Guild Wars 2

STIHL.2489:

Previous to Raids, there was no sense of that deftness of direction, but, now their is. But in doing so, they pretty much took everyone that was not into raiding or wanting to get involved in raiding, or maybe just the people that did not want to deal with scheduling their around these activities, or did not want to have to deal wit coordinated group activities, and liked soloing, or maybe just being that naked Norn running around Jormag and while maybe didn’t add much DPS, did add a lot of flavor to the event, in short, it took all the people that simply wanted to play a game for the sake of it being a game, where they always felt like they were moving along, even if they were just goofing around and took that feeling of progress no matter how incremental and tore it asunder, to throw in their in face that.. No.. No you are not making any progress anymore., and making it clear, Unless they are willing to raid, there really is no future for them in this game.

I agree with you, but I also don’t believe this is specific to raiding (hence not putting the blame on raiding). The reward structure in WvW is completely reworked and has a focused goal. Same with PvP. Interestingly enough, I would argue that all of the living story S3 maps are also affected by this. The goal of all of those maps it to complete the content for the unique map currency which can be used for exclusive rewards, both ascended and legendary.

To me, this seems like an entire game shift in design (clear trackable rewards for repeatable content)…not just a problem that was "caused’ by raiding.

STIHL.2489:

snip.

This is a really good post TBH.

One side comment that I will add is that often for me, I like the comparison to things like “sport or pvp” not because they are focused on winning/losing against someone, but rather on your own side you coordinate with a team of other people. I was a competitive swimmer for 20 years and in some scenarios (not all) you aren’t really racing against the competition, but rather against the clock. That being said, the biggest enjoyment is still being involved with your other teammates, even if you aren’t “winning/losing”. For me (maybe not everyone), I get a similar feeling with raiding in that you are working together to accomplish something, not necessarily against someone.

I have a sincere question related to the “wind out of your sails” feeling, because it isn’t something that I feel but I’m curious about. If you had 100% confirmation that without raiding you would not have any additional content that you did like, would you still feel this way? Or is the feeling due to the feeling of “oh man I could have had more of <X> if the time wasn’t spent on raiding”? If the raids are only an addition to the game and not having them is only a subtraction, then the “let down” feeling makes less sense to me because functionally every other part of the game is the same. In fact, there could be other areas of the game that are worse off due to not having raiding (looking at special action key, but I know that isn’t important to you in particular).

Trevor Boyer.6524:

aaaaaand another one:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/My-Season-Experience/first#post6738557

Boy this sure seems to be happening to a lot of people. I mean could you even lose 10 in a row if you tried? Even if you AFK’d every match, you’d get a couple matches out of 10 where your team was able to 4v5.

I find this phenomena pretty odd.

I’d hope not. That means the matchmaking is as bad as you describe it. If you truly AFK’d 10 matches in a row, you should lose all 10 matches by a landslide.

I don’t see them nerfing the core warrior spec at launch, but it will likely be played less due to how strong spellbreaker is. (pending no changes from beta weekend)

This was voted upon by the community because the alternative was 5 queues steam rolling everyone else in solo/duo scenarios.

There are daily ATs for 5 man organized team play.

narcx.3570:

ButterPeanut.9746:

snip

Your group literally can run 6 warriors… Condi DPS War has the 2nd highest benchmark on small hitbox enemies, beating out every single DPS-only class except Eles… (And third highest vs large hitbox after Ele and DH).

Even if you wanted to be cheap and not bother to make a DPS set for your warrior, you still do 30k in your CPS gear/build, so bringing 6 of those would still be more than enough DPS to comfortably do any boss.

You have to admit that you see their point though, right…? It sucks if say you’re a Necro, Rev, Engie, or even a Thief main… and suddenly your only hope of getting into a group is being eclipsed by warrior players who already monopolize two mandatory support spots and now they’re taking your dps spots too. It’s actually kind of funny, because there’s another thread here where someone posted about Deadshot being “The New PS” and the warrior community lost their collective minds about people trying to replace them in the raid meta—it can’t go both ways guys. :P

I don’t PUG ever so I don’t really see it as competing or monopolizing the DPS slots. I see it as more alone the lines of having static members try out different DPS builds on different encounters where they are most beneficial. For example, maybe you take DPS warriors on Gorseval if your group is struggling to DPS the boss and do orbs at the same time with eles. (if your group still does that strat)

In terms of the buffing classes, I don’t think we’ll ever move away from wanting buffs like banners. However, the balance is moving in the direction of not requiring double of the buffing classes/builds. If condi PS were tuned down a bit (as it should be) there could be alternative might stacking builds and then the warrior just runs double banner. You lose EA on 5 people but pending on the group comp that could be marginal in comparison to other changes.

Same with druid in regards to spirits. If they were 10 people you could run a comp with just 1 druid as you really only lose spotter on 5 people and 1-2 stacks of GoTL. Pending on other balance, that could be a fair tradeoff.

Overall my point was that when filling DPS slots, just because warrior/ranger/mesmer have “support” builds doesn’t mean their balance for their DPS variants should be systematically lower. They each have their pros/cons for damage based on their class, but an ideal balance state is where all 9 professions have viable damage builds, and the player skill/encounter design/what players want to play, is what determines the appropriate DPS classes for that encounter.

Just wait until the spellbreaker elite

Helbjorne.9368:

Krysard.1364:

No one should ever sit on a point, whoever does that is throwing the game as the rest of the map is left 4v5.

That’s not true whatsoever. A good Bunker Guardian/ Ele/ Druid that can hold a point 1vX until the rest of the team can rotate is invaluable, especially in solo queue.

That isn’t the definition of “sitting on a point”. That is being outnumbered. You are correct in that successfully being able to handle outnumbers is very valuable. Sitting on a point means being 1v0 afk on your own node for an extended period of time. Eventually your team will lose the 4v5 and then you’ll be 1v5

CptAurellian.9537:

ButterPeanut.9746:

Now lets talk about DPS roles. Giving a list of which class should do most DPS based on a tiny subset of factors is incorrect, especially including survivability.
[…]
IMO, an ideal state is where every class has a DPS build/builds that are relatively close to one another (5-10%ish), and then the meta is determined by the players skill on that class and the utility that is required based on the encounter design. This means that no DPS class is systematically better than any other, but they may be on specific encounters.

I definitely agree with the first part, but only partly with the second. All classes should have an effective dps spec, but there should be some differentiation. That would be more healthy for class diversity than trying to bring all dps specs very close.

If we take a range of 30k (effective) to 36k (optimal), then a class that already has two guaranteed support slots should not have a dps spec that gets significantly above 30k. On the other hand, classes that bring nothing except raw dps should be balanced close to the optimum.

It’s already bad enough that three classes block 6/10 raid slots. There shouldn’t be any objective reason to have those even in the 4 dps slots, which are contested by 6 classes.

All you are doing is adding to the problem. A balanced state for DPS classes is not where they are filled by 6 professions. It is one where they are filled by all 9 professions where the mechanics of the encounter determine the “meta” for that particular encounter. If your group wants to run 6 warriors, then why should you be systematically worse than running some other DPS combo? You may on certain encounters, but not across the board.

Ideally the buffing roles should have some alternatives as well, but that’s a tougher issue. Hopefully firebrand can be a viable quickness option

STIHL.2489:

TexZero.7910:

Astralporing.1957:

Feanor.2358:

It doesn’t surprise me in the slightest to see the self-righteous stance of “raids are inaccessible” reduced to simple greed. But it does amuse me to see it admitted. It’s always fun to see someone undermine his own position in a debate.

Notice, how the same applies to the raiders as well. In the end every discussion ends up being about the rewards, because it’s something both sides care the most.

Not really.

We just care that the effort we put in isn’t undervalued. There’s a difference between that and “rewards”.

Lets set things clear, No, there isn’t. Those are the exact same thing, and all these discussions come down to that one single all important thing – Loot

Nothing else matters, and we all know it too, no matter how diplomatic it is worded, or how much sugar coating tries to get slathered on to it, when all it said and down, it all boils down to dat loot,

If raids offered something other then their oh so precious loot, none of us would be having this discussion .. none of us

All the Raiders would not be here trying to saying anything and everything that could be said to justify that precious special loot being reserved to raids, even going so far as to try and make it off that it was not loot.. but.. that quickly gets revealed that.. Yah.. it’s about the Loot.

For example, if doing a raid gave a special title and just a good chunk of gold, we would not be having this discussion, and you would have your special tittle to feel appreciated, something you could put on to show everyone that you did something the filthy masses could not.. but.. we all know that would not be enough, because.. the reality is, it really boils down to Greed, it all comes down to that Loot

Spare me any other hyperbola.

I’m sure I can’t be the only one that would do raids weekly even if it had zero loot, zero titles, and zero gold. Simply the fact that I enjoy the content more than I enjoy farming gold.

I farm for $$$ IRL, no reason to value that over my enjoyment of the content in my free time.

STIHL.2489:

Which means.. Raids could have been a catastrophic flop as far as the development went, and you would have no way to know, or say otherwise.

It also means that every single aspect of the game other than raids could be exactly the same as it is now if raids didnt exist…meaning they were only a net positive.

The point is that we will never know, so having the opinion that “they should never be implemented” is useless because it doesn’t provide any feedback that can be used to improve the game in any way.

ANET has the numbers to determine that they weren’t a catastrophic flop, otherwise they wouldn’t be continuing to add more resources/content to raids.

STIHL.2489:

ButterPeanut.9746:

STIHL.2489:

Raids and PvP are so far removed from each other in the way they are set up an work that the not enough similarity for there to be anything exactly alike between them, ergo, your example is totally invalid.

But, since you said you would not be trying again, I hope we are done, as I would so dearly hope you don’t make a lair of yourself.

You also are missing the point here. It really doesn’t matter about the type of content but rather the skillset/mindset/requirements of the player to succeed in the game mode.

Both game modes are built around coordinated team play.

Both game modes have increased incentive/reward for becoming exceptional at the content. Both game modes have a relatively high skill barrier for entering the content successfully (as compared to other content in gw2, not other games). Both game modes teach you to improve your skill set overtime as you play the content (individually and as a group). Both game modes have prestige items associated with them.

That’s enough for now.

There is so much wrong with this, I have to wonder if you even PvP, and I am gonna bet no.

Please elaborate? Top 100 s5-s7

Both game modes have increased incentive/reward for becoming exceptional at the content. – PVP = leaderboards, faster pip track, unique crown for monthly AT winners. Raids = quicker 150 cap. Achievements, challenge motes, titles, etc.

Both game modes have a relatively high skill barrier for entering the content successfully (as compared to other content in gw2, not other games). I don’t think i need to argue that pvp and raids are more challenging to get into than personal story.

Both game modes teach you to improve your skill set overtime as you play the content. Raids – most consistent raiding guilds/players are doing much more advanced strategies than they did at launch. I don’t see qT using updrafts on Gor anymore? PvP – you learn what matchups you can take, what targets to focus, etc.

Both game modes have prestige items associated with them. Raids – Legendary armor (prestige used loosely here). PvP – Monthly crowns. Top area access pass. Titles.

Don’t really know how you can argue with any of these as they aren’t my opinions, they are facts of the game.

Zenith.7301:

Grok Krog.9581:

According to QT the PS Berserker is one of the lowest of the high damage builds. I don’t see why they can’t buff a power warrior to do the same

Because even 30k is too much for a spec that boosts everybody else by 25%. If every other spec does a minimum of 30k DPS, you’re providing around 3-4k DPS worth of boost per person in raid as a PS.

That’s a 12-16k DPS raid boost. You’re literally half an extra class worth of DPS. It’s broken.

ButterPeanut.9746:

Zenith.7301:

Grok Krog.9581:

Only thing spell breaker has a chance of being in PvE is a Power PS but it’s damage is too low. All the traits and everything look promising but with the heavy nerf to Berserker’s Power and overall low damage there’s no reason to take it

It’s more the fact that condi warrior is broken as hell, so no spec will ever measure up to it unless you push out and even more OP elite spec.

A class that brings the most powerful by far offensive group boosts in the game should never be a top DPS spec in PvE.

A warrior’s presence increases group DPS by 25%, it’s absurd that any warrior spec is even doing 30k DPS considering the raid DPS they contribute.

That is only true for the PS/EA/Banner version.The condi PS version is definitely over tuned, but the pure condi DPS warrior is relatively competitive and doesn’t bring any of the group DPS increases.

One of the lowest ramp up condi classes, with powerful condi cleave/aoe, and strong breakbar damage to boot.

On the most survivable class in game to boot.

Any design intent should balance DPS ceiling by class armor and healthpool, utility/breakbar damage, and aoe/cleave capacity.

Which should put:

1- Ele
2- Thief

Ahead by 2k DPS of others.

3- Necro
4- DPS build mesmer
5- Engineer
6- Guardian
7- Ranger
8- Revenant
9- Warrior in that order given their survivability, utility, and breakbar damage ratios

Warrior is a completely broken outlier in PvE. It is ridiculously survivable, has great breakbar damage, has top tier support and dps builds.

Honestly, banners and PS need nerfing. At least druid’s group buffs come at the significant cost of DPS as do chronos.

PS also has a completely toxic interaction in the game where it makes most utilities and field combos that grant might redundant because of how easy and low cost it is to stack might as PS.

Fire field combos and utilities like blood is power and other might sharing builds like ele would gain value if the stupidly simple might stacking of PS were finally addressed.

Somehow alacrity, quickness, and revenant’s boon durations got nerfed, but the most powerful group boost in the game, might stacking, wasn’t even touched.

That is a slightly outdated way of thinking.

First lets talk about buffing roles. You are correct that warrior brings an absurd amount of mathematically buffs to a raid group between might, banners, and EA. However, they are attempting to address this with banners on 10 people, and with many of the new elite specs being able to stack group might (without combo fields btw). In addition, I would argue that warrior is in the best scenario out of warrior/druid/chrono because all of its buffs are tied to the base class and not the elite spec. Tying some of the buffs to the elite spec (i.e. druid and chrono) means that we are forever tied to those elite specializations to some extent.

Now lets talk about DPS roles. Giving a list of which class should do most DPS based on a tiny subset of factors is incorrect, especially including survivability. When you account for the addition of chrono/druid into raid groups, for each classes ability to avoid damage, and for the number of attacks in raids that are either base health % or 1 shot kills, you end up at a place where every DPS class is effectively just as survivable as everything else. A berserker daredevil who never gets hit is more survivable than a necro with full shroud who gets hit by everything. This means that its base health is no reason for daredevil to systematically do more damage than necro.

In addition, CC is just one tiny aspect of “utility” and even so condi DPS warrior brings Headbutt and that’s it.

CC as a utility is inherently influenced by the encounter design. For example, having a short cooldown headbutt doesn’t matter at all for fights where there is no CC (i.e. Mursaat Overseer) or fights where the CC is a very infrequent (i.e. Xera) because other classes can account for strong CC on longer cooldowns (i.e. Mesmer)

Utility is so much more generic that that, which makes utility an impossible factor to measure a pure DPS build by. For example, Xera is a fight where the best utility is extremetly strong AOE pressure due to the number of adds in the fight and how deadly they are. This is what makes fresh air staff ele “best in slot” as a DPS class on Xera, even though on the golem it is 8k+ worse than other DPS classes.

Take necro for example, it is very strong on Mursaat overseer because epidemic trivializes the adds and it is pretty easy to place your chill fields on static fights.

All of this boils down to the point that there are so many factors about what extra utility DPS classes can bring, that it is impossible to balance their pure DPS against them. IMO, an ideal state is where every class has a DPS build/builds that are relatively close to one another (5-10%ish), and then the meta is determined by the players skill on that class and the utility that is required based on the encounter design. This means that no DPS class is systematically better than any other, but they may be on specific encounters.

STIHL.2489:

ButterPeanut.9746:

Astralporing.1957:

thrag.9740:

Yh, idgaf how wow does raids. This is a different game, not a wow clone, if you want wow go play wow.

Just as people that wanted raids should have looked for games with raids instead of wanting them to be brought to gw2?

Just as people that want scaleable raid difficulty should have looked for games with scaleable raid difficulty instead of wanting them to be brought to gw2?

No one is really looking for scaleable raid difficulty in GW2, the few that bring this really want Raids to have never happened to this game, but since they were served with this ginormous pile of steaming kitten, they are now are simply trying to make the best of it.. which is vastly different then actually wanting to do a Raid of any style or difficulty at all.

It’s something they will settle for, but they never wanted to have to deal with this kitten to start with.

This makes no sense. The people never wanted them in the first place don’t have to play them. The existence of the code in a file on their computer does absolutely nothing relative to their enjoyment of the parts of the code they previously enjoyed. Absolutely nothing.

The argument of “it takes away players from other things that I do enjoy” can be applied in the reverse as well. If not including any LS3 maps would result in an increased healthy raiding population, I would take that 100% of the time. Maybe others wouldn’t.

Rewards and other incentives also don’t exist without the content that brought them. Want Saul’s story? Sorry you may never get it if raids never existed. Want legendary armor in the game? Sorry WvW and PvP may never have gotten it if raids didn’t exist. Enjoy tech like the special action hot key? Sorry we may never have had that if raids didn’t exist. Want more dungeon/fractals/open world/etc because raids never existed? Sorry you may not have gotten that either because ANET could have just decided to release the XPAC sooner, or not employee as many people, etc.

The reality of raids never existing in HoT doesn’t exist, so there is no way to know for certain what the outcome would have been (which is why I use the word “may” everywhere)

STIHL.2489:

Raids and PvP are so far removed from each other in the way they are set up an work that the not enough similarity for there to be anything exactly alike between them, ergo, your example is totally invalid.

But, since you said you would not be trying again, I hope we are done, as I would so dearly hope you don’t make a lair of yourself.

You also are missing the point here. It really doesn’t matter about the type of content but rather the skillset/mindset/requirements of the player to succeed in the game mode.

Both game modes are built around coordinated team play. Both game modes have increased incentive/reward for becoming exceptional at the content. Both game modes have a relatively high skill barrier for entering the content successfully (as compared to other content in gw2, not other games). Both game modes teach you to improve your skill set overtime as you play the content (individually and as a group). Both game modes have prestige items associated with them.

That’s enough for now.

STIHL.2489:

PvP gives you full rewards just for trying.. raids don’t.

Ehhh its pretty close actually. PvP has reward tracks and pip progress for “trying” . You can use these to works towards ascended items, just like you can from magnetite shards on failed attempts in raids.

Then, in order to get the legendary backpack you must X number of games on multiple classes. If you continue to lose, no matter how much you play, you cannot get the legendary backpack…just like raids.

There are likely players would could get 150 LI way more quickly than they could meet the number of win requirements for the legendary backpack (actually only 25LI should be the benchmark because backpack is only 1 piece). It is likely that there are players where the reverse is true as well.

Overall, both have incremented repeatable rewards for “trying” and a legendary reward that you can only get if you “succeed”. Seems like a good comparison to me!

Zenith.7301:

Grok Krog.9581:

Only thing spell breaker has a chance of being in PvE is a Power PS but it’s damage is too low. All the traits and everything look promising but with the heavy nerf to Berserker’s Power and overall low damage there’s no reason to take it

It’s more the fact that condi warrior is broken as hell, so no spec will ever measure up to it unless you push out and even more OP elite spec.

A class that brings the most powerful by far offensive group boosts in the game should never be a top DPS spec in PvE.

A warrior’s presence increases group DPS by 25%, it’s absurd that any warrior spec is even doing 30k DPS considering the raid DPS they contribute.

That is only true for the PS/EA/Banner version.The condi PS version is definitely over tuned, but the pure condi DPS warrior is relatively competitive and doesn’t bring any of the group DPS increases.

STIHL.2489:

ButterPeanut.9746:

Raiding alone wasn’t going to pull me to WoW, nor was not having raiding in gw2 pulling me away.

So what did GW2 actually gain by putting in raids, if you were going to remain with the game regardless of their existence or not?

Baseleader.4128:

STIHL.2489:

If not for some desire to make this game mimic the raid culture of WoW, why would anyone want a raid put into a game that never had them to start with?

This might just be some crazy outside of the box thinking on my part, but maybe it’s because they’re really really fun?

So.. you would be fine if they made an easy mode raid that gave the same rewards, since they are really really fun, that should be the reward in and of itself.

Lets see how fast you can back-peddle and justify the more challenge should mean more reward, which.. you know, would invalidate the whole point that people do raids because they are “really really” fun.

You seem to be acting on the premise that there is only one reason people do anything in life…which is obviously false.

Are there some people who only do them for the challenge? Sure! Are there some people who only do them for the legendary armor? Sure. Are there infinite combinations of percentages of “why people raid in gw2” that includes a little bit of everything? Sure!

I have no problem having scaleable rewards just like there are in every other aspect of the game. It would be foolish to give 100% exactly the same rewards in an easier version. It has no prescient in this game. T1 fractals don’t give 100% the exact same rewards at T4. Only participating in an open world meta for 5s doesn’t give exactly the same reward as filling the scale. As long as the scaling is appropriate (by ANETs definition only), then I’m totally fine with it.

In terms of remaining in the game, that is just my situation. I had just started becoming more invested in the game about 6 months before HoT, so I was getting my money’s worth either way. But its been 2 years, who knows maybe if raids weren’t there I wouldn’t be playing/buy gems/hyping the game as much.

Adding more content always benefits the game, and raids aren’t going anywhere. It is foolish to argue/discuss about “why the game shouldn’t have put raids in” That argument serves no purpose because there is no reality where ANET deletes them from the game. They’ve publicly stated they are going to continue to make them for the foreseeable future. Our opportunity for feedback is to help make them as successful as possible, because arguing they should be deleted/never existed provides no value.

Astralporing.1957:

thrag.9740:

Yh, idgaf how wow does raids. This is a different game, not a wow clone, if you want wow go play wow.

Just as people that wanted raids should have looked for games with raids instead of wanting them to be brought to gw2?

Just as people that want scaleable raid difficulty should have looked for games with scaleable raid difficulty instead of wanting them to be brought to gw2?

STIHL.2489:

ButterPeanut.9746:

STIHL.2489:

thrag.9740:

Yh, idgaf how wow does raids. This is a different game, not a wow clone, if you want wow go play wow.

This post perfectly encapsulates why raids never should have been put into the game to start.

Nice blanket statement that is not true at all for so many people.

Its as if there are other reasons people do/don’t play WoW other than raids and reasons why people do/don’t play gw2 other than raids…oh wait thats exactly what the reality is.

If not for some desire to make this game mimic the raid culture of WoW, why would anyone want a raid put into a game that never had them to start with?

A similarly named content can be added without “mimicing raid culture”. Nowhere in gw2 is there a gear treadmill between raids.

I for one loved gw2 combat, community, play style, etc but wanted more challenging group content in the game that I already liked. Raiding alone wasn’t going to pull me to WoW, nor was not having raiding in gw2 pulling me away. I wasn’t going to WoW either way, but I sure as heck wanted more challenging group content in the game I was sticking with.

If a single addition of a type of content into a game you currently are playing drives you away from playing that game, then you clearly didn’t enjoy it as much as you thought.

Here are just a few things that this game never had “to start with”:
- Fractals
- Ascended
- Expansions
- Revenant
- Wardrobe
- Salvage All
- etc

Would you tell someone who loved Revenant that they should have gone to WoW? Or some other game where an “energy based melee class” existed?

Games will continue to change and add content. Otherwise they die and don’t make money. Saying that something shouldn’t exist because “it didn’t have it to start with” 100% invalidates your entire opinion on the subject.

STIHL.2489:

thrag.9740:

Yh, idgaf how wow does raids. This is a different game, not a wow clone, if you want wow go play wow.

This post perfectly encapsulates why raids never should have been put into the game to start.

Nice blanket statement that is not true at all for so many people.

Its as if there are other reasons people do/don’t play WoW other than raids and reasons why people do/don’t play gw2 other than raids…oh wait thats exactly what the reality is.

You are better off staying with power until you have the viper’s gear you need.

LS3 maps made it very easy to get viper’s trinkets and you can stat change ascended weapons/armors.

STIHL.2489:

ButterPeanut.9746:

Substatic.6958:

Changing health and damage values would be that resource intensive?

How does changing health and damage account for the people who don’t raid because they don’t want to find 9 other people?

Dropping the health of a Boss Mob allows for a single player to do enough damage to kill them in the allocated time frame.

How does changing damage and health account for attacks that don’t do damage, but instead kill you instantly?

It doesn’t, as such there would still need to be skill involved to win.

How does changing health and damage account for loot balance?

Since all loot is allocated to single players, there is no more loot given if 6 people do the raid, no less should be given if 1 person does it. So loot would remain unchanged.

How does changing damage and health account for mechanics that require specific number of people to complete a mechanic?

what mechanic is this?

It has never been a simple change of reducing boss health and damage, and it never will be.

Sure it could.

I think you are misunderstanding what my first post was about. It is not about making equal difficulty raids that require less people. It is about making raids that are significantly easier than the current implementation.

There have been numerous posts about how easy mode would need to remove the 1 shot mechanics like sabetha’s flamewall. If that were pursued, it is not a simple “reduce boss health” fix.

“Since all loot is allocated to single players, there is no more loot given if 6 people do the raid, no less should be given if 1 person does it. So loot would remain unchanged.”
- This isn’t an argument about equal difficulty low mans, its an argument about easier difficulty raids that may or may not have a lower number of people as the maximum. If an easier mode with 5 people is implemented, it is very obvious that looting needs to be adjusted versus the current 10man difficulty. In addition, do you allow players to get loot from both forms in the same week. These are the kind of questions that take time/resources that are not “drop boss health/damage”.

VG green circles require 4 people. KC green circles require 6 people. Sloth mushrooms require 4 people (unless you kill before you get to #4, which is obviously not the case for “easy mode”). Xera platforms require 3 people minimum. Deimos mechanics require at least 2 people to tank and kite hands. Sabetha bombs require at least 2 people. These are some examples of the mechanics that have hard requirements on the number of players in the group. Simply lowering the damage/health of KC will never allow a group of 5 players to beat the boss. There must be more changes to account for that…aka more dev time/resources.

Its kind of sad, but for me the best thing I’ve learned throughout all of these seasons is when to STOP playing. If I lose 2 in a row, I’m done for the night.

Substatic.6958:

Changing health and damage values would be that resource intensive?

How does changing health and damage account for the people who don’t raid because they don’t want to find 9 other people?

How does changing damage and health account for attacks that don’t do damage, but instead kill you instantly?

How does changing health and damage account for loot balance?

How does changing damage and health account for mechanics that require specific number of people to complete a mechanic?

It has never been a simple change of reducing boss health and damage, and it never will be.

Blaeys.3102:

A story mote version, using the same tech they use to implement challenge motes, would likely solve this issue – allowing them to develop really difficult raid encounters without boxing the content off from the more casual players – something that Anet obviously cared more about in the early days of the game.

It would give more people more ways to have fun as a team – which should be the whole point.

Without specifying the difficulty you are looking for, you already have this in the game (at least wing 4, lets be real they will never go back and add story mote to older wings)

Its called normal mode…challenge mote is the problem because it is not repeatable? If the challenge mote was the repeatable “normal” mode but then the “story mote” was the current difficulty, would this solve the problem? Absolutely not. It would just mean one more button click when you enter the instance. Not only are you looking for a story version, but a story version that is easier than the current difficulty.

Its been 18 months…we should be long past the point of “we can/cannot have an easier version of raids in gw2”. It can definitely happen. The question is what resources is the community, or more importantly ANET willing to give up to dedicate the time/tech to be able to do so? Want easy mode raids? Do you want it if PoF only has 2 maps instead of 5? These are the questions to think about…not the blanket statement yes/no answers.

To all of the folks who think that raids changed the direction of the game for the worse…maybe some parts of the content did. But nobody seems to want to acknowledge that the game and ANET greatly benefit from being able to make more challenging content.

It widens the door for types of encounters they can design, allows them to implement new tech/mechanics that they can use elsewhere to benefit the game, it gives players a reason to improve which allows ANET to make more content/$$$, etc.

Remember all of the amazing reddit posts about how the checkpoint system in Siren’s JP with the special action key? Where did the tech for the special action key come from? Oh ya…raids. Just one small example of the types of indirect benefits that come from having to design more challenging content. Who knows, maybe if Sabetha didn’t require a green bomb to throw, we never would have had the special action key in the first place.

Rising Dusk.2408:

About the only comparison worth considering between current meta and probable PoF meta is DPS Chrono/Firebrand vs. Top DPS Class/Quickness Chrono. That has the potential to be really close. Since nothing else can apply Spotter/Spirits/GotL, however, you won’t be replacing your Druids.

See my post above. In reality, we really aren’t all that far off. I don’t think making spirits 10 man is such a crazy suggestion. That could actually happen. Maybe not right at launch, but its possible.

And, with the recent balance patch and PoF specs, there are tons of really good DPS options that don’t need Spotter. See Reaper, Daredevil power DPS, Guardian, Renegade, etc.

With GoTL being on 10 people in CA, a good druid can realistically keep up 3-4 stacks on 10 people. If that is the case you are only losing 1-2 stacks of GoTL by replacing the 2nd druid. If this future scenario (again…which isn’t all that crazy) were to happen, I think replacing a 2nd druid with another DPS class (or hell even a different support class) is totally viable.

TBH it really doesn’t matter what the meta is unless you are qT and going for record runs. Otherwise, as long as there are some viable alternatives then I think its fine.

One alternative that interests me is to split up the 2nd chrono role into 2 classes. An alacrity giving berserker chrono(24k realstic according to last patch) and a DPS firebrand that can give perma quickness (balance and build pending).

May not be optimal, but could be an option. Still 2 chronos but its a bit of a different flavor.

You could also in theory have a setup where Spotter is not needed, with Guard/Renegade/Theif DPS classes. One less thing that druid isn’t needed for. If spirits were 10 people, then all you’d realistically be losing is 1-2 stacks of GoTL by taking one druid.

1 PS warrior with both banners seems like an option as well considering the amount of might that some of these new specs put out. (Scourge, Firebrand, and Deadeye in particular)

Anyhoo, hoping for some alternatives based on what people want to play and that each setup could be slightly more or less optimal depending on the mechanics of the fight.

There is something broken with the rifle shots on deadeye. When reflecting, the shots do not reflect back at the thief. Some folks things its only when you are marked, but I’ve had it happen when I was not marked.

They should be able to be reflected just like any other long range projectile.

Low? really? I’ve tried demolisher/leadership in pvp with d/sh+m/d. The offhand dagger #4 can crit for 10k and full counter is so OP and crits for like 5k+

Silv.9207:

SrebX.6498:

Holy kitten. Dhuumfire+Sandshades if gonna be op

If compared to reaper AA? Not at all.
You need to active Fx skills to make shades do something and active Dhuumfire, then that trait will be barely good.
I don’t see any real reasons to use Soul Reaping trait with the scourge. At best for a 20 sec cd breakstun+stability, nothing more, expecially after the Huge nerf to Vital Persistence and SoS.
Dhuumfire will add a little damage, but nothing more.

Better make a more support oriented build.

I may have misunderstood, but the way that I heard it on the stream was the weapon skill #1 is what inherits Dhuumfire.

Fay.2357:

ButterPeanut.9746:

LOL chill. Made it early so folks see the thread and can give feedback in one place instead of making a ton of unorganized pieces of info…

Except that it’s way more useful to have separate threads for different topics for feedback than having to sort through one huge thread to parse all the different bits. So….yeah, this is pretty useless.

Meh, agree to disagree I guess.

LOL chill. Made it early so folks see the thread and can give feedback in one place instead of making a ton of unorganized pieces of info…

Why is it bad to have it a bit early so other folks see the thread instead of making their own threads that aren’t consolidated?

Why is it sad? Took a total of 5min.

This thread is to hold feedback from the demo weekend for Spellbreaker.

This thread is to hold feedback from the demo weekend for Deadeye.

This thread is to hold feedback from the demo weekend for Renegade.

This thread is to hold feedback from the demo weekend for Soulbeast.

This thread is to hold feedback from the demo weekend for Scourge.

This thread is to hold feedback from the demo weekend for Mirage.

This thread is to hold feedback from the demo weekend for Firebrand.

This thread is to hold feedback from the demo weekend for Holosmith.

This thread is to hold feedback from the demo weekend for Weaver.

Quickness overrides what is in dual wielding. With quickness you attack at 50% and you gain no value from dual wielding.

Blaeys.3102:

Raids are the only part of the game the more casual players feel like they are locked out of (whether they are or not is moot – it is the perception that matters). And, raids are something they would (I believe based on what I see in my guild) enjoy if they could at a more casual pace.

While perception is important, it is much more difficult to discuss because so many things outside of ANET developing content can influence perception.

For example, for almost a year the perception was that all eles were worth taking over other DPS classes, even when the ele was bad. When something went wrong, the eles were never at fault because apparantely in the first year all eles do 30k DPS.

Then DPS meters came along and folks realized that this isn’t true and that many other classes can fill DPS roles, some even better than ele pending on the boss and the state of the balance at that time.

The point is that perception is tricky to discuss because of so many influences. For example, what if the perception of getting into raids was changed due to giving more incentives for raiding groups to bring in new players? In this fictional scenario there is no easy mode, but more players are accessing the content, doing training modes, etc.

What baffles me is this personal deep connection with a build, when GW2 to its core is designed for players to easily and constantly swap between builds.
1. You don’t have to pay a fee or any other type of barriers to change your traits, like some other games.
2. You can very easily/cheaply change the stats on gear. I really don’t understand the personal attachment to stats, as they are just numbers.
3. The gear we’ve been getting for 5 years and will continue to acquire will still be relevant because the stat cap/armor level doesn’t change.

I’m sure there are many other reasons as well, but it just confuses me as to where a personal attachment with a build comes into play. I get maybe a particular class, or a particular role, but whether or not you use nomad, or minstrel, or magi on specific classes/roles really is nothing more than math.

Vinceman.4572:

Silmar Alech.4305:

The problem with the special action (key) is, that when you first encounter a new action, you don’t know what will happen if you use it. You try to find and move the tiny mouse over it, while in fight, and try to read the popup with the description.

Half way through the reading, you die. Then the special action vanished, and you were not able to figure out what it does. Then you retry the fight, and the same thing may happen again before you fully understand what the key will do.

That’s not a good method to teach players new action key actions. It produces frustration, because you die and lose the fight while you simply try to read a description.

It’s the same with all these tiny buff and debuff signs on my and my enemy’s bar, especially with the special buffs that are added just for that special fight you never encountered before. Constantly adding and expiring the signs, never able to hold the mouse over it long enough to fully read the popups.

While I agree to a certain point we have to admit that the special action key in the new fractal is introduced to us before we even meet an encounter. So, the time is there to read the complete description for a proper usage afterwards.

My point wasn’t to focus on the things that the special action key needs. Rather to point out that something so crucial to many different areas of the PvE such as the special action key only exists due to the fact that the devs needed it in order to properly create challenging content in raids. Without it, we may have never seen this new feature. This was just one example of why it is important for challenging content to continue to be developed over time.

Benjamin Arnold.3457:

ButterPeanut.9746:

One perfect example is the special action key. Take the new open world map that has really cool and interesting lore tidbits related to the gods when using the special action key. In combat it helps allies certain ways, and hurts enemies. I find it interesting and exciting to pair it up with other people in a larger meta event.

Where did this tech come from? Raids.

I love the special action key as a tool for design. It gives us a lot more freedom and it can give every fractal a unique “feel”. I find myself wishing I had nova launch in other content.

Exactly. Thank you for commenting on this.

While there are always going to be folks who don’t like content that requires anything more than the minimal amount of focus, you cannot continually design that type of content indefinitely. It is limiting in terms of content design (as a software developer in a different industry, this applies as well).

Think of all the amazing pieces we may not have had if nobody had thought “Hmmmm, we need another button to break out of eggs at Gorseval, or to throw the bomb at Sabetha?”

Another great example…player resetable checkpoint system inside of a JP without needing to die.

Karnasis.6892:

Since when has this been the case? Since raids came out? Because if you haven’t noticed but the original fractals compared to the new ones are drastically different in terms of difficulty…. cough Molten Boss cough

Maybe the NEW fractals were designed with this in mind, which I don’t understand because they designed raids for a small fraction of the player base so why do we need a stepping stone. But to me fractals in general felt like a cousin to dungeons (and now replacement).

And I enjoyed the first fight in the new fractal, but the second one has way too much going on. Dodge aoes + trash mobs + bounce this thing along and don’t miss one or wipe + randomly be made into a bomb. And my group gave up on the second boss.

While each of the old fractals today are considerably easier than the new ones, this was not the case at launch. Remember doing high level fractals when you couldn’t get enough agony? Talk about punishing 1 shot mechanics that lead to wipes…

Also, it is advantageous for ANET to want to design content that encourages players to improve over time (albeit at different paces per person). It gives them much more flexibility for encounter design, new tech behind the scenes, new mechanics to use elsewhere in the game, etc.

One perfect example is the special action key. Take the new open world map that has really cool and interesting lore tidbits related to the gods when using the special action key. In combat it helps allies certain ways, and hurts enemies. I find it interesting and exciting to pair it up with other people in a larger meta event.

Where did this tech come from? Raids.

Maybe this particular fractal doesn’t have anything jumping out at us that could be used elsewhere in the game, but the point is that there are many reasons to generally want to force improvement of the player base as whole.

Astralporing.1957:

Henry.5713:

What I was actually talking about is missing the point of the constant complaining on these forums rather than any opinion in particular. Alas, complaining until ArenaNet gives in is the actual point of it. Now that wouldn’t even be the worst of ideas, considering their track record.

Considering that’s exactly how raiders got their raids, it seems to be a really good idea, to be truthful. It’s definitely better than just letting it go, because the latter has exactly zero chance of accomplishing anything.

Re-posting from page 1.

This issue isn’t a small bug that was reported once and ANET forgot about. It has been talked about on the forums/reddit/podcasts every day for at minimum 12 months. Not doing so doesn’t mean you are “letting it go” it means that we’ve simply decided that ANET has all of the input they need from the player base and we don’t need to get frustrated with eachother every day for another year. We can “just let it go” and ANET will handle it how they see fit. Its been discussed enough, they won’t forget.

REPOST
For a new player, it is fine if they have these same concerns and have a post. My point is that when this occurs we don’t really need another thread that is 30 pages long. A simple post with “Hey this has been discussed on the forum very heavily, here are some links to those threads” would suffice. Then after reading, if that new person feels they can add some value to the conversation, then sure feel free to keep adding comments. Otherwise, the post with the links could be the end of it.
My point is that having new people, old people, etc constantly repeat the same arguments back and forth with no value added doesn’t get us anywhere. It certainly doesn’t give ANET any more reason to meet the needs of the people asking for change.
They know this is a concern. They know that the number of players it affects is constantly changing. We really don’t need to have the same conversation today as we did 1 year ago. A simple link to it and “please feel free to add comments if you feel your thoughts haven’t been addressed by the previous discussion” should be enough.
I’m not trying to silence anyone. I’m trying to keep the discussion relevant with new value added/thoughts. Not to keep it around just to say “me too”.