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.
I completely Disagree with the accessibility. I consider my self very much an above average player. I find it hard to find a guild given the tools we have to raid with. I might not be clue’d into all the ways to get into a raid. That being said i want to raid. I have yet to attack a single raid boss. That alone tells you that Raids are not accessible. It means that Unless you have a guild of active members you wont be doing raids. Maybe i am an outlier… Either way i know i want to raid but do not have the means to raid. Keep in mind this is not about difficulty. I would prefer the content scale to the # of people being brought to the encounter. This is only about accessibility.