Guild Wars 2

wish that will never come true

I dream of open world raids like they were in the beginning of Lineage 2 – there you had to fight others (players) for the right to defeat the boss … it was everything together (aka all in one) raid, open world, mass pvp, challenging, rewarding … it was like life itself – survival of the fittest

those golden old times of “political incorrectness” …

then come WoW with it’s “instanced kitten” and all went to hell …

Yeah, open world raids are a joke, not even close in difficulty as a real raid. Zergfest flash parties aren’t raids, the sooner people realize that the better. Something being visually epic is a kittenload different from epically challenging, and Tequatl/TT aren’t challenging and just requires a blob, and enough Ice Bows (for now, it’ll be nerfed and you will waste more time smashing buttons very soon).

timmyf.1490:

And if more content you don’t like hurts your game experience, does less content help it? Would the removal of Fractals and dungeons and WvW and PvP improve the experience for open world PvEers?

There’s the idea of equivalence of different game modes. Theoretically, each game mode should be equally rewarding. It isn’t so in reality, but at least the idea is out there. As the Raiding CDI proved, that idea gets thrown out of the window the moment the raids enter the picture. Most of Raids’ proponents has flat out said that the raids don’t have any sense if they don’t offer more/greater rewards than the rest of the game. This way of thinking ends with the raids becoming the only meaningful content in the game.

At the same time, this content is (again, according to most Raids proponents) meant for only a small percentage of all players – no shrubs, noobs, casuals and dirty leechers allowed, it is only for the Truly Skilled (because, again, if it doesn’t have highly restrictive skill requirements, and/or “everyone will be running them”, then raids apparently lose their reason to exist).

So, basically, for the raids to have a reason to exist, they need to be something that most players would want to do, but not everyone would be able to. Again, that is according to the most Raids proposers – i am well aware that there are people that do not necessarily support that way of thinking, but it won’t be those people that would set the general theme.

All of those above completely change the design and “feel” of the game. For everyone that is not raiding, it is a change for the worse.

And this is without even considering the resource sharing aspect (which we really should, because raids are rather heavy drain on resources if they are to be done right. I doubt even the raiding proposers would like them being done cheaply, and on the quick).

But to answer your question… yes, PvE would definitely profit from removal of sPvP, as its existence seem to have a high negative impact on things like PvE class balance, for example. Mind you, the opposite is likely equally true – sPvP would also profit from devs shifting their resources and effort more towards this gamemode, and away from PvE (though there might be some indirect negative consquences, like the game bombing, for example).

Daywolf.2630:

Dinks.2478:

What does having raids have to do with turning a game into WoW? GW2 is nothing like WoW and neither is raiding. Raiding in games has existed long before WoW and will exist long after WoW. It is almost like people want actual content in GW2. Just because you’re content to join an open world map and spam 1 doesn’t mean everybody else is. If that is what you want to do then do it. But stop being selfish and trying to keep others from doing what they want to do as well.

It’s instanced raiding, and WoW popularized it. EQ1 had raiding, but not instanced raiding until later… as the game began to fail after that point once introduced. EQ2 had instanced raiding, but EQ2 was never really popularized, not within the existing player base of the genre, it always suffered from the design decisions. Then came WoW and popularized instanced raiding, and from there every WoW clone had to have, and every WoWkitten newbie (the hoards of Blizzard fanbois who suddenly discovered mmo’s) had to swarm every existing mmo game/forum and demand it like the plague.

Instanced raiding is not even “mmorpg”, it’s casual multi-player gaming. It’s about as stupid as Barny the Dinosaur. I fail to even rationalize why they call it a “raid”. It has nothing to do with the actual persistent game world with other players, just an instanced copy of the game to play on your own time and choosing. That’s no “raid”.

You see, in REAL raiding, players do not raid the MOB’s, the MOB’s raid the players. That’s how it started, and sadly only few games still do this.

As for your presumption of what I do in this game, I don’t 1 1 1. Well.. apart from some of the more lame world boss events when I’m just doing the circuit and like Shatterer happens to be up next or whatever. But for PvE I mostly do temple assaults. It’s about as close to real raiding as you can get to in this game. Better early on though, it’s been hit with the casual hammer a couple times easier and shorter on most

Umm EQ1 still had instanced raiding before WoW I believe, implimenting it about the time WoW/EQ2 released. Open World raiding had developed into a major problem with the social implications of competition and zerging.

And as for WoW… it was made more accessable to less devoted gamers making their audience broader, couple that with better marketing and a fanbase that already existed, well, yeah, popular game. But, EQ1 is still going on still making expansions and still making money… so… yeah. Not sure what this all has to do with anything though, point is WoW didn’t make instanced raiding, the genre’s demands created it. The issues with Open World created it. And no one’s been able to solve those problems any other way yet.

You mention Temples, see now with megaservers… zzzz… however before you could guest to a low pop server and lowman it for fun… but isn’t that just pseudo instancing?

I’m going to repeat the same thing that the dude from the HoT PAX announcement. I want “PvE that doesn’t suck” – in other words, please make me use my brain more.

For those who are more laid back and just want to do things. You can have your open world PvE. I’m happy for you.

For those of us who are more intricate and like complexities, please gives us our challenges

Why do we have chalenges == raids though?

Windsagio.1340:

Why do we have chalenges == raids though?

They don’t. And nobody is saying that they must. But challenges should be:

• Available for groups of 5 players, and perhaps more
• Available in instances
• Require the vast majority of players in the instance to meaningfully participate. For example, a 10-person instance should not be easily completed by 7 players, but perhaps by 8 or 9. (80+% meaningful participation rate, for example.)

The name doesn’t matter. Those parameters do. We can call them “10-man Hardcore Fractals” if you prefer, but either way, it’s not Vinewrath. Or Marionette. Or Tequatl. Or Triple Trouble.

You slipped in the reqiurement for more players again at the end, lol

I’m gonna bet you that far fewer people would object to extremely difficult 5 player instanced content (noting some would of course) than object to multi-group content.

Gustavef.6730:

It is not being afraid. It is business. Why make content that only 10 to 25% of the user base can play if it does not generate any new revenue? With out having a monthly fee, the whole “I will leave this game” is a hollow threat to ANet.

The world event/boss system is a very viable model for GW2.

Want to know how they can increase the incentive? Have raid bosses drop 10 gems per week.

This amount would depend on how many raid bosses there would be. If there were 5 raid bosses, and each dropped 10 gems, that would be 50 gems a week, 200 a month. Something like this would probably disrupt the market, but not by much, since it’s still a slower way than converting gold to gems, but it would be a great incentive.

I guarantee it would be higher than 50% of the player base doing them.

Windsagio.1340:

You slipped in the reqiurement for more players again at the end, lol

I’m gonna bet you that far fewer people would object to extremely difficult 5 player instanced content (noting some would of course) than object to multi-group content.

The problem is going from 5 to 10, really? How about 8?

Honestly, I’m fine with 5, but it’d be really nice to get more of my guild in the same instance. More than five isn’t a “requirement lol,” it’s an example.

timmyf.1490:

Windsagio.1340:

You slipped in the reqiurement for more players again at the end, lol

I’m gonna bet you that far fewer people would object to extremely difficult 5 player instanced content (noting some would of course) than object to multi-group content.

The problem is going from 5 to 10, really? How about 8?

Honestly, I’m fine with 5, but it’d be really nice to get more of my guild in the same instance. More than five isn’t a “requirement lol,” it’s an example.

Its important to split the arguments though, especially in this context. This is what I was kind of getting at to the other guy.

This is a thread asking about raids. The discussion of raids is largely separate from the discussion of more challenging content, there are different issues involved.

For me, specifically, I don’t want the discussion of difficult content (which I most dearly want) to get conflated with the discussion for raids (which I’m reasonably certain won’t happen). To my mind the more we focus on difficult content outside of raids the more useful focus we can get on that. — especially since raids seem to be like ‘zerk’, they turn a thread into madness.

Windsagio.1340:

For me, specifically, I don’t want the discussion of difficult content (which I most dearly want) to get conflated with the discussion for raids (which I’m reasonably certain won’t happen). To my mind the more we focus on difficult content outside of raids the more useful focus we can get on that. — especially since raids seem to be like ‘zerk’, they turn a thread into madness.

So I totally understand this, especially the part about turning a thread into madness, but it’s not the proponents of raids/challenging content who ruin the threads. Not every disagreement is equally the fault of both sides.

Back on the Raids CDI, Chris Whiteside defined raids as “challenging instanced content.” If we continue accepting his definition, that means that you also appear to want raids. (Assuming you want the content instanced.)

Just because half the folks here have some sort of traumatic past experience with raiding and have to break all our toys if we use the word “raid” doesn’t mean we should let them without a fight.

I feel like I should put some sort of declaration of intent in my signature or something, like this:

My name is Karaoke. I want challenging instanced content. I would like it if that came in 10-person formats, but I’d be fine with 5. I don’t care about the name in the slightest. I wish I could discuss this without having to defend WoW or distance myself from WoW, a game I never played.

The guy I’m responding to up there is making a straight conflation, and the point is directed at that guy.

Windsagio.1340:

The guy I’m responding to up there is making a straight conflation, and the point is directed at that guy.

You’ve got to quote stuff, man! You mean this guy?

Avster.1935:

I’m going to repeat the same thing that the dude from the HoT PAX announcement. I want “PvE that doesn’t suck” – in other words, please make me use my brain more.

For those who are more laid back and just want to do things. You can have your open world PvE. I’m happy for you.

For those of us who are more intricate and like complexities, please gives us our challenges

I mean, he never said “raid” in his post, so I hardly feel like he’s saying raid == challenging without alternatives. He just wants PvE that doesn’t suck – as do many of us.

Look, Raids have their place, just not in this game. It will splinter resources ultimately dropping the game quality, and fundamentally change this game into a gear grind. Add the fact that it is a small minority of people here in this game wanting this type of content serves to confirm it is not the right thing for Anet to do. do we kitten off 40% of the population to cater to 10%? Not likely… their revenues will drop right along with players, and you will end up with a 10% population based game mode, and a game in the red with developement layoffs eventually killing it like SWG did. as more layoffs occur, your preciuos raid content will suffer a slow death.

timmyf.1490:

Windsagio.1340:

The guy I’m responding to up there is making a straight conflation, and the point is directed at that guy.

You’ve got to quote stuff, man! You mean this guy?

Avster.1935:

I’m going to repeat the same thing that the dude from the HoT PAX announcement. I want “PvE that doesn’t suck” – in other words, please make me use my brain more.

For those who are more laid back and just want to do things. You can have your open world PvE. I’m happy for you.

For those of us who are more intricate and like complexities, please gives us our challenges

I mean, he never said “raid” in his post, so I hardly feel like he’s saying raid == challenging without alternatives. He just wants PvE that doesn’t suck – as do many of us.

Whether or not content sucks is a subjective opinion. Personally, I find that PvE content is fine. I do have my own views of how it could be improved, of course, but i’m not going to mention those here because they aren’t entirely relevant to the issue at hand.

As for the idea of raids: I definetely think that they will be using raids as their form of challenging group content. Knowing ArenaNet however, it won’t likely be the same kind of raid as you might find in WoW. ArenaNet has a very established reputation of doing abnormal things in the interest of being unique and innovative as they like to call themselves.

I don’t think raids will reward any better gear than can currently be acquired, so i’m not sure what reward system they would put in place for it. I have noticed, though, that many people seem to be assuming ArenaNet would have said raids if that was what “challenging group content” meant, but I think they’re missing a huge piece here.

Not everybody is a fan of the idea of raiding, and many associate it with gear grinds. Chances are, they may not even call it raiding simply because of the connotation with the name. Personally, raiding is fine to me as long as there is no gear treadmill involved. Other forms of progression can easily be imagined for such a system, I think.

CorrynnStarr.7942:

and fundamentally change this game into a gear grind.

I want Ascended to remain the highest-tier stat set in the game, even with the introduction of raids. Why do you think raids would fundamentally change the game into a gear grind?

timmyf.1490:

CorrynnStarr.7942:

and fundamentally change this game into a gear grind.

I want Ascended to remain the highest-tier stat set in the game, even with the introduction of raids. Why do you think raids would fundamentally change the game into a gear grind?

simply put, as game quality declines and as player base declines as a result of it, you are left wit ha skeleton staff that would have to take simpler methods of doing things, which boils down to them taking the path of least resistance and going with a gear grind.

CorrynnStarr.7942:

timmyf.1490:

CorrynnStarr.7942:

and fundamentally change this game into a gear grind.

I want Ascended to remain the highest-tier stat set in the game, even with the introduction of raids. Why do you think raids would fundamentally change the game into a gear grind?

simply put, as game quality declines and as player base declines as a result of it, you are left wit ha skeleton staff that would have to take simpler methods of doing things, which boils down to them taking the path of least resistance and going with a gear grind.

I honestly don’t even know where to begin with this. So…

Okay! Have a nice day!

timmyf.1490:

Windsagio.1340:

You slipped in the reqiurement for more players again at the end, lol

I’m gonna bet you that far fewer people would object to extremely difficult 5 player instanced content (noting some would of course) than object to multi-group content.

The problem is going from 5 to 10, really? How about 8?

Honestly, I’m fine with 5, but it’d be really nice to get more of my guild in the same instance. More than five isn’t a “requirement lol,” it’s an example.

From what I remember from my WoW days 10 is a decent number of group content. Mind you combat is very different so probably not applicable.

CorrynnStarr.7942:

Look, Raids have their place, just not in this game. It will splinter resources ultimately dropping the game quality, and fundamentally change this game into a gear grind.

It might end up splitting resources, but raids do not necessarily have to be gear grind. It could be a skin grind.

CorrynnStarr.7942:

simply put, as game quality declines and as player base declines as a result of it, you are left wit ha skeleton staff that would have to take simpler methods of doing things, which boils down to them taking the path of least resistance and going with a gear grind.

So your statement is based on the idea that raids will kill GW2.

timmyf.1490:

Windsagio.1340:

The guy I’m responding to up there is making a straight conflation, and the point is directed at that guy.

You’ve got to quote stuff, man! You mean this guy?

Avster.1935:

I’m going to repeat the same thing that the dude from the HoT PAX announcement. I want “PvE that doesn’t suck” – in other words, please make me use my brain more.

For those who are more laid back and just want to do things. You can have your open world PvE. I’m happy for you.

For those of us who are more intricate and like complexities, please gives us our challenges

I mean, he never said “raid” in his post, so I hardly feel like he’s saying raid == challenging without alternatives. He just wants PvE that doesn’t suck – as do many of us.

So yes it’s possible that his post is just wildly off topic.

CureForLiving.5360:

timmyf.1490:

Windsagio.1340:

You slipped in the reqiurement for more players again at the end, lol

I’m gonna bet you that far fewer people would object to extremely difficult 5 player instanced content (noting some would of course) than object to multi-group content.

The problem is going from 5 to 10, really? How about 8?

Honestly, I’m fine with 5, but it’d be really nice to get more of my guild in the same instance. More than five isn’t a “requirement lol,” it’s an example.

From what I remember from my WoW days 10 is a decent number of group content. Mind you combat is very different so probably not applicable.

CorrynnStarr.7942:

Look, Raids have their place, just not in this game. It will splinter resources ultimately dropping the game quality, and fundamentally change this game into a gear grind.

It might end up splitting resources, but raids do not necessarily have to be gear grind. It could be a skin grind.

CorrynnStarr.7942:

simply put, as game quality declines and as player base declines as a result of it, you are left wit ha skeleton staff that would have to take simpler methods of doing things, which boils down to them taking the path of least resistance and going with a gear grind.

So your statement is based on the idea that raids will kill GW2.

it very well could be a skin grind, but the endpoint is still the same…

And yes I think it likely would start killing the game, but not in an immediate fashion. I think what would happen is, this would be introduced, a small drop off of players will begin, which after about 6 months would start snowballing, resulting in less revenue income for anet, which would respond with staff reductions which would equate to less time spent on the game. this cycle would perpetuate itself to the point that the only viable option the team would have left to their advantage, being to start dropping better gear to keep interest up, thus beggining the great gear grind… as always, this is just my Opinion, but I think a reasonable and likely one it is.

I do have to agree with Timmy, it won’t kill the game. Plenty of games it didn’t kill.

It might not be great for it, but it won’t hurt it all that badly either.

CorrynnStarr.7942:

Look, Raids have their place, just not in this game. It will splinter resources ultimately dropping the game quality, and fundamentally change this game into a gear grind. Add the fact that it is a small minority of people here in this game wanting this type of content serves to confirm it is not the right thing for Anet to do. do we kitten off 40% of the population to cater to 10%? Not likely… their revenues will drop right along with players, and you will end up with a 10% population based game mode, and a game in the red with developement layoffs eventually killing it like SWG did. as more layoffs occur, your preciuos raid content will suffer a slow death.

Not one single person in this entire thread has asked for a gear grind. We asked for raids. They are not the same thing. And adding stuff to a game doesn’t drop the quality of the game. Get out of here with your false sense of superiority and your kittenty strawman arguments because they’re flat out insulting.

Dinks.2478:

Get out of here with your false sense of superiority and your kittenty strawman arguments because they’re flat out insulting.

There are other things in this thread that are far more insulting. Intentionally, i am afraid.

I wont be responding to you anymore Dinks… keep it friendly plz. I will however present my view on things whether you like it or not. I really dont care at this point what your opinion is, cuz you seem more interested in bashing then having a discussion. now to move on…

Windsagio, you may ultimately be correct in your opinion, but This is just the way I see things potentially happening. I saw this exact scenario in SWG, they came out with a combat upgrade to even the classes out, it failed, the smaller more vocal minority pestered SOE to the point they gave in and came out with the NGE (new game enhancements) patch, and from there, they lost memberships at an alarming rate to the point they instituted a magic the gathering cardgame style game into the mix out of desperation which ultimately was a cash for cards for ingame items type deal. they introduced an alpha class and gave it to everyone to try to recover players, which ultimately drove the remaining player base out of the game. at everyturn in this game they announcent staff reductions which further was used to excuse the lack of new content and poor quality of the content they DID manage to release.

I dont want to see that mistake made here in GW2.

Dinks.2478:

Not one single person in this entire thread has asked for a gear grind. We asked for raids. They are not the same thing. And adding stuff to a game doesn’t drop the quality of the game.

+1

Personally I want any new instanced content, preferrably of a higher difficulty as now. If it’s 5 man I’m alright with that, but what would make it really great is if I could get more guildies in the runs, so then we go to 8-10 man instances. Because it’s suddenly called a “raid” instead of a dungeon ppl suddenly go absolutely apekitten over gear grind, how it will ruin the game, etc. It makes 0 sense.

This whole game is about collecting skins. They won’t revise their reward system just because party sizes doubled.

Any player that will leave the game because more content is added isn’t anybody I want to play with anyway.

CorrynnStarr.7942:

I wont be responding to you anymore Dinks… keep it friendly plz. I will however present my view on things whether you like it or not. I really dont care at this point what your opinion is, cuz you seem more interested in bashing then having a discussion. now to move on…

Windsagio, you may ultimately be correct in your opinion, but This is just the way I see things potentially happening. I saw this exact scenario in SWG, they came out with a combat upgrade to even the classes out, it failed, the smaller more vocal minority pestered SOE to the point they gave in and came out with the NGE (new game enhancements) patch, and from there, they lost memberships at an alarming rate to the point they instituted a magic the gathering cardgame style game into the mix out of desperation which ultimately was a cash for cards for ingame items type deal. they introduced an alpha class and gave it to everyone to try to recover players, which ultimately drove the remaining player base out of the game. at everyturn in this game they announcent staff reductions which further was used to excuse the lack of new content and poor quality of the content they DID manage to release.

I dont want to see that mistake made here in GW2.

How does this relate to instances? The combat system is fine, more than fine actually. It’s awesome. The ONLY thing that would change is that people that want more instanced content actually get it.

cranos.5913:

Dinks.2478:

Not one single person in this entire thread has asked for a gear grind. We asked for raids. They are not the same thing. And adding stuff to a game doesn’t drop the quality of the game.

Because it’s suddenly called a “raid” instead of a dungeon ppl suddenly go absolutely apekitten over gear grind, how it will ruin the game, etc. It makes 0 sense.

This whole game is about collecting skins. They won’t revise their reward system just because party sizes doubled.

I think it has the potential to go the other way… this is the “Casual Gamers” game so to speak, increasing the difficulty starts to make the turn towards the hardcore players game. most people just dont play the higher difficulty content due to lack of time/real lives/ or what have you. adding more difficult and time consuming content in this way just means theyve added more content some players will never enjoy or use. All thats left is the same old content they have been running through for years now, and wont be satisfied by it. It very likely could drive some or a good portion offolks away from the game when other games may offer more of what they want to play…

Windsagio.1340:

timmyf.1490:

Windsagio.1340:

The guy I’m responding to up there is making a straight conflation, and the point is directed at that guy.

You’ve got to quote stuff, man! You mean this guy?

Avster.1935:

I’m going to repeat the same thing that the dude from the HoT PAX announcement. I want “PvE that doesn’t suck” – in other words, please make me use my brain more.

For those who are more laid back and just want to do things. You can have your open world PvE. I’m happy for you.

For those of us who are more intricate and like complexities, please gives us our challenges

I mean, he never said “raid” in his post, so I hardly feel like he’s saying raid == challenging without alternatives. He just wants PvE that doesn’t suck – as do many of us.

So yes it’s possible that his post is just wildly off topic.

Nope. Raids could be one alternative, if you can think of something better, I welcome it with open arms.

All I want is something challenging to do with my guild. It can remain 5-man parties, sure, but allow me to form a “group” of 5-man parties, and do instanced missions with my guild. Seriously, the lack of guild stuff in this game apart from WvW and the “oh so easy” guild missions is appalling.

CorrynnStarr.7942:

cranos.5913:

Dinks.2478:

Not one single person in this entire thread has asked for a gear grind. We asked for raids. They are not the same thing. And adding stuff to a game doesn’t drop the quality of the game.

Because it’s suddenly called a “raid” instead of a dungeon ppl suddenly go absolutely apekitten over gear grind, how it will ruin the game, etc. It makes 0 sense.

This whole game is about collecting skins. They won’t revise their reward system just because party sizes doubled.

I think it has the potential to go the other way… this is the “Casual Gamers” game so to speak, increasing the difficulty starts to make the turn towards the hardcore players game. most people just dont play the higher difficulty content due to lack of time/real lives/ or what have you. adding more difficult and time consuming content in this way just means theyve added more content some players will never enjoy or use. All thats left is the same old content they have been running through for years now, and wont be satisfied by it. It very likely could drive some or a good portion offolks away from the game when other games may offer more of what they want to play…

Raids or even instances in general have never been their focus. Why even bring this up? You know very well what Anet’s main focus is, 1 or 2 raids won’t change that. After the xpack we’ll go back to LS season 3 where the casual open world pve-ers will be the only ones getting anything. Instanced play, wvw and spvp will all be neglected again until a (possible) second xpack.

Heart of Thorns page mentions “challenging group content”. Not sure if this is open world boss fights with anyone who is in that map, or if it’s content for a small number of parties…. we don’t really have much information on it right now.

piano man.1672:

Heart of Thorns page mentions “challenging group content”. Not sure if this is open world boss fights with anyone who is in that map, or if it’s content for a small number of parties…. we don’t really have much information on it right now.

Nope, and Colin showed up in another thread to basically say, “We see you’re all really worked up over this, but we don’t have anything to say about it yet.”

cranos.5913:

CorrynnStarr.7942:

I wont be responding to you anymore Dinks… keep it friendly plz. I will however present my view on things whether you like it or not. I really dont care at this point what your opinion is, cuz you seem more interested in bashing then having a discussion. now to move on…

Windsagio, you may ultimately be correct in your opinion, but This is just the way I see things potentially happening. I saw this exact scenario in SWG, they came out with a combat upgrade to even the classes out, it failed, the smaller more vocal minority pestered SOE to the point they gave in and came out with the NGE (new game enhancements) patch, and from there, they lost memberships at an alarming rate to the point they instituted a magic the gathering cardgame style game into the mix out of desperation which ultimately was a cash for cards for ingame items type deal. they introduced an alpha class and gave it to everyone to try to recover players, which ultimately drove the remaining player base out of the game. at everyturn in this game they announcent staff reductions which further was used to excuse the lack of new content and poor quality of the content they DID manage to release.

I dont want to see that mistake made here in GW2.

How does this relate to instances? The combat system is fine, more than fine actually. It’s awesome. The ONLY thing that would change is that people that want more instanced content actually get it.

wasnt trying to compare combat system to combat system, my point was more towards Sony focusing on the needs of the minority which complained more then those that were happy with the game in its current state. they catered to that crowd and it cost them their game. this has nothing to do with the playstyles of the 2 games being discussed and more towards who Anet should be keeping happy if they want continue maintaining its current player base. Cuz what sony did was gave in to the demands of a vocal few, and it cost them the majority. Keep in mind here, I am expressing MY opinion as to why I think its a good or bad idea to add another gamestyle to the game. This is what I think and why I think it. Ill wager there are a lot of people who feel the same way I do about it, they are just not as vocal as those not happy wit hthe game cuz they are well… happy with it.

in fact SWG has a grassroots EMU project currently playable and under construction at www.swgemu.com. goes to show what a dedicated player base can do when they love a game and want to return it to its orignal glory…

DSRilk.2978:

I’m confused by your second point. Usually “dealing with other players” means having to actually deal with them. Like trying to get them not to do things that kill everyone else in the group. Is your issue literally just having other players nearby or am I misunderstanding you?

In an open-world zerg, not only do players not have to perform as well individually as they would in a smaller group, they also have a harder time doing so due to things like culling and other client-side performance issues; things being obscured by a mass of players, numbers, and particle effects; the implications of having a hundred people all share the same VOIP channel; and far more.

Because the designers quite reasonably felt that introducing things like friendly fire mechanics and competition for limited resources — essentially incentives not to work together with other players — went against the spirit of an MMO, this sort of zerg is the optimal way to do any kind of open world content.

From this, it follows by the “water finds a crack” principle that players will always approach content as a critical mass zerg wherever it’s possible to do that. And what this means is that most kinds of content are much harder to engage with properly when they aren’t instanced. If ANet took the Silverwastes and turned it into a 20-man instance, it would instantly become far more enjoyable — even if they changed literally nothing about the actual content found there.

This means that instances are needed as a way to showcase content — non-instanced content will not be engaged with properly, so no matter how good it might be, it will not be appreciated. Not a single piece of group content has been showcased in this way in the last 18 months.

I can’t blame any potential player for seeing that fact and inferring from it that ANet have no confidence in the quality of their content. And given how incredibly bad some of the instances the game does have look to the uninformed, I can’t blame them for looking at the content that ANet does have confidence in and coming to the conclusion that this game really, really, really isn’t for them.

None of the things people fear happening as a consequence of raids being introduced to the game could ever kill the game as effectively or as decisively as driving off potential players will. Not by a long shot.

Jerus.4350:

Umm EQ1 still had instanced raiding before WoW I believe, implimenting it about the time WoW/EQ2 released. Open World raiding had developed into a major problem with the social implications of competition and zerging.

Like I said, WoW popularized instanced raiding, at least among their own existing fanbase, many of which originally flooding the mmo genre from Blizzard titles like Diablo etc (who for years argued that Diablo was an mmo) into WoW. Then went through all the existing mmo games when they got bored in-between expansions (and those clones to come) demanding WoW features, such as instanced raiding which is a multi-player mechanic, not an mmorpg mechanic; it’s more attune to Diablo multi-player gaming.

It was in EQ1, instanced raiding, but not until late expansions. I was there from launch, it was not happily received by the majority of players. It was a part of the whole slide into obscurity that started from around the time of the PoP expansion, a slide into more multi-player style casual play (instant travel, instanced raids, solo friendly and content on demand etc). It doomed EQ1.

It doesn’t matter if you liked old-school raiding or not, many that played mmo’s before WoW did like it, it’s a part of what made MMO’s actual MMO’s and not just multi-player Diablo freak games that an army of Blizzard fanboi’s demanded cloned into every game when they finally discovered mmo’s for the first time through WoW – and the blitz promotions to existing Blizzard network members to try it – pushing it into a snowball effect for marketing purposes. WoW never developed anything new in the mmo genre, apart from boredom where the players are bored to tears between expansions.

CorrynnStarr.7942:

wasnt trying to compare combat system to combat system, my point was more towards Sony focusing on the needs of the minority which complained more then those that were happy with the game in its current state. they catered to that crowd and it cost them their game. this has nothing to do with the playstyles of the 2 games being discussed and more towards who Anet should be keeping happy if they want continue maintaining its current player base. Cuz what sony did was gave in to the demands of a vocal few, and it cost them the majority. Keep in mind here, I am expressing MY opinion as to why I think its a good or bad idea to add another gamestyle to the game. This is what I think and why I think it. Ill wager there are a lot of people who feel the same way I do about it, they are just not as vocal as those not happy wit hthe game cuz they are well… happy with it.

Fair enough, I misunderstood then. For 3 years they almost solely catered to the casual PvEr. They didn’t start focusing on the hardcore when fractals came out or after aetherpath or the fractured patch (only things we got in 3 years btw), so from past experience we can clearly see who their main audience is. Just because they add maybe 1 or 2 new instances in an actual expansion won’t suddenly make them turn 180 degrees and start catering to the hardcore. Your worrying about anet’s focus basically comes out of nowhere.

I will just quote myself from another thread:

We need instanced content. But not dungeons, we need raids. And actually I would qualify most world bosses as raid bosses but they are far too easy and the fact that randoms can ruin these for you (by upscaling/interacting with wrong objects) makes “challenging” world bosses no fun.

The best thing anet could do is to continue to make open world bosses (and even maps) AND add instanced versions of them with a difficulty setting (with better loot). Everybody will be happy.

People who like to mindlessly farm world bosses by pressing “1” with strangers can do that and people who want challenging content can do the same bosses which deal more dmg, have more hp and have harder mechanics with their guild, friends or community .

Daywolf.2630:

cranos.5913:

Many GW2 players actually want

Yep, and the argument usually progresses to there. It’ll never be a good as your beloved game, no matter what, it’s just not “WoW” in the end. Same as happened to many once good games. Some people are happy playing two totally different games, others… cannot. It’s a promise that has wrecked a many great ships upon the rocks. Alas…

Hey everybody DAoC, EQ and AC all all like WoW….you heard it here first!

Windsagio.1340:

Why do we have chalenges == raids though?

Anet hired Raid developers, and they told us the challenging content isn’t open world content which they will also make challenging but isn’t the challenging group content that was talked about.

Knighthonor.4061:

Windsagio.1340:

Why do we have chalenges == raids though?

Anet hired Raid developers, and they told us the challenging content isn’t open world content which they will also make challenging but isn’t the challenging group content that was talked about.

No they said Wyvern isn’t the Challenging Content, and they said they want general Open World to be more challenging. Not quite the same as saying Open World isn’t the challenging content. We still have to wait to see what it is.

If they find a way to make challenging Open World content I’ll be impressed and quite happy, but I simply doubt it can be done. If they resort to pseudo instances (smaller maps with controlled flow of people) then I’d simply call it instances and consider it a move to a more natural/immersive version of such content, but not Open World.

Jerus.4350:

Knighthonor.4061:

Windsagio.1340:

Why do we have chalenges == raids though?

Anet hired Raid developers, and they told us the challenging content isn’t open world content which they will also make challenging but isn’t the challenging group content that was talked about.

No they said Wyvern isn’t the Challenging Content, and they said they want general Open World to be more challenging. Not quite the same as saying Open World isn’t the challenging content. We still have to wait to see what it is.

If they find a way to make challenging Open World content I’ll be impressed and quite happy, but I simply doubt it can be done. If they resort to pseudo instances (smaller maps with controlled flow of people) then I’d simply call it instances and consider it a move to a more natural/immersive version of such content, but not Open World.

Come on now. You are starting to sound like one of those people that were arguing with everybody that HoT wasnt an expansion….

Knighthonor.4061:

Jerus.4350:

Knighthonor.4061:

Windsagio.1340:

Why do we have chalenges == raids though?

Anet hired Raid developers, and they told us the challenging content isn’t open world content which they will also make challenging but isn’t the challenging group content that was talked about.

No they said Wyvern isn’t the Challenging Content, and they said they want general Open World to be more challenging. Not quite the same as saying Open World isn’t the challenging content. We still have to wait to see what it is.

If they find a way to make challenging Open World content I’ll be impressed and quite happy, but I simply doubt it can be done. If they resort to pseudo instances (smaller maps with controlled flow of people) then I’d simply call it instances and consider it a move to a more natural/immersive version of such content, but not Open World.

Come on now. You are starting to sound like one of those people that were arguing with everybody that HoT wasnt an expansion….

Because it’s just that strange for dungeoneers to believe they’d actually get content… :P

What do they mean by “challenging content”? Triple Wurm (and sometimes Silverwastes) can be considered “challenging” because they fail a lot. But when they fail it’s not because the event is actually hard mechanically or otherwise, it’s because of lack of coordination and general misinformation that’s inherent with a random zerg of people.

Take Silverwastes for example, you have your afkers, your “no aoe at copper” people who think they’re helping, the leechers at VW south lane, people who die because they don’t know boss mechanics and don’t WP, etc, all of whom make it harder than it should be. But the thing is, since it’s an open world event, the difficulty is tuned to accommodate some of the above and still be able to succeed. Sometimes I get in a good map and we kill all the Breach and VW bosses in 2 minutes and don’t lose a single carrier.

Problem is, whether or not we succeed has almost nothing to do with how I play, and almost everything to do with the number of clueless people and leechers in the zerg. It drives me nuts when we don’t kill copper in time because some goof decides to tag up and tell people to not use aoe, or when half the zerg wipes to Mangler in the first minute because they don’t know how pustules work, even though some guy probably explained it 2 minutes ago.

I’m all for open world challenging PvE if Anet can somehow avoid the problem above; make something mechanically challenging while still allowing a random group of uncoordinated people to complete it. That seems highly unlikely however.

From what we’ve seen so far, the new maps will be filled with meta events like Silverwastes. What if they made a “raid” version of each one of them? Make it instanced, cap the number of players to something that makes sense (20-30 for Silverwastes, for example), make the content harder, and have it reward a new weapon or armor skin set for each raid or something.

I just want to play with similar minded people, and still be challenged. Something the current end game open world PvE doesn’t do.

Knighthonor.4061:

Windsagio.1340:

Why do we have chalenges == raids though?

Anet hired Raid developers, and they told us the challenging content isn’t open world content which they will also make challenging but isn’t the challenging group content that was talked about.

Wanna bet whether they’ll do raids?

You might get some kind of new guild content, but that’s the only even remotely possible angle.

Knighthonor.4061:

Jerus.4350:

Knighthonor.4061:

Windsagio.1340:

Why do we have chalenges == raids though?

Anet hired Raid developers, and they told us the challenging content isn’t open world content which they will also make challenging but isn’t the challenging group content that was talked about.

No they said Wyvern isn’t the Challenging Content, and they said they want general Open World to be more challenging. Not quite the same as saying Open World isn’t the challenging content. We still have to wait to see what it is.

If they find a way to make challenging Open World content I’ll be impressed and quite happy, but I simply doubt it can be done. If they resort to pseudo instances (smaller maps with controlled flow of people) then I’d simply call it instances and consider it a move to a more natural/immersive version of such content, but not Open World.

Come on now. You are starting to sound like one of those people that were arguing with everybody that HoT wasnt an expansion….

6-9 months ago I’d have been with you, however the complete lack of content in this game towards advanced content has dulled my faith in it ever happening. There’s a reason I stopped supporting this game, and it’s not on some whim, it’s because they have completely ignored anything challenging. I fully believe that this “challenging content” is simply smoke being blown to sell more expansions and they will not follow through at all. I hope the devs are reading this and I hope they realize that their actions speak much louder than their words. Do I think devs are at fault… no not at all, I think it’s their management, but I do hope the message gets through to everyone. We’ve seen some of the best and most communicative devs they have walk away from their company. Do they think that helps their cause? The game is on a clear path towards a bunch of trivial bullkitten that will sell some shinies, and the masses will eat it up, money will be made, but an actually fun game, psh, that’s a dream.

Until some action is shown that reverses that belief I can’t help but feel it’s absolutely true. It’s on your “table” ANet, prove me wrong, please do, but I don’t believe you will.

I think the end answer, if I’m perfectly frank is “This game just isn’t for really hardcore dungeon types”.

That’s fine, it’s not a judgement on either the players or the game, but that’s also about where we are.

It’s still down to the fact that (unfortunately) content developed for someone like Jerus or Spoj is wasted on 95+% of the players.

I don’t think they’re lying or dissembling about the content, but their definition of the term is just very very different than what the raid-types would mean.

I can agree with everything you say up until the last paragraph. Sorry but when you promote “challenging content” as much as they have when announcing this expansion it’s nothing but a play to try to entice players like me.

I can’t help but feel they’re being deceptive for that purpose.

Argue the numbers issue, sure, that’s fine, as a business if you can capture the majority of your audience with kitten content that’s cheaper to make, well that simply makes sense.

But, when you try to coat that in some form of “no no, this is high end content, see we’re doing something cool,” nope, actions speak louder than words, ANet is simply being deceptive to try and grasp an audience they don’t really care about but are willing to lie to in hopes of grabbing a little extra cash.

Really as simple as that from where I stand.

Colin’s recent comments do nothing but enforce my beliefs. “no we haven’t talked about it yet, we’ll get to it,” sure, cause all the talk about it hasn’t been enough to prompt a little bit of discussion from the devs? Ok, yeah, kitten that. It’s not as if I expect full disclosure, I just expect a little bit of hinting towards what their ideas are. Do they see “challenge” as Triple Trouble type herding cats… Well I can’t help but feel that’s what we’ll get, and again, kitten that.

We talk enough that they know their audience, if they had challenging content they could shut us up quite easily, but they refuse to do so, and that’s just enforcing the belief that they’re a shady company not worth trusting.

There’s been lots of talk between us dungeon type folks about Wildstar, when you look at their forum you see constant correspondence about dungeons. Bugs don’t get left for months on end, at least not without some sort of action taken, and that’s not mentioning a near instant reaction to their acceptance of existence. We look at Lupi’s Necrid Bolt hitting in Melee, or the SNAFU “object hitbox” issue, and well, it really doesn’t feel like ANet cares at all. They’re too busy putting out stuff to rake in our money to upkeep their game in a meaningful way.

In the end, well, I see ANet as no better than that shady pusher trying to get people hooked to rake in some money and they really don’t care about their customers at all. As a business it makes sense to a degree, but they shouldn’t be surprised when their customers have attitudes like mine full if distrust and disgust.