Guild Wars 2

The team is still investigating the issue and working to get a fix out as quickly as they can.

We’re looking into all of the issues and trying to get fixes out as soon as possible.

In the past year and a half, the overall skill level of the Guild Wars raiding community has risen at a staggering pace. Naturally, content will seem easier now as players continue to refine their theorycrafting and personal skill.

Our goal is not to make content easier, but rather add an additional layer of difficulty onto the challenge motes where it makes sense.

Chickens. So many chickens.

Don’t throw them out, wait until the next release.

Kolzi.5928:

Hey Ms (Mrs?) Reid, just wanna say first off I’m a big fan of your work, I really like the gw2 raids and I’m looking forward to more.

You talk here about how you have intro-style encounters like STK (I assume that is Siege The Keep). I totally agree that the game should have them, I actually thought Vale Guardian was overtuned not because I found it difficult but I felt that as the first raid boss, it should serve as an introduction to how raiding works as a whole. Mechanically, it does that fantastically, it just feels a bit much for a first time group to me.

Anyway I wanted to pitch in a little on this. Clearly the easiest encounters right now are the bandit trio and siege the stronghold. I’ve no problem with the design of these encounters, nor with having encounters of this level of difficulty (as long as it’s not the only level of difficulty!). I do however think that perhaps the fights that are supposed to serve as introductions to raiding should take a more traditional boss approach rather than these kinda out-there designs. Something more akin to Gorseval, Sabetha, Keep Construct or Vale Guardian just tuned to be easier and more forgiving seems like it would be a much better introduction to raiding to me (and preferably it should be the first boss so it’s easy to access). I just don’t think there is a whole lot you can take away from an encounter like Siege The Stronghold that you can then apply to Gorseval, beyond perhaps the general concept of having specific role in a fight.

The next release won’t have an event style boss like STK or Trio. Not saying we’ll never do them again, it just didn’t fit in the next release.

This comes up a lot so I’m going to jump in quickly since it’s a new post.

Tier systems for Raids come up a lot as a result of what Fractals did. I worked on the original Fractals team and a tiered system with increased difficulty scaling was always part of the original plan for that team. It was never a plan for Raids. They are, and should remain, the most difficult content in the game.

Accessibility in terms of difficulty is something we talk a lot about internally. We’ve made efforts to help players get in by delivering entry level encounters that ease you into the content (STK) and you’ll see more of that in the next release. You’ll still see encounters that live up to previous raid expectations for mid tier and final bosses. And if you think Matthias is a chump then we have something for you as well.

Accessibility in terms of “Hey, my 5 man Fractal group wants to try raids, but we can’t find 5 other players!” is also something we talk about. It’s just a much more difficult problem to solve.

Ranael.6423:

Sorry to hijack your answer but if you think you can break the cycle by having a raid only composed of one wing, do you also think that now bosses could also not live in circular rooms/platforms ?

Sure.

We’ve been talking about this and are looking at solutions coming out with the next raid release. Don’t throw those away just yet!

A few development updates for you guys since there are some things I can clarify here.

While Forsaken Thicket was 3 wings that encompassed a complete story line, that does not mean all raids will be 3 wings. We’ll do that where it makes sense, and sometimes it will make sense to release a stand alone raid with 1 wing if we think we have an interesting story to tell there that doesn’t need to be stretched out over multiple releases.

We’re working on getting a fix out for this ASAP.

Tobias.8632:

Nothing about fixing mathias reflects in the patch notes?

It should be fixed. We were too late for the patch notes so the note will appear in a Hot Fix patch note.

Update: We had a meeting this morning to talk about all the issues you guys have reported. Some we’re able to fix now and you should see them next week (Matthias reflects), some we need programming to investigate (the issues with invulnerability) and some we’re still working on so they’ll roll out as soon as they are ready.

Tentonhammr.7849:

1. Matthias still randomly goes invul for 30 seconds~ (player specific, not party wide)
2. Matthias stacks are still harder to remove due to pets, clones, and minions blocking
3. Xera is so kittened it’s just funny.

1. Probably not due the desync issue but we’re investigating. No ETA on a fix.
2. A fix is in progress for this, but can’t deploy until the next full build.
3. We really need more specifics.

A hotfix was just deployed today to fix a desync issue which should resolve most of the issues you were seeing, however we’re still investigating how much was caused by the desync.

If you continue to see issues post hotfix, please keep reporting them so we can investigate them on a case by case basis.

Jumping in here for a second to clarify things with you guys. At the time Gaile replied to you she had the most up to date information from the raid team. After reading through the thread more and discussing it as a team, it’s very clear that McLeod is considered to be an entry level boss by the community.

We’re going to fix the mastery unlock issue in an upcoming patch, as well as add the unlock to the Bandit Trio encounter. We apologize for any confusion that occurred, especially to Gaile to sending her the incorrect information!

Rising Dusk.2408:

This is definitely a bug. I’ll make sure to forward this along to the Raids team. I’ll try reaching out to them first on Reddit before doing a formal report to let ’em know.

Andy’s working on a fix for this.

Reset time is unlikely to change. We picked the time slot based off player concurrency during the week and when it was least likely to disrupt coordinated players that raid multiple days in a row.

We have a fix, but have to wait for the next hotfix window to get this live.

Depends on which version of the Slubling you are fighting. There are 2 basic versions of the Slublings, a melee version, and a ranged. The melee ones don’t create projectiles so there’s nothing to reflect there. The ranged ones can be reflected. When the Slublings ramp up later in the phase and turn into Evolved Slublings, the projectiles can no longer be reflected.

Enko.6123:

I didn’t even realize the Bandit Trio was the second boss for the first few attempts. Thought it was a pre-event. The achievement for that boss seems like it will be a bit more difficult. It was a nice change of pace with something different than just going after the boss. It did seem a little out of place though.

We ran into an issue where the achievement was impossible under the current balance of the encounter, so we reduced the difficulty and balanced around that instead. I would definitely recommend giving that a go.

Andy’s already working on a fix for this.

Khezekiah Bellamy.5016:

Will this be the currency used for the new two wings of Forsaken Thicket?

Yes.

On Difficulty
With Salvation Pass you should see comparable difficulty with the bosses to Spirit Vale. Things like No Updraft Gorseval weren’t really possible the first week when players learned the encounter. We definitely don’t want to make the encounters so challenging that things like that are never possible since all it does is make raids less accessible to others. It’s fun to be able to master them and get better and do things like this.

On Achievements
There aren’t any “avoid getting hit by X and then kill the boss” style achievements in Salvation Pass. They are a lot more involved and will change up how you approach the encounter.

On Rewards
Andy jumped in here somewhere a few weeks back (I can’t find the original post) but he hinted that duplicate minis are going to have value with the second raid release so make sure you hold on to them.

Other than that, we’re making improvements to show ascended gear is awarded. You’ll have a lot more choice instead of getting something you can’t use.

On LFG
We’re not happy with the state of this either. Colin actually mentioned some stuff about this on Reddit.

Love the short term problem solving – wish it was easier for us to to do a quick short term fix. (sadly nothing with LFG is easy or quick)

I did want to quickly point out the team is aware of the recent discussions around things that aren’t working (or missing) from LFG and have it included in the list of “resolving outstanding issues” that is our goal for the spring update in April.

Not entirely sure what will actually make it yet LFG wise since it’s all in development – we’ll give more details once we’re sure.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/462xs8/make_our_own_raid_lfg_category_by_taking_over_pvp/d02aq2l

I’m going to get these out to you before the next raid patch ships since this is a pretty simple fix. It’ll be in the patch notes when it goes live.

We saw a report on this last week and we’re looking into this.

Sabetha’s AI doesn’t include any toughness behaviours. Her Flak Shot should simply be looking for the furthest target as stated. If this is not the case, it sound like a bug may have been introduced unintentionally. I’m sending this over to QA to get some repro on this (if you guys had videos that would also be helpful).

Lytalm.5673:

Crystal Reid.2481:

Yes the cast time of Magic Storm was reduced to prevent unintended gameplay.

“Play how we want you to play” isn’kitten ?

Are you also gonna change Gorseval because you can kill him without taking an updraft?

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/3vajhn/gorseval_no_glider_challenge/

It doesn’t have anything to do with allowing you to play the way you want and so I’d like to share some insight into why we made the change.

We’re actually perfectly okay with players not interrupting a break bar. However what we’re not okay with is having all the deadly mechanics of the encounter removed during this period. Honestly that’s really just an oversight on my part in how I built the encounter. This was the most simple change we could make that was relatively low impact.

Rising Dusk.2408:

How long does it last now? OP said 4-5 seconds, but is that true or just an estimate? I’m trying to decide if it’s better to ignore now or break.

It should be around 10s.

Yes the cast time of Magic Storm was reduced to prevent unintended gameplay. I’ll follow up on our patch note procedure to make sure we don’t miss stuff like this (it should have been there).

Also looks like the note about the checkpoint for players exiting the instance after completing the Bandit pre-event got missed as well and that has also been fixed for what it’s worth.

Nike.2631:

Crystal Reid.2481:

The only masteries that are required for the raid release are Glider Basics and Updraft Use. They don’t come in to play until the third encounter.

“Required” is a high bar . Are there any other masteries that have any effect at all inside raid-spaces? Will there be speed ’shrooms on the map for example?

There were speed mushrooms in the Vale Guardian encounter area, but we saw kills from groups that weekend without the mastery. They are there to help you if you are struggling, but it’s possible to defeat him without!

Rym.1469:

Crystal Reid.2481:

The only masteries that are required for the raid release are Glider Basics and Updraft Use. They don’t come in to play until the third encounter.

Does having fancy glider skins help with Gorseval?

No, but at least you can fall with style.

The only masteries that are required for the raid release are Glider Basics and Updraft Use. They don’t come in to play until the third encounter.

To enter you need to be in a Raid squad (or a leaderless squad). The entrance is located in the North East corner of Verdant Brink just east of the Itzel village.

If you try to zone into a raid instance while an encounter is in progress, you will zone in defeated and therefore won’t get any credit for loot.

Malthurius.6870:

Also, small suggestion; is there a way you could make the timer circle inside of the marker grow out instead of shrink in. It’s just easier to see when it goes off that way.

We won’t change the animation simply because we’re already using a version of the telegraph that grows outwards later in the release, and that telegraph is definitely something you don’t want to stand in and need to get away from.

In other words… If the telegraph grows inwards, you should stack on it in some form (or maybe it’ll pull you in /plots). If the telegraph grows outwards then you need to get out.

Just wanted to post and let you guys know the FX artist has been looking into this. For starters we’re going to swap the Distributed Magic orange telegraph to a different colour (since orange usually denotes “GTFO” and not “You should stand here”). Secondly, he’s looking into adding more “height” to the Unstable Magic Spike attack to help give more visual cue that you need to move/dodge. Hopefully some of this will help the messaging!

Jerus.4350:

I’ll say I’ve always liked soft timers best. 500% is probably a bit much to call it a soft timer, but hey at least it’s not one of the “and you’re dead” type enrages.

I actually just reduced this to give you a little wiggle room to (as my raid says) kittenroach the boss down if he’s low enough.

It’s recommended, not required. The first Vale Guardian kill over the weekend had over 1:00 left to the enrage. Skill and builds are going to be the bigger factor in the success of your raid.

Ingros.7801:

3. During phase 2 when the guardian splits sometimes the color guardians decide to take long walks for no reason and causes quite a bit of annoyance. The only reason we noticed this as a possible problem is because the aggro system for the Vale Guardian is solid and works very well. (Good Job on that, really. It makes controlling the boss smooth.)

Something I noticed while watching streams last night. I will be looking into that this week.

This is really well constructed feedback, thanks for posting. I can tell you I’ll be changing their portraits to be Champions instead of Legendary to clear up some of the confusion over these guys being the boss, and looking into some of their numbers to make sure they feel sufficiently threatening without becoming a horrible slog.

They’re testing the fixes right now. Best I can offer!

SlyDevil.3952:

So the question is, “How much dps does Byron do on necro?”.

https://s3.amazonaws.com/hudl-internal-assets/alot/ALOT.png

Boon stacking and condition removal prioritizes your subgroup first.

Templates are something we would love to do. We have talked about this quite a bit, and with the frequency we’re seeing raid builds get tweaked we agree this would be a huge help.

They will be disabled.

The designer behind the Vinewraith was Lisa Davis. You might remember her from such releases such as the Marionette, and Super Adventure Box! (But really, there isn’t just one boss designer on the Living World as all the designers contribute to the encounters in both design, implementation, and feedback. They all deserve cookies.)

Chris Whiteside.6102:

NoTrigger.8396:

Naetell.3815:

In all the content we have in GW2 today, one mistake does not even down a DPS player. A big mistake might, a massive mistake does, but I don’t like defending the oneshot mechanics some bosses have either.

first of all thats a content problem. the pve content we have is not really challenging and difficult to beat, except when you are soloing stuff.

now let me give you one example.
imagine in a 15 man raid a boss has a really tight enrage timer and 15 players are required to use dps gear and optimal rotations to kill the boss before the enrage timer hits.
now in this fight there is healing required, more than just your personal healing skill.
how will players deal with this? they will heal each other with water fields, defensive boons.
so EVERYONE in the raid will be required to provide as much support as possible, teamwork and on top of that dps.
or in other words, everyone has to play well and pull their weight.
and all of that happens while players are dodging dangerous hits and abilities.

now lets say 12 people are required to use optimal rotations and dps gear and you have 3 dedicated healer. will this make the encounter more challenging and fun?
it will actually reduce teamwork, coordination and the requirement that players try to play as good as possible, because focusing on only one thing is much easier to do, and doesnt need as much teamwork.

actually situation 1) is exactly why i love the gw2 combat system.

people always say “just dps, just dps, just dps”. what they dont understand, its exactly the other way around.
its support, support, support with the nice bonus that you can deal alot of dps on top of that at the same time.

how much dps you can deal on top of providing tons of support depends ONLY on how good the player is at the game. a player who doesnt react properly, is inexperienced, and doesnt know when and what to dodge needs defensive gear to survive.
a great player doesnt need defensive gear, because he is learning how to react to X situation faster, how to react proberly etc………

this is actually just amazing. because its entirely based on player skill.

i dont know if you understand what im trying to explain here. but i can recommend every player who thinks “only dps dps dps, no support, no cc” to learn to solo arah paths in berserker gear. once you have done that and reached a certain skill level in gw2, you will look at the game and the combat system from a very different perspective that not alot of players seem to understand even after 2 years of playing the game.

I agree 100%. I now don’t understand why folks are arguing.

Cris

Also going to +1 this post, and agree with Chris. It’s difficult to find the relevant posts through pages of arguing.

I’m trying to get caught up on this thread (looks like Chris is beating me!) but I’m also about to head out on vacation so I’m going AWOL until next week. Play nice and pending this is still going I’ll jump back in to the discussions on Monday.