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.
Honestly I think the issue is not so much about the difficulty of the encounter or finding people, but rather the “casual” mentality that permeates the gw2 community. The fact of the matter is, the majority of the people on gw2 aren’t looking for a challenge, they don’t want to spend any effort on learning fights, mechanics or builds or any of that. The majority here want to jump in on something with no preparation or coordination and get out as fast as possible.
For those who say finding 10 ppl to raid is what’s holding you back – have you tried keeping LFG open for 5min? I’ve cleared every boss every week for the past 4 months by joining the first group that poped up doing the boss/wings I needed. I never had to wait longer than a pvp match wait to get a group, even in the deadest hours at night. Now if you have issues working with strangers, that’s a whole different ball game.
People that are referencing fractals as a comparison to raids… the next time you pug fractals, look at the behavior of the players, the vast majority of them have absolutely no clue how to actually use the build they are on and just end up auto-attacking half the time; maybe you are one of these people, and that’s perfectly fine! because everyone is able to clear the highest level fractals regardless. that’s not coincidence, fractals are designed to be able to be completed that way.
That’s exactly what the people that enjoy raids don’t want to see – content that you can clear by people just auto-attacking. There is a specific group of people that enjoy the challenging content that are raids, others just don’t have the taste for it, which is fine. It’s the same as pvp, some people live in it, some won’t go near it. Let Anet make the content and let people choose – and if it’s not your cup of tea, don’t burn down the bridge for those that do enjoy it.