Guild Wars 2

maddoctor.2738:

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.

It’s not that. It’s that Swamp doesn’t really increase in difficulty throughout fractal levels. Especially if you roll Bloomhunger. A group that can do swamp on fractal level 1, will be able to do it on 50.
It was considered relatively harder when everyone was running fractal levels 1-9. At 41+ it becomes way, way easier than all the other options

maddoctor.2738:

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.

And that is fine. There’s no inherent worth to knowing how to run swamp fractal. Personally, i still prefer underwater one, even on 40+ fractal levels (but then, i’m not after shortest possible times, i just want to have fun).

maddoctor.2738:

While by having a unique reward in it allowed Swamp to become “easy mode” later on.

But that’s the point, there wasn’t any unique reward in swamp. Nothing you couldn’t get by rolling a different starting fractal. People decided to avoid it (and then to do it) completely on their own – while always having other options available.

maddoctor.2738:

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.

So, an extension to precursor crafting, with armor precursors? Sounds both reasonable, and fun.

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.

Well, first, just because some content becomes easier once players figure out tricks, doesn’t mean that all content does. I mean, most content will get at least a little easier, but not necessarily to the point that it is easy enough for most people.

Second, if it does become that trivial, there’s no guarantee that the devs won’t patch the holes and restore all or most of the original difficulty, if they intend for it to be difficult. They’ve patched out numerous major and minor exploits that people have used to trivialize encounters, and most that remain are only there because they decided the players preferred the loophole. With their stated goal of “challenging content,” I assume they will be more aggressive with such corrections on Raid content.

Third, They can always time-restrict the alternates, as I discussed above, so that players will have every incentive to “do it the right way” for a while before the alternatives open up, which should give them plenty of time to “make it easy for themselves.”

Forth, even if all those fail, so what? If people don’t want to do the Swamp then why should they have to? Do players genuinely enjoy Swamp now, or is it just the least annoying alternative? If people don’t enjoy the content then don’t make them do it, let them do something else instead.

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!

Again though, they should be talking about alternative methods right now, to head off exactly this sort of internecine conflict. They just shouldn’t implement them until raiders have had their fair shot at earning them that way first. With their current release plan of many months between Raid releases, I don’t believe they should wait until the third wing is “done” before even considering the alternate methods, if they release raid 1 in the early winter and raid 3 by summer, then alternatives should be available to earn wing 1 stuff by early spring, and wing 3 stuff by late summer, at the latest. It might then take a few more months to actually earn the items, but the method to progress towards them should be open.

Astralporing.1957:

It was considered relatively harder when everyone was running fractal levels 1-9. At 41+ it becomes way, way easier than all the other options

TIL that underwater fractal is way, way harder than swamp.

Ohoni.6057:

Well, first, just because some content becomes easier once players figure out tricks, doesn’t mean that all content does. I mean, most content will get at least a little easier, but not necessarily to the point that it is easy enough for most people.

I never said it should be easy for most people anyway. “Easy for most people” defeats the purpose of “challenging content”. It can’t be challenging if everyone can do it. Still, if you give alternate ways of defeating content, the learning process of it becomes pointless. You can’t expect to do everything on the first go and with alternatives, and alternatives from old content no less, have no learning process.

Third, They can always time-restrict the alternates, as I discussed above, so that players will have every incentive to “do it the right way” for a while before the alternatives open up, which should give them plenty of time to “make it easy for themselves.”

Yes and I agree with some form of time restriction anyway.

Forth, even if all those fail, so what? If people don’t want to do the Swamp then why should they have to? Do players genuinely enjoy Swamp now, or is it just the least annoying alternative? If people don’t enjoy the content then don’t make them do it, let them do something else instead.

Let’s go on a journey through fractals. When the instabilities were added I refused to do only level 50 to level up. I wanted to see the entire journey and enjoy my way to the top. I created a group of guild members that all wanted the same thing and we went from 30 to 50 playing each week. We were 4 so we had to take either a guildie or a random during our “climb”. We usually persuaded the one joining us to not open 50, even if they had it unlocked, so we could experience every single instability. It was fun preparing for some of the hardest instabilities we were about to face on a week run.

This time we need to avoid using certain conditions, that time we need to avoid stacking because we hurt each other, and so on. It was a different run each time, it was fun and enjoyable coming up with all the different builds and ideas to counter instabilities.

Then we finally reached 50. I find 50 to be the easiest fractal, once you have the AR of course, because there are no actual mechanics there. After running it for a while I found it boring after the second or third run, while each week fighting a different instability I wasn’t bored. I knew it from the start that running any fractal level below 50 is pointless. It doesn’t matter if it has some fun and interesting mechanics, if it’s enjoyable at all. Runs below 50 are harder, take more time, and have LESS rewards.

How is this justified? Fractal levels 39 or 46 are significantly harder than level 50, yet 50 gives more/better rewards. Let’s add the raid in. Suppose that the raid is 39/46 fractal, what’s the point of it if much easier content can give the same (and more) rewards? If they ever added different skins to get for each fractal level, that would make them much more interesting. “Challenge” can keep some content fun for a while, but not forever, after some time you want your Challenge to also reward you proportionaly to how much effort you put in.

Again though, they should be talking about alternative methods right now, to head off exactly this sort of internecine conflict.

Let’s say that the raid turns out to be much easier than expected and a good 20% can do them in a few months, 50% in 5 months and maybe 60-70% in a year. Would there be a point in adding any alternative method of acquiring legendary armor precursors? I bet they don’t give a kitten about alternative methods at the moment, much like they didn’t care when they added Ascended rings in fractals.

They will “care” when they see the actual data.

Astralporing.1957:

maddoctor.2738:

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.

So, an extension to precursor crafting, with armor precursors? Sounds both reasonable, and fun.

Yes like the weapon precursor collections. That part I posted was refering to “discussing the alternative” methods for getting the legendary armor precursors. I don’t think there is anything to discuss, it’s fairly obvious how an alternative system would work, similar to weapon precursors, all that’s left is the amount of things you’d need to get.

I never said it should be easy for most people anyway. “Easy for most people” defeats the purpose of “challenging content”.

Which has been my point. You can’t argue out of both ends on this one. The content will either A. be difficult enough that it satisfies the hardcore crowd, in which case it will NEVER be accessible to most players without either a. a serious nerf, or b. a serious buff to the players, OR B. the content will be accessible to the majority, in which case the hardcore players will hate it. They can’t do both at once, so pick the one you’re advocating for and stop switching between the two when it’s convenient to the current point being made.

Still, if you give alternate ways of defeating content, the learning process of it becomes pointless.

Again, the alternatives can be made available only after the community has had ample time to learn the “right” way, and they can also be less efficient for those who do know the “right” way, so if you’re at all interested in doing things the “right” way in the first place, then even once the alternative is available that should still be the method you will be using, as it would be the most effective (but not only) method.

Let’s go on a journey through fractals. . .

That’s great. I’m glad that you found a way that you enjoyed doing fractals, and you found like minded people, and you had fun playing it your way. That really is great and I hope you have the same experience with raiding. But just because you enjoy doing it that way doesn’t mean that everyone else would, and they should be just as free to enjoy the content they way they enjoy it.

I believe in giving players many options, and letting them choose which options they prefer. Would you have enjoyed Fractals as much if there had been a rule in place that if anyone unlocked Fractal 50 then everyone had to run Fractal 50, no option otherwise?

How is this justified? Fractal levels 39 or 46 are significantly harder than level 50, yet 50 gives more/better rewards. Let’s add the raid in. Suppose that the raid is 39/46 fractal, what’s the point of it if much easier content can give the same (and more) rewards?

Some people enjoy difficult content. For these people, they would enjoy doing Fractal 39 or 46 more than 50. Enjoying things more is better than enjoying them less. Of course other people would feel the opposite, so it’s nice that they have an alternative.

Also, if 39 is more difficult than 50, then why beat 39? Well because then you can say that you beat it. You can’t do that unless you actually have (at least not honestly). Knowing that you’ve accomplished something rare and difficult is the best reward of all, and it’s actually more special because you know you’ve done it while even most of those that run 50 have not done it. There should be ways of marking these things down in the game, achievements, titles, leaderboards, etc. to make note of these occasions.

Now, that aside, hopefully that wouldn’t be the actual case, nobody is asking for that. What is on the table is for other content to offer the same types of rewards, but the actual quantity should at most be equal, and likely be less, so you shouldn’t have a situation where you have the Raids being Frac 39 and other stuff being Frac 50, you should insted have a situation where the current Fracs 39 and 50 have been swapped in content, 50 is the hardest one and 39 is the easier, but you can still run frac 39 and work towards the same rewards, just less efficiently.

If they ever added different skins to get for each fractal level, that would make them much more interesting.

Don’t forget to add “for me.” at the end of that, because while that may be how you want to play it, that’s definitely not how others would want to play it. Now, it wouldn’t be a big deal if some rewards were easier to get on a given fractal tier, like if you really wanted to get a certain boot then you would get it much quicker farming tier 30-40 than any other, while the glove might be more common on 20-30, so you’d want to try and find your favorite level on that tier, but you should still be able to progress towards it through other methods if the “efficiency” method just does not appeal to you.

Let’s say that the raid turns out to be much easier than expected and a good 20% can do them in a few months, 50% in 5 months and maybe 60-70% in a year. Would there be a point in adding any alternative method of acquiring legendary armor precursors?

Probably, yeah, that still leaves 30% out, but it would be a lot less urgent. If it were that easy though, then the raider types would complain, and I would assume ANet would actively try to twart the “dumbing down” of the raid, unless they changed their mind about their goals for it. Again, you can’t talk out of both ends on this one, either the raid will be designed to be hard or it won’t be.

I bet they don’t give a kitten about alternative methods at the moment, much like they didn’t care when they added Ascended rings in fractals.

Perhaps, but they should care, because it’s an issue with the community right now. Nobody cared about Ascended rings because they were just rings they had no skins attached. Legendary armor is an entirely different scale of thing.

Ohoni.6057:

Which has been my point. You can’t argue out of both ends on this one.

In your choices I’d choose A immediately, B wouldn’t make any sense. The idea is that even with option A the amount of players doing the content would be diminished if there was an easier way of getting the rewards, as shown in the fractals example. But since we agree that any possible “alternatives” should appear after the raid is released anyway that’s a moot point for this discussion so I’ll skip it.

Again, the alternatives can be made available only after the community has had ample time to learn the “right” way, and they can also be less efficient for those who do know the “right” way, so if you’re at all interested in doing things the “right” way in the first place, then even once the alternative is available that should still be the method you will be using, as it would be the most effective (but not only) method.

Sure, adding alternatives after they get the raid data (by they I mean the devs) is the most probable way of doing it and how I’d expect them to do it.

Don’t forget to add “for me.” at the end of that, because while that may be how you want to play it, that’s definitely not how others would want to play it.

No need to add “for me”, it’s how to make the content itself better. I will give you two other perfect examples of the problem, Citadel of Flame P3 and Sorrow’s Embrace P2 are both paths that are rarely, if ever, done.

I used to run CoF P3 daily, mostly for guild members to get their Dungeon Master, and in the end we put it on our daily CoF rotation because it has some rather unique encounters that go beyond what is available on other paths. It was enjoyable but it didn’t last very long. Even if CoF P3 had higher token reward than the other CoF paths, which it doesn’t, it would need to be significantly higher to be worth doing, or to have unique rewards available only while running CoF P3. I’d pick the unique rewards over more token rewards unless they wanted to add the unique skins like in the Aetherpath. Unique skins there were behind a triple layer of RNG. I’d pick more tokens in that case, I hate RNG.

Probably, yeah, that still leaves 30% out, but it would be a lot less urgent.

I’d like to hear by the devs if they expected anyone to beat the Boss in BWE3, or if they expected the players not to down it at all during BWE3 but take them a couple of days before doing it. That would be some interesting data. I can’t pick sides on the “how hard will the raid be” until I’ve played it. Until I actually play it (the whole thing) and see every wing I can’t take sides, I’m just adding a possibility here, that DOES exist, of a high percentage actually finishing it despite Anet saying otherwise. Why not wait and see and we can come back on this subject afterwards?

Nobody cared about Ascended rings

What?

rotten.9753:

Astralporing.1957:

It was considered relatively harder when everyone was running fractal levels 1-9. At 41+ it becomes way, way easier than all the other options

TIL that underwater fractal is way, way harder than swamp.

As far as difficulty goes, it is similar. The general makeup is basically the same (an annoying gimmick, followed by a boss fight), with the main difference being that there’s few trash mobs to kill at the beginning in Underwater. The end bossfight takes way longer in Underwater (due to the hyperinflated boss health at the higher fractal levels), but you can still do it on autopilot, though, there’s no real danger there (which makes it easier than Mossman, barring the water trick ofc).

In the end, the main difference is speed – at higher fractal levels Swamp is just way faster to finish.

maddoctor.2738:

I bet they don’t give a kitten about alternative methods at the moment, much like they didn’t care when they added Ascended rings in fractals.

They did admit within a month that limiting ascended to fractals was a mistake. They also did indirectly admit that this mistake was a result of them rushing ascended to release too early, before they even had a chance to plan any alternate acquisition system.

No, its not ok
You don’t create content and divide the player base on it
Much like the pve. pvp and wvw <————-All of them are players nothing more nothing less

Once you do lvl 20 fractals regularly, you are not showered with rings, but bombarded with them. I right now hope I don´t get another ring until they are made salveagable, and I already sold dozens of them over time for 4S 95C, that´s how often you get them.

If legendary armor is crossing my way as frequently as ascended rings do and I can grind them from the first raid boss, you can take the rest of the raid and shove it up there where the sun does not shine until I have it.

I find it particularly funny that PvP players, the probably statistically at least likely group to join a raid(being characterized as killer types of players), defend them. You people should be angry the most that raids are implemented because you were basically fed garbage for years and always came back for more to ask
“Thank you, good sir, can I have another one please?”
just to look at another round of garbage drops for the foreseeable future while a minority(Yes I, think it is a minority. Prove me wrong if you can.) of hardcore PvEers finally get their stuff with the best loot available.

Edit: If the accounting division of Anet tells Colin tomorrow that he has to dance naked in the streets before the Anet HQ to metaphorically keep their heads over water, you can bet your last dollar he would do it. If things turn out invaluable and have no in company defender(which is the worst thing that can happen to a company, a product defender in its own ranks), they are discarded or put on hold. A promise from a CEO means nothing if it is not made to stock holders, and even then it is debatable.

No need to add “for me”, it’s how to make the content itself better.

You forgot to add the “for me.” Better for you. What makes the content itself better for you is not necessarily what makes it better for someone else, and in many cases might make it considerably worse for them.

I used to run CoF P3 daily, mostly for guild members to get their Dungeon Master, and in the end we put it on our daily CoF rotation because it has some rather unique encounters that go beyond what is available on other paths. It was enjoyable but it didn’t last very long. Even if CoF P3 had higher token reward than the other CoF paths, which it doesn’t, it would need to be significantly higher to be worth doing, or to have unique rewards available only while running CoF P3. I’d pick the unique rewards over more token rewards unless they wanted to add the unique skins like in the Aetherpath. Unique skins there were behind a triple layer of RNG. I’d pick more tokens in that case, I hate RNG.

So your argument is that the bribe to play CoF3 isn’t high enough to make it worth it, so the solution is to increase the bribe’s value. That would make the dungeon better for you. To another person though, that might make the dungeon considerably worse, because they still would have no interest in actually running the dungeon, but would feel compelled to do so because they really wanted that reward. “Getting people to play” certain content is not necessarily making the content better, it can just be convincing them to care less that the content is not very good. Adding to the reward value of content is not improving the content itself, if players are not enjoying the content, then the solution is not to pile more prizes onto it, that’s just lazy at best, the solution is to figure out what elements of the content itself they do not like (too difficult, too easy, too short, too long, etc.) and actually correcting that element so that they enjoy it more.

I’d like to hear by the devs if they expected anyone to beat the Boss in BWE3, or if they expected the players not to down it at all during BWE3 but take them a couple of days before doing it. That would be some interesting data. I can’t pick sides on the “how hard will the raid be” until I’ve played it. Until I actually play it (the whole thing) and see every wing I can’t take sides, I’m just adding a possibility here, that DOES exist, of a high percentage actually finishing it despite Anet saying otherwise. Why not wait and see and we can come back on this subject afterwards?

But again, ANet has put a stake in the ground, “this content will be challenging.” It’s entirely possible that the launch version will fail at that, and that players will be able to beat the raid bosses within the first week they’re available. If so, however, I expect that they will actively work to make the content harder, shutting it down temporarily if they have to. I have no idea what they’re doing, but if it were me, under these circumstances, I would even have contingency plans in place, so that if players do beat the boss in an unexpected way, there would be several levers they can pull to instantly up the difficulty in that segment. I’m not saying that the encounters will never become easier, but if they do I believe it will be because ANet make the conscious decision to allow them to become easier, not because players make it impossible for it to remain challenging.

What?

I said nobody cared about ascended rings. It wasn’t a big deal, in the grand scheme of things, since they were just rings.

maddoctor.2738:

Until I actually play it (the whole thing) and see every wing I can’t take sides, I’m just adding a possibility here, that DOES exist, of a high percentage actually finishing it despite Anet saying otherwise. Why not wait and see and we can come back on this subject afterwards?

Ohoni’s right on point to what reaction would such a situation cause. If Anet made such a big mistake in tweaking the raid difficulty (or didn’t make a mistake, but they simply overstated it for PR reasons), then all the raid crowd will explode, asking where their promised challenging content is. And then we’d end up with one of two possibilities:

A. Anet realizes their mistake, and tweaks the difficulty back to the level demanded by raiders. Our discussion stays relevant.

B. Anet doesn’t tweak the raid. Raiders lose. We get back to the discussions from half a year ago.

Neither of these solves anyting. In either case one group is dissatisfied. Of course, in such a case i’d rather vote for option B (while you’d want option A, i guess), but i consider that a nuclear option. I don’t really want to take the content away from you. I just don’t want to be excluded from rewards i may want.

I find it telling however, that you consider this the only way i might get it.

maddoctor.2738:

Nobody cared about Ascended rings

What?

…that was my reaction as well.

Ohoni.6057:

I said nobody cared about ascended rings. It wasn’t a big deal, in the grand scheme of things, since they were just rings.

That’s actually not true. It was a realy big affair, and the shocks can be felt to this day. People quit the game due to this. In large enough numbers, that Anet changed their course again, and (while they did keep releasing ascended up to a full set) abandoned the decision to go hamster wheel. The whole debacle was also big enough, that to this day we haven’t seen any better infusions (even if they were planned at this time) and the plans to raise the level cap were put on hold. And the laurel system was made as a result of the discussion acqusition methods of those rings caused.

So please, do not ignore or trivialize it. You will just look ridiculous.

Turbotef.9203:

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.

Longest living bosses in WoW:

Ouro – 87 days from the Twin Emperors’ death. 26th April 2006.
C’thun – 86 days from the Twin Emperors’ death. 25th April 2006.
tied Chromaggus – 74 days from Ebonroc’s death. 25th September 2005.
tied Ragnaros – 74 days from Majordomo Executus’ death. 25th April 2005.
Yogg-Saron, Alone in the Darkness – 70 days from One Light in the Darkness. 7th July 2009
High Astromancer Solarian – 59 days from Magtheridon’s death. 24th April 2007
The Four Horsemen – 56 days from Gothik’s death to D&T’s kill. August 25th 2006
Al’ar <Phoenix God> – 48 days from Magtheridon’s death. 13th April 2007
The Lich King (Heroic 25) – 42 Days from Heroic Putricide’s death (first pull). March 26th 2010
Heroic Al’Akir – 36 days from Heroic Conclave of Wind’s death. January 22nd 2011
Kael’thas Sunstrider <Lord of the Blood Elves> – 31 days from Solarian’s death. 25th May 2007
Magtheridon – 29 days from the first 70 raid kills. 24th February 2007
Lady Vashj <Coilfang Matron> – 17 days from being unlocked. 29th March 2007
Leotheras the Blind – 16 days from Hydross’ death. 4th March 2007
Loatheb – 14 days from Heigan’s death. 17th July 2006
tied Heigan the Unclean – 13 days from Noth the Plaguebringer’s death. 3rd July 2006
tied Hydross the Unstable <Duke of Currents> – 13 days from Gruul’s death. 16th February 2007
tied Heroic Cho’gall – 13 days from Heroic Ascendant Council’s death. 15th January 2011.
tied Heroic Nefarian – 13 days from Heroic Atramedes’ death. January 9th 2011.
tied Archimonde <The Defiler> – 10 days from Azgalor’s death. 9th June 2007
tied Gothik the Harvester – 10 days from Instructor Razuvious’ death. 30th June 2006
tied Mimiron Firefighter 25 – 8 days from Ensidia’s KnockKnockKnock kill to Firefighter kill. May 1st 2009
tied Sapphiron – 8 days from Four Horsemen dying. 2nd September 2006
tied Gruul the Dragonkiller – 8 days from Maulgar’s death. 3rd February 2007
Reliquary of Lost Souls – 6 days from Gurtogg’s death. 2nd June 2007
tied Kel’Thuzad – 5 days from Sapphiron’s death. 7th September 2006
tied Kil’jaeden <The Deceiver> – 5 days from the opening of the third Sunwell gate. 25th May 2008
tied Sinestra – 5 days from Heroic Cho’gall’s death. January 20th 2011.
tied Heroic Anub’arak 25 – 4 days from Heroic Twin Val’kyr’s death. September 6th 2009.
tied M’uru. 4 days from the opening of the second Sunwell gate. 4th May 2008

Yeah that’s why among the top raid boss times until complete are all in vanilla. But I’m sure you knew that. Most of them not killed until nerfed bye the way. Vanilla was easy for you because the content was on farm status by the time you came around to do it and people had you tag along, please… I was in a raid guild ranked 13th world wide (conspiracy on Frostmourne EU) and while I was not part of the main squad I can tell stories about doing tries on bosses for days or weeks of full 40 people without guides of how and what to do because the boss had not been killed yet.

Also, don’t think to much of yourself, I could care less how much of a bigshot you think you are or were. I’m not raising the “bar” on anything. Simply stating what you did, a significant enough majority of the playerbase completed as well. Especially once things got so streamlined that all one had to do was read up on Nihilums latest strats on how to complete the content. Yay raiding.

JVJD.4912:

No, its not ok
You don’t create content and divide the player base on it
Much like the pve. pvp and wvw <————-All of them are players nothing more nothing less

Did you seriously just try to make a case about not dividing the player base by listing the three primary divisions of the player base?

These are literally three completely different, non-overlapping advancement systems.

You have a right to your opinion, but this isn’t a great way to illustrate it.

That’s actually not true. It was a realy big affair, and the shocks can be felt to this day. People quit the game due to this. In large enough numbers, that Anet changed their course again, and (while they did keep releasing ascended up to a full set) abandoned the decision to go hamster wheel. The whole debacle was also big enough, that to this day we haven’t seen any better infusions (even if they were planned at this time) and the plans to raise the level cap were put on hold. And the laurel system was made as a result of the discussion acqusition methods of those rings caused.

So please, do not ignore or trivialize it. You will just look ridiculous.

I was playing at the time but was entirely unaware of anything you said there. It just didn’t impact me in any way. Yeah, they provided higher stats, but the difference was marginal and completely irrelevant to any of the existing content. The Ascended weapons and armor were a much bigger issue because they had skins attached and enough stats to make a difference, and the additional of raid content that might make the stat difference meaningful raises that bar even higher.

Ohoni.6057:

No need to add “for me”, it’s how to make the content itself better.

You forgot to add the “for me.” Better for you. What makes the content itself better for you is not necessarily what makes it better for someone else, and in many cases might make it considerably worse for them.

Cute. How is adding a reason to run something that is harder but unrewarding not better for the content is beyond me, but hey you can say whatever you want, opinions and all that.

So your argument is that the bribe to play CoF3 isn’t high enough to make it worth it, so the solution is to increase the bribe’s value.

That’s how content rewards in video games work. You might not like it but your non-sense that it will make it “worse” (lol?) for some people is just that, non-sense. Balancing rewards based on difficulty/challenge is an important aspect of making a good reward system, I wouldn’t expect someone who just wants all the rewards without playing all the content to accept this, but that’s just how it is. As said a million times already, “challenge” can keep some content fun for a limited amount of time, there comes a time when you actually want to be rewarded for it, compared to other content which is more rewarding and much easier. That’s just how it is.

But again, ANet has put a stake in the ground, “this content will be challenging.” It’s entirely possible that the launch version will fail at that, and that players will be able to beat the raid bosses within the first week they’re available.

They also said Tequatl will be challenging and un-beatable for a few months. You are over-estimating their ability to judge difficulty.

What?

I said nobody cared about ascended rings. It wasn’t a big deal, in the grand scheme of things, since they were just rings.

The introduction of the Ascended rings caused way more uproar than the raids ever did, or the legendary armor precursors or anything else. The only thing they’ve done that grew so much discussion and backlash was the pricing policy of Heart of Thorns and giving the original game for free. I guess you didn’t notice because rings don’t change your appearance, they are not skins and you only care about those. Just a newsflash, not everyone cares about skins, the statistical advantage of ascended (no matter how small) was a much more serious issue than locking a couple of skins behind content.

Astralporing.1957:

I don’t really want to take the content away from you. I just don’t want to be excluded from rewards i may want.

I don’t think putting the skins behind boss mobs in the Raid will change. And they go beyond the precursors like the unique shield skin from the frog raid boss, and I bet there will be a lot of others too.

Ohoni.6057:

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.

If you want something, you need to earn it. The solution here isn’t to ask Anet to make things so simple that it fits into your play style. You need to get out of your comfort zone and try new things. Raids are here to challenge people. If you’re unwilling to adapt and learn, then you’re not worthy of the rewards.

But when you think about it, Anet isn’t really excluding players from content. Players are excluding themselves.

• If you’re not skilled enough to beat a Raid, you get better. Keep trying and learn what works.
• If you don’t have enough friends to form a Raid group, you make new friends or join other guilds. MMOs are meant to be social. I’ve joined great guilds that do everything from PvE World Events, WvW, and PvP.
• If you don’t have the right gear for Raids, you go out and craft it. You can get T6 and T7 mats from playing the game normally. Ascended chests drop all over the place too (PvP, WvW, World Events, FotM, etc).
• If you don’t have time to play a Raid, you make time by organizing your real life so you can log in. In GW1, me and my friends spent 16 hours on a single DoA run when it first came out, because we wanted to be the first to clear all 4 paths in a row.

The game gives you all the tools you need to succeed. The question here is: Do you have the drive to use those tool?

Raids are either here because:
a) The raider supporters, cried so loud and passionately that Anet finally gave in to their latent desire to build a standard element of MMOs in their game while pushing away any ideas about the unique attempt of GW2 being a game without old routines. Yes, other things are taken from other games too, but that may be as wrong as implementing raids too depending on what we would be talking about.
b) Numers don´t lie, and they told Anet that income is either not as desired or could be better if they targeted the hardcore audience more.
c) a third party with enough influence(pulisher, shareholders, parent corporation, money loaner, bank) demanded it.

That you feel challenged by them is part of the strategy to sell them to you, not the purpose. I feel annoyed by this feature and was not even sure if I would buy HoT because of it but bought the expansion in spite of that content, not because of it.
Concluding from that, my physical, social or mental ability to do a raid is irrelevant if I am not sold on the concept. Anet knows that peole like me are at least a large minority and so puts their best carrot behind the content, forcing me to at least try my hands on raids.
Kind of like a parent that tries to sell the vegetables/meat/sauce on the tables to the children that don´t like them with the promise/thread that there will be only sweets for them if they eat their plates empty. Funnily, this leads to a growing number of adults who passionately hate vegetables/meat/sauce because they were forced to eat them as children.

“You will like it, if you think you like it or not.”
never sold anything to anyone on a voluntary basis, but still it is a largely held opinion even today.

Cute. How is adding a reason to run something that is harder but unrewarding not better for the content is beyond me, but hey you can say whatever you want, opinions and all that.

Nobody ever said that it should be unrewarding, just that it doesn’t need to be more rewarding than other options. Now, if you’re talking about adding unique rewards to the content, then yes, that does objectively make the content worse for anyone who does not want to do that content but does want that reward, because it presents them with a lose/lose scenario that did not previously exist. Their previous choice was “do the content and not have fun,” or “do something else and have fun instead.” Now they are stuck with the choice between “do the content and not have fun,” or “never get that thing it rewards and be sad.”

But you tell me, why should I be happier about the content if it is forcing me to play it, even though I do not at all enjoy myself as I do?

So your argument is that the bribe to play CoF3 isn’t high enough to make it worth it, so the solution is to increase the bribe’s value.[/quote]

That’s how content rewards in video games work.[/quote]

Only if they’re done poorly. If they’re done well, then you aren’t chasing the reward, you’re chasing the content, and the reward is just an added perk, something to keep you invested in the overall loot cycle of the game. You might play the game to get more and better loot over time, but the activities you play within that game should be entirely about which you prefer doing.

They also said Tequatl will be challenging and un-beatable for a few months. You are over-estimating their ability to judge difficulty.

No, I’m just assuming that their commitment to difficulty will be higher for these raids. If they wanted Teq to be harder, it WOULD be harder. They are not incapable of making it harder than it is, and its current state is only a reflection of where they believe the community wants it to be. But again, speculating about what they will or won’t do is entirely pointless, they have said that the content will be challenging, so we have to hold them to their word for the purposes of this discussion. If the content turns out to not be at all challenging, and they leave it in that state, then any discussions we are having become moot, but that doesn’t mean that there is no value in discussing contingencies for if maybe they actually do what they said they’d do.

If you want something, you need to earn it.

And again, nobody is suggesting otherwise. Stop making up imaginary positions just so you can shoot them down. The discussion on the table is just to provide alternative methods of earning them for people who don’t enjoy the current option.

The solution here isn’t to ask Anet to make things so simple that it fits into your play style. You need to get out of your comfort zone and try new things. Raids are here to challenge people. If you’re unwilling to adapt and learn, then you’re not worthy of the rewards.

No, that’s bull kitten. “Not worthy of the rewards,” Lol. “Worthy.” Seriously? “Worthy?” These are skins in a videogame, nobody on the planet is “unworthy” of them. This isn’t kitten Mjolnir we’re talking about. The conditions to earn the rewards are whatever ANet says they are, and if they are one thing today, they could be another thing tomorrow and all that would take is ANet saying so. Done. I’m asking that they say so, presumably you’re asking that they don’t we’ll see how it shakes out.

The game gives you all the tools you need to succeed. The question here is: Do you have the drive to use those tool?

No.

Hence the search for alternatives.

Ohoni.6057:

Nobody ever said that it should be unrewarding, just that it doesn’t need to be more rewarding than other options.

And that’s the problem with the reward system in the game right now, you don’t see it as a problem but it IS a problem. You are only thinking from the perspective of someone who might not like the content and never think from the other side, or even from the content itself. Your single minded focus on those who might not like some content for any reason is narrowing your view.

Only if they’re done poorly.

If they are done well you mean. This isn’t a single player game last I checked and as I said multiple times and you always miss, “challenge” can keep content fun for a limited amount of time. Rewards on the other hand can keep it fun for a much much longer time. But yes someone like you who is focused on those who might not like some content will never understand this, no matter if it’s video game reward 101. See, if I like 2 pieces of content equally but one of them gives more rewards while being easier, what’s the point of the 2nd piece existing?

No, I’m just assuming that their commitment to difficulty will be higher for these raids. If they wanted Teq to be harder, it WOULD be harder.

Yet you don’t know if it will actually be and until that time comes any discussion about it is pointless.

You are turning this into that other thread again with your endless circling arguments.

You are only thinking from the perspective of someone who might not like the content and never think from the other side, or even from the content itself.

No, I think about it from both sides. It’s just that the person who does not want to do the content but feels forced into it outweighs the person who enjoys the content but would like more free candy on top of it, because the latter person already has options and the former person does not. They are not equivalent positions.

But yes someone like you who is focused on those who might not like some content will never understand this, no matter if it’s video game reward 101. See, if I like 2 pieces of content equally but one of them gives more rewards while being easier, what’s the point of the 2nd piece existing?

You keep using the word “might” as if you imply that it’s a hypothetical, as if it’s something that may not even exist. That is simply untrue. These people do exist, have existed and will continue to exist, for every element of the game. There is no part of the game that every player enjoys, or any part that every player hates. There is no hypothetical in their existence, only in their quantity.
This is why the ideal goal should be to have as much player freedom as possible, to allow players to avoid portions of the game that they do not enjoy, and to feel fairly (if not uniquely) rewarded for participating in the content that they do enjoy as much as possible.

The purpose of rewards should not be to shepherd and shoehorn players into specific activities, and certainly not to get them to play everything equally, regardless of their own personal tastes, the purpose of rewards is to make ALL activities feel fairly rewarding, to keep them playing this game as opposed to other games. So long as players are enjoying themselves doing whatever it is they like to do ijn this game, it’s none of ANet’s business which activities they choose.

. See, if I like 2 pieces of content equally but one of them gives more rewards while being easier, what’s the point of the 2nd piece existing?

The easier content should not give more rewards, and chances are it should provide less, just not so much less that it is not worth doing for anyone. Nobody has really argued otherwise. But that is a discussion of quantity, not quality.

Yet you don’t know if it will actually be and until that time comes any discussion about it is pointless.

No, it’s not. Discussing contingencies is very much purposeful. As I said, if ti turns out that the raids will be a cakewalk that casuals can get through in a couple hours a week, then fine, the point I’m making is moot, but that doesn’t mean that there’s no reason to discuss likely potential outcomes in advance. If we wait until one, three, six, nine months down the line to even discuss what should happen next, it would take another six months or more to implement, and suddenly we’ve gone a year or more in an undesirable situation. That’s how we end up with fiasco like some of the lesser Elite Specs, which were only announced within months of launch, many of them fatally flawed.

So I go into this knowing that perhaps this discussion won’t be necessary, and if that comes to pass, then great, my problems have been solved with minimal effort on their end. But if so, then no harm done in discussing the potential problems. If, on the other hand, it does turn out to be very challenging and exclusionary content, then the problem will exist and solutions will be necessary, hence the discussion.

So, if you don’t want to discuss this until well after raids have launched, then physician heal thyself, pull out of the discussion until you deem it worth having, but I see the value in having the discussion as early and often as possible until we get a firm commitment out of the devs that they understand our concerns and have solutions in place that will satisfy them.

Ohoni.6057:

No, I think about it from both sides.

No you are not. You don’t care at all about anything other than the single argument you’ve ever presented: “what happens if I don’t like the content?”. That’s the one and only thing you’ve ever said even after countless pages and arguments. It’s funny after all those pages you are still using that single argument and try to downplay any other by repeating it over and over. Care to find any new arguments for a change?

You keep using the word “might” as if you imply that it’s a hypothetical, as if it’s something that may not even exist.

If I didn’t use “might” and it was something that actually happens with all types of content then we are all doomed.

Discussing contingencies is very much purposeful.

No it’s not. You won’t know if those contigencies will even be relevant when the content is released.

maddoctor.2738:

No it’s not. You won’t know if those contigencies will even be relevant when the content is released.

Of course they will be relevant. Or are you saying that if Anet really overestimated the difficulty and it will go on farm status with 70% of the player population being able to roll over it, you will suddenly stop arguing?

Astralporing.1957:

maddoctor.2738:

No it’s not. You won’t know if those contigencies will even be relevant when the content is released.

Of course they will be relevant. Or are you saying that if Anet really overestimated the difficulty and it will go on farm status with 70% of the player population being able to roll over it, you will suddenly stop arguing?

The opposite. Maybe I will suddenly start arguing if that was true. This is a prime example of complaining for the sake of complaining, arguing in order to pass the time arguing with others. A waste of time.

I think it’s a brilliant idea for them to include hard raids. I enjoy pushing myself, and I think raids will be great for the game.

If you don’t enjoy hardcore content, don’t play it. That’s totally fine. If you want the armor then you’ll have to suck it up. It’s not like I remotely wanted to do map completion for a legendary weapon, but I kinda have to if I want one. It’s not like I want to want to spend time leveling this guardian to 80, but if I want to use him in WvW or PvE then I’ll just have to suck it up and do it, and find the way that makes it most fun.

Raiding won’t be as hardcore in this game as it might be in some other games, but it’ll be a good step for the game.

WvW people got changes in HoT. PvP players got changes in HoT. Casual PvE players got changes with fractals in HoT. Now, the players that are “hardcore” PvE can enjoy something a little more challenging instead of playing the game and then moving on due to the lack of challenging endgame content.

It just occurred to me that if I don’t raid, then there is little new content for me in HOT. My main is ele, and tempest isn’t worth playing. I don’t plan to create a revenant. In the end, the new content for me will be 3 maps, 1 pvp mode, 1 wvw map, and perhaps new personal stories (they haven’t talked about personal stories, but I guess they must be there). This is far less than what I got in eye of the north in GW1 which was cheaper, less enjoyable than what I got from the fractals systems which are free, and is only slightly more than what I got during living stories season 2. Now I am seriously considering not to pay the launch price and get Legacy of the Void instead, which, surprisingly, is even $10 less even though it the xpac to the top1 RTS game. Well, at least I will get truly challenging content in starcraft, instead of so-called challenging content which simply requires lots of free time.

Such a shame when games companies allow this elitism to rear it’s ugly head. It’s not like there is no precedent for how destructive to a game this is. There’s tons, lol.

Already legendary equipment is locked behind raids completely out of reach of the casuals, that 99% of the population (on WOW figures) who actually pay for this ****.

Not a design or decision that is going to add to my likelihood of sticking with the game.

Astralporing.1957:

As far as difficulty goes, it is similar. The general makeup is basically the same (an annoying gimmick, followed by a boss fight), with the main difference being that there’s few trash mobs to kill at the beginning in Underwater. The end bossfight takes way longer in Underwater (due to the hyperinflated boss health at the higher fractal levels), but you can still do it on autopilot, though, there’s no real danger there (which makes it easier than Mossman, barring the water trick ofc).

In the end, the main difference is speed – at higher fractal levels Swamp is just way faster to finish.

If you get a mossman, without exploiting him underwater is easier, no discussion here. Secondly, I hope you understand what hyperinflated means. Because the reality is that the only boss in those fractals that has hyperinflated health is bloomhunger. Those are health values for fractal scales 1 and 50:

Mossman – 932k – 1.78m
Bloomhunger – 1.13m – 2.15m
Jellyfish – 678k – 1.29m

The reason it takes longer to kill jellyfish is because a vast majority of people can’t even deal a decent damage underwater and/or they ignore electrified cages.

Klowde.9876:

If you don’t enjoy hardcore content, don’t play it. That’s totally fine. If you want the armor then you’ll have to suck it up..

Nope I don’t have to. I’m fine with game mode having exclusive skin. Except legendary armor isn’t a skin; it’s the last armor tier.

Anet doesn’t ask to do fractal to get legendary weapon. But suddenly you are forced do raid in order to get legendary armor ?

As the reward for “hardcore” player. The content and exclusive skin should be enough as all you want is to show off your achievement.

Klowde.9876:

WvW people got changes in HoT. PvP players got changes in HoT. Casual PvE players got changes with fractals in HoT. Now, the players that are “hardcore” PvE can enjoy something a little more challenging instead of playing the game and then moving on due to the lack of challenging endgame content.

So now fractal is casual PvE. The elitism is real.

papry.8096:

Klowde.9876:

If you don’t enjoy hardcore content, don’t play it. That’s totally fine. If you want the armor then you’ll have to suck it up..

Nope I don’t have to. I’m fine with game mode having exclusive skin. Except legendary armor isn’t a skin; it’s the last armor tier.

Anet doesn’t ask to do fractal to get legendary weapon. But suddenly you are forced do raid in order to get legendary armor ?

As the reward for “hardcore” player. The content and exclusive skin should be enough as all you want is to show off your achievement.

Klowde.9876:

WvW people got changes in HoT. PvP players got changes in HoT. Casual PvE players got changes with fractals in HoT. Now, the players that are “hardcore” PvE can enjoy something a little more challenging instead of playing the game and then moving on due to the lack of challenging endgame content.

So now fractal is casual PvE. The elitism is real.

Legendary is essentially the same tier as ascended.

Unique skin and a QoL feature are all that differentiate it.

Ashen.2907:

Unique skin and a QoL feature are all that differentiate it.

Qol just behind the abilty to swap stats without cost & on the fly.
I don’t see how this can’t be useful…
You can have the skin; I don’t care & you will be able to show off as a raider
The QoL; I do care.

papry.8096:

Ashen.2907:

Unique skin and a QoL feature are all that differentiate it.

Qol just behind the abilty to swap stats without cost & on the fly.
I don’t see how this can’t be useful…
You can have the skin; I don’t care & you will be able to show off as a raider
The QoL; I do care.

I didnt say that it cant be useful. It wouldnt be a QoL improvement if it wasnt useful. Even so legendaries and ascended gear share the same stats. They are the same tier.

I will not have either the skin or the QoL feature.

No you are not. You don’t care at all about anything other than the single argument you’ve ever presented: “what happens if I don’t like the content?”. That’s the one and only thing you’ve ever said even after countless pages and arguments. It’s funny after all those pages you are still using that single argument and try to downplay any other by repeating it over and over. Care to find any new arguments for a change?

That’s the position I’m arguing because that’s the one that is being opposed, but if does not mean that I do not take the opposite position into account in my thinking. It is just not something I push for because there are other people pushing back on that front.

No it’s not. You won’t know if those contigencies will even be relevant when the content is released.

Yes, that is the entire point of a contingency, to plan ahead for something which may or may not come to pass. It’s like buying auto insurance, you may never get into a car accident, but it is beneficial to have plans in place just in case you do.

An easy fix would be to make the rewards in raids available elsewhere in a different color. Like carapace/luminescent armor. Make the raids have color exclusive rewards that are available for everyone in other colors. Then the raiders have their ego boost and everyone that does not/can not do raids can get the same rewards… Horizontal progression for everyone.

I thought this bullkitten posting would be over once the original raid topic dropped a few pages, but here we go again. Your argument is clear, and it’s something the devs will have read by now, it’s up to them to decide to follow you in it or not, creating another 40 pages textbook will not help your case.

An easy fix would be to make the rewards in raids available elsewhere in a different color. Like carapace/luminescent armor. Make the raids have color exclusive rewards that are available for everyone in other colors. Then the raiders have their ego boost and everyone that does not/can not do raids can get the same rewards… Horizontal progression for everyone.

Colors aren’t good, because then what if you don’t like the colors available to you? Like with SAB weapons, I prefer blue, and blue happened to be the easiest versions to get. But what if the easiest version had been yellow, and blue had been the one that required beating Tribulation mode? I would have been very upset about that, and would have fought tooth and nail for them to have made the blue versions available without having to beat Tribulation mode, like for 10x the baubles of the yellow ones or something.

The point is, if you’re going for a look, you’re going for a look, and color is a factor in that. The people that are looking for the skin will not be happy about being able to get that skin in a different color, if the color that they want is only available via the other method.

keth.1836:

Such a shame when games companies allow this elitism to rear it’s ugly head. It’s not like there is no precedent for how destructive to a game this is. There’s tons, lol.

Already legendary equipment is locked behind raids completely out of reach of the casuals, that 99% of the population (on WOW figures) who actually pay for this ****.

Not a design or decision that is going to add to my likelihood of sticking with the game.

Today i had the pleasure of doing fractal lvl 50 with a guard that provided nothing for our team but sadness and frustration for a whole run.

Raiding will eliminate that kind of players and that’s just fine. That will simply exclude everyone and their mom from having legendary items simply because they were there leeching from the group spamming 1 while rooted on one spot.

When worn, it will mean player went trough hell and back to have it. Not everyone will have it and it’s fine. Funny how people riot when they have to earn something with their skills rather then their wallets and feel entitled to get everything with minimal effort.

Oxidia.8103:

Today i had the pleasure of doing fractal lvl 50 with a guard that provided nothing for our team but sadness and frustration for a whole run.

Raiding will eliminate that kind of players and that’s just fine. That will simply exclude everyone and their mom from having legendary items simply because they were there leeching from the group spamming 1 while rooted on one spot.

You got him because you were pugging. It had nothing to do with fractals or raiding. Try pugging for raid instances and you will see the same thing happen.

Oxidia.8103:

When worn, it will mean player went trough hell and back to have it. Not everyone will have it and it’s fine. Funny how people riot when they have to earn something with their skills rather then their wallets and feel entitled to get everything with minimal effort.

Just to clarify the position of the opposition. It’s not only some feel Entitled to the best gear with minimal efforts. Some don’t want to do the content, yet feel Entitled to the rewards.

A real life example of this would be getting a college degree. The requirements are taking X amount of classes that take an average of 4 years to complete in order to get your degree. The classes aren’t easy, and sometimes requires getting together for group projects. One student refuses to take classes, and argues that the school should have an alternative way to get the degree because they’re paying the tuition. That’s similar to what’s going on here. Raids are the classes needed, Legendary armor is the degree, and Anet is the college.

Basically, if you don’t want to take the classes, you don’t deserve the degree.

Lol. Firstly, you really, really think people such as that Guard won’t appear in raids? Gimme a break.

Secondly, who said anything about other methods of sourcing the gear should be easy?
Don’t put words into peoples mouths.

MyriadStars.5679:

Oxidia.8103:

Today i had the pleasure of doing fractal lvl 50 with a guard that provided nothing for our team but sadness and frustration for a whole run.

Raiding will eliminate that kind of players and that’s just fine. That will simply exclude everyone and their mom from having legendary items simply because they were there leeching from the group spamming 1 while rooted on one spot.

You got him because you were pugging. It had nothing to do with fractals or raiding. Try pugging for raid instances and you will see the same thing happen.

Your missing the point.

I said nothing about ‘easy’, so please don’t put words into my mouth.

I said I’m quite happy for those kids to go to collage and get their degree, but that I am a working mum and wanted a way to get my degree online at home as well.

Alternative, not easier.

Understand now?

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Oxidia.8103:

When worn, it will mean player went trough hell and back to have it. Not everyone will have it and it’s fine. Funny how people riot when they have to earn something with their skills rather then their wallets and feel entitled to get everything with minimal effort.

Just to clarify the position of the opposition. It’s not only some feel Entitled to the best gear with minimal efforts. Some don’t want to do the content, yet feel Entitled to the rewards.

A real life example of this would be getting a college degree. The requirements are taking X amount of classes that take an average of 4 years to complete in order to get your degree. The classes aren’t easy, and sometimes requires getting together for group projects. One student refuses to take classes, and argues that the school should have an alternative way to get the degree because they’re paying the tuition. That’s similar to what’s going on here. Raids are the classes needed, Legendary armor is the degree, and Anet is the college.

Basically, if you don’t want to take the classes, you don’t deserve the degree.

keth.1836:

Secondly, who said anything about other methods of sourcing the gear should be easy?
Don’t put words into peoples mouths.

I see this argument a lot and it doesn’t make any sense at all. First, people say that there should be alternatives for those who don’t like the “main” way of getting the rewards, sure let’s say we agree on that. And then they say alternative methods shouldn’t be easy, but that contradicts the first point. You can’t have both, you either exclude a certain percentage of the playerbase or you make it really easy, there is no other way.

So choose which is it, alternative methods are easy or you exclude people? You can choose to have both to a certain degree, but then comes the next 2 questions:

A) Where do you put the barrier?
B) How do you justify excluding those who can’t reach that barrier?

I see this argument a lot and it doesn’t make any sense at all. First, people say that there should be alternatives for those who don’t like the “main” way of getting the rewards, sure let’s say we agree on that. And then they say alternative methods shouldn’t be easy, but that contradicts the first point. You can’t have both, you either exclude a certain percentage of the playerbase or you make it really easy, there is no other way.

Well, there’s always a middleground. The current method is not exactly “hard,” it’s just expensive and takes a little time. I mean, to minimally gear a single character you have to max out at least two crafting disciplines (a weapon and an armor, more likely several weapon schools), which takes at least a few hours to do from scratch, potentially weeks if you’re being efficient on cost, and then money.

Then you have to actually make the item, which again takes at minimum several hundred gold, and a process that will take several weeks of daily crafting, or shortcuts that will cost considerably more.

So mostly it boils down to time, time to acquire the gold needed for most of the process. There’s very little actual skill involved, and theoretically you can do it yourself spending only a few total hours in Lion’s Arch under the starfish, and a fat credit card. Oh, you would need a certain amount of Bloodstone and the such, but there are plenty of minimal-investment activities to earn what you would need.

So what would be the alternative? I think the price should come down. The cost of a full set of Exotic armor is somewhere in the 10-12g range, the cost of a full set of Ascended is more in the 400-600g range, depending on your class (and the fact that some classes have to pay 50% more than others is another little horror). I think a more fair price is closer to the 100g range for a full set of Ascended armor, another 30g or less for the weapons. That is still around ten times the price of baseline Exotic, which should be plenty.

I also think that there should be a method that does not involve crafting, for those just determined to not have to craft things, but of course you would pay a retail mark-up. I would allow L500 crafters to make “Ascended Blanks” that include all the cash-value components of the armor, at roughly the same cash value cost as that armor. They could then sell these on the TP. Another player could then buy these elements and dump them into the forge alongside the account-bound elements (which they would still need to collect personally). This would give them Ascended armor of the style they choose, without needing to learn any crafting, but of course they would end up spending at least 15-20% more, likely more than that, due to the TP mark-ups.

And of course, since the cash costs would be going down, there would likely be other ways for them to drop in the existing content at a better rate, so that they feel “about right” for that current price, so that you’d still be excited when you get one, rather than “oh, throw it on the pile.”

So the short answer is, you make them cheaper and more accessible, but they would still take work and/or significant RNG to earn, relative to Exotics, at least.

Alternatives for people who don´t want to raid are either easy to realize or indeed nearly impossible to make, depending on what the main problem of a raid for a given person is: Time, effort, social ability or equipment.

All can be replaced by Pvp and WvW. Pvp and Wvw are by definition hard(unpredictable) if you take away the ability of players to set up arenas for cheating.
High level Fractals are maybe not hard for elite gamers but for anyone else. Add a reasonable drop chance for legendary armor at levlels 90+ as soon as they are on and we´re golden.

A) Your personal barrier may be much higher than mine, so we´re back to the word reasonable for a casual gamer that has X time at his disposal. I am pretty sure that Anet has numbers for this, so it would be their job to set the barrier in other types of content.
B) I can´t justify it. But I can justify that you have to give and take to get a compromise many people can live with, like in politics.

keth.1836:

Alternative, not easier.

Why do you need an alternative if it’s going to be the same difficulty? If you can’t earn a reward because it’s too hard for you, then you are asking for a method that is easier so you can do it.

I’d also like a couple of examples of those alternative methods. You are saying “not easier”, so let’s say we are talking about Legendary Armor Precursors that drop only in the Raid. How would you make them available in a alternative way that is also the same difficulty as the Raid? I’m curious to see what you consider alternative but same difficulty to the raid.

Ohoni.6057:

So the short answer is, you make them cheaper and more accessible, but they would still take work and/or significant RNG to earn, relative to Exotics, at least.

That doesn’t give an alternative for the Legendary Armor Precursors or other exclusive skins.

Torolan.5816:

High level Fractals are maybe not hard for elite gamers but for anyone else. Add a reasonable drop chance for legendary armor at levlels 90+ as soon as they are on and we´re golden.

So you are saying that Fractals level 90+ should be the same difficulty as Raids? Only for 5 people instead of 10.

Also about WvW and PVP. You do know that there a lot of different things to do in WvW and PVP that are hardly hard. For example night capping without opposition in WvW or playing on the lower tier of the PVP leaderboards. Or you can rig it, lose on purpose 100 games so your rank drops to the nether regions, then win 50 games in a row for a chance at getting your legendary precursor.

A) Your personal barrier may be much higher than mine, so we´re back to the word reasonable for a casual gamer that has X time at his disposal. I am pretty sure that Anet has numbers for this, so it would be their job to set the barrier in other types of content.

You do understand that “reasonable for a casual gamer that has X time at his disposal” means easy content right? So the argument of Alternatives not being easy is pointless.

B) I can´t justify it. But I can justify that you have to give and take to get a compromise many people can live with, like in politics.

Yes that’s how compromises are done.

maddoctor.2738:

Torolan.5816:

High level Fractals are maybe not hard for elite gamers but for anyone else. Add a reasonable drop chance for legendary armor at levlels 90+ as soon as they are on and we´re golden.

So you are saying that Fractals level 90+ should be the same difficulty as Raids? Only for 5 people instead of 10.

Also about WvW and PVP. You do know that there a lot of different things to do in WvW and PVP that are hardly hard. For example night capping without opposition in WvW or playing on the lower tier of the PVP leaderboards. Or you can rig it, lose on purpose 100 games so your rank drops to the nether regions, then win 50 games in a row for a chance at getting your legendary precursor.

A) Your personal barrier may be much higher than mine, so we´re back to the word reasonable for a casual gamer that has X time at his disposal. I am pretty sure that Anet has numbers for this, so it would be their job to set the barrier in other types of content.

You do understand that “reasonable for a casual gamer that has X time at his disposal” means easy content right? So the argument of Alternatives not being easy is pointless.

B) I can´t justify it. But I can justify that you have to give and take to get a compromise many people can live with, like in politics.

Yes that’s how compromises are done.

*Lvl 90 fractals can have the same difficulty level as raids, yes. They are very suitable to solve the problems of available time as casual does not mean bad player be definition.
*If you and me already know the weak points of PvP and WvW, Anet knows too. Make it player kills or capture the flag with Stonemist only(for example) and you would need a really big conspiracy to actually cheat your way to legendary armor while at the same time spending more time, something you wanted to avoid doing in the first place.
*We wold be back at the definition of hard and easy then. One of my main problems with raids is that you are either going out with the price in the course of the week or basically nothing except for the privilege to not have to start fron new until the start of next week. So if you don`t have time at the end of the week and have not made it, all your effort up until then was pointless. I am all for making alternatives hard, but they should be something that stays with you when you can´t make the time limits of raids. A sudden explosive challenge instead of a long drawn out attrition war with a raid if you want so.
*I am all for compromises, but Anet gives us non-raid people no chance to avoid rhe raids if we don´t want the one size fits all solution. No easy, less time consuming path, no alternative method, nothing. That is not a compromise.

Torolan.5816:

Lvl 90 fractals can have the same difficulty level as raids, yes.

Maybe they will add a different set of Legendary Armor available at that Fractal level. If the Legendary Armor from the Raid will look like an Extension of Mawdrey (shinny plant-like) then maybe fractals will get Legendary Armor similar in looks to Fractal weapon skins. To keep the theme going.

If you and me already know the weak points of PvP and WvW, Anet knows too.

They do. There is a reason they made the Legendary back item available only on the Legendary league so as to avoid any farming problems. For WvW I don’t know what they are planning.

We wold be back at the definition of hard and easy then.

You gave a great example of an Alternative that should be equal difficulty level with Raids, Fractals 90. Do you think that the “casual gamer with X time to play” would be able to reach level 90 in Fractals? I bet they won’t bother to go above 20.

In PVP they added the new legendary backpack to the higher tier PVP League, do you think the same casual gamer will ever reach that point? There are alternatives, and I believe they can indeed add some of those for different game modes, but here the point of discussion is “alternatives shouldn’t be easy” as many people are saying, and yet they are asking for easier alternatives, so which is it?

I am all for compromises, but Anet gives us non-raid people no chance to avoid rhe raids if we don´t want the one size fits all solution. No easy, less time consuming path, no alternative method, nothing. That is not a compromise.

It is a compromise on the grand scale of things though. You will be missing just those rewards in the Raid, everything else is available outside of the Raid. Ask the raider how he will get extra-grindy PVE rewards, or the PVP player, or the WvW player. There are worse fates than being a non-raider in this game.

PS: you used the word “easy” again.