Where is the Uproar?
Dev answers. In particular: “Raids are the only place where we can tackle darker themes or tie up loose threads that don’t fit in the main narrative. In this case we decided to provide some closure to a historical character who was sometimes referenced in lore, but almost never shown. . . Raids are essentially side stories, and while they may sometimes share themes with other content they are not part of the core Guild Wars 2 narrative. Because of that, we can tackle darker or more mature topics that don’t fit elsewhere in the game: failure, guilt, betrayal, and struggles for redemption.”
R.I.P., Old Man of Auld Red Wharf. Gone but never forgotten.
I thought it made absolute sense to be honest since it has nothing to do with the main story. I haven’t played the raid and since I am unlikely to raid, I looked up the details from the wing and it all appeared to be well handled.
Raids in GW1 dealt with major lore stories too that were an aside to the main narrative, so I’m not really in agreement with this being an issue. I can’t see how this would have fitted into the game otherwise, so it would otherwise have been a story left unfinished.
Raids are little different from the elite missions of GW1 which had plenty of side stories and closing loose threads. Domain of Anguish being a big one for the latter.
It makes sense that they’d do similar for raids in GW2, which are basically the GW2 version of elite missions.
The only other way they can do such would be open world events (meh) or Current Events achievement chains like Burden of Choice and Knight of the Thorn storylines (nice, but not ideal for everything).
Plus, raids have to have something in them – ArenaNet has never made content that was utterly lacking in story before (not even Super Adventure Box was… and that was an April Fool’s joke content!), so it’d be out of character for ArenaNet to begin doing such with raids.
I disagree with Bobby Stein that raids are the only place that “darker or more mature topics” can go though. While it certainly goes on par with the much tougher content, other things can have a darker and more mature theme to them. And the Current Events are proper enough to tie up loose ends without putting all such behind raids (which would be not too dissimilar from the Titan quests in GW1).
Dear ANet writers,
Stop treating GW2 as a single story. Each Season and expansion should be their own story.
Stop treating GW2 as a single story. Each Season and expansion should be their own story.
I think the outcry of story being locked in raids is way over-dramatic. There was outcry when the White Mantle were revealed to be active back in either Wing 2 or 3. However, when the main storyline caught up, they added in a short cutscene to catch up players who are either unwilling or unable to play that content.
Saul D’Alessio was a major character in GW1 lore, sure, but means little to people who started playing with GW2. It’s not as if raiders don’t record the story and then upload it to YouTube or list it on the wiki. The story is out there, and it’s not detracting from the main storyline where it would feel shoehorned in. Also, if you didn’t watch the last Guild Chat, they said that if the story wasn’t done in this raid wing, it wouldn’t have happened at all. I believe they also said they almost didn’t get approval to do so. Try to be happy that it did happen, rather than be another unanswered mystery like whatever happened to Evennia.
There are at least 3 very big threads about that topic. full of controversy and dilemma.
To make a brief summary:
There is a group of people in the forums trying to get a “Story Mode” for Raids, with the goal of getting the chance to play that content with lower difficulty and lower rewards, but full of story, and not a mere recap or accesing a cleared raid zone without gameplay elements.
Some hardcore oppose, saying that an easier mode would make Raids less exclusive.
“Only problem with the Engineer is
that it makes every other class in the game boring to play.”
Hawks
that it makes every other class in the game boring to play.”
Hawks
Some hardcore oppose, saying that an easier mode would make Raids less exclusive.
That’s not a fair summary. There are other concerns- the dev resources needed to make it still be interesting and fun (acknowledging that tuning down numbers to directly lower difficulty typically just leaves bosses boring and unengaging), questions of how much would be lost in the tone and mechanical storytelling, and arguments over whether this story mode would still require ten players- and, again, how to adjust things if it doesn’t. It seems to me to be something that a lot of people want but have very different ideas over, and whatever form it takes, many will be left unhappy.
R.I.P., Old Man of Auld Red Wharf. Gone but never forgotten.
Fair enough.
“Some hardcore oppose, saying that an easier mode would make Raids less exclusive.
Some others oppose arguing Anet would have to actually spend resources, time and work to do it.”
“Only problem with the Engineer is
that it makes every other class in the game boring to play.”
Hawks
that it makes every other class in the game boring to play.”
Hawks
The devs have danced around the issue and tried to justify this in many ways.
The reality is it remains a VERY poor decision and one that has hurt them in the eyes of many players.
My biggest worry is what happens now. If they continue down this path, the GW2 story will be even more fragmented in years to come – with raiders always getting access to interesting and darker stories that others do not.
The result will be a very fractured experience with a very haves/have nots mentality.
The devs have danced around the issue and tried to justify this in many ways.
The reality is it remains a VERY poor decision and one that has hurt them in the eyes of many players.
My biggest worry is what happens now. If they continue down this path, the GW2 story will be even more fragmented in years to come – with raiders always getting access to interesting and darker stories that others do not.
The result will be a very fractured experience with a very haves/have nots mentality.
I’m not sure I agree with this. It did not fracture the experience in GW1, with interesting stories in their elite instances, which were their equivalent to raids. It also didn’t in other MMO’s I played where lore is even more fundamental to the structure of the game than it is in GW2 like Lotro and TSW.
I don’t raid for various reasons, but I don’t feel it is causing any significant or long term damage to the game by having these stories included in the raids.
I have strong feelings about this topic, because I’ve always held the opinion that if content has lore, it should be able to be experienced by even the most casual of players (whether through some sort of easy mode or other alternative doesn’t really matter), because even casual players can come to care about the lore they’re experiencing.
no one should be barred from experiencing lore. and as another point, pugs when it comes to raiding is faulty because of how difficult the raids are (and the needlessly high requirements of both equipment and intimate knowledge of the fights). the lore should be able to be experienced by anyone.
Now, does it harm the community, i doubt it. difficult group content has always existed since guild wars 2 launched (the explorable paths of dungeons) and that hasn’t harmed the game. Besides the devs were very careful in choosing what stories were to be put in the difficult content, here are a couple of examples:
the first three raid wings lead up to the story of lazarus being introduced into the lore, however, they never introduced lazarus, lore adepts would know what’s going on because of all the clues (white mantle, “the unseen gods” and some other things of note) and left the big reveal for something that anyone with heart of thorns can access. they also covered their basis about the lead up to lazarus’… ummm, i dont want to call it resurrection cause he never ‘died’, but that’s the only word i can think of. really the only interesting bit of lore that wasn’t really covered was how powerful a bloodstone infused individual can get (because man, Xera was awesome). we kind of get that with queen Jennah in the new patch, but that was more defensive and didn’t cover the reality warping that Xera did.
There’s the numerous stories within all the explorable paths of the dungeons that, as far as I know, don’t really hold details relevant to the current story (besides the four paths of Arah, but reading through the transcripts it seems like the only bits of relevant lore were things that we kinda knew about, it was just nice to see it expressed within gw2 lore)
and then there’s apparently the fractals storyline that’s going on (i only found out through WoodenPotatoes but i’ve seen some people mention he’s not the most reliable person to look into for lore, so i don’t know)
then we get this new raid wing that tackles the Saul issue, which again isn’t exactly important to the story (he’s not really going to be put into the story considering his current stats), doesn’t cover what the mursaat do (besides the fact that we now know they kept prisoners) and doesn’t bring back the mursaat en masse like it could have done, instead opting to show a couple of unique prisoners and the eye of janthir (which again, currently, has no great impact on the story).
all these difficult content stories do is seemingly introduce a sneak peak of a concept that they may introduce in the main gw2 stories (and, in the case of Saul, finishing up a loose thread). these stories, however, do not dive so deep into lore that it would be impossible to understand everything going on in the current lore without going through the raids. the raids (and fractals and explorable dungeons) seem to be tackling side issues that, while interesting, don’t hugely factor into the stories at hand. Though I do wish there were easier ways of introducing casuals to the content, these stories aren’t too relevant.
(besides the four paths of Arah, but reading through the transcripts it seems like the only bits of relevant lore were things that we kinda knew about, it was just nice to see it expressed within gw2 lore)
I do commend you for taking a balanced, objective approach even though you have strong feelings on the matter. We need more people like that in this forum. This point, though, does bear a little nitpicking- what we learned in Arah explorable, especially the Forgotten and Seer paths, were major revelations that we didn’t see coming and that shook up how we viewed some of the most basic elements of the setting. Gating that behind (at the time) the hardest content in the game did quite a bit to slow that information’s spread through the community, and relying on hearsay from individuals too caught up in the punishing fights to give the dialogue close attention also resulted in a bit of misinformation… but it also meant that for the loresters who did go out and take on the content, there was something rewarding beyond a handful of blues and greens I didn’t spare a second glance and a fraction of the tokens put towards some of the most garish armor skins in the game. It gave us an incentive to play- without that story element, and such seemingly* important ones, I would never have considered trying Arah explorable. The trade off is that accessibility- even though I want to, the Seer path is still the only base game dungeon I haven’t gotten through.
I don’t see that as a problem, per se, but as a balancing act- just like any mechanical reward, the difficulty in acquiring something imparts a degree of value and a sense of achievement in getting it, and that goes for dungeons and raids. It makes what would otherwise be a simple handout served up to you on a plate much more meaningful. I suspect that’s part of the reason people are so dissatisfied with the current approach of serving up lore by exploring cleared raid instances. We don’t just want the low hanging fruit, we also want to be able to take part in the sense of accomplishment at earning it, at emerging victorious from the content it’s gated behind… but we also want that accomplishment to not be beyond our level of ability, and we want to be able to get it without going radically outside of our comfort, whether that means having to play a build we find actively unfun, needing to trudge through practice runs with impatient and insulting teachers, or just general distaste for needing to coordinate with strangers on the internet at all. Those are all valid points, and I think the biggest problem for raiding is that there’s no happy medium or magic sweet spot that balances all of those things for all of the players all of the time. Any conceivable solution is going to leave some part of the community dissatisfied, and in that sense the current raiding formula isn’t any worse than the alternatives. Honestly, I think the only real solution is for the players to come to terms with the fact that in a game as large and diverse as an MMO, some of the rewards they want are going to come from content they don’t want… or for developers to put in the effort to make those rewards accessible in a variety of equally challenging ways that doesn’t cause the efficiency chasers to just drag the whole playerbase down a single path that they’ve identified as objectively ‘best’. Either of those options is a daunting challenge.
*Key word being seemingly. As it’s turned out, none of those revelations has been directly involved in or otherwise important to the main story arc, which goes back to what you were saying about harshly gated material needing to be side story. I think the Arah paths came close to a good balance, as did Bastion of the Penitent- the revelations felt major and rewarding for those who valued them for their own sake without leaving the people in the game for the main content feeling like they missed out. Forsaken Thicket had a harder time with this, but that was due more to a combination of how it was marketed, how quickly and thoroughly the content spread throughout the community, and how much time was spaced between the raid wings and the resumption of story content for the rest of us. The design itself, taken in isolation, was probably fine, but the presentation ended up making it seem more important than it was.
R.I.P., Old Man of Auld Red Wharf. Gone but never forgotten.
I totally forgot about how the reveals of the arah explorable stuff was new info at the time of release. it’s seemingy so widely known now that it felt like this was stuff everyone always knew.
Honestly, I think the only real solution is for the players to come to terms with the fact that in a game as large and diverse as an MMO, some of the rewards they want are going to come from content they don’t want… or for developers to put in the effort to make those rewards accessible in a variety of equally challenging ways that doesn’t cause the efficiency chasers to just drag the whole playerbase down a single path that they’ve identified as objectively ‘best’. Either of those options is a daunting challenge.
Okay, no. There’s another option. difficulty settings. tweak the numbers (they HAVE the technology, they have difficulty options going from one to ONE FREAKING HUNDRED for fractals) they can kitten well use the technology for raids. they don’t even have to scale it from 1 to 100, they can just set it between easy, medium and hard. those who go through the hard experience get all the appropriate loot, titles and whatever other shineys the raiders desire, medium provides a challenge and easy is a way for people to experience the lore, however saying exclusive content should STAY exclusive because there are no alternatives is baseless at best. use already available technology built into the game, tweak the numbers so that everyone can enjoy the content at the difficulty they desire while still providing the ability for EVERYONE to enjoy it and bam, everyone’s happy. it may be hard to believe but there are people who exist who find seemingly ‘easy’ content difficult for a variety of reasons, and joining a raid would be way beyond their reach.
And don’t you dare suggest the world of warcraft “only the best raiders should get the true dungeon ending” thing because that’s total horse manure and ONLY causes problems. (by you i mean general you, not you specifically Aaron)
And don’t you dare suggest the world of warcraft “only the best raiders should get the true dungeon ending” thing because that’s total horse manure and ONLY causes problems. (by you i mean general you, not you specifically Aaron)
I definitely agree on this point. Never played WoW, but the way the Thaumanova Fractal had dialogue that was only accessible in high levels… well, if they take the difficulty level route, I hope they’ll aim for better.
On the general idea of tweaking numbers- I’m… skeptical. It will probably broaden the appeal of raids, but it wouldn’t even come close to addressing all of the concerns. There are people who oppose needing a squad of ten. There are people who oppose the mechanics of the fight due to slower computers, or living in a part of the world from the servers, or having physical reasons they can’t react in time- the only way to accommodate them without reworking the mechanics would be to lower the damage to the point that the other players can just ignore them. Even just limiting ourselves to those who need the boss to apply less pressure through DPS or spikes, or for the boss to have less toughness or health… you cited Fractals, but the efforts to scale it through stats resulted in outright unfun encounters at both the easy and hard extremes, and it took years of adjustments before they got to where it is today (which is still not universally popular).
And that’s without getting the rewards balance right, so then min-maxers don’t abuse the system, or considering whether a party of ten increases the likelihood of having a wide skill range and what that might do to everyone’s fun, or trying to anticipate how it will the PUG community will respond and adjusting accordingly… it’s a very tricky, particular QoL adjustment in a game with innumerable potential QoL adjustments, and a company that’s tended to be rather slow in making said adjustments.
I would certainly like to see it, but I can’t blame the devs for not tripping over themselves to volunteer.
R.I.P., Old Man of Auld Red Wharf. Gone but never forgotten.
(edited by Aaron Ansari.1604)
@Aaron
Unique dialogue in fractals at high levels? That’s the kind of stuff that would get me banned from the forums for how much swearing I could do about that.
Actually the tweaking of the numbers could totally work if you set enough difficulty levels (which, out of blind off the top of my head theory could possibly be 3 or 4). You have personal story level difficulty, story mode dungeons difficulty, explorable mode dungeon difficulty, and (current) raid difficulty. I don’t know where living world season 3 difficulty would fall on that chart, since for me it seems to vary depending on the day I’m playing, so it’s worth mentioning atleast.
Unfortunately the seemingly easiest way would be to screw over the players using the lower ends of the difficulty curve rewards wise, since “it’s the content you’re playing for, not the rewards” which I hope Anet would never do, but honestly considering the state of the gaming industry as a whole, I wouldn’t be surprised.
On the comment of players wanting to solo raids (and this extends to group content as a whole), even I, an avid soloer, have to put my foot down. This IS an mmo after all, it’s not a constantly updating single player rpg (though isn’t that a novel idea). The reality is that you’re just going to have to play nice with others, which we kinda already do with dynamic events, it’s just much less organised than a raid, dungeon or fractal would be (though a counter to that would be the vast majority of soloable dynamic events, the counter to that counter would be champions).
Also didn’t know that fractals took so long to balance (and even then, apparently not everyone is happy). I thought that was in some sort of equilibrium that they had just right. My bad.
No worries, and I think I agree with all of your points so far. I’d certainly benefit from a scaling system, which I didn’t make clear enough before. I’m just arguing the other side of things so that any third party that comes along doesn’t get the impression that there’s a convenient one-fix-fits-all solution. There’s more things that ArenaNet can be doing to make raids more accessible, but they’re never going to make them fun for everyone, and I feel it’s important to know at what point you’re willing to concede they’ve done enough. It sounds like you do, and I can respect that.
R.I.P., Old Man of Auld Red Wharf. Gone but never forgotten.