who I am and if you don’t like it, well, TS.

As i said earlier, most people who cry about raids and demand multiple difficulties just want the shinies

At least partially, sure. Everyone likes shinies. But remember, the people who cry about raids and demand multiple difficulties are no less entitled to get shinies than those who cry about those players and demand only one difficulty, “hard.” They’re all players of the game.

if there are multiple difficulties, precursors and specific boss weapons / tokens for them should only drop in the highest difficulty and the rest should work like a tourist mode like WoWs LFR was intended

if there are multiple difficulties, precursors and specific boss weapons / tokens for them should only drop in the lowest difficulty and the rest should work like a challenge mode for those that enjoy more challenging content. The shinies for those that like shinies, the challenge for those that like challenge, everyone’s happy.

As legendary armor has the same stats as ascended and without the option to switch runes on demand its just another skin, so there is no need to hand it out to people who want the easy mode

As legendary armor has the same stats as ascended and without the option to switch runes on demand its just another skin, so there is no reason not to hand it out to people who want the easy mode.

Ohoni.6057:

As i said earlier, most people who cry about raids and demand multiple difficulties just want the shinies

At least partially, sure. Everyone likes shinies. But remember, the people who cry about raids and demand multiple difficulties are no less entitled to get shinies than those who cry about those players and demand only one difficulty, “hard.” They’re all players of the game.

It’s actually funny that you complain about skins in raids that some people may never get, but nobody complains about the PvP-Set, which you can only get for winning tournaments. This armor is even more inaccessible than legendary armor and raid specific skins will ever be. (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Glorious_Hero's_armor)

Also Tequatl after his rework and Triple Trouble were deemed as impossible, yet every PUG kills Tequatl with plenty of time left.
Raids will become more accessible as new or easier tactics will become popular, there is no need for multiple difficulties.

if there are multiple difficulties, precursors and specific boss weapons / tokens for them should only drop in the lowest difficulty and the rest should work like a challenge mode for those that enjoy more challenging content. The shinies for those that like shinies, the challenge for those that like challenge, everyone’s happy.

There are exclusive items for the highend PvP-Players and there needs to be exclusive items for the highend PvE-Player, also if you force people to play your easy mode to get those skins/armor it will be even worse.
Forced to play easy mode and nothing for hard mode just renders the hard mode useless after you completed it once so its wasted developer time and we are back to one single difficulty which needs to be challenging or you have dungeons 2.0 with 10 people instead of 5.

I will try raids. If I can’t handle I will go back to my PvP end game.

Ohoni.6057:

As legendary armor has the same stats as ascended and without the option to switch runes on demand its just another skin, so there is no reason not to hand it out to people who want the easy mode.

My friend. The only thing we’re all Entitled to is our opinions. If you want Legendary weapons and armor, you’ll have to earn them, as with everyone else. Anet understood that luxury items should have some prestige to them. So no longer can you get stuff by just going to the TP. Now you have to go forth, and play the game in all its glory!

Smooth Penguin.5294:

My friend. The only thing we’re all Entitled to is our opinions. If you want Legendary weapons and armor, you’ll have to earn them, as with everyone else. Anet understood that luxury items should have some prestige to them. So no longer can you get stuff by just going to the TP. Now you have to go forth, and play the game in all its glory!

That’s kitten.
GW2 is based on cosmetic grind. I’m fine with most of the change when it’s come to legendary acquisition, exclusive PvP, Raid skin/mini.
Gears it’s not: especially legendary gear. I would be alright if legendary armor were accessible in other way. Forcing it in Raid is dumb.

Now, you gonna ask me why you should play Raid if there is no special reward ?
You still have shinies in terms of cosmetics. You can show off. You don’t gain anything else. Pretty much like fractal have exclusive skin.

We are not talking about Gear stats gain, we are talking about stat swapin gear which is a pretty great utility in this game that doesn’t encourage gear threadmill.

papry.8096:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

My friend. The only thing we’re all Entitled to is our opinions. If you want Legendary weapons and armor, you’ll have to earn them, as with everyone else. Anet understood that luxury items should have some prestige to them. So no longer can you get stuff by just going to the TP. Now you have to go forth, and play the game in all its glory!

That’s kitten.
GW2 is based on cosmetic grind. I’m fine with most of the change when it’s come to legendary acquisition, exclusive PvP, Raid skin/mini.
Gears it’s not: especially legendary gear. I would be alright if legendary armor were accessible in other way. Forcing it in Raid is dumb.

Now, you gonna ask me why you should play Raid if there is no special reward ?
You still have shinies in terms of cosmetics. You can show off. You don’t gain anything else. Pretty much like fractal have exclusive skin.

We are not talking about Gear stats gain, we are talking about stat swapin gear which is a pretty great utility in this game that doesn’t encourage gear threadmill.

You can get the same stats via ascended armor and you can change it via the mystic forge.
Also raids will get easier over time when new tactics become popular and when more people clear them more PUGs will appear
Most people who want legendary armor will get it most likely over time, but not near release of the raids

It’s actually funny that you complain about skins in raids that some people may never get, but nobody complains about the PvP-Set, which you can only get for winning tournaments. This armor is even more inaccessible than legendary armor and raid specific skins will ever be.

I did complain about those, but it’s something that happened like a year ago, this is happening now, so this is what we’re talking about now.

If you want to make those Glorious armors more available, I’m right there with you.

Also Tequatl after his rework and Triple Trouble were deemed as impossible, yet every PUG kills Tequatl with plenty of time left.
Raids will become more accessible as new or easier tactics will become popular, there is no need for multiple difficulties.

We have no way of knowing that at the moment, but if they do become “more accessible,” then I’m sure people will be crying about that too and want them to make harder versions (with even better loot, of course). I don’t even agree with you that Teq and Wurm are accessible enough, they are certainly more accessible than they were when they first came out, but it’s still a serious pain to get into a successable map. They have a long way to go before they can claim they’ve got those two events in proper shape.

There are exclusive items for the highend PvP-Players and there needs to be exclusive items for the highend PvE-Player, also if you force people to play your easy mode to get those skins/armor it will be even worse.

Two wrongs don’t make a right, if you have a problem with PvP getting exclusive rewards, then fight that, don’t try to duplicate that problem elsewhere. And I was only half kidding about making the Legendaries only available in easy mode, since you were being hyperbolic about them +only_ being available in hard mode, of course both modes can earn them, that’s fair.

My friend. The only thing we’re all Entitled to is our opinions. If you want Legendary weapons and armor, you’ll have to earn them, as with everyone else.

Sure, but the method of earning them is entirely up to ANet, and it might be different tomorrow than it is today. If the existing elements of the game are not to your liking, then press for change, it’s a consumer product and they’re constantly looking to make the game the best that it can be for the largest amount of players.

So no longer can you get stuff by just going to the TP. Now you have to go forth, and play the game in all its glory!

Nobody said anything about putting them on the TP, I’m perfectly willing to work for them, I’d just rather work for them in a way that is constructive to my time and play style, not by banging my head against a wall that I have no interest in until maybe loot falls out.

papry.8096:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

My friend. The only thing we’re all Entitled to is our opinions. If you want Legendary weapons and armor, you’ll have to earn them, as with everyone else. Anet understood that luxury items should have some prestige to them. So no longer can you get stuff by just going to the TP. Now you have to go forth, and play the game in all its glory!

That’s kitten.
GW2 is based on cosmetic grind. I’m fine with most of the change when it’s come to legendary acquisition, exclusive PvP, Raid skin/mini.
Gears it’s not: especially legendary gear. I would be alright if legendary armor were accessible in other way. Forcing it in Raid is dumb.

Now, you gonna ask me why you should play Raid if there is no special reward ?
You still have shinies in terms of cosmetics. You can show off. You don’t gain anything else. Pretty much like fractal have exclusive skin.

We are not talking about Gear stats gain, we are talking about stat swapin gear which is a pretty great utility in this game that doesn’t encourage gear threadmill.

Don’t worry, if enough people complain or enough people don’t do the raid, something will eventually break or change. High-end raiding for a small portion of the playerbase never turns out too well. The people arguing against it are just salty when it happened to the other MMOs when dev costs for raids wasn’t worth the investment for an extremely small portion of the playerbase.

Time will tell and if I’m right, you’ll see these guys crying about it instead of us. It’ll be worth the wait for that alone tbh, lol.

Miellyn.6847:

You can get the same stats via ascended armor and you can change it via the mystic forge.
Also raids will get easier over time when new tactics become popular and when more people clear them more PUGs will appear
Most people who want legendary armor will get it most likely over time, but not near release of the raids

Don’t try to nitpick; the advantage are clear over ascended :
– One set to equip (baring the rune).
– Free swaping on the fly without mystic forge.

For the second point; If they will be made “available” to everyone what’s the point of having an “exclusive access” other that ? Just make the legendary precursor available by others means.

You still have exclusive mini & whateva else to show that you have completed the raid.
Why having special gear is so important to you ?

Ohoni.6057:

It’s actually funny that you complain about skins in raids that some people may never get, but nobody complains about the PvP-Set, which you can only get for winning tournaments. This armor is even more inaccessible than legendary armor and raid specific skins will ever be.

I did complain about those, but it’s something that happened like a year ago, this is happening now, so this is what we’re talking about now.

If you want to make those Glorious armors more available, I’m right there with you.

I don’t want to make the Glorious Hero armor more available. The normal version is pretty easy to aquire with the reward track.

Also Tequatl after his rework and Triple Trouble were deemed as impossible, yet every PUG kills Tequatl with plenty of time left.
Raids will become more accessible as new or easier tactics will become popular, there is no need for multiple difficulties.

We have no way of knowing that at the moment, but if they do become “more accessible,” then I’m sure people will be crying about that too and want them to make harder versions (with even better loot, of course). I don’t even agree with you that Teq and Wurm are accessible enough, they are certainly more accessible than they were when they first came out, but it’s still a serious pain to get into a successable map. They have a long way to go before they can claim they’ve got those two events in proper shape.

I don’t know if you play on NA or EU server, but on EU servers most of the Tequatl PUG groups kill him with plenty of time left with almost no communication. There are established PUG tactics that are known by most people and the rest just follows if they don’t know them. Also there are many people who taxi players into maps with high sucess rates. But i heard NA has a bit more problems with it.

Triple Trouble isn’t played by many people but there are organised groups with over 95% success rate. They advertise multiple times before they start and also explain the whole encounter every time so new players know whats going on.

There are exclusive items for the highend PvP-Players and there needs to be exclusive items for the highend PvE-Player, also if you force people to play your easy mode to get those skins/armor it will be even worse.

Two wrongs don’t make a right, if you have a problem with PvP getting exclusive rewards, then fight that, don’t try to duplicate that problem elsewhere. And I was only half kidding about making the Legendaries only available in easy mode, since you were being hyperbolic about them +only_ being available in hard mode, of course both modes can earn them, that’s fair.

Unless the droprates are significant different in both modes (e.g. ‘normal mode’ abysmal low) people will take the path of least resistance. So they will run ‘hard mode’ once for the achievments and continue to farm the easier version, also results in wasted developer time creating the hard mode. It also results in complaining about the drop rates that they are either too high or too low.

I don’t have a problem with exclusive rewards, i will never get the Glorious Hero armor and with the current state of my guild i don’t know if i will get the raid rewards, but there are plenty of other shinies i can collect and use.

I don’t want to make the Glorious Hero armor more available. The normal version is pretty easy to aquire with the reward track.

Whichever, but you said that the PvP armor was too hard to obtain, and I am trying to agree with you.

I don’t know if you play on NA or EU server, but on EU servers most of the Tequatl PUG groups kill him with plenty of time left with almost no communication. There are established PUG tactics that are known by most people and the rest just follows if they don’t know them. Also there are many people who taxi players into maps with high sucess rates. But i heard NA has a bit more problems with it.

It’s still mostly doable, but you have to show up a decent amount in advance, or taxi into maps, it’s hardly as reliable or convenient as, say, Karka. The solution has more to do with better map access management than gameplay mechanics though.

Triple Trouble isn’t played by many people but there are organised groups with over 95% success rate. They advertise multiple times before they start and also explain the whole encounter every time so new players know whats going on.

Right, but again it’s a hassle, and the event has quite a bit of padding from start to finish, so it’s more hassle than it’s worth, which is why not many people bother on a regular basis. I don’t imagine raids will do much better in that regard.

Unless the droprates are significant different in both modes (e.g. ‘normal mode’ abysmal low) people will take the path of least resistance.

Then they take the path of least resistance. You say that as if it were a bad thing. Let people play how they want to play. If they want a hardcore challenge, they can play in hard mode, if they want the easiest path to the loot, then they play the easier mode. Your argument makes little sense in light of 4+ decades of videogame history in which games often have three or more difficulty modes, and yet people still play the harder modes, in many cases even if those modes are only available after they’ve already beat it on an easier mode!

People who enjoy a challenge will undertake that challenge.

People who don’t enjoy that challenge, shouldn’t be held hostage to those who do.

I don’t have a problem with exclusive rewards, i will never get the Glorious Hero armor and with the current state of my guild i don’t know if i will get the raid rewards, but there are plenty of other shinies i can collect and use.

And that’s fine, for you, but don’t try to project that onto others. Some other player might care very much about that Glorious Hero armor, and be very upset that he can’t reasonably get it, and he has every right to push for a system that would work better for him.

Turbotef.9203:

papry.8096:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

My friend. The only thing we’re all Entitled to is our opinions. If you want Legendary weapons and armor, you’ll have to earn them, as with everyone else. Anet understood that luxury items should have some prestige to them. So no longer can you get stuff by just going to the TP. Now you have to go forth, and play the game in all its glory!

That’s kitten.
GW2 is based on cosmetic grind. I’m fine with most of the change when it’s come to legendary acquisition, exclusive PvP, Raid skin/mini.
Gears it’s not: especially legendary gear. I would be alright if legendary armor were accessible in other way. Forcing it in Raid is dumb.

Now, you gonna ask me why you should play Raid if there is no special reward ?
You still have shinies in terms of cosmetics. You can show off. You don’t gain anything else. Pretty much like fractal have exclusive skin.

We are not talking about Gear stats gain, we are talking about stat swapin gear which is a pretty great utility in this game that doesn’t encourage gear threadmill.

Don’t worry, if enough people complain or enough people don’t do the raid, something will eventually break or change. High-end raiding for a small portion of the playerbase never turns out too well. The people arguing against it are just salty when it happened to the other MMOs when dev costs for raids wasn’t worth the investment for an extremely small portion of the playerbase.

Time will tell and if I’m right, you’ll see these guys crying about it instead of us. It’ll be worth the wait for that alone tbh, lol.

The main reason multiple difficulties happened in other MMOs (prime example WoW) is because there is almost no content besides raids added after the release of an expansion. So the developers need to justify the costs of raids if only a small portion play them.
Multiple difficulties above WoW-LFR also changed nothing in terms of raiding population, it stayed more or less the same. It just divided the groups more than ever. Nerfs are equal to multiple difficulties, people who aren’t interested in raiding won’t raid afterwards and people who couldn’t kill the encounters before won’t improve and the cycle starts again when the next raid/wing gets released.
LFR is only popular due his extremly low difficulty and the fact blizzard removed almost all character progression outside of raids.

ArenaNet actually tries to distribute the money relativly even among open world/LS, small group content and PvP. There will be new maps and open world events along with personal story updates to keep people busy who can’t raid or have no interest in them. The raid team is pretty small in comperison to other MMOs.

And again the large scale open world raids became more accessible and successful with time. Same will happen to the 10 man raids.

Ohoni.6057:

I don’t want to make the Glorious Hero armor more available. The normal version is pretty easy to aquire with the reward track.

Whichever, but you said that the PvP armor was too hard to obtain, and I am trying to agree with you.

I never said it’s a bad thing that only a few people will ever complete the whole armor. I just wanted to point out that exclusive rewards already exist.

I don’t know if you play on NA or EU server, but on EU servers most of the Tequatl PUG groups kill him with plenty of time left with almost no communication. There are established PUG tactics that are known by most people and the rest just follows if they don’t know them. Also there are many people who taxi players into maps with high sucess rates. But i heard NA has a bit more problems with it.

It’s still mostly doable, but you have to show up a decent amount in advance, or taxi into maps, it’s hardly as reliable or convenient as, say, Karka. The solution has more to do with better map access management than gameplay mechanics though.

Triple Trouble isn’t played by many people but there are organised groups with over 95% success rate. They advertise multiple times before they start and also explain the whole encounter every time so new players know whats going on.

Right, but again it’s a hassle, and the event has quite a bit of padding from start to finish, so it’s more hassle than it’s worth, which is why not many people bother on a regular basis. I don’t imagine raids will do much better in that regard.

But those people won’t raid even with different difficulties.

Unless the droprates are significant different in both modes (e.g. ‘normal mode’ abysmal low) people will take the path of least resistance.

Then they take the path of least resistance. You say that as if it were a bad thing. Let people play how they want to play. If they want a hardcore challenge, they can play in hard mode, if they want the easiest path to the loot, then they play the easier mode. Your argument makes little sense in light of 4+ decades of videogame history in which games often have three or more difficulty modes, and yet people still play the harder modes, in many cases even if those modes are only available after they’ve already beat it on an easier mode!

People who enjoy a challenge will undertake that challenge.

People who don’t enjoy that challenge, shouldn’t be held hostage to those who do.

You can’t compare single player games to MMOs.
The amount of people who play raids in higher difficulties for sake of difficulty even if they already killed the easier version is pretty small. Other MMOs reward you with better equipment, GW2 can’t do this. They can only award unique skins. If they just hand out achievments hard modes will die after the first clear, so they are not worth the cost.

I don’t have a problem with exclusive rewards, i will never get the Glorious Hero armor and with the current state of my guild i don’t know if i will get the raid rewards, but there are plenty of other shinies i can collect and use.

And that’s fine, for you, but don’t try to project that onto others. Some other player might care very much about that Glorious Hero armor, and be very upset that he can’t reasonably get it, and he has every right to push for a system that would work better for him.

A possible solution would be a collection to craft the precurser similiar to weapons which becomes available some time after the release of the raid, if ArenaNet decides to make them available outside of raids or if a new legendary armor gets released. This way people can get their armor rarity and raider get the newest skin.

Glorious Hero armor will most likely appear as a reward in the new league system for sPvP for highest ranks.

I never said it’s a bad thing that only a few people will ever complete the whole armor. I just wanted to point out that exclusive rewards already exist.

But them existing doesn’t actually mean anything. They exist, that could be a good thing or a bad thing, depends on your perspective. If you view it as a bad thing, then Glorious Hero armor being exclusive would not in any way make Legendary Armor being exclusive into an acceptable thing. It’s an argument that only appeals to people who already agree with your position.

But those people won’t raid even with different difficulties.

Depends on how easy it is to get into a raid group and how long the easier modes will take to complete.

You can’t compare single player games to MMOs.

Of course you can, they’re both games, there are all sorts of fair comparisons you can make between them. There are differences too, but this is not one of them.

The amount of people who play raids in higher difficulties for sake of difficulty even if they already killed the easier version is pretty small.

Then the amount of people playing them is small.

That is not a problem.

If the number of people who would want to do harder raid modes even without being bribed with better loot is too low to justify production of those modes, then they should probably not produce those modes. You’re making the case that they should not produce hard mode raids in the first place, not that they need to make that the only option for players to earn certain loot. The things the game should be rewarding is the things that people want to be doing anyway.

If they just hand out achievments hard modes will die after the first clear, so they are not worth the cost.

Then problem solved, just don’t make them.

Ohoni.6057:

I never said it’s a bad thing that only a few people will ever complete the whole armor. I just wanted to point out that exclusive rewards already exist.

But them existing doesn’t actually mean anything. They exist, that could be a good thing or a bad thing, depends on your perspective. If you view it as a bad thing, then Glorious Hero armor being exclusive would not in any way make Legendary Armor being exclusive into an acceptable thing. It’s an argument that only appeals to people who already agree with your position.

But those people won’t raid even with different difficulties.

Depends on how easy it is to get into a raid group and how long the easier modes will take to complete.

You can’t compare single player games to MMOs.

Of course you can, they’re both games, there are all sorts of fair comparisons you can make between them. There are differences too, but this is not one of them.

The amount of people who play raids in higher difficulties for sake of difficulty even if they already killed the easier version is pretty small.

Then the amount of people playing them is small.

That is not a problem.

If the number of people who would want to do harder raid modes even without being bribed with better loot is too low to justify production of those modes, then they should probably not produce those modes. You’re making the case that they should not produce hard mode raids in the first place, not that they need to make that the only option for players to earn certain loot. The things the game should be rewarding is the things that people want to be doing anyway.

If they just hand out achievments hard modes will die after the first clear, so they are not worth the cost.

Then problem solved, just don’t make them.

Single and multiplayer games follow completly different designs.

I’m against multiple difficulties and they aren’t worth the cost in GW2.
ArenaNet needs to find the middle ground between challenging and accessible. There will be always people complaining it’s too hard.

It looks like the current difficulty is pretty good for most players who are interested in raids. There were kill of the first boss with non-optimized setups and equipment, not perfectly played mechanics and dead players at the end and still over one minute left on the timer. They will also decrease the effekt of the enrage.

And I posted a possible solution to make the armor available outside of raids if they ever want to do that. They could create a crafting process similiar to weapons and release them some time after the raid is complete or when a new raid/legendary armor skin is released.

Eurantien.4632:

I will try raids. If I can’t handle I will go back to my PvP end game.

I’m glad to hear someone is open minded and ready to try new things.

I’d warning you that raids have a sharp learning curve but if you’re already a PvP player you’re probably familiar with the idea that not all attempts are going to succeed.

Have fun. Maybe I’ll see you there .

Single and multiplayer games follow completly different designs.

In some ways, but not in ways relevant to this discussion. They can both potentially offer multiple difficulty modes, and allow players to decide for themselves which they find appealing. If a single player game can offer two difficulty modes, and yet some players still choose the harder option, then there’s no reason MMOs cannot do the same.

I’m against multiple difficulties and they aren’t worth the cost in GW2.
ArenaNet needs to find the middle ground between challenging and accessible. There will be always people complaining it’s too hard.

And people complaining that it’s too easy. I’m very hopeful that ANet would be able to find a balanced difficulty that most players would enjoy, but I guarantee you that if they do, the hardcore raider crowd would pass it off as “too casual.” Meanwhile, if they did manage an experience that the hardcore raiders were pleased with, then most players would find it intolerable. There’s no way that they can make one mode that would satisfy the raiders AND everyone else, so I think the better solution is to give a different option to each group.

It looks like the current difficulty is pretty good for most players who are interested in raids. There were kill of the first boss with non-optimized setups and equipment, not perfectly played mechanics and dead players at the end and still over one minute left on the timer. They will also decrease the effekt of the enrage.

And yet we already heard people arguing that future encounters should be even harder, and from what I’ve seen of the raid, it will be too punishing for most players to put up with. I watched one of WP’s videos in which he claimed to have spent six hours or more on the raid and still never beat it. I’m sure those times will come down as tactics become more rote, but I still doubt it’ll become super casual unless players find exploits to them, and then it’s up to the devs whether they patch up those exploits or not.

And I posted a possible solution to make the armor available outside of raids if they ever want to do that. They could create a crafting process similiar to weapons and release them some time after the raid is complete or when a new raid/legendary armor skin is released.

So long as it’s within reason. The current Precursor crafting system seems way too complex even for Precursors, if it was for weapons that just casually drop off of raids, it would be nowhere near fair to those players.

papry.8096:

You still have exclusive mini & whateva else to show that you have completed the raid.
Why having special gear is so important to you ?

There are multiple reasons discussed in another thread on the subject until it was derailed. I’ll give you just one, so as not to make it confusing.

The first major reason is because it’s something new. If you recall when Ascended was first introduced it was available only in Fractals, to boost Fractal play time and popularity. If those Ascended rings were available through other types of content, chances are players wouldn’t be interested in Fractals, given how much harder they were thought to be compared to dungeon paths for example. Even Fractals like the Swamp, were re-rolled at release because they were too difficult, which is ironic considering how it’s the fastest/easiest one now.

We aren’t talking about a small addition here, it’s something new/unique to the game, much like how Fractals were unique back in the day, so they’ve added a reward that is unique and not available anywhere else. Much like what happened with Ascended Rings, we can expect Legendary Armor precursors to be available elsewere at a later time, especially if Raids aren’t being done by a huge part of the playerbase.

In addition, keep in mind that the Raid won’t be available at release. What would happen if they added ways to get Legendary Armor Precursors from other types of content before the Raids are even released? By the time the Raids were released loads of players would have full Legendary armor sets. The discussion on Legendary Armor Precursors can certainly be done again a couple of months after the Raid is released, not after Heart of Thorns, but after the last wing of the Raid is released. And maybe a few weeks AFTER that, once the first teams start clearing it and we all know exactly how hard it is to get those precursors.

Discussing it now it’s only going to lead to circular boring arguments that serve no purpose.

Ohoni.6057:

Single and multiplayer games follow completly different designs.

In some ways, but not in ways relevant to this discussion. They can both potentially offer multiple difficulty modes, and allow players to decide for themselves which they find appealing. If a single player game can offer two difficulty modes, and yet some players still choose the harder option, then there’s no reason MMOs cannot do the same.

I’m against multiple difficulties and they aren’t worth the cost in GW2.
ArenaNet needs to find the middle ground between challenging and accessible. There will be always people complaining it’s too hard.

And people complaining that it’s too easy. I’m very hopeful that ANet would be able to find a balanced difficulty that most players would enjoy, but I guarantee you that if they do, the hardcore raider crowd would pass it off as “too casual.” Meanwhile, if they did manage an experience that the hardcore raiders were pleased with, then most players would find it intolerable. There’s no way that they can make one mode that would satisfy the raiders AND everyone else, so I think the better solution is to give a different option to each group.

They just need to find the difficulty that suites most players. Most serious raider don’t complain it’s too easy. They just leave if the content doesn’t fit them.The complainers are players who think they need to exclude lesser skilled players. You can mostly ignore them.

It looks like the current difficulty is pretty good for most players who are interested in raids. There were kill of the first boss with non-optimized setups and equipment, not perfectly played mechanics and dead players at the end and still over one minute left on the timer. They will also decrease the effekt of the enrage.

And yet we already heard people arguing that future encounters should be even harder, and from what I’ve seen of the raid, it will be too punishing for most players to put up with. I watched one of WP’s videos in which he claimed to have spent six hours or more on the raid and still never beat it. I’m sure those times will come down as tactics become more rote, but I still doubt it’ll become super casual unless players find exploits to them, and then it’s up to the devs whether they patch up those exploits or not.

No tactics available, no experience. If they had managed to kill that boss in 2-3h it would be too easy.
Super casual players aren’t interested in raids and won’t step in there.

And I posted a possible solution to make the armor available outside of raids if they ever want to do that. They could create a crafting process similiar to weapons and release them some time after the raid is complete or when a new raid/legendary armor skin is released.

So long as it’s within reason. The current Precursor crafting system seems way too complex even for Precursors, if it was for weapons that just casually drop off of raids, it would be nowhere near fair to those players.

It’s a great effort and takes some time, but the single steps are rather easy to understand and we know almost nothing about the 2nd part apart from using crafting materials.

If those Ascended rings were available through other types of content, chances are players wouldn’t be interested in Fractals, given how much harder they were thought to be compared to dungeon paths for example. Even Fractals like the Swamp, were re-rolled at release because they were too difficult, which is ironic considering how it’s the fastest/easiest one now.

Ok.

Can someone please explain to me how this is not an argument against making raids at all?

It seems ironically to be an argument most often made by people who claim to support raiding, “oh, if you didn’t explicitly bribe people into it with the absolute shiniest loot you can find, then nobody would ever want to do it.” And then they go on to say “so they should bribe players with the absolute shiniest loot they can find,” rather than the more obvious “so they shouldn’t waste their time making content that clearly nobody actually wants.”

In addition, keep in mind that the Raid won’t be available at release. What would happen if they added ways to get Legendary Armor Precursors from other types of content before the Raids are even released?

They wouldn’t have to do that though. They don’t have to add the systems to earn Legendary Armors via other means until after the raid option is available. Now, what I would like to see, ideally, is for them to explain that there will be such a system, and if it’s something where people would be “doing the things” that needed doing from launch, then I would like that to still count towards earning the Legendaries, but in such a way that you couldn’t actually cash it in until they explicitly say so. There’s no reason they couldn’t do this, have the system in place but not unlocking it until they feel it’s fair to do so.

One method I noted when raids were first announced was that the Raids could have leaderboards, and alternate methods of earning the rewards could be pegged to those leaderboard, so that if zero people had completed the raid, then there would be zero chance of being able to earn it elsewhere. As more people enter the leaderboards and begin earning it faster, the amount of effort needed elsewhere would fall equivalently. Once people have the raid “on farm,” it would become relatively easy to earn it through other means, but not before.

I think it’s perfectly fair to make players wait until the raid method filters out before making alternate method available, but I think they should openly discuss those alternatives far sooner.

They just need to find the difficulty that suites most players. Most serious raider don’t complain it’s too easy. They just leave if the content doesn’t fit them.The complainers are players who think they need to exclude lesser skilled players. You can mostly ignore them.

I don’t think it’s possible to find a single level of difficulty that would please most players AND raiders. I think that plenty of existing content is already at the “most players” comfort level, and yet it’s constantly derided by the raidistas. If they pick a single difficulty type, they have to choose who to kitten off. I think offering at least two difficulty settings allows players who genuinely want harder difficulty to have that option, while also keeping a version within the general comfort level.

It’s a great effort and takes some time, but the single steps are rather easy to understand and we know almost nothing about the 2nd part apart from using crafting materials.

I don’t mean it’s difficult to understand, I mean from what we’ve seen, it’s a ton of hassle. I don’t know, I don’t know enough to judge the Precursor crafting to be a failure yet, but from the sounds of it it sounds more like things you could be able to do to get a completed Legendary without any of the other steps, not things that you have to do before even starting on the Legendary itself. Three years in, they should have been more generous with it, and include “time served.”

Miellyn.6847:

.. Other MMOs reward you with better equipment, GW2 can’t do this. They can only award unique skins. If they just hand out achievments hard modes will die after the first clear, so they are not worth the cost…

They actually plan to reward player with precursor armor. So no that’s false.

papry.8096:

Miellyn.6847:

.. Other MMOs reward you with better equipment, GW2 can’t do this. They can only award unique skins. If they just hand out achievments hard modes will die after the first clear, so they are not worth the cost…

They actually plan to reward player with precursor armor. So no that’s false.

It was about different rewards in different difficulties of the same raid. If armor precursor and boss-specific skins were obtainale in the easiest version, then there would be nothing left except achievments and titles for higher difficulties.

But the current state is one difficulty for all.

Ohoni.6057:

If those Ascended rings were available through other types of content, chances are players wouldn’t be interested in Fractals, given how much harder they were thought to be compared to dungeon paths for example. Even Fractals like the Swamp, were re-rolled at release because they were too difficult, which is ironic considering how it’s the fastest/easiest one now.

Can someone please explain to me how this is not an argument against making raids at all?

I think you missed the part of the Swamp there. What is seen as difficult at times can become very easy later on, once players figure out the mechanics and get better at the content. Giving multiple ways of earning the reward defeats the learning process of said content, once i fail running Swamp a couple of times, I’ll forget about it and go do something else to get my Rings. While by having a unique reward in it allowed Swamp to become “easy mode” later on. Fractals is already being done “for the challenge” since the rewards there are garbage, at least when Rings dropped only there, there was a reason to go for the higher levels.

I think it’s perfectly fair to make players wait until the raid method filters out before making alternate method available, but I think they should openly discuss those alternatives far sooner.

When talking about alternate methods what exactly do you expect? Tokens from dungeons, PVP tracks, completing world bosses in Jungle Areas, gathering resources, farming materials, doing fun collection activities etc. All the things that you’d need for the legendary weapon precursor collections. I don’t think they’d do something drastically different, the “alternate” method is already ready and waiting, all that’s left is decide how much of each material/token/karma/gold etc we’d need to get them from said method. Once we (including devs) have the actual raid stats they can put some reasonable numbers as requirements.

The second and third Wings will come in 2016, given how January is usually a “dead” month release-wise I’d expect the 2nd Wing to be released in late February or early March and the Third in mid-late April. Given my estimate it’s way too soon to talk about “alternate” methods before the “main” method is even done!

Miellyn.6847:

It’s actually funny that you complain about skins in raids that some people may never get, but nobody complains about the PvP-Set, which you can only get for winning tournaments.

Oh there was a lot of complaining about it. I still think it was a bad idea. Especially since one team admitted they got their piece by afking in a tournament (they won first round due to the other team not showing up).

Miellyn.6847:

Also Tequatl after his rework and Triple Trouble were deemed as impossible, yet every PUG kills Tequatl with plenty of time left.

Because it got nerfed several times (because until that time it was a dead content only a tiny minority of players even tried to attempt).

Miellyn.6847:

Raids will become more accessible as new or easier tactics will become popular, there is no need for multiple difficulties.

Well, if they get nerfed as much as tequatl did, then they indeed may become more popular. I’ll be happy when that happens.

Miellyn.6847:

There are exclusive items for the highend PvP-Players and there needs to be exclusive items for the highend PvE-Player

Both are equally bad.

also if you force people to play your easy mode to get those skins/armor it will be even worse.

I have no problem with it being accessible through both easy and hard mode. Better now?

I support the idea of a split into easy- and hard-mode. They can still make some rewards exclusive to the HM or have higher droprates in HM. It would give less organized people the opportunity to play through the content, which I don’t think is a bad thing.

I get the impression that the most competent people, who will be competing for record clears, couldn’t care less about the exclusivity. They just want something to challenge their skills, will feel like an accomplishment and will actually have fun mechanics to play with. A title would be nice to show others their accomplishment. (That’s the impression I get, sorry if you are a top player and care about exclusive rewards, my bad^^)

I don’t really see what the problem is with an easy mode, but I doubt there will be an easy mode – hard mode split, though.