This will be a wall of text. Scroll down for a TL;DR
No, I did not come here to say that Guild Wars 2 needs raids.
Although I would not be directly opposed to them, I understand Anet’s reasons for keeping them out of the game and I believe that they will not go back on their word of saying that there would be no raids when they were first promoting the game. The idea of raids and the gear treadmill that comes with it goes directly against their basic design philosophy
I also understand why people want raids in this game. Complaints are generally as follows:
“There is not enough to do at endgame”
“Guild Wars 2 is casual. It lacks hard content”
Now, the thing is, although I disagree with people’s solutions to these arguments (namely, raiding), I completely agree with the problems people are trying to address by their promotion of the idea of introducing raiding to the game. It is true that there is not enough to do at endgame (this is for players who are looking for more than an “explore the world” experience when playing an MMORPG) , and Gw2 is definitely lacking in hard content.
Therefore, instead of addressing these problems by saying the game needs raids, I would like to propose another solution to the problem.
Introduce hard 5-10 man content to the game, in which bosses have more complicated mechanics and true understanding of the game is needed. Reward players with cosmetics only, but make these items hard to get (since beating the content will be hard in itself), so that they can truly be considered “trophies” for beating content that most mortals cannot beat. I believe that people will be motivated to do this content just for the prestige and the bragging rights.
No, there does not have to be a gear treadmill to address the issues of a lack of endgame content. There does not have to be raids. There does not have to be a grind. There just has to be some sort of hard content that players can strive to beat, not through the best stats on their gear, but by true understanding of the game, strategy, and teamwork. This does not at all go against Anet’s design philosophy, and in my opinion contributes to it by promoting more types of gamers to play their game.
Fractals were an attempt to implement the ideas I have stated, but don’t serve the purpose of pure hard content since they were made to include new players to the game and are not (even at high levels) hard enough to be a significant challenge to any competent player.
This game is severely lacking in challenge and competition, something that Guild Wars 2 needs to have longevity and keep its player base from going to other mmo’s. Although this game takes a slightly different approach to mmorpg’s the fact remains, it is still an mmorpg, and so it still needs those hardcore players and those who play the game for long periods of time (rather than trusting their success to a revolving door in which players leave and new ones come in) in order to survive in a market that is constantly becoming more competitive.
TL;DR: Guild wars 2 caters too much to the casual player. It lacks hard content. Raids, nor the grinding of gear that comes with it, is not the solution to this. Introduce extremely challenging 5-10 man dungeons in which players must use understanding of the game, teamwork, and strategy and the few players that complete this are rewarded with prestige items. This will give players something to strive for and will definitely help with the longevity of the game.
The game is great. But it has the potential to become something amazing.
