Guild Wars 2

zealex.9410:

DutchRiders.2871:

zealex.9410:

DutchRiders.2871:

The tiles start to disappear at different percentages. Our succesfull tries had the tile mechanic happening not at all or at like 10-20%. Regardless I feel the fractal is to chaotic once the tiles start disappearing.

Overall we found some mechanics buggy and in general the fractal had to much Visual noise.

I do believe thats an not really familiar with the encounter problem.

At first i found boss 1 and 2 chaotic but soon after realised that doing some importand jobs and ppl taking roles in the group will make the fight much less chaotic.

Id say that the first fight is too chaootc but i tried it today for the first time so idk i feel like more time i needed.

The visual clutter makes the fight chaotic, it is not a matter of getting used to. At times you have 6/7 visual noisy mechanics flickering all over the screen. It is similar to all the visual noise happening just as you phase the CM Ensolys 15% treshhold and you get overlapping mechanics from both phases.

The 15% ensolys is a relaxing phase the kind of phase that tells you “oh you went throught the fight now chill” . I was told from ppl tht the tiles on arkk are bugged and they arent supposed to be dissapearing in random %

You are not getting what I’m saying, understand that my fractal group has it on farm pretty much now. There is obvious bugs with the fractal and more so I just dont like the visual clutter that is blinding my eyes. Ensolys sub 15% while easy, is also just a visual mess for me.

As far as the bugs go the phasing of the fight especially is just broken, yesterday we got a kill where we did get tiles starting from 40% and we did not get the 20% orb + Burn. Other kills you get no tile mechanic and you do get the burn at 20% essentially making the fight much more easy based on RNG.

zealex.9410:

DutchRiders.2871:

The tiles start to disappear at different percentages. Our succesfull tries had the tile mechanic happening not at all or at like 10-20%. Regardless I feel the fractal is to chaotic once the tiles start disappearing.

Overall we found some mechanics buggy and in general the fractal had to much Visual noise.

I do believe thats an not really familiar with the encounter problem.

At first i found boss 1 and 2 chaotic but soon after realised that doing some importand jobs and ppl taking roles in the group will make the fight much less chaotic.

Id say that the first fight is too chaootc but i tried it today for the first time so idk i feel like more time i needed.

The visual clutter makes the fight chaotic, it is not a matter of getting used to. At times you have 6/7 visual noisy mechanics flickering all over the screen. It is similar to all the visual noise happening just as you phase the CM Ensolys 15% treshhold and you get overlapping mechanics from both phases.

The tiles start to disappear at different percentages. Our succesfull tries had the tile mechanic happening not at all or at like 10-20%. Regardless I feel the fractal is to chaotic once the tiles start disappearing.

Overall we found some mechanics buggy and in general the fractal had to much Visual noise.

IndigoSundown.5419:

TexZero.7910:

There’s nothing stopping them from playing the raids though…nor the rest of the game.

The entire point was that a brand new player whose sole focus is raids can do so in around 30 hrs time. If you’re not new, and already have an established character etc…you can drastically reduce that.

Additionally, it’s such a small subset of time that’s actually required to raid that its somehow considered hardcore if you play more than 1hr a day ? Is this real…. like i don’t even at this point. Have facebook games really watered down gaming that much ?

What’s stopping people from playing raids is that those who have not committed to raids don’t have the knowledge or desire to start their own groups. So, they want a drop-in experience like we have in open world. People who have committed the time are unlikely to get that mentality and even if they do they’re not going to support it.

30 hours is not a “small subset of time” if one doesn’t play that much. That’s 30 hours dedicated solely to raid prep (I assume most if not all of that is gearing up). That might take 50 or 100 hours of play (or more) for those who like to do other things as well. Add in not playing for several hours a day and that puts you back in the realm of commitment.

And yes, as soon as developers decided they wanted the money from players from non-MMO demographics, MMO game populations have changed dramatically.

Feanor.2358:

Well, GW2 also supports this choice. The vast majority of the content can be played pretty casually. It just happens to support the other choice, too.

Which is why players with a preference for X should stick to content that offers X. However, that is not what other games (or even schools in some places, mores the pity) teach people to expect.

The problem is not going to go away. The solution is people being willing to accept that not all content may be for them. As long as people have the attitude that anything the developer makes has to be for them on their terms, they’re going to complain.

I do agree not all content is for everyone. I disagree about the commitment though. I was succesfully raiding at my alt after 2/3 hours of play. Fractals were alot worse to be honest. I just grabbed a set of rare magi gear with crappy runes and sigils and cleared everything but xera (leyline gliding).

Numerous new guildies learned basic rotations in half an hour and were doing full clears in 3 hours. Two/three clears later most of them are really fun and effective raiders. Now sure we are a group with alot of highly effective raiders with many members that have spend large amounts of time in raids. Yet we also have alot of players that log in two/three times a month but they are also good raiders. I think you need a little skill and a sharp mind.

If you are finding time to level characters, do LW and participate in dungeons than you can also raid effectively in 2017.

We just wait for the first block to expire maybe auto attack a bit and than burst.

Murdock.6547:

So we hear all this kitten about raids not being nearly as hard as anyone says. Enrage is forgiving across the board. Mechanics aren’t that hard.
etc, etc, etc.

But how forgiving is the dps timer on bosses exactly?

Vale Guardian: 22m health
8 Minute enrage.
22,000,000 / (8×60) = Group Dps.
Divide group dps by 10 and you have personal dps required by each member to reach enrage. That number is 5,238.0952—- etc. Lets say 5,239 for the sake of simplicity.
This doesn’t include mechanics or phases where you cannot damage the boss. So lets just be lazy and double that number. Lets just say literally half of the fight you cannot hit VG (kitten that’s some rough splits if that happens)
Each member would need about 10.4k dps.

Meta builds can do 30-40k dps. Nonmeta builds can do 20-30. Bad builds can be anywhere from 5k-10k depending how bad. Healers can do 3k-15k depending. might stacking supports can do about 26k if I remember right? etc.

Point is; even the worst builds can meet the dps timers for vg. A single meta dps build playing perfectly can meet the requirements of 3-4 players.
What kills raiders is never lack of dps. It’s a lack of awareness, lack of mechanical skill or knowledge, or in some cases simply repeated mistakes that cost dps uptime.

Now – lets also be fair.
Optimal dps will not happen in 90% of raids. So really it just means we must pick up classes that can perform under pressure and either ignore completely or recover quickly from botched mechanics.
Chrono is godlike for ignoring mechanics – and allows allies to ignore as well.
Reaper/Necro can shrug off botched mechanics fairly often.
Thief’s healing through rejuvinating strikes or whatever its called also lets them be surprisingly resilient…

Honestly this was almost entirely a thread to vent my irritation at the obsession with dps that sees some classes will seldom see a raid room.
But it also serves hopefully as encouragement. DPS is not the be-all nor end-all of raids, and there are groups out there that will see this and trade longer kills for easier and safer ones.

For feline’s sake my first Cairne kill had four druids and two healing revenants! We hit enrage but nobody went down because we healed through literally everything and killed it through attrition.

Mechanics kill raids and lets be fair instead of learning mechanics it is safer and easier to increase your dps. High dps allows you to trivialize bosses and trash mechanics, thats just the way it is. No green VG with high dps needs what 2 greenz distorted? High dps allows you to insta break gorse, you can skip movement during xera, you only need like 3/4 shrooms at sloth.

Astralporing.1957:

Fatalyz.7168:

Astralporing.1957:

DutchRiders.2871:

I take great pleasure in the fact that most players can’t get legendary armor.

Taking pleasure from the misery of others is not a good trait in my eyes, and is definitely the behaviour this game shouldn’t promote, as it is something that can only poison game community.

You are assuming that he is taking pleasure from the misery of others.

Why can’t his pleasure be that it is because it is an exclusive reward for a game mode that is the most challenging group content in the game, and that most people are either unwilling or unable to complete the content? There is pleasure in being able to achieve something that others are not, but that does not mean that it is malicious.

He didn’t say he was feeling pleasure from being able to finish a difficult content. He didn’t even say he felt pleasure from the fact other people can’t finish that content (which, by the way, is not really the same). What he felt was pleasure from the fact other people can’t get a certain specific item.
That’s just petty.

I just feel more special having a more scarce item, so there is value for me if you dont have it. Exclusive skins and scarce items have been a major part of gw2 and drive revenues and play time.

If I dont have an exclusive item I take pleasure in progressing towards it. If I dont want to progress I admire others that did obtain the item.

From my perspective you are acting spoiled and you forget the importance and meaning of exclusive skins.

Astralporing.1957:

zealex.9410:

Fatalyz.7168:

Astralporing.1957:

zealex.9410:

and why arent ppl complainin about the caustic nightmare skins bein locked behind 100 cm or gold fractal weapons?

There’s a difference between just skins, and a whole category of gear. Nevertheless, there have been complains about it. I assume that they’re not that big simply because most people seem to consider golden fractal skins to be exceptionally ugly.

To be fair, if you go by the forums and reddit, most seem to think that the medium and light armors are……are…..are……. Well not up to par, to be polite about it.

what he/she/it said ^

And, as i said, i guess the majority of complains will disappear as soon as Anet introduces a second, non-raid set of legendary armor.
Which, at this moment, is, unfortunately, never.

The only thing they will ever consider is dropping the envoy legendaries in expac 3 open world for marketing purposes. Which I dont mind as long as raids still have cool exclusive rewards that I can show off.

Best thing would be if they just added it to wvw/pvp since pve kinda already has a legendary set.

I take great pleasure in the fact that most players can’t get legendary armor.

I want all rewards being available through harvesting nodes since that is what I like doing. I don’t even wanna participate in any trading post activity, just add them as rare drops to nodes.

Also the balance is out of whack, thieves can get to nodes more easily. I do not wanna play a thief so please do something about this!

Furthermore some mobs in the newer maps turn out to be threats to me while harvesting! I feel totally locked out of gw2 rewards.

Ohoni.6057:

I main a Thief. The last few updates have been very frustrating for me, because I’ve found it impossible to stay alive during the final boss battles. The damage just piles up way too fast with way too few options to clear it, and that’s even with Shadow Refuge on my bar. I imagine my Guardian would have an easier time surviving, he usually does, but all classes should have a reasonable chance at survival. Yeah, you can just reload a checkpoint and continue from where you left off, but rez-rushing boss finghts just isn’t a fun way to play them.

I think that the default boss fights need to be better balanced for solo players, of ALL classes, not just the tankier builds. They should be about following the mechanics of the fight, not about surviving massive burn stacks and two agroed opponents. If you want to do a “challenging” version, that’s fine too, but make it the optional challenge mote version, intended to be done with a full and balanced team, not the default “story mode” version of it.

I think this update was great overall, I just wish that it were better balanced for glassy characters (in before “I play a Thief and I did fine, git gub”, not useful, thank you).

You can play whatever you like , if you wanna play a glassy zerk thief that dieds supah fast and has trouble surviving thats your call. If you wanna play a tankie thief that is within the realm of possibilities.

You could easily equip pvt for this and survive, sorry I just realise pvt might still be to squishie for you, consider nomads.

Zok.4956:

Hi,

10 people that do not raid very often because of RL, but have raid gear, raid classes, raid team composition (according to guides) have tried several times Vale Guardian as a group but never with succes.

So these people ask themselves: Is Vale Guardian the best (or easiest) choice for a group of 10 people that are inexperienced with raids and had never killed a raid boss?

What do you think?

What other bosses/wings would be easier or better?

Thanks.

Well personally I think VG is one of the hardest raid bosses you could do as a group, it has ridiculous pressure compared to other raid bosses. As such running more defensive comps with protection is probably a wise thing to do. Having said that what bosses could be better for your group depends on a few things: Do you fail DPS? Is it tanking? Is it health issues? Is it the green mechanic?

Personally I would advice you to do the first three bosses of wing 4, trio ( gated behind slothasor) and escort, they are relatively low pressure fights without any dps checks. You only have to deal with some mechanics but nothing to chaotic.

Gorseval and KC are easy bosses if you have dps, though if you cannot get past VG I guess you would have to find an opener for gorse. Sabetha, Xera, Deimos and Matthias are probably difficult if you cannot clear VG. However rest assured if you manage to down VG you can pretty much succeed at any fight!

Lets be real the dps classes are alot closer to eachother, which is a good thing ( though necro and rev still are lackluster), so in the end you can run any boss with any dps and still be totally fine.

Howeverl Ele is by far the most squishie DPS class, with a relatively difficult rotation and little CC / utility, yet we are 2/3k behind in raw dps in medium hitboxes. So high risk for no reward.

I fully agree the gap between a well played tempest and another dps class pre patch was to big on large hit boxes, however the nerf to medium hitboxes was not needed at all. Pre patch I could nail 28k/32k dps on sabetha ( keep in mind most tempests typically would be around 19/20k dps). Which is only slightly ahead of what a decent DD, Engi, DH or ranger can hit nowadays.

My static can clear all wings with pretty much any dps comp and people play what they like ( Power necro even yeah), however most prefer to bring condis/DHs/Daredevils because it is simply way more forgiving and efficient.

I just feel the devs wanted to wreck ele so other professions would become more appealing. So yeah I think the change was good for the overall health of the game, but it is a bad change from a balancing point of view. With the use of dps meters pugs already started to accept other classes anyways, so I question whether the overkill on ele was really needed.

Beautiful maps that facilitate story telling and achievement hunting. However there are not enough interesting events going on to keep me invested in the new maps. Especially ember bay and bitter frost are just mind numbing.

I feel the raid simply has to many mechanics that are taken directly from the old raid, the prior experience carries over to the new one essentially making the raid to easy. I do think overall the difficulty is pretty much the same.

Since the community is so much better at raids nowadays I feel like enrage timers are to forgiving and the insta died mechanics have such obvious tells that you cannot really fail them. These parameters could have been better if top guilds would have tested the raids.

Nonetheless I think the whole atmosphere in bastion of the penitent is awesome and overall I do enjoy the fights.

As somebody that clears raids weekly and is not in favor of multiple easier training modes. I still think lore fanatics have a valid complain. Some of the best story telling is not available to a majority of interested people and it sucks balls for them. A story mode would definitely improve their situation.

At the same time the reason raids are so succesful as a story telling tool is the fact that bosses are a real threat hence offering immersive story content. Is the time and effort spend at creating a pale version of the real thing that does not offer a whole lot more than a cleared instance which will be played through once or twice by a small subset of the population really worth it?

I think it is worth it but I can imagine Arenanet decidinh the opposite.

@ blaeys

Agreed lets not make this personal and lets accept that nobody knows the statistics needed to support any argument about allocating resources.

Yet we have the word of an insider that you must not underestimate the much needed resources. Furthermore Anets stance on the matter clearly signals that they do not think a tiered raiding system is worth it. You keep bringing it up but they have decided. If you wanna make raids better argue about accessibility without a tiered system. Or talk about other group content preparing you for raids.

Personally I enjoy all kinds of content and I prefer varying content. Any resources put in a different iteration of the same content is a waste for me.

But hej lets keep putting effort in this dead topic.

Bring dragon hunters and necros with as 2nd weapon set a gs for the pull. Also necros can help with transfusion ressing and the DH f3 can Block the shake/wet dog. Both have better cc than eles as well.

Rev is still viable, it is still strong in team fights has good map presence and can hold some 1v1’s. So honestly if im playing on point rev still feels pretty rewarding, however it definitely lost some of its edge with these nerfs and I feel making mistakes is just to punishing compared to the other builds out there.

Playing rev starts to feel more clunky, without the OP aspects the problems, bugs and clunky mechanics rev has start to show and irritate.

Honestly 1 more nerf and I would probably start maining something else in pvp.

nagr.1593:

NikeEU.7690:

Sab – condi better
Sloth – condi better
Escort – gs on cap group condi on ground team
Xera – condi better

I don’t understand ur reasoning for these..

For sab, power ps better imo since u can take big bombs most of time. For instance on chrono, I have trouble and have to interrupt rotations to move if ps are not stacked on top.

Sloth, I dunno that it matters overmuch tbh since u can still cleave adds long as they get pulled in. It’s not ur job to pull in mobs. Also I take shroom as ps so I’m not rly useful there except for banners and stuff

Escort – prty much faceroll tbh and it doesn’t matter whether u run condi or power. If u got good team that can pull mobs, power works on grnd also. Tbh most time I do escort even when not war, I see most of time the ps are dying.. Some of them condi too so idk

Xera I run power ps and it’s fine anyway. So what u don’t stand on platforms, that’s just a small part of xera tbh. Shard clears I agree melee is weak, but that’s y u have team. On xera fight itself (boss fight) dunno that there any clear winner either.

Fractals – condi better

So here my question is.. why? I dunno I rarely even have problem with melee in t4s. But I dunno if this related, but on 100 cm few days ago, I got kicked out after we kill 1st boss just bc I not running condi build. I never died that fight either, I also promise not die later. Plus their LFg post said nothin abt condi build. So I’m at a loss what to say at moments like this.

Both condi and Power dps are decent builds, however in practice condi deals better damage since it has range and an easier time keeping rotations up.

Only keep construct clearly favors Power PS for end game if you ask me and maybe some groups need the extra cc from power.

Ohoni.6057:

The important thing to keep in mind is the difference between “challenge” and “engagement.” I’d love to see Claw and Megadestroyer made more engaging, by having more tasks you can do and a wider variety of gameplay options, but I hope they don’t shift to the “you need a good map to even bother with it,” because they still haven’t yet created the tools to easily form “good maps.” It should be designed so that there are lots of different things players can do to progress it, but that the difference between a great map and a terrible map is that the terrible map takes longer to clear it (but still clears it).

If I am pretty much guarenteed to clear content it is not engaging to me sorry. Regardless I am against challenging bosses in open world unless they revamp the way player grouping works. And honestly I don’t think they will add a challenging open world boss to the game.

Ohoni.6057:

TL DR; If they add a easy mode, it doesn’t give the same rewards (not even just less, ie: none or different ones) and its just there for lore, storyline and learning for the people who don’t want to do harder content but can still do the storyline.

It should offer the same type of reward, just less of it, so that players who do easy mode would need to make more repetitions to achieve the same results as someone on hard mode. People who actively enjoy hard mode should have absolutely no reason to NOT play hard mode, because they will get a higher return on their time investment by doing so, but players that do not enjoy hard mode would not be completely locked out of anything either.

If they like the idea of existing raids, they should not hate the challenge level. Your statement in of itself is a contradiction.

Not as I said it, that’s why I coupled those two statements. It’s like saying “I enjoy this spicy chicken sandwich, but it’s too spicy for me.” What that means is “the other elements that make up this sandwich are things that I enjoy, but the spice is ruining it for me. A version with less spice would be awesome.”

So I believe that there are plenty of players, myself obviously included, who would enjoy a type of content that includes all elements of the raid that are NOT about challenge. This would include the setting, the specific boss encounters, all that, just toned down in risk so that the results are less likely to lead to a wipe if mistakes are made. I understand that this is not the experience you want, and that’s fine, because you already have your version, but I have trouble believing that you cannot even comprehend the sort of version I am describing. I mean, if someone came to me and said “I’d like to see a Shadow Behemoth encounter, only much more challenging,” I could easily picture numerous ways to make that happen, even if it’s not necessarily something I’d want to play myself.

Except I enjoy absolutely having to clear a difficult challenge to obtain cool rewards. An opt out like easy mode as you describe it would destroy my value. You might not want the same or you might not agree, however you must accept this what I like and what used to be missing in gw2 for me. And guess what ? I am the target audience for raids and you are not.

Blaeys.3102:

Joxer.6024:

Blaeys.3102:

With their current raid model, it will always be about a handful of professions (currently Mesmer, warrior, ele, druid, sometimes necros), to the detriment of all others. It is just the nature of a limited raiding model.

To which I blame the “meta” for, as that’s what most look at for raid comp. Lose that and bring in people that can do the job needed in spite of class and we have a win.

That’s very true, but – unfortunately – there is no way to lose it in the current model.

When developers balance an entire game mode almost exclusively around the meta, this is the situation that results – where math, rather than flavor, fun and build diversity, rule the day.

In the current model, raiding will (realistically) always cater to a tiny number of professions and builds. There is just no way around that without either completely destroying build diversity or nerfing the content to the point that the meta builds actually make it too easy.

It’s a broken system imo, and needs to be rethought.

I play ele/mesmer/ranger. These are the viable builds I can play in raids and in certain boss fights help the party alot more than the regular set ups. Now for some classes its worse and balance could definitely be better. However stating diversity is dead is not true judging from these builds:

- dps staff ele
- fresh air staff ele
- d/w fresh air
- d/f fresh air
- staff healer
- d/f auramancer
- minstrel staff tank

For mesmer:

-condi mesmer
- dps chrono
- tank chrono
- healer chrono
- minstrel chrono tank

For ranger:

-condi ranger
- Power druid
- condi druid
- healer druid
- tank healer

OP you are describing a predictable process . The New fresh content gets figured out after trying and discovering plenty of builds/comps/strats and it becomes a routine.

If you join a group that wants easy kills as part of a routine Yeah they wont like you playing a yolo build that you might enjoy and you will be a liability. Other groups that want to try stuff out would Welcome you though.

Also you are contributing the watered downed content to raids without sufficient evidence. I would argue the negative reactions to HOT maps are the reason. Moreover some of the most difficult open world maps and story achievements launched just before raids.

I just think you are to negative, even though there is room for improvement.

Nefarius.9702:

As the topic title says, I think the accessibility to raids really is an issue.

You probably know it yourself if you’ve ever checked the lfg-tool for raids:
LFP experienced [insert class here] with X LI and TS³

Nearly any request looks similar to this, implying inexperienced raid players likely have no chance to join.

Also, these without wanting to use TS (I’m personally not too keen talking with foreign people about a certain game content) are somewhat excluded.

I myself did VG when the raids where somewhat new, it took me really long (several days) to find a group picking me up without “exp and li”, and even afterwards several of the groups I found didn’t succeed, because people were too inexperienced – a doom loop.

Sure, that’s not bad for gaining experience; but still – you gotta lie when you’re entering a group that requires more experience (and even they usually require a gear check of your LI).

Anyways, after what seemed like ages with different (inexperienced) groups and tries we managed to get the VG down.

That was pretty much my only goal yet, until the legendary armor was previewed.
It simply shouldn’t be that top tier content is limited to a small percentage of players.

And that really is the case – I’m in a large guild and roughly 5-10% are successfully, experienced raiders.

Other people (and I think that’s reflecting in the rest of the gw2 community) simply don’t get into raids – cause of the reasons mentioned above.

You’d have to join a somewhat professional raid guild to be really succesful.

Sure – some of the really ambitioned players will likely pop up now and prove me wrong, telling me their story of becoming a good raid player on their own, but that’s a minority.

Don’t misunderstand me; I’m neither blaming the community (cause raids are challening) nor do I criticize the severity – All I would like is to make the start, the access easier for players new to raids – even without guild.
To allow a larger group access to a crucial (and now with the legendary armor even more) part of the game.

Raids are very accessible if you have a nice guild. Even if you do not have a guild you can set up your own squad. The problem is inexperienced players expecting complete strangers that are veterans to carry them.

Astralporing.1957:

morrolan.9608:

fishball.7204:

morrolan.9608:

That doesn’t apply in this case since boon sharing is a problem in both WvW and PvE raids. In raids it is only an issue for speed running since you can easily finish all raids without the OTT boon sharing.

Boon sharing has never been a PvE/Raid problem, don’t talk about things you have no idea about.

Raids will still finish at the same speed now it just kills diversity since we’ll take 2 chronos instead of 1 and remove all classes that don’t benefit from alacrity (RIP thief, hammer DH, rev etc).

Will you be able to finish them with 1 after the nerf?

Well, a group of people capable of doing so is definitely going to decrease.

Fat Disgrace.4275:

Why are people crying at druid nerf? Why are you allowed to heal for lots but are also able to ware either berserker or viper gear at the same time. I can’t think of any other class that can get away with having strong healing AND high dmg out put.

The druid healing builds with zerker armor are neither strong healing (both tempest and Vent rev are better), nor high dps (ranger dps is not top level even at its best, and healling builds sacrifice a lot of that dps due to different trait choices).

Yeah lets totally forget that druid is one of the best support professions in the game and remains top dog.

Druid and mesmer are OP in raids and will remains strong. Their support is unrivaled and its about time not every group always takes 1 rev 1 mesmer 2 PS 2 druids. Support specs should be more interchangeable just like the current dps specs .

I disagree with the way anet goes about it, but the personal dps/healing and support a druid brings is absoluty ridiculous.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Obtena.7952:

DeWolfe.2174:

Ayrilana.1396:

DeWolfe.2174:

I’m just reading this topic for the first time. No, completing a Raid should not be a requirement to unlock. I have to admit, having a dead XP bar that sits there lifeless has been disturbing to me. Though I have to say, I do like not having that screamingly blindingly annoying yellow and white color of the bar being black. Much better experience and the Dev’s should really start adding ways to mute the Hud or make a transparency slider for it.

The easiest option could be to make a repeatable Spirit Shard Mastery line. Make it the default line that runs and the game reverts to, when no other Masteries are toggled on.

Ayrilana.1396:

Djinn.9245:

Its illogical to gate the base method of character progression. Anyone who knows anything about the psychology of games knows that games started giving XP because players like to see progression.

Spirit shards are a currency. They offer no form of player progression.

Wealth is progression…….

Not really. Most definitely not character progression. Spirit shards are rewards/currency. Otherwise we can argue for increasing drop rates for precursors as it improves character progression. Yeah… no.

Gearing up a character and obtaining appearance item’s is certainly most of the progression in game. Spirit Shards can be converted to gold and other items. Spirit Shards are also required for our “Legendary Journeys” which is absolutely a form of progression. So… yes really.

Even if that is the case … you aren’t locked out of earning spirit shards anyways, so the argument that shards locked behind raid mastery affects progression is nonsense to begin with.

You keep building your straw man. The suggestion was to have a repeatable mastery track that happens to award shards, so that anyone who wanted not to “waste” XP can use that track. What’s locked is the ability to have the XP do something, not access to shards.

This guy is right, you must see how awkward the current system is for non completionists. Everything they do grants xp and fills up the bar, but it doesn’t actually reward them with anything. It’s clunky and doesn’t fit in the game.

zealex.9410:

As the title suggest i find it hard to understand why isnt minstrel mesmer the goto choice ?Since it makes dying non relevant the perma healing it provides with the illusion’s regen is kinda neat the 2k> toughness means if you have necros they can go nuts with the minions and you ge the added boon duration from it as well.

I understand that youu give up alot (for the mesmer) dmg but not only you become self sufficient but you provide your group with more survivability through the regen while you can freelly take some hits and be able to recover on your own pretty fast relieving your healer from the stress of healing you. Yes i understand your dmg will be helltrash but lets face it the mesmer dmg in raids is trash anyways, one could argue that if their guild is doing record runs or low mans such as gorse where the dps checks are more harsh there the added dmg is more usefull but if you are not in that % of the raiding player base i dont find a reason not to run minstrels chrono (f you want to see big numbers mesmer is not the class anyways).Also on other low mans such as vg or mattias where the time limit is more forgiving you could use this build as well :/ ,your thoughts?

Few thing you need to consider:

1 You lose half your dps, necros and thief give up less and can tank easy as well.

2 You still have the quickness issues and hick ups.

3 ele and druid and full heal mesmers are better healing tanks.

In most cases full minstrel mesmers is not in the groups best interest. It is however in the mesmers best interest if you are learning or want to semi afk tank. For the latter grab clerics/magis/nomads and its also in your wallets best interest.

I have a clerics/nomads set that I rarely use, only if the healers can’t keep the group up and I have to tank I switch to it. However I agree with Dino that chrono tank for pugs is overrated because they loser so much dmg/Quickness when tanking.

I went to three multi loots today, and was kicked for the following reasons:

1: 2min afk in subgroup 1/lobby, because I forgot my keys and ported back to Lions arch and was supposedly camping the lobby..

2: Apperantly loading a map for 7secs qualifies as horrendous loading times and gets you kicked.

3: Communicated my map was failing, left it and got kicked for abbondoning a promising map. With only 2 minutes left and south still on 80% ….

This organized exploiting of open world maps creates a toxicity and ruleset where apperantly it is okish to kick players for these reasons. Now it is something I experienced alot on other days as well but I never cared about it. Today however I realised in shock I was used to this type of behavior from commanders and multi loot guilds. It goes directly against the game arenanet wanted to create and the casual open world experience. I have yet to encounter such disgraceful behavior on a regular basis when raiding.

Just like queensdale, silver wastes, attack on lions arch, this oversight in the map reward structure creates conflicting incentives and a certain toxicity that does not belong in gw2’s openworld. For these reasons the multi looting needs to go. You can get 60 rares from 1 map for all I care to compensate these farmers, just remove this toxic environment.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Esquilax.3491:

Ya right, except you won’t let average player into your group because we haven’t already done raid 100 times. Public groups are out of the question for someone wanting to start raids.

Join a guild raid? Most already have their “core raid team” maybe sometimes they might run a “pitty party” and kill 1 boss with some member who aren’t in the inner circle for charity work, but nothing serious.

This exclusivity is why raids are bad. The average player rarely gets opportunity to experience them because the community ends up artificially blocking them through no fault of their own (they just want easy runs) and it ends up discouraging the average player to the point where they give up trying.

I have some sympathy for those who are latecomers to instanced content. It’s bad to be behind the eight-ball. It happens in every game that features harder, instanced content. However, if you look at the realities, there are a lot of players whose time is at a premium. Gratifying one such player at the expense of others is not a win-win situation.

There seem to be enough players who complain about this to make up multiple raid teams. Why aren’t these players able to find each other and learn the raids the way the first adopters did? Why aren’t they using the “Looking for…” sub forum to do so? Sure, it’s inconvenient to do so. However, there are consequences to everything, and coming late to the party can mean having to make your own fun rather than depending on others to include you.

Because alot of those players do not want to put in so much effort, they rather lift with more experienced groups.

I have very little sympathy cause I myself am a late adopter, when wing 3 launched I had about 30 LI’s and some of my friends even started later with raiding. Yet none of us experienced much difficulty finding groups.

Ofcourse occassionaly I join a group with 120+ insights and I get kicked, but it isn’t half bad and most of the time groups simply expect you to be chill and know the mechanics.

Blaeys.3102:

The obvious solution – and a way to future proof against this issue with the next raid – is to expand the raid experience to offer lower tiers of difficulty, making them more accessible and open to the entire playerbase.

Yeah cause ya know escort isn’t easy ? I would argue escort is more easy than any fractal. Yet all these posters don’t wanna do escort. Another example why easy mode raids would not work.

The problem is some people are spoiled and justitie wanna whine about anything raid related.

Well this would be my order:

Druid you need it in any group, they are always in demand and easy to play. Still doing a good job will get ya in groups and differentiate yourself.

PS warrior, most relaxing while being crucial to any group. Lots of PS warriors around and the easy learning curve makes it difficult to differentiate yourself.

Necro, easy to play but still offers plenty of room to differentiate yourself. Not popular in all fights though.

There is a reason ectos spike around the weekly raid reset…. Much of the ecto demand stems from players buying raids, majority of the raid exchanges are paid in ectoplasms.

At patch day it became apperant we need to wait another 5-8 months for the next raid and the final collection for legendary armor. In otherwords more time to collect legendary insights and thus less demand for buying a raid.

They nerfed ele through the ground because they simply want another flavor of the month. Gw2 balance patches have never been about balance, right now its ele’s turn to watch from the sidelines.

Just look at it, they nerfed eles DPS to where both Necros /thieves and engis can beat it on medium targets, yet we do not get close to their sustain.

They nerfed healing, and honestly we are already lowest hp/armor and exactly where did we get dmg mitigation like other classes?

Ohoni.6057:

Irrelevant, the point was that the general consensus seemed to be that HoT’s content, in general, was too challenging already, and raids are significantly moreso. Given that, wouldn’t it stand to reason that more of those players would be driven away from the raids with their “highly challenging content” than would be attracted by that “feature?”

The general consensus was that the open world maps took to much time and required to much investment. I can clear any wing comfortably within the time span of any hot map cycle. Not only that I can drop out and attempt the next day without a problem.

So yes, have the highly tuned content for " more demanding people," but also have a lower-tuned version for “less demanding people.” That’s all we’re asking for here.

No you are asking for rewards. We can all tell you do not care about raids.

Quantity, yes. Quality, no. There is no justification for a quantity argument beyond “I want to punish lower challenge players for not enjoying the type of content I enjoy.” Players should not be restricted from having access to the armor skins that they want just because they do not enjoy highlight challenging content in a game which is mostly NOT highly challenging content, and again there is no need for strawman arguments about how the bar should be lowered even below the current bareline difficulty.

False, it is a perfectly fine justification if I say I like having different exclusive skins for different types of content. I like the bragging rights, again a stupid title or medal that nobody wants I cannot brag with. I like to be incentivized with exclusive rewards in order to play content. You can state your experience, but it doesnt say a thing to the players that want exclusive rewards.

In your scenario we instead want only people that put lots of time in the game or are skilled to have nice skins? ? Why are you as a player that puts a lot of time in the game more deserving? With your line of logic all wardrobe skins should be immediately unlocked or with very little effort.

We get it, you are unskilled and usually you unlock skins by putting in alot of time. Personally I do not want Arenanet to dilute the value of the raid rewards by making them easy to get. In this case not everybody can be happy about everything mate. In fact our hapiness is mutually exclusive regarding raid rewards. Given the target audience for raids, I think we can all make an educated guess which one of us will be satisfied.

Blaeys.3102:

Nozome.7853:

Raids should remain with one mode. The percentage of players wanting a harder mode is really low , and having an easier mode makes no sense. How much easier should they be? VG was killed by 4 people!!!

The fact that VG was killed with 4 people only illustrates that there are players out there with tremendous skill and the desire to microanalyze everything needed to do this kind of thing. It does not, in any way, speak to the accessibility of the fight. Every raiding MMO out there sees groups like this doing amazing (borderline crazy) things like this. There will always be a tiny group of players looking to develop speed run or limited number metas to do things like this.

In fact, it creates even more need for multiple difficulties. As these small groups get better and better at raids, the gap between PVE players will widen way more than we see now. As Anet works harder and harder to challenge these small groups, more and more people would be left behind with a single difficulty level. There will be greater need for challenge motes, tiered difficulty levels and a deeper pool of potential players raiding.

That will dictate the implementation of core systems designed to address this. What they DESPARATELY need to do is accept that and implement tiered or variable difficulties now – to retain the number of active raiders and warrant continued development on raids.

The fact that people since the launch of raids are clearing them more effectively, including high end players that 4 man VG and suboptimal PuG groups with 2 minutes left on the clock means there is alot of room for error in the current raids. It clearly shows it’s not that difficult and people are apperantly adapting to the raids by playing them.

Mikei the Mighty did an interview with a quantify member that felt like the current raid difficulty is perfectly fine, and he believed his guildies felt the same way. The reason being it gives his guild a nice challenge for casual runs and also the option to experience a different challenge when low manning.

As for using easy mode as a way to train, pretty similar to fractals. I will reply by saying I experienced the low lv fractals as a necessary evil being the clown fiesta they are, not requiring me to learn anything about the encounter and in no way were they a true preparation for the high lv fractals.

I fear valuable resources allocated to training raids would result in a suboptimal training experience that is in no way effective for learning encounters and does not increase the accessibility of the real raids.

I rather as a director would have my raid team spend resources at new fresh raids of varying difficulty levels and in addition making raids more accessible across the boards. Cause I do think for some interested players raids seem inaccessible and unrewarding in their minds, which is a shame. Increasing rewards for both reaching further phases as well as repeatingly killing a boss while also removing the linking of LI’s could be a step in the right direction. Even stuff like adding in game meters to provide you with information and room for improvement and your contribution to the health removed of a boss could be huge.

If accessibility is a true issue, which personally as somebody that Pugged all 3 wings in 2 days with about 2 hours played each for the last 2 weeks, not having to link LI and gear even once I highly doubt. The real solution would focussing on both the accessibility and perception of raids.

Keksmuffin.1450:

Can you please do something about Guardian having to kitten themselfes by not using half their skills half the time in high level fractals because of the Boon Thieves instability that kinda causes everybody to die if you use anything that gives retal at the wrong time (GS #4, any virtue besides f3, leaps or blasts in light fields).

I mean sure I can just not use my skills, even swap out zeal so I don’t have the automatic symbol proc on 50% HP but it’s just not fun at all and I don’t think one class should have such a huge disadvantage just because it has this useless and super counterproductive boon as their “trademark” boon.

Let retal from oponents do less damage (not let it scale with their power to ridicolous ticks as 900 per hit), replace retal on symbol of wrath with might or fury, replace the automatic symbol proc with something else, think of something else yourself but please do something about it so I can do proper DPS rotations without camping longbow or mace for 90% of the time if I don’t want to risk wiping my party.

Since I kinda like the idea of getting punished for attacking brainlessly by dying to retal my favorite option by far would be replacing retal on symbol of wrath though.

I fully agree, its ridiculous to have a gimmicky instability lock out a full profession or require them to kitten themselves and turn them into a pathetic excuse of a guardian.

Sheltron.2190:

I am a pvper (yes I’m invading you and your pve bubble) and I love pvp in every mmo that I’ve played but I raiding in wotlk in wow, and I really loved it in hindsight. I really want to try raiding in this game, but I have around 20 g at max. I know I need ascended weapon and trinkets, but I never leveled up my crafting (oops!) so how am I to get the gear? I have all exotic atm, so is that enough to raid with and down a boss or two? Thank you in advance.

The thing is, unless you are playing power DPS the difference in effectiviness between exotic and ascended is minimal. Healers, Condi’s, Chrono tank they all benefit very little from full ascended. The problem however is that ascended is often used as an indicator of commitment/skill. So while you might get away with exotic gear, make sure that you can play ( watch some guides and practice rotations).

Personally I would pick a chronotank/druid healer or viper necro, give them exotic tier gear and get into raiding ( somtimes you have to link your gear, but accept that you sometimes get kicked).

The alternative is getting a power dps spec with ascended weapons and trinkets. Play fractals/raids/guild missions for your ascended weapons and trinkets, if you are unlucky with weapon box drops play some AB or other gold farm and craft them.

Raids themselves can provide you all the armor you might want and it will become more easy to join groups over time.

Ohoni.6057:

No no, their opinion is valid about the sort of experience they want to have. It’s just not valid about the type of experience I want to play. If you like the current raids, then that’s great, they should remain exactly as they are. If you want a harder version, that’s fine too, even though I would never want to play it. But just because you don’t see the value in an easier version does not mean that it should not be available for those players who do see the value in such a thing.

Except you are the minority and not the target audience for raids, so at the end of the day why should we care?

As I’ve said, I’ve spent about 6 or so hours against VG and Gorseval, which I’m aware is “not that much” to raiders, but is WAY more time than I ever plan to spend on content that I’m not succeeding at. I assure you, playing for more hours will not make me view it at all more favorably.

I know right you do not really change you’re mind, again why are you posting in forums? Quite the stubborn fellow. However keep the thought of not succeeding at raids in mind for when we talk about the training raids!

That may be true, but if so, that core design would be out of touch with the players who are requesting an easier mode.

So those players get different content, duh. And no you really do not want to play raids, you want to play easy content with envoy armor as a reward. Luckily you are a minority.

No.

The goal of a “pure training” raid would be that eventually players would “graduate” to the current ones. And some people may appreciate that, but for the most part players with that mindset are fine with just playing the current raids and learning to complete them. A “training raid” would provide minimal benefits. An easier raid has to serve as both Alpha and Omega, as “the only raid you’ll ever need” for players who do not and will not enjoy the challenge of the current raids. They should not be seen as merely a stepping stone to other content, but as an end unto themselves.

Again, maybe you don’t want to do the easy version, and that’s fine, but that doesn’t mean that it should be inherently broken for those who do want it. As long its pure Training Raid without Rewards

YES

Gw has always aimed at skillfull plays instead of spending lots of time and money ( thank you WP!), you Ohoni do not exert the same quality effort as I did put in raiding, as such you do not get the same quality rewards.

You do not want to play content you fail at for 6 hours or content that is to challenging. Now a training raid will increase your skill gradually and the real raids wont be as much of a challenge anymore! And the beauty of a well designed true training raid is, that your skill level improves whether you want it or not!!!!! The alpha and omega we already have with the current raids. Now you might not see the value in training raids, but its about what the developpers think!

If this is true then they should only make easier modes, because apparently that’s what people actually want. I keep trying to believe raiders when they tell me they actually want and enjoy difficult content, and yet often when presented with a fair alternative of an easier version, they say “well of course I’d only play the easier version.” Well then what is even the point of the harder version? Why have games since the NES included “hard mode” in it if nobody ever bothers with it when “easy mode” is available?

People are in it for the rewards in a skin progression based mmo, are you telling me 10 auric basin loot fest maps are filled with players enjoying the content rofl? This is why if you put in exclusive rewards people will keep playing it. But im glad that you agree that raids need exclusive rewards to populate the content, like every other activity in game!

You act as if the two are mutually exclusive. The easiest path can also be the most fun path.

You act like good quality rewards and low quality effort should not be mutually exclusive.

Not if it’s well balanced. They have a pretty solid idea on the existing dungeons of how difficult each is, so they could apply a reasonable balance equation, so that you could perhaps run Arah once and get a set amount of tokens, or have to run CoF ten times or more to get that same amount. The token exchange should not be designed to be balanced, it should be designed to be balanced + penalty, so that the default way should always be seen as the more appealing to players who could choose to do anything and still enjoy themselves, while still providing an alternative to players that are incapable or completely unwilling to do a certain dungeon.

Dungeons originally were meant to be difficult. They turned out easy and as a result arenanet had to abandon them. And here you are arguing for easy mode raids.

But then players who want the look of the “top tier” rewards, while not wanting to play that content, would be left out. I believe that top tier content can reward unique achievements and titles, items which ONLY serve a “bragging rights” function, but anything that changes the appearance of the character, armor or weapon skins, should be available to all tiers, though of course the lower tiers would require more time and effort to earn that way than in the upper tiers.

You cannot brag with something nobody wants or with something that everybody already has my friend. If everybody would drive a ferarri, well little bragging rights would be involved. Personally I believe skins should be mainly locked behind skill based gates and not time based gates. Now I suspect you are the kind of player that puts in lot of time and effort and achieved alot of legendaries, with little skill. I’m the opposite and as such I will always cheer for skill based rewards.

I will agree that it can seem intimidating for inexperienced or starting raiders to join PuG groups. I have seen training runs for KC requiring 80 LI’s. However how you handle this depends on you as the player. Plenty of my guildies and friends only got like 5 kills and they found succesfull groups this week. They just go for it and they do not get discouraged.

Personally I do not buy this accessibility issue. I log on ask like 4 friends to set up a squad which fills up in like 3 minutes and we have a blast on ts. Or I look at lfg and join a random squad. Other days nobody feels like raiding, I cant find any squads that fit my needs and as a result I resort to fractals / open world. Than I notice how stale and boring that content is compared to raids. And I realise the boredom is not caused by organization/accesiblity, the boredom I feel comes from the fact that I crave new and quality openworld/fractal content.

I feel the anger towards raids is not based on any legit reason.

Blaeys.3102:

Someone on Reddit pasted a quote from an article Rubi Bayer wrote back in 2012 ( https://www.engadget.com/2012/01/23/flameseeker-chronicles-we-dont-need-no-stinkin-endgame/ ) that read as follows:

---

‘No endgame/no raiding is perceived by a lot of people as “nothing left to do once you reach level cap.” It’s understandable because we’ve been taught to think that way by a lot of developers over the years. Once you get to the end, that’s where the really good stuff is, so hurry!

There might be something epic at the end; we don’t know. The development team might go nuts at some point in the future and decide to bring Bubbles out of the shadows as a 250-man instanced raid. We don’t know. We can speculate until the cows come home, but (say it with me) we don’t know. Until then, let’s just appreciate what Jon said. ArenaNet doesn’t want to give us a game that completely and fundamentally changes once you reach endgame. If the team did that, it would mean that once you reach endgame, either you do not have the game you paid for in the first place or you do not have the game you paid for until you reach endgame. I don’t know about you, but neither of those options is appealing to me. I’ll take the entertainment I paid for right out of the gate, thank you!’

---

This hit home for me. It reminded me of why I bought GW2 and fell in love with the game in the first place. The idea that the entire game is end game – that the raiding model from other games simply isn’t needed to instill a sense of accomplishment and fun.

It really feels like Anet has forgotten why a lot of people left those other games to come here – or why so many non MMO players decided this would be their first. Somewhere along the way, they stopped trying to do something new and decided to copy/paste the same tired end game every one of those other games uses.

I’m tired of fighting against the tide – of trying to regain a little of that amazing game we had in those first years – but I’m not going to stop, because I still think it is worth the effort. I can only hope that Anet isn’t so jaded or worried about the next expansion that they ignore these pleas. We need to know that the spirit of the game showcased in the quotes above and that we saw early on still drive the game’s development. We need to know that community and an open inviting game are still important to them.

Raids can still be a part of that picture, but this stagnant, stale and uninspired model they are using goes against everything they said in the early days – and really feels like they have just given up and committed themselves to being another me-too in the MMO space. With the way they have implemented them, they are doing exactly what they said they would not – fundamentally change the way people play at endgame. Worse, they are segmenting the community in much the same way we see in all of those other MMOs.

I know that sounds harsh, but it’s something they need to hear.

You do realise most of the segmented games you are talking about do in fact focus mainly on raiding and have implemented a tiered raid system?

If we want better open world stuff, create better open world maps. If we want a mixture of difficulties among raid bosses create different bosses. It keeps things interesting, the tiered system never worked for me.

Blaeys.3102:

While I’m not sure I would call them the best content ever created for the game, I agree that they are very well done – and, as you note, that creates a problem.

Endgame in this game has never been about raiding. In fact, they made a huge point early on of the fact that they wanted endgame and leveling to feel pretty much the same – they didn’t want people to suddenly start doing something new at endgame that felt like a different game – and that was a great goal.

The idea that raiding has be only for the elite or dedicated players is contrived and patently false. They need to go back to focusing on content that meets the need of the community as a whole (and raids could do this with tiered difficulty) – and then make sure there is sufficient challenge for the varied audiences in game.

Also, you only quoted half the problem. The jealousy on one side is actually overshadowed by the bigger problem – that raids create a class of players that begin to look down on the rest of the game – to belittle and deride those who don’t raid. Even your response here makes it seem as if you are somehow proud that people are jealous of the experience you have access to. That really isn’t good for the game.

Raiding in its current form creates barriers in the community and nastiness that have no place in the GW2 we played for the first few years. Just look at the examples I provided – and definitely at the message from reddit I attached.

I see that you yourself are stuck in a mindset about jealousy and elitism. However I stated very clearly that the jealousy is not the problem, it’s a symptom, at the root the problem is that raids are the best content in the game. For those that do not like raiding the alternative content is stale and of a lesser quality. These people need better content that satisfies their interests and needs.

I simply do not think the tier system is the way to go. I think each of the current content formats has qualities that relate better to a certain audience. Satisfying the community as a whole, for me means giving each of the formats quality content with cool exclusive rewards for the target audience.

Personally I put great value at unique, interesting and different content. The tiered system for me is boring and repetitive. As such I fundamentally disagree.

1/2 Escort and trio
3 Gorseval ( slight dps check and an easy one at that)
4 Sabetha, as long as you clearly communicate cannons its easy.
5 Keep Construct, DPS turns this fight into an easy one but the mechanics are interesting
6 Xera, tank can carry

7 Vale guardian
8 Slothasor
9 Matthias

I feel for 7-8-9 some people failing can turn the whole fight in a disaster.

Blaeys.3102:

• One of the biggest issues with the current model of raiding is that it brings these kinds of attitudes to GW2. Anyone that has played a raiding centric game has seen it there and knows that, until now, it has remained fairly calm in GW2. Things are changing, imo, because – when you start to build different parts of the PVE game for different communities based on skill/commitment time/willingness to conform to a meta, you end up with animosity between those communities (with scorn/disdain on one side and jealousy on the other).

Spot on, people are jealous. The problem with raids is that they are the best piece of content arenanet has created for gw2. They have cool unique rewards, a good story and plenty substance for lore fanatics, and more importantly they have by far the best boss mechanics.

Those that do not want to put in the time and effort to raid, miss out on the best content. They get jealous and they start making threads about easy mode raids/rewards/lore they missing out on. They feel if these 6 devs would not have been put on raids, we would have the quality we are seeing in raids in open world/dungeons/fractals. However they fail to realise the reason arenanet has not produced this type of quality before raids, is that the other formats are simply not suited for this type of content.

The future of raids is IMO highly dependent on the succes of LS3, if it is enough and quality content, the larger part of the community will probably stop bashing on raids. I think this is the hardest challenge by far for the devs to create fun/easy and quality content for 99% of the players. The job the LS team has to do is alot harder than what the raid team had to do ( they could essentially forget about 90% of the community).

Let me explain in simple terms why newcommers have a more easy time: The community is more experienced with raids and established a meta, that gets things done. Now if you resist the meta ofcourse it will be difficult for you. You are saying you do not want to play with other players and you do not care about their succes, yet you complain about the accessibility of raid groups?.

The meta is what teaching guilds offer you…

fishball.7204:

cephiroth.6182:

Fixed that for you.
Maybe not the 99% is the source of irritation, maybe it’s the 1%.

What are you even talking about? GW2 is 99% casual, everything is accessible to everybody, even raids. The only people who can’t raid are those with disabilities or just refuse to get good enough to raid.

Don’t change what I said and put words into my mouth that I didn’t say. Just because you’re bad and I’m calling you bad doesn’t mean I’m elitist. You’re objectively bad when you refuse to do what many people have done and instead blame the system.

- Clear Vale Guardian
- Using a completely random LFG party
- NONE of whom have any experience with the encounter
- with absolutely no gearchecks or class-checks, come as you are
- half hour total time limit, one wipe allowed.

- Clear Arah Explorable (any path)
- Using a completely random LFG party
- NONE of whom have any experience with the encounter
- with absolutely no gearchecks or class-checks, come as you are
- half hour total time limit, one wipe allowed.

500g all yours Ohoni if you can do it with video proof

The fun thing is, if we replace VG with for example the escort or bandit trio, and put in one experienced leader, the raid challenge is probably more doable.

Ohoni.6057:

I don’t think any of this is accurate information. The raid contains more information than the dungeons, And there really aren’t any barriers to entry, you can throw out an LFG, need half as many people to join you, they can be any class they want, not know the content at all, and you’ll still do just fine.

I hadn’t done much dungeoning lately because I’d burned out on them years ago, but when they added daily raids I’ve started doing a few of those. When CM was the dungeon of the day a month or so back, I queued up for path 1 with four other people who’d never done it before, and I totally forgot how to do it, and we still managed it in less than a half hour with only one wipe and a few downs. If you can manage the same with Vale Guardian then I’ll concede the point. To sum up, the challenge is:

• Clear Vale Guardian
• Using a completely random LFG party
• NONE of whom have any experience with the encounter
• with absolutely no gearchecks or class-checks, come as you are
• half hour total time limit, one wipe allowed.

Let’s see how you do. This is open to anyone, btw.

So you are doing something you don’t like for rewards by running CM. Weird comming from you, but even if you do like CM, I think its reasonable that often times rewards make up for playing content you do not like? So an alternative way to get you happily into raiding is actually increasing the rewards, which is something that IMO should happen. Or do you think majority of the people run tarrir/SW/Champ trains for fun?

One wipe allowed? Because otherwise people suddenly get experienced? So you are in fact acknowledging that total strangers can get relevant encounter experience, enough to clear one of the more difficult bosses might I add, in the short time span of half an hour? Now they might not feel very rewarded if they in it for the wealth cause raids do not offer a whole lot compared to some of the ridiculous farms we have.

Gw2 is about horizontal progression, getting different and more unique looking skins as you progress and clear more and also at times difficult content. As such raids are within the gw2 spirit.

Just look at all high end skins, they are all exclusive and include bragging rights. The difference is for once skilled people get actually rewarded. Why should it always be the the rich, the farmers, the grinders (relatively small part of the community as well) and not for once be the effective and skilled players ?

Why should we compromise to this small part of the community, that actually gets sad by not having the skins. Which is a very small part mind you, given that forums are a place for negative people voicing complains, yet I see so little individuals voicing their concerns regarding envoy being raid specific. It is not inherently bad that people want exclusive skins they can wear for the content they have cleared. There is nothing weird with that ( the game has been like this for a long time), the weird thing is players getting worked up over not having them.

Infact, some players get so worked up over it they want to change the best received content for the intended playerbase to be changed into something bad. Making false claims nothing will change for the current raiders.

Mind you, I casually raid with friends but also pugs at times, some periods I don’t raid for a month, other periods I clear all 9 bosses with PUGs, I have gotten 52 LI’s and the first collection I completed ( nothing ridiculous). I won’t have the resources for the armor and I prolly wont meet the 150 LI requirement in a long time, however I’m perfectly fine with not being able to get envoy armor. Given that I’m a casual raider and do not experience accesibility issues, I feel no need for compromise.

I already look forward to easy mode raids, with the old dungeon/fractal/queensdale zerg mentality, some of the most toxic behavior comes from the average community and try hards. In fact, what about the people that cannot clear easy mode raids and get excluded? Or the ones that can clear it but get kicked for not running metaish builds like in the dungeon days?

As far as story mode raids, its not profitable for arenanet just take a look at story dungeons. There is no real value in them.

Astralporing.1957:

DutchRiders.2871:

Astralporing.1957:

..you might have missed the fact, that precursor weapons are craftable. For over half a year now. Did the existence of another path to obtain them devalue your experience? Doesn’t seem so, or you wouldn’t have been mentioning them as a good example.
So, where exactly is the problem?

You mean the crafting system that is more expensive than buying them straight of the trading post, which means there is no real alternative path? I do not see your point. But if you want more difficult content than the current raids that also rewards envoy armor (I rather have a different set), good luck arguing for it, I will help you.

Restating your argument already? You said that getting the weapons available through other means than rng dropping them would devalue your experience. You didn’t even mention the TP, which was already supposedly doing that.

Crafting precursors is an alternative to relying on luck. It’s not more difficult, it is a completely different way. And yet it doesn’t involve getting them for free, nor does it devalue your experience. Which clearly shows that all your other arguments are pure bunk, as they are based on some assumptions that are simply not true.

DutchRiders.2871:

Stop strawmanning, okay? So far the only people speaking about legendaries for free are raid defenders. Having another way to obtain them is not equivalent to handing them out for free.

I thought you guys were all about majorities getting their way?

That’s not even close to what we were saying (and you know it), but i’ll bite. Since when “majority getting their way” would be “everything given out for free”? This is only generally brought up by minorities already posessing said things, as a fake argument against making them available (not for free, with effort, just different kind of effort) for others.

Ofcourse I will restate and refine my arguments, isn’t that the point of a discussion? I will especially clarify for people that reach weird conclusions like: Me taking pleasure in them being sad. For example in this case you rip the argument out of context, I discussed with Ohoni whether there is more value in precursors dropping like greens or precursors being rare as they are now ( for me its clear the latter has more value). You are right that the alternative path for precursors didnt drop decrease my value. It does not make every argument bunk however. Because precursors were never meant as a specific reward, quite unlike the raid set.

I’m not saying precursor crafting shouldn’t have happened, I’m not saying you cannot have legendary armor in open world. I’m saying you cannot have the raid set in open world or in easy mode. Unlike precursors the raid set was never meant to depend on luck, it was exclusive for raiders, by definition it was not meant to have different paths. I like that certain skins have meaning behind them, like the pvp wings/fractal wings/HoT legendaries ( to lesser extent)/fractal skins. There is a reason the pvp and pve wings look different, as should raid and open world legendary armor do.

There is a path, either you walk it like the rest of us or you do not. However I’m done with this discussion as the bottemline is quite clear: I like different skins for different content you do not. So I wish you all the best pleading your case.

I don’t see where you’re getting any of that from. Things should be available, but you should still have to earn them. All I’m objecting to is having only ways to earn a given item that would reject the majority of players, such as the existing raid modes.

Earn your raid skills as well, the raids are available and live right now. What you do not see, is that wealth is restricting the majority of players more than raids ever will.

But from what I understand, Envoy armor will not be part of the trading post, so there is no financial benefit to them in making them exclusive. They do not make any more money if a hundred people have them or a hundred thousand have them.

Ofcourse there is value to envoy armor being exclusive, nobody wants to play an MMO without exclusive rewards. Your real issue is that you can’t have the rewards yourself for once. And now suddenly there is need for alternative paths, thats not how it works.

Yes. Your happiness at getting a rare Precursor drop is outweighed by the sadness of the thousands who have never had a precursor drop and would very much like one. Again, greatest happiness for the greatest number.

Obviously you have trouble understanding this, but ten people being happy is greater happiness than everybody not giving anything about yet another green drop.

A. But then I would be sad, because I don’t get that thing that I wanted.
B. no, it could not, because the value of the reward would not overcome the sadness of having to do raids.
C. I plan to, but this has nothing to do with A or B, if option C does not provide a path to Envoy skins then it is just option A.

I can’t help that you get sad over little things. I do not participate in certain content and don’t get the exclusive rewards, yet I’m not sad at all. Hint if the value does not over come the effort, you do not participate.

Then you’re happy that I’m sad. You can’t absolve yourself of that. Either you’re happy that I’m sad or you want me to be happy, one or the other.

You being sad is simply the result of you getting worked up over little things. I do not want anything for you, I could not care less whether you are sad or happy. I do care about exclusive raid rewards remaining exclusive to raids. If I get sad when exclusive rewards get turned into generic rewards, does that mean your happy that I will be sad?

I wouldn’t object to a different sets of legendary armor being available in open world/pvp/wvw. We are never going to agree cause we have fundementally different views. You do not see value in different content providing different skins, I do see value in it.

Astralporing.1957:

..you might have missed the fact, that precursor weapons are craftable. For over half a year now. Did the existence of another path to obtain them devalue your experience? Doesn’t seem so, or you wouldn’t have been mentioning them as a good example.
So, where exactly is the problem?

You mean the crafting system that is more expensive than buying them straight of the trading post, which means there is no real alternative path? I do not see your point. But if you want more difficult content than the current raids that also rewards envoy armor (I rather have a different set), good luck arguing for it, I will help you.

But you can work towards them. It will be slower than for others, that’s true, but it’s as sure and certain. And you don’t even need to play differently than you already do for this.

I do have to play differently for it, I do lose gold over the time of a week or break even. Rerunning raids for fun is still expensive with all those consumables. Could I potentionally make alot of gold if I wanted? Hell yeah, just like you could potentionally learn to raid.

Since you use it to counterpoint the wealth disparity, do you perhaps mistakenly think that majority of the raiders (or even a significant number of them) are poor?

Nope most of them are rich. Doesn’t change the fact that you cannot have raid rewards if you do not raid.

Stop strawmanning, okay? So far the only people speaking about legendaries for free are raid defenders. Having another way to obtain them is not equivalent to handing them out for free.

I thought you guys were all about majorities getting their way?

So you do take joy from unhappines of others. That’s… really sad.

The sad thing is that you reach such a conclusion. I take joy in different content providing unique and to that content exclusive skins, I have no issues with open world providing a different set of legendary armor. I object against open world getting the same set of legendary armor.

Ohoni.6057:

If you participate in and clear equivalent content you can have equivalent looks. If you clear dungeon mode raids than you get dungeon mode rewards though.

No, I reject that reality and substitute my own. It’s a game, it’s not life. It is meant for everyone to have fun, and it does not create the greatest fun for the greatest number of players to say “see this thing? You want this thing? You can’t have this thing. This is for better players than you.”

Those better players might feel great about that arrangement, but there are less of them, so what they want matters less.

If better players want something that only they can have, then it should be something that nobody would ever want except that it has value for showing off an accomplishment. A trophy or medal is a perfect example of this because if everyone gets a trophy or medal then nobody would care about having it, while armor skins is a perfect example of NOT this, since even if everyone does have a given armor skin, plenty of people would still like it because it’s the armor skin that they like.

Variety in player skins should be about player expression, not about skin availability. If everyone looks the same because they’re wearing the same skins, that only gives you the opportunity to look different than them by wearing one of the dozens of available skin sets that apparently they are not wearing.

I can have from raids whatever arenanet decided to be obtained from raids, which is envoy armor. You can have from different content whatever arenanet decided that particular content would reward, which isn’t envoy armor.

No reason it couldn’t be envoy armor. I’m asking for envoy armor.

You don’t want to play the content, if you would want it you would be doing it.

That’s faulty logic. All it does is set up a lose/lose scenario. It sets up either:
A: I never get the skins that I want, and I’m sad because I never get that skin.

or

B: I have to do a bunch of content that I really do not enjoy, and I’m sad that I am doing a bunch of content that I am not enjoying.

Either way would make me sad, neither way would make me happy, and nobody benefits from me being sad. If you believe that it would make you happy for me to be sad, then that’s. . . sad.

Dammn must be good to have legendary armor from easy mode raids in a dream. You are also handing out legendaries like candies in your dream right? Greatest value for the largest number of dreamers. Personally I like all these kittenmn fused skins, since it has value for me I should get it for free!

Again in your dream we don’t have a trading post I suppose? Every single skin should be unlocked once you create a character I guess? We do not have stuff like RNG, cause we wouldn’t want luck to determine the availability of skins.

In reality, the game is designed around scarce rewards, hence we have a Trading Post/RNG/Grind. Cause guess what, ultimately the game is simply created to provide the largest sums possible to the company.

So the reality is not every single skin is attainable for everyone, and this is a good thing it gives value to skins. The reason I get happy about a precursor drop is the fact that it doesn’t happen alot, and you want to take that value out of the game? I can’t have legendary weapons/armor/back skins because I do not have alot of gold ( as the vast majority of players). You cannot have raid rewards, since you are not capable and able to raid. If everybody gets Legendary for free, it is trash and has zero value. So currently there is more value in legendaries than if we would hand them out to everybody for free.

No my logic sets up for this:

A: You never get the skins that you want and move on. ( That should be you)
B: You do a bunch of content that you do not enjoy, but getting that sweet armor is worth it. (Could be you)
C: You do content that you enjoy and are happy doing it ( Me, even though I do not have the funds to create Legendary armor)

I’m not happy that you’re sad per se, I’m happy that people who do not participate in raids cannot have raid rewards. Now congratz about turning another thread into: I want raid rewards without doing them. I suggest you get back on topic, which is the question whether there should be easy mode raids in the first place.