Guild Wars 2

Order of the Fiery Dragon, a guild formed in the early days of the original Guild Wars is back for raiding.
We are currently looking for people interested in raiding, learning and leading future raids/meta events/megabosses, and teaching others this content.
While our current focus are the highly anticipated raids, we do remain true to our PvX roots and you’ll always find someone to talk to and play with regardless of your content choice.
We have a Guild Hall (Gilded Hollows), and two decorators interested in creating custom jumping puzzles and other events once the guild reaches a high enough level of available decorations.
Hosting Guild Missions, leading in content like Triple Trouble, Tequatl, the new meta events in Heart of Thorns are some of the things on our leadership’s resume already.

For WvW purposes, we are from the Gandara EU server.

In essence, if you are a friendly team player, can hold your own in a fight, and are willing to teach others, you’d be a fantastic addition to our roster.
Inversely, if you are new or would like to learn, we guarantee you a friendly and helpful environment capable of raising your game to new levels.

Representation is encouraged but not mandatory.

Interested? Whisper Gevallen Engel.5627 or me ingame for more information or an invite.

(Definitely not affiliated with Primordus. I swear. Your eternal soul will not join the fire dragon’s army of destroyers.)

fall.4027:

Chris — Does the team plan on redesigning combat to support group PvE content?

Right now the meta is narrow (glass cannon) and everyone just piles up and cleaves everything down making for a pretty one-note experience. Depending on how aggressively tuned the content is, the meta for raiding could even become more narrow than it is now.

I believe that would be a CDI in and by itself if that were on the table.

Star Ace.5207:

Naetell.3815:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Naetell.3815:

The trinity is a fairly recent thing. Aggro management was a thing long before the trinity existed.

It used to be broader than a trinity, but it existed for at least 20 years. Longer if you count D&D parties. (“Wizard, Cleric, Fighter, Thief; in a pinch you can ditch the thief and get extra healing potions.”)

Not a trinity means just that. It was never labeled a DPS only game or anything.

Has been my argument forever; people came from other games feeling “liberated” from needing tanks and healers, and came to the conclusion that since there is no trinity, only their DPS mattered. However, not only it’s just a popular myth, but not even the developers have ever-that I know of-stated such a thing (further evidence in the gear they use, as well as in the continuous development of “high end” gear with so-called “tanky” stats.) The system provides ample opportunities for any playstyle, not just DPS (even if the latter completes content faster with organized groups.)

The argument they have is that “tanky” stats are for PvP use, yet this is only a popular concept, rather than factual. Devs use non-“zerk” gear for PvE as well, and are not necessarily “baddies” or “carebears”.

Berserker’s can be more efficient, but it doesn’t mean that without the trinity GW2 PvE is only about DPS roles; skill has nothing to do with gear, as even Mr. Whiteside admitted to using “tanky” gear in this very thread.

No offense intended, and much respect to all of those who use efficient gear but refuse to insult the intelligence of those who do not.

There’s a lot more in the game than most people realise. But the DPS thing really is something that came from other games already. It’s been a popular notion amongst pure DPS players for a long time that tanks and healers aren’t as skilled or needed as they are.

I fully support:

1: Knowledge
2: Skill
3: Raid Group Setup.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Morning,

Ok I have been up all night reading the posts and thinking about this CDI.

To be frank this is not a good CDI, specifically because whilst some folks are trying to be collaborative and have valuable discussion others are just bullying with their different agendas.

I have always said that if a CDI loses its value on both sides that it will be stopped.

So I am at some what of a loss. I can’t tell anymore if it is of value to this group. Whilst it certainly has been valuable for us it has been extremely time consuming to get to the good stuff.

So I will leave it up to you folks. If you feel you can work more collaboratively then by all means let me know that you want to carry on.

If you feel that it is a lost cause then I will ask for everyone’s top three priorities for raiding and call it a day.

I want to say thank you very much to all those who tried to follow the rules of the CDI and who had a healthy discussion. I also wanted to say a big thank you to TTS and DnT. We appreciate your feedback.

Chris

Thank you for being honest.

If the thread is no longer of value to you, then by all means, it should be closed. Keeping it open for the sake of keeping it open will serve no one.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Naetell.3815:

The trinity is a fairly recent thing. Aggro management was a thing long before the trinity existed.

It used to be broader than a trinity, but it existed for at least 20 years. Longer if you count D&D parties. (“Wizard, Cleric, Fighter, Thief; in a pinch you can ditch the thief and get extra healing potions.”)

Not a trinity means just that. It was never labeled a DPS only game or anything.

spoj.9672:

Well as a dps player i dont want my personal challenge to be diminished by having someone take the tank role in a raid. So im against changing the core system to make dedicated tanks. This games combat is involved and fun for whatever role you play. That cant be said for trinity mmo’s.

A raid is a combined challenge. There’s no need to change the core system when that system has pretty much everything that makes tanking happen anyway.
The DPS role gets all the good stuff already, no one’s going to take that away from you.

guardian.6489:

Reward Tiers

Proposal Overview
Different reward tiers with different requirements per Raid. Each tier is increasingly hard to complete.

Goal of Proposal
To create multiple difficultly levels without changing a raid

Proposal Functionality
Basically each Raid would have a base reward, which is rewarded regardless of how well you do however each Raid would also have “bonus” loot based how well you do. These would be separated into 4 tiers, Bronze, Siliver, Gold and Platinum. These requirements for how well you do could vary Raid to Raid, it could be how quickly you complete the Raid, how well you complete bonus objectives or how soundly you beat the various Bosses. As an example here’s what they could be for various Raids:

Battle of LA/ Battle on the Breachmaker:
Mechanism: Time based
Bronze: Whatever time
Silver: If you wipe 1 or 2 times you still may get this tier if your quick
Gold: Your not likely to get this tier if you wipe even once
Platinum: No wipes, you must have an optimized group and go through the entire Raid almost perfectly, melting bosses and going from step to step as fast as you can.

The Marionette:
Mechanism: The Aetherblade Cannon chrage
Bronze: You didn’t fail
Silver: 50% or less of a charge
Gold: No Marionette chain break attempts failed or equilvient amount of champs got through
Platinum: No champs got through, no chain attempts failed. 0% Charge

Tower of Nightmares:
Mechanism: There are people trapped in the tower you need to rescue, they die after a period of time.
Bronze: We had to save people?
Silver: 25% saved
Gold: 75% saved
Platinum: Nobody left behind.

As you can see Platinum requirements would be tuned to be absolutely insane, something so that “world’s first” would be something worth bragging about. This could have an additional one-time reward tied to it which could include an achievement with a title and good reward like an ascended item or something similar in value (something you could add to your ascended armor to add a new selectable stat would be nice). This would mean each base Raid would be completable but there would be something insane to go for the most hardcore amongst us.

Associated Risks
-Rage if a certain base reward tier isn’t met
-A time based requirement could strengthen the berserker meta more
-Harder class requirements for Platinum rewards
-Veterans could be less accepting of newbies for fear of losing out a reward tier.

I’m basing this on the fact that in TTS I’ve noticed over time there are the glory hunters who joined us for the Triple Trouble first kill but played less once we achieved the first kill, the farmers who just want their loot, and the explorers who just want to experience everything the game has to offer. I noticed in the beginning the glory hunters joined us for the glory of getting the first kill then over time they got their kill and moved on then the farmers who wanted the Wurm’s unique loot settled in once our strategies settled down and they’re still with us almost every day. The explorers come and go every once and a while and join in for a couple kills then move on.

Platinum is for the glory hunters, that’s why the main reward is one-time, once you get the epic achievement, to them repeatable rewards are kinda meh. Bronze through Gold is more for the farmers, multiple tiers will keep them entertained and keep the Raid tense even after the 100 times. The reason I didn’t want too many more repeatable rewards at Platinum is so there’s less conflict between explorers who won’t be knowledgable about the fight and Farmers who just want the best reward.

Keep in mind all 3 of these types of players (and any I missed) will all be in the same Raid together, their needs affect each other.

As guild leader of DV, I can echo these observations and fully support this post.

Astralporing.1957:

Dalanor.5387:

It’s intended to use berserker gear and ignore passive defensive stats and rely on your skill layout and own personal skill to mitigate damage and of course your team mates.

And you don’t find this problematic? That the game on other hand tells us “those are new stat sets, get them while they’re hot”, but quickly adds “…though you’d have to be dumb to actually use them”.

Basically, if game design is going to trivialize existence of defensive stats, then why do they even exist?

Dalanor.5387:

But on topic. The idea is, everybody wins. Okay. But the question is where we should draw the line?

The general rule would be “at the level where more people like the content than dislike it”. Of course, like and dislike is also dependant on other factors (like rewards, for example), so you should push the difficulty threshold lower anytime you make the desirability of running content go up (besides, of course, the desirability that is derived directly from challenge).

The reason they exist is because DPS vs Survivability does work in PvP.

EgonVenkman.1907:

Crystal Reid.2481:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

NoTrigger.8396:

Naetell.3815:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cris

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

This is disappointing that both of you would essentially validate the existing zerker meta. The reason it developed was because defensive gear is detrimental to your survival even if you are just learning. Because of the design of many of the mobs and the focus on active defense, defensive gear provides little benefit. With defensive gear, you may die in 3-4 hits instead of 1-2, the fights take longer, if not more than double the time in zerker gear, leaving you open to be hit that much more. Defensive gear still requires you to know active defense, so you may as well slot the zerker gear.

Defensive gear has uses in WvW and PvP, but in the PvE world, the design of the mobs/ai make it so there is next to no option but to focus on damage over defense.

Which is why I’d propose a rework of defensive gear over a rework of DPS gear tbh. I don’t think vitality and toughness are very interesting from an active gameplay point of view.

cesmode.4257:

Dalanor.5387:

Tuomir.1830:

Dalanor.5387:

Tuomir.1830:

I would like to point out, with improved aggro management with some small changes to the aggro mechanics, “tanking” can be a role that’s not passive, and would be supported by defensive stats in the same manner as DPS is supported by offensive stats. Defensive stats would provide passive damage mitigation to some level, for sure, but to hold the aggro would be the part requiring player skill.

Tanking works fine, just not as dumb as in others game with artificial threat mechanics.
Archy and Mossman are great examples how can you make an advantage of the situation when the boss sticks to you. Thats why guardians often use Knights gear there so while they grab the agro and rotating blocks or simply backpedaling while the boss is slowed down, the rest of the party can damage the boss at free will. Of course when the kitten hits the fan and the boss suddenly turns around to rip off that poor ele’s face than you should react and hope the guard dude get the agro back soon.

It just requires more situational awareness. Watch the game, not the UI.

I think you missed my proposed aggro changes from earlier the same page. Situational awareness is exactly what I am driving. With enhanced aggro mechanics, raid encounters can be designed with aggro management role in mind.

I read that. The problem with the idea (more or less with the current one as well) that often the one would get agro who is the least threat for the enemy.
“Hey that dude poke me with 500 damage per hit but let the ele melt my left arm with a gazillion of damage.” You get it.

I wouldn’t be surprised if we would have more area and / or room wide effects to force everyone in the raid to defend itself somehow instad of getting hit one by one. And if you think about it why would it good if 1 player gets the boss attention while 9, 14, 24 or whatever number of other players just slice it into little pieces?

tl;dr: Agro management is currently acceptable in 5 man dungeon content while in raid environment it’s an encounter design issue.

Well, even overall, how on earth can you possibly maintain aggro with GW2 combat system?

First off, theres no trinity. Thus, no need to maintain aggro. Otherwise, if you intend to encourage someone maintaining aggro, why on earth do away with the trinity?

Second, even if you ignored the fact that theres no trinity, what abilities does any class have that will constantly keep aggro on one person for more than a brief second? I cant think of any and if there are some abilities, its very brief and won’t be a reliable “taunt”.

I don’t think aggro management can work in Guild Wars 2 overall, let alone dungeons or raids.

However, if you’re talking about “who has the highest DPS gets the aggro” well then that person likely doesn’t have enough mitigation to withstand the attention of a raid boss.

Again, I don’t think it works.

The trinity is a fairly recent thing. Aggro management was a thing long before the trinity existed.

NoTrigger.8396:

XD your post makes me smile.

ok so
1. read spojs post. he explains why enrage timer exist.
2. yes i have played “serious” raid in other games. and especially “serious” raid that wasnt about gear or spreadsheets but therefore about knowledge, teamwork and player skill.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HisRpzL24B8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEmE8i0Lsn8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvA9r9NBdlY
i only recorded these 3 videos but i can record more if you would like to see “serious” raid that actually forces players to be good and overstep their own bounds/limits to beat encounters. in the 3. video you can actually see how enrage timers look like at the end of the video. we just killed the boss right before he would have rekt us.

3. i never tried to “shut down” anyones opinion. i tried to explain facts and basics to the people who dont seem to understand it.

4. you should read carefully.
if you would read carefully, you would have realized that i never said ONCE in this thread “we need enrage timer or dps race”. the enrage timer in my example was just a tool to prove a point.

5. i dont hate huge hp and slow telegraphs. but i would like to see even more “telegraphs” and more action so i have to react and avoid even more -> become better, play better, have more fun. i would like to learn. learning is fun (except in school). as long as you can learn you will have a goal and something to strive for.
and no matter how much kitten you will throw at me, i will always find ways to use the most offensive stuff and become good enough to deal with it without going full tank.
its actually good game design and challenging, when a boss throws alot of kitten at you but you are able to survive because of player skill and not because of gear.

“If the game ‘’ johnny’’ will be balanced around pppl will defensiuve gear , the boss will have LESS HP and LESS ENRAGE TIMER to be beat by any1 .
So your super guild and the rest of the planet , wont have to fight a gazilion HP bosses ……
, but instead your Bersker guild will melt down the boss faster than anything …..”

6. when there are real mechanics involed in the boss fight it doesnt matter how much hp a boss has. and less enrage timer means less challenge, because you can “chill more, drink a beer, make a pizza” and you dont have to be on top of your game.

i am all for options and mechanics so the “play how you want crowd” can do and play whatever they want in the raid.
but there needs to be a clear line between giving players freedom and making content too easy.

What about option 3? Make tanking skill-based and make tanking gear increase skill-based tanking skills rather than passive defenses?

There are 2 failure states to a raid encounter:
1) All players are dead.
2) The boss cannot die by this raiding group.

State 2 is more rare to see because the idea of bosses with heavy regenerative abilities and the like has traditionally inspired ire.

spoj.9672:

Killthehealersffs.8940:

NoTrigger.8396:

Killthehealersffs.8940:

‘’Enrage Timer’’ ?
What kind of casual things are you spouting ?
So Bersker gear should be a ‘’MUST HAVE 100%’’ to beat the encounter ?
Dont you have a more vivid immagination ?

just for your info johnny, the enrage timer was used as an example (you will even find the sentence “let me give you an example” in my other post) to explain to people that we dont have a trinity, how our combat system works and that you pick gear according to your skill level in PvE. but from your post it seems you are not very experienced when it comes to raiding content so thats totally ok and i will not take your post serious.

i would personally like to see enrage timers because it will actually force people to become better at the game. but on the other hand i know that there are people who simply want to use defensive gear for the sake of using defensive gear. so i am completely fine if we dont get to see any enrage timers and people can play how they want (if they are successful is a different question).

So an enrage timer will make ppl more skilled ?
This is beyong me …. i dont really have words to describe it ….
Or will it make the encounter a DPS RACE like other games ?
Have you played seriously raid in other games ?

5 months now , you always try to shut down ppl opionion that:
‘’istances is not about DPS’’
‘’you are not forced to run only Berseker gear’’
‘’istances are not competive encounters’’

And you are here now …. saying we must implant a a DPS RACE in the game and we should make exactly the same ecnounters like the dungeons that you hate (huge HP + slow telegraphs?) ?

If the game ‘’ johnny’’ will be balanced around pppl will defensiuve gear , the boss will have LESS HP and LESS ENRAGE TIMER to be beat by any1 .
So your super guild and the rest of the planet , wont have to fight a gazilion HP bosses ……
, but instead your Bersker guild will melt down the boss faster than anything …..

Did you understand it ‘’ johnny’’ ?
Or should i make more ‘’ johnnish’’ ?

If you have a time constraint you are forced to work harder. You are encouraged to maximise your groups efficiency. This means taking as much damage as you can while also maintaining your ability to survive etc. Without a time constraint you can simply use fully defensive gear and take it as slow and easy as you like. This dimishes the challenge. And thats the reason that enrage timers exist in raids. They encourage the group to try as hard as they can. The enrage timer can be balanced around moderate dps groups and then it shouldnt be a problem for groups with a mix of gear types. Or the enrage can be prevented by some special condition. Enrage mechanics dont always have to be tied to timers. The clockheart has a simple decent idea for alternative enrage.

That, and, making the DPS feel like they have a goal to work towards other than ‘kill the thing for shinies’. Also, to prevent the trinity from having the option of going 10 tanks, 5 healers in a 15 man raid.

phys.7689:

I am not really advocating for either style. But i think the fundamental disconect is having stats primarily be about only those two forces. In gw1, increasing stats was more about increasing the viability of a playstyle.

A million times +1. Stats don’t do that for anything but DPS in the current design, which is weird considering some of the stats you can find on gear.

NoTrigger.8396:

Astralporing.1957:

Around which stat should the raid content (any content) be balanced around? If the baseline will be PVT, then (unless some additional mechanics are introduced) the zerkers will blow through the content with no problem at all. If you balance around the Berserker stat however, then it will become required, because anyone else will need to deal with massively inflated hp pools that would extend fights for hours.

The differences in DPS output of different stat sets are just too huge – while the advantages conferred by non-dps focused stat sets too low in comparison.
There’s just no point in upping your survival-per-time-played rate by 25%, if to do that you sacrifice the opportunity to do 2-3x more damage (and i am being conservative here). If the battles introduce any kinds of oneshots, that disproportion of stat set usefulness only gets more severe.

This is a weakness of the current combat design that can be overlooked for casual content, but will need to be addressed if you plan on creating truly challenging PvE game modes.

if bosses dont have enrage timer, berserker players will kill stuff faster, but berserker wont be a requirement.
players who use other gear will need longer to kill stuff, but will have an easier time to survive. so isnt that a good trade off?

I think that’s part of the issue. The trade off is kind of nonsensical for PvE.
The DPS vs Survivability is a paradigm that makes sense in PvP, and it’s quite likely been designed with sPvP in mind, but in PvE you deal with opponents that are unlike players. Mobs aren’t designed to take advantage of the weaknesses of either extreme, leading to things like the video you’ve linked earlier, as well as the dominance of Berzerker gear in the general PvE game today.
PvE is based on DPS, Control, Support. Survivability is much an afterthought compared to those 3, which is why the comparison doesn’t quite hold up as well as it does in PvP.

Ohoni.6057:

SPvP as the game launched with was a perfect example of how to do things right, where it did not intersect with the PvE experience at all and could be completely ignored. They made changes over the past two years though that erroded this firewall, and made it so that there are numerous benefits to be gained from playing sPvP even if all you want to do is PvE. I hope when they add raids it will be more like launch sPvP and less like modern sPvP.

I understand that sentiment exactly. Raiding is a part of PvE though, and we should be trying to make it more so instead of make it more of a fringe thing like you have in other games where there’s ‘the entire game, and raiding’ almost diametrically opposed to one another.

Still, you’re fighting a massively uphill battle here, and for that alone, you have my respect.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

I don’t know if I agree about PVT AOE Heal wars just standing there. It depends on the encounter and I certainly can’t just stand still in fractals (-:

Anyway even if I am wrong we have got to the point in the discussion where I think we can agree that any perceived issues can be handled by the design of the encounter and the balance thereof.

Chris

Yes.
For anyone wondering how to do, for example, classic raid tanking on a skill basis rather than a stat one, I’ll try to think of an example here:

You could have a transformation that transforms you into the Avatar of the Great Stone Dwarf, for example, and replaces your skills with a number of skills to counter the moves of the raid boss. The raid boss will be attracted to the Avatar player, but only as long as that player has a buff on him granted by one of his abilities. The player can’t heal himself in this state, but he can prevent damage through tactical and correct use of his gained skills in this transformation.
Say, to counter the boss’ basic attack, you get a simple ‘Defend’ as skill 2. Using this skill reduces damage for one second from small attacks, but is useless against big attacks, it also prevents use of your other skills during this second.
Skill 3 is Parry, which has uses endurance, and turns one of the boss’ attacks against him, but only when timed exactly right. If mistimed, you take increased damage.

The difference between this and classic tanking?
Classic tanks do their thing, the boss does his thing, and the two never really need to pay too much attention to each other.
In this example, the tank needs to anticipate the moves the boss will make and react appropriately. Failing to do so is going to down him pretty fast.

The balance of the encounter can determine whether the player can make any mistakes, to how many mistakes, to even allowing this player to solo the battle, theoretically.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

I think your comments are well made. And therefore what I would say is that the notion of support, co-operation and a role is very much dependent on the kind of encounter that is built then with a delta of skill and armor and traits that is not as important as knowledge and co-operation in said raid encounter but important none the less.

I suppose that this is the core of the approach I would like us to discuss.

knowledge>skill>character setup>group number

And the reason group number is last is because I think that by following the paradigm we discussed and in the confines of this proposal that player’s could complete a raid with less than the recommended amount by increasing their acumen in Knowledge>skill and character setup.

Chris

All the more reason why encounter design is so important. In contrast, for others reading this, I’ll say that in World of Warcraft, for example, a number of bosses per raid were often so-called t&s bosses, which didn’t do anything special and were more of a hard stat-check for your raiding group rather than anything resembling an interesting encounter. Fighting them wasn’t any fun, but they were once the majority of raid bosses in that game.

I think with that we’ve pretty much covered everything in regards to stats and raiding. xD

I agree. Completing a raid with less than the recommended amount of people has been a long-standing tradition in MMORPG’s, and it’s a great challenge.
Knowledge and skill should always be first there, in my honest opinion.

NoTrigger.8396:

Naetell.3815:

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

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

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

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

As presented, situation 1 is preferable.

NoTrigger.8396:

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

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

I agree. The problem is there is that they’re looking at the stats the game has to offer, the builds people recommend, and they only see: DPS focus, DPS focus, DPS focus.
That’s what causes them to wonder: What about the rest?
What they don’t realise, is that the rest is already so powerful it doesn’t need boosting, regardless of whether this is even possible or not.

And I do strongly believe it should be possible to have both a high DPS output and a high support value at the same time.

NoTrigger.8396:

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

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

Now that, I fundamentally disagree with. I don’t think anyone needs defensive gear because they are a bad player. I think they could learn to play great without it just fine.

I’m all for skilled play, but, and I may be wrong here, I also think tanky players should be skill-based rather than just stats. I’d like their stats to be meaningful in the same way DPS stats are, by emphasing skill over just standing there and getting hit.

NoTrigger.8396:

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

Yes, I may secretly be mentally handicapped or something that prevents me from understanding other human beings.

I can recommend learning to solo Arah to anyone. It’s a lot of fun, and it doesn’t cost you anything now repair costs are no more.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Naetell.3815:

phys.7689:

Naetell.3815:

NoTrigger.8396:

Naetell.3815:

Again, there’s no inherent risk attached to DPS gear. If there is, I’d like you to show that.

if you do a mistake you are dead. thats the high risk of dps gear. you have to play well, you have to know the encounter, and you have to use the right skills at the right time. in tanky gear i can ignore all of that.

That’s simply not true. You have an literal invulnerability button and a huge health pool while downed that gives your fellow players plenty of time to pick you back up, if you haven’t gained a second wind from channeling 4 or killing a mob yet, that invalidates any sense of 1 mistake = dead.
In all the content we have in GW2 today, one mistake does not even down a DPS player. A big mistake might, a massive mistake does, but I don’t like defending the oneshot mechanics some bosses have either.
I’ve played in tanky gear too, and it’s not exactly what you’d call fun. It takes everything out of the game, and if you combine it with dodging you might as well be invulnerable the entire time. With the added problem it takes you hours to do anything and you don’t get rewards as easily in the open world because it’s all calculated on DPS done.

On none of my full glass characters have I ever had that feeling of imminent danger in this game.
And there’s no raiding mechanic that can change that.

So, I really do wonder where this notion comes from, that there’s an actual split between skilled and not-skilled players based on the gear the wear.

its not that because you wear berserk, you are automatically a better player. Its that the better you are, the less need you have for the defense.

You say with your tank gear, the encounter is too easy, and you cannot die. What is the advantage of tank gear?
Tank gear in this game exists primarily to set your handicap in battle. the more tank gear you have the more mistakes you can make. I am not saying every player in tank gear does, but thats the main advantage of it.

I’d argue against that on the premise of creating a fake difficulty.
The game is plenty forgiving even in full glass. The prevalence of tank gear in the game (and this is simplifying and generalising it by a lot) gives players the idea that it is not only okay, but expected to wear some amount of it. There is no reason to have more than 100% survivability.
Better yet, if the game is built on the premise that all damage can be avoided, then this tanky gear is hampering people’s learning process by reducing the need to learn how to dodge.
From that point of view, it is hard to defend tanky gear at all.

But as a PVT War my goal is to ensure the rest of the group doesn’t get downed so we can win as my DPS is poor. I love this role and even when I dodge effectively there are still plenty of attacks that catch me off guard. So therefore I see my armor and traits as a way to better support my group.

It doesn’t matter if i can stay alive ad infinitum (which I can’t). What matters is that I can help my group to help us all win.

Chris

The percieved problem here is not that the PVT warrior (heal shouts) is an ineffective build. (It’s not, it’s one of the most powerful support builds in the game, I’d argue)
The point is that the sacrificed DPS do not mathematically align with the support gained. You could use the same build in PPF or VTP gear with the same level of support given.
Theoretically, the dodge alone + the self-healing ability you have are enough to make it through an encounter as encounter time drops the more DPS you deal. The longer any encounter takes, the greater the theoretical chance becomes of anyone making a mistake, and the added survivability mattering.
Tequatl as an encounter tries to balance the equation by taking Precision and Ferocity out of the equation, and that works to some degree, but this does tend to annoy DPS players.

Now the real questions and issues begin when looking at stats that actually do matter for support. Healing and Boon Duration exist, they are on gear. (Not many in the case of BD, admittedly) However, these stats do not affect support in the matter DPS is affected by gear. Instead, sufficient support is added without these stats according to many experienced dungeon players.

But maybe this is just me thinking too much like a theorycrafter than as an actual player.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

And I absolutely agree.

There are plenty of ways with our core mechanics that we can make player’s have roles. There are many ways we can make player’s provide a true support role. And there are many ways that we can create new types of raid encounter experiences based on our core mechanics.

Chris

I agree, and I can theorise various paths myself, but there’s this idea amongst players that gear is by and large useless because of the action-based combat system, and therefor gear does not add to roles.
Personally, I think it’s the combination of various factors that have led to this, but I’d like to challenge people’s ideas about what they think is in the game, compared to what there actually is in the game. GW2 has a foundation that allows for more than the same old rehashed roles, and I believe it can be made possible for all classes to play as any role. And I think that ultimately, it should be a combination of skills+traits+gear+encounter that should determine someone’s role, with the ability to swap 3 of those out any time they are out of combat.

phys.7689:

Naetell.3815:

NoTrigger.8396:

Naetell.3815:

Again, there’s no inherent risk attached to DPS gear. If there is, I’d like you to show that.

if you do a mistake you are dead. thats the high risk of dps gear. you have to play well, you have to know the encounter, and you have to use the right skills at the right time. in tanky gear i can ignore all of that.

That’s simply not true. You have an literal invulnerability button and a huge health pool while downed that gives your fellow players plenty of time to pick you back up, if you haven’t gained a second wind from channeling 4 or killing a mob yet, that invalidates any sense of 1 mistake = dead.
In all the content we have in GW2 today, one mistake does not even down a DPS player. A big mistake might, a massive mistake does, but I don’t like defending the oneshot mechanics some bosses have either.
I’ve played in tanky gear too, and it’s not exactly what you’d call fun. It takes everything out of the game, and if you combine it with dodging you might as well be invulnerable the entire time. With the added problem it takes you hours to do anything and you don’t get rewards as easily in the open world because it’s all calculated on DPS done.

On none of my full glass characters have I ever had that feeling of imminent danger in this game.
And there’s no raiding mechanic that can change that.

So, I really do wonder where this notion comes from, that there’s an actual split between skilled and not-skilled players based on the gear the wear.

its not that because you wear berserk, you are automatically a better player. Its that the better you are, the less need you have for the defense.

You say with your tank gear, the encounter is too easy, and you cannot die. What is the advantage of tank gear?
Tank gear in this game exists primarily to set your handicap in battle. the more tank gear you have the more mistakes you can make. I am not saying every player in tank gear does, but thats the main advantage of it.

I’d argue against that on the premise of creating a fake difficulty.
The game is plenty forgiving even in full glass. The prevalence of tank gear in the game (and this is simplifying and generalising it by a lot) gives players the idea that it is not only okay, but expected to wear some amount of it. There is no reason to have more than 100% survivability.
Better yet, if the game is built on the premise that all damage can be avoided, then this tanky gear is hampering people’s learning process by reducing the need to learn how to dodge.
From that point of view, it is hard to defend tanky gear at all.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

snip

And note these are honest questions and not me being rude.

Chris

I didn’t think of them in any other way.

Johan

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Naetell.3815:

NoTrigger.8396:

Naetell.3815:

Again, there’s no inherent risk attached to DPS gear. If there is, I’d like you to show that.

if you do a mistake you are dead. thats the high risk of dps gear. you have to play well, you have to know the encounter, and you have to use the right skills at the right time. in tanky gear i can ignore all of that.

That’s simply not true. You have an literal invulnerability button and a huge health pool while downed that gives your fellow players plenty of time to pick you back up, if you haven’t gained a second wind from channeling 4 or killing a mob yet, that invalidates any sense of 1 mistake = dead.
In all the content we have in GW2 today, one mistake does not even down a DPS player. A big mistake might, a massive mistake does, but I don’t like defending the oneshot mechanics some bosses have either.
I’ve played in tanky gear too, and it’s not exactly what you’d call fun. It takes everything out of the game, and if you combine it with dodging you might as well be invulnerable the entire time. With the added problem it takes you hours to do anything and you don’t get rewards as easily in the open world because it’s all calculated on DPS done.

On none of my full glass characters have I ever had that feeling of imminent danger in this game.
And there’s no raiding mechanic that can change that.

So, I really do wonder where this notion comes from, that there’s an actual split between skilled and not-skilled players based on the gear the wear.

Do you remember the first times you did Tequatl as a glass cannon?

Are you saying that you were never downed in the front raid group?

Now that folks understand how to use the turrets and warriors drop banners do you die less?

Chris

The new tequatl was an interesting experience the first days actually. I first went on my full glass thief, figured out the jump or dodge over waves thing to melee him, and then promptly got downed by a poison cloud. Other players rushed in to help me up, and died as well because of it.

It was an experience unlike any other I’d had in GW2 before that point.

Ultimately, Tequatl’s timer ran out and people lamented the ‘insane difficulty’, but I was laughing all the way from waypoint to dragon and back.

I then logged on my guard, also in full glass, and I found the clouds weren’t as deadly anymore. Aegis + learning to anticipate the clouds made it a lot easier. Stability for the waves was a good one too.
Still, bone wall happened and at some point we got massacred by a group of risen attacking in the back of the, now mostly ranged, zerg.

From then on, I’ve always ran Tequatl on my full glass guard. I didn’t even bother buying him soldiers gear or anything, and rather than lamenting with the others in chat, I grabbed a turret and tried to learn how to use it as quickly as possible.
I then joined Gandara’s front-line groups in killing Tequatl, and after the patch was over and most went on to do other things, me and two others remained and founded DV, for the express purpose of coordinating these events.
I learned how to lead, I wrote one of the tutorials on turret use, and we went on.

Am I still downed while leading Tequatl sometimes? Sure, and I always make sure to swim back as soon as possible if there are no instant resses around.
Do I feel like I don’t have enough health to lead the front-line zerg even in full glass? No, I feel fine actually. The clouds don’t oneshot, and standing still in them really shouldn’t happen, especially with wall of reflection covering everyone.

Do I die less than at first? Of course, that’s the nature of learning an encounter. The same should hold true for raiding.

spoj.9672:

Naetell.3815:

spoj.9672:

Astralporing.1957:

NoTrigger.8396:

other gear allows high survivability without player skill needed. thats actually imbalance and bad for an action skill based combat system.

This what you said is patently untrue. A truly unskilled player in this game will die regardless of build and gear. The only difference will be that on bunker build it will take somewhat longer. And on zerker sometimes mobs will die before that point.

Thats a problem with the content not the gear. Its something that should be discussed in this CDI. Many trash mobs are too easy and the mob groups dont have synergising attacks. The only exception to this is Arah trash mobs.

I don’t think raid mobs, even trash, should die before they can do anything significant. They shouldn’t take ages either, not to bore the players to death, but they should have a window of opportunity where they actually can show what they’re made of.

Which is exactly what i was saying. Arah mobs do this quite nicely. Mostly because of the risen illusionists op chaos storm. But also the risen hunters group stability and the mages knockback contribute. Arah packs have the potential to wipe experienced players especially when stacking. There is certainly risk with glass gear when you face these types of mob packs.

Yes, +1 for that btw.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

And as some guidance. We can tune mobs to behave and require any strategy we want in raiding. This is why I asked that we take the core mechanics of GW2 and build on that and not look to other games or the current balance of our open world maps to dictate encounter strategy and player behavior.

Chris

I do not mean to offend anyone with any of my posts, though I know I sometimes may be without knowing. If anyone feels anything I’ve said is out of line, I will address that to the point of removing posts entirely.

I am curious behind the reasoning of some of these players’ arguments though.

NoTrigger.8396:

Naetell.3815:

Again, there’s no inherent risk attached to DPS gear. If there is, I’d like you to show that.

if you do a mistake you are dead. thats the high risk of dps gear. you have to play well, you have to know the encounter, and you have to use the right skills at the right time. in tanky gear i can ignore all of that.

That’s simply not true. You have an literal invulnerability button and a huge health pool while downed that gives your fellow players plenty of time to pick you back up, if you haven’t gained a second wind from channeling 4 or killing a mob yet, that invalidates any sense of 1 mistake = dead.
In all the content we have in GW2 today, one mistake does not even down a DPS player. A big mistake might, a massive mistake does, but I don’t like defending the oneshot mechanics some bosses have either.
I’ve played in tanky gear too, and it’s not exactly what you’d call fun. It takes everything out of the game, and if you combine it with dodging you might as well be invulnerable the entire time. With the added problem it takes you hours to do anything and you don’t get rewards as easily in the open world because it’s all calculated on DPS done.

On none of my full glass characters have I ever had that feeling of imminent danger in this game.
And there’s no raiding mechanic that can change that.

So, I really do wonder where this notion comes from, that there’s an actual split between skilled and not-skilled players based on the gear the wear.

spoj.9672:

Astralporing.1957:

NoTrigger.8396:

other gear allows high survivability without player skill needed. thats actually imbalance and bad for an action skill based combat system.

This what you said is patently untrue. A truly unskilled player in this game will die regardless of build and gear. The only difference will be that on bunker build it will take somewhat longer. And on zerker sometimes mobs will die before that point.

Thats a problem with the content not the gear. Its something that should be discussed in this CDI. Many trash mobs are too easy and the mob groups dont have synergising attacks. The only exception to this is Arah trash mobs.

I don’t think raid mobs, even trash, should die before they can do anything significant. They shouldn’t take ages either, not to bore the players to death, but they should have a window of opportunity where they actually can show what they’re made of.

spoj.9672:

Naetell.3815:

spoj.9672:

ZudetGambeous.9573:

NoTrigger.8396:

moiraine.2753:

Of the current roles that exist (support,control,damage) in instances only 1 is viable at this moment.And that is pure dmg.

thats wrong. every optimal build brings as much support and cc as possible and sacrifices dps to achieve that.

But that’s not how it works at all… Currently all your dps comes from your gear, and all your support/cc comes from your utilities. They are completely separate. There is no support gear or CC gear. I can do 100% dps and 100% support if I am capable of dodging. Or I can do 50% dps and 100% support. The only difference is what gear I am wearing.

Thats what makes gw2 good. Theres no forced re-gearing. Support should be independant of gear. We dont have dedicated tanks or healers in this game so there is no need for gear to define a supportive role. If you change this you will cause more exclusivity which is what most people in this thread dont want.

Support should be independant of gear, control should be independant of gear. Those are fine sentiments to have, but then why insist on having DPS roles tied to gear?
Looking at it from an action game perspective, DPS is the problem role here atm, not support or control.

Im not sure i follow. You want to remove dps as a role? Are we going to CC and heal mobs to death?

Remove it? No, that would be against my preferred playstyle to begin with.
I’m in favour of making the roles equal to each other.

It’s an interesting question though: is DPS the most important role in raiding?

NoTrigger.8396:

Naetell.3815:

NoTrigger.8396:

Naetell.3815:

By what metric do you determine what should and shouldn’t be in a game with or without trinity?
Would action-based combat suffer under removing such imbalance?

are you talking about the imbalance that every single encounter in this game can be facetanked without a single dodge needed and therefore tanky and healing gear is ridiculously overpowered to the point that players are able to ignore even the key of the combat system, dodge?

you dont need metrics, you just have to look at the combat system and how professions are designed. this is not world of warcraft. we dont have tanks and healers. accept it please

You say you can facetank it all, then say there are no tanks.
That’s quite the conundrum. How can you tank without being a tank?

It don’t have a problem with there not being any tanks or healers. You seem to have a problem with the suggestion there might actually already be those though.

The imbalance is simple:
Berzerker gear allows high DPS, high support, high control, 100% survivability.
Other gear allows medium to low DPS, high support, high control, 100% survivability.

How is that not imbalanced?

other gear allows high survivability without player skill needed. thats actually imbalance and bad for an action skill based combat system.

dps gear = high dps, high risk, high reward
tanky healing gear = low dps, low risk (high survivability), high reward

option 2 is actually imbalanced because no player skill is needed.
and facetanking is far away from being a real tank.

again, this discussion is not about making play how you want builds king. its about designing content. stay on topic please and create a different topic if you would like to discuss play how you want builds and their negative impact on the community and the game as a whole.

thank you

That all depends on how skillful you find the dodge mechanic. Sacrificing DPS for nothing is contraproductive game design, and in a topic such as raiding, it’s fair to question the existence of stats on gear to begin with when over 90% of the stat combinations serve no purpose.
Learning to dodge is something everyone can do.

There’s no need to fence with something as loaded as ‘play how you want builds’. I believe that has no constructivity to it whatsoever. Oh, and thanks for lumping me in with ‘the people’ defending undefendable builds, as if to suggest I ever said any of the sort.

My premise is simple:
DPS should not be tied to gear if Support and Control aren’t expected to be.
Support and Control should be tied to gear if DPS is expected to be.

How much challenge can we expect from a raid when the game at no point informs people of this choice of gear? I don’t think I, or anyone else for that matter, would be happy if we could do a raid all wearing soldier gear without anyone even getting downed because the boss can’t hit us hard enough.
Can we make it so that in raids everyone’s stats are normalised?

Again, there’s no inherent risk attached to DPS gear. If there is, I’d like you to show that.

Dalanor.5387:

Naetell.3815:

You say you can facetank it all, then say there are no tanks.
That’s quite the conundrum. How can you tank without being a tank?

Are you really that dense or just trolling?

Neither, but thanks for asking.

NoTrigger.8396:

Naetell.3815:

By what metric do you determine what should and shouldn’t be in a game with or without trinity?
Would action-based combat suffer under removing such imbalance?

are you talking about the imbalance that every single encounter in this game can be facetanked without a single dodge needed and therefore tanky and healing gear is ridiculously overpowered to the point that players are able to ignore even the key of the combat system, dodge?

you dont need metrics, you just have to look at the combat system and how professions are designed. this is not world of warcraft. we dont have tanks and healers. accept it please

You say you can facetank it all, then say there are no tanks.
That’s quite the conundrum. How can you tank without being a tank?

It don’t have a problem with there not being any tanks or healers. You seem to have a problem with the suggestion there might actually already be those though.

The imbalance is simple:
Berzerker’s and Assassin’s gear allows high DPS, high support, high control, 100% survivability.
Other gear allows medium to low DPS, high support, high control, 100% survivability.

How is that not imbalanced?

Edit: Added Assassin’s for completeness

NoTrigger.8396:

Astralporing.1957:

NoTrigger.8396:

and the wildstar raid content is full stop the best raiding content any MMO has ever released.

Noone is saying Wildstar failed because it’s raiding content was bad. It started having problems, because that raiding content turned out to be not as important to the players as devs expected. They decided to devote too much effort to those raids, and as a result the rest of the game suffered – and as it turned out, it was the rest of the game, not raids, that players really cared about.

they have different teams for every single part of the game. the raiding content has nothing to do with everything else in the game.
its not because they focused too much on the raids.

Astralporing.1957:

That’s an important lesson for GW2 as well – while making raids don’t forget, that only a tiny minority of players cares about them, and that they should not pretend to be more important than they are (which is – not much). Because if you put too much emphasis on raids, gw2 as a whole will suffer for it.

they should not forget about the other parts of the game, thats true and they wont.
but i disagree with “tiny minority”. look at how big this thread already is. if the raiding content is good, many people will care about it. alot more people than you would expect.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

But that’s not how it works at all… Currently all your dps comes from your gear, and all your support/cc comes from your utilities. They are completely separate. There is no support gear or CC gear. I can do 100% dps and 100% support if I am capable of dodging. Or I can do 50% dps and 100% support. The only difference is what gear I am wearing.

thats how it should be in a game without a trinity and with an action based combat system.

By what metric do you determine what should and shouldn’t be in a game with or without trinity?
Would action-based combat suffer under removing such imbalance?

spoj.9672:

ZudetGambeous.9573:

NoTrigger.8396:

moiraine.2753:

Of the current roles that exist (support,control,damage) in instances only 1 is viable at this moment.And that is pure dmg.

thats wrong. every optimal build brings as much support and cc as possible and sacrifices dps to achieve that.

But that’s not how it works at all… Currently all your dps comes from your gear, and all your support/cc comes from your utilities. They are completely separate. There is no support gear or CC gear. I can do 100% dps and 100% support if I am capable of dodging. Or I can do 50% dps and 100% support. The only difference is what gear I am wearing.

Thats what makes gw2 good. Theres no forced re-gearing. Support should be independant of gear. We dont have dedicated tanks or healers in this game so there is no need for gear to define a supportive role. If you change this you will cause more exclusivity which is what most people in this thread dont want.

Support should be independant of gear, control should be independant of gear. Those are fine sentiments to have, but then why insist on having DPS roles tied to gear?
Looking at it from an action game perspective, DPS is the problem role here atm, not support or control.

Crystal Reid.2481:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

timmyf.1490:

Sure thing, Chris. I feel like the discussion of rewards progression in particular could use some guidance. I had suggested earlier a system by which players could earn Legendary Raid Armor through a progression system. I was expecting a lot of strong reactions, but I mostly heard silence.

Curious as to what others think. Personally, I think raids need unique (read: can only be earned in raids) reward skins that are earned either through RNG or a progression system. (Meaning: you can get them as a drop if you’re lucky, but you get a fixed-effort backup option as well.)

Edit: here was that post. https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Guilds-Raiding/4529755

Crystal is taking point on progression and I am taking point on foundational design.

I am sure she will see your post soon.

Her discussion area is doing better than mine (-: so yes maybe it is time to focus in on some of the ideas in that area.

Chris

P.S: Note the Seahawks game is on soon and I will afk!!

Thanks for bumping this and bringing to my attention. That is definitely a cool idea, but of course it does touch a little on the topic of gear progression. So here are some more questions for you with regards to your proposal:

• Is Legendary armor better than Ascended armor stat wise?
• Can this legendary armor be obtained anywhere else in the game?
• How do we prevent the introduction of Legendary armor from invalidating players who spent a lot of time/money crafting their Ascended armor?
• Is this a drop from raid encounters, or is it obtained through a “raiding reward track”?

I think you can see where I’m going with this. Ascended armor is already a pretty hotly debated topic because it did introduce a very slight vertical progression to the game.

1) Legendary armor shouldn’t be better stat-wise, just like Legendary weapons are like Ascended weapons. They should look unique and have the stat-swapping ability to set them apart from Ascended.
2) Personally, I’d make it so that it can be obtained from other parts of the game, much like crafting a legendary weapon is possible.
3) Make one of the final parts of the legendary armor craft be: Ascended Armor + 3 Gifts and factor the cost of that Ascended Armor into what the various gifts for legendary armor cost.
4) Instead of making a full legendary armor drop from a raid or a raid reward track, raids could drop various ‘Gifts of …’ instead, so that raid time investment approximates the legendary crafting time investment.

cesmode.4257:

Snip…

To remind everyone of early WoW days pain, I have the following two words for you:
Mushroom Dragon.

Dalanor.5387:

As currently is, dungeons can be beaten in multiple ways. Being full tanky or full offensive works as well and everything in between. But … The problem is, as i interpret the suggestions, that people wish for mish-mash so called “playhowiwant” builds should be viable or simply optimal. You know, no logical choice in traits and skills and little to no synergy. Also about the statement that build choice doesn’t affect difficulty watch this golden piece material please. Slightly outdated but still entertaining.

Actually, I’ve solod CM path 3 naked and traitless before, with just my exotic weapons just to prove the point that gear and traits are pointless in this game right now.
So, that doesn’t mean full tanky or full offensive are equal. They’re viable, sure, but so is going naked. I don’t think that’s how the game should be balanced.

The call and want for these ‘playhowIwant’ builds are much less a thing than the forums would have it seem. In the game, I haven’t met anyone who thinks any combination of traits/gear/skills should work. For discussion purposes, it’s no more than a strawman argument.

Also, ‘hey, I found something broken, let’s generalise,’ is often not a good idea either.
That’s why patching and rebalancing exists. Oneshotting bosses etc falls in the same category as being invincible.

Dalanor.5387:

Scaling would be just bad. First, it would be a nightmare to balance it out. It’s can be an issue already if they tailor it to lvl80 exotic players with a fix number (let’s say 15 players) and now if you add low lvl characters and less than 15 players … Ahh just no.
Secondly it removes a big chunk of competitive potential from the game mode.
You made a world record with a full raid? Yay, you are great!
You made a world record with 5 people? Let me worship you!

Oh please. It’s one thing not to have any faith in the developers’ math skills, but this is just looking at it in one specific way only.
Instead of scaling the low lvls up like in WvW, or scaling the raid down, you could just make them temporary lvl 80’s while in the raiding zone wearing raiding zone exotic gear. They wouldn’t be underpowered or overpowered, and you can still do one better by actually being 80 and showing up in full ascended.

Scaling by numbers, the developers know the answer to that better than we do, and in fact, that question has already been answered. So, no worries there.

Dalanor.5387:

Everybody is aware of how the average player performs in GW2, right? No need to
exaggerate, they aren’t that skilled, simple as that. I’m not sure that this is the playerbase ANet should cater with raids even if it’s the majority. No elitism included.

Now let’s pour everyting together and … Where is the challenge if such design points will become a thing? Get my point?

Skill is not set in stone. It’s a function measured in time. With raids, these players will have more opportunities to become better players.
Their personal performance should not, and does not, dictate where the raiding discussion goes.
Otherwise they’d be hosting a CDI for gamedevs only, I’d imagine.

The concern that a ‘less-skilled’ player’s idea of challenging isn’t the same that as of another player, is moot. Even between players of equal skill, there’s little definition of what’s challenging and what’s not. With the prevalence and popularity of Dark Souls, I think many players know the difference between a challenge, a theme park ride, and ‘I Want To Be The Guy’ even if they cannot complete all of those.

Dalanor.5387:

tl;dr:
1. Optimized builds works now and should be work in raids as well.
2. Scaling shouldn’t be an option due to above mentioned reasons.
3. Difficulty should be at least that hard as in other instanced contents.

As an ex-raider myself, I will reinforce the idea that one build shouldn’t work for all raids, just like all builds shouldn’t work for all raids. Every raid should have its own quirks and mechanics to promote players trying new things with their characters.

As for 3, I agree, and I’d prefer difficulty to be a lot higher than that; but that’s just me. ^^

Xae Isareth.1364:

You can’t have a raid be doable with any build/class you want. Well, you can, but there’s no point doing that because everyone will end up using the most efficient setup anyways.

The only reason tanks and healers exist in MMOs is because the game specifically needs them in the solution. If you get rid of that enforced restriction, then we’ll just get a repeat of what we have now: everyone running the same full zerker builds.

On the point of the topic. It’s going to sound weird, but I don’t think the raid should be very challenging, at least not at same level as Wildstar or WoW.

Look at the game at the moment. There’s nothing preparing you for challenging content. There’s Arah P4 and Aetherpath but they are barely run, so to add a really difficult raid would be a complete curveball.

Actually, even if you wouldn’t enforce tanks and healers, you’d still get tanking and healing in raiding content in WoW. Imagine if everyone has a self-heal skill and a dodge button in that game. Would that reduce the need for tanks and healers? Sure.
Would running 25 DPS in a raid be the most efficient at that point? Nope.
23 DPS, 1 tank, and 1 healer would be the most efficient, because that would reduce the need for the 23 DPS to dodge, and thus they wouldn’t lose cycles to dodging motions. Said lost cycles will be greater in DPS than the damage added by 2 other players. That’s the reason no one runs full DPS skills in GW2 either.

I know the line of thought though. I’ve been a top DPS raiding player in WoW back in the day. Amongst DPS players, there is this idea that DPS is all that matters, and everyone else is just there to make sure you can do your thing. You’re the most important one, after all. No DPS, no dead boss.
There’s also the popular notion that everyone would play DPS if they could, because clearly it is the most fun to play. Healing is just filling bars, and tanking is just pressing 5 buttons over and over again while watching an aggro bar fill up.

That’s nothing to say about the other roles, which have been so generously forgotten by today’s MMO design.

Raid example: Mordremoth

Deep in the jungle, a group of heroes face the Elder Dragon Mordremoth.
The Elder Dragon eyes the heroes, before any of them can make a move, he summons vine walls sweeping through the area, blocking the path to him.
The heroes have to cut their way through the vines, careful not to hit the poisonous ones, for they spell certain death. While they are hacking a path to the dragon, they are assailed by Elite Mordrem from all sides. During this chaos, one hero has to carry the Corrupted Magic Bomb, the only weapon that can weaken the Elder Dragon.
If the heroes do not reach Mordremoth in time, he unleashes his powerful breath attack that is sure to send the heroes back to square one. Time is short, and while the heroes reach the dragon, they know the worst is yet to come.
The bomb is set in position, and the dragon is weakened. Mordremoth roars as he loses his focus momentarily and sweeps wildly with his talons and wings.

The heroes attack the dragon, but his scales are tough and conditions don’t seem to stick to him.
Mordremoth, now annoyed, targets one of the heroes and brings his claw down. The hero evades, but the shockwave hits several others and knocks them down.
Upon seeing someone knocked down, Mordremoth wastes no time and summons thorny vines from the ground, tying these heroes up while causing massive bleeding. If the struck heroes are not freed, they don’t have long.
At the same time, other heroes have reached his the tail of the beast, and attack it from behind while being wary of his tail sweeps and hind legs, for a mere touch of those would knock them back or down, sentencing them to the same thorny doom.

The corruption is taking its toll on the dragon as seconds pass. His attacks slow down, he’s getting out of breath. The dragon slumps, and calls for his champions.
Three massive champions drop down while Mordremoth begins channeling a spell to restore his strength.
These champions look alike, but each has different properties. The locations of which champion spawns where is random. There is no way for the heroes to know what these champions are other than figuring it out as fast as possible.
On top of that, these champions are linked to each other, and will not fall untill all of them do.
One champion is weak to conditions, but one of his skills will convert conditions into boons. Non-condition damage will heal him instead.
Another champion is weak to direct damage, but has permanent retaliation, and every condition on him will increase his power exponentially. He has a draw conditions to himself spell, so keep him away from the others.
The third champion is perhaps the strangest, no attack seems to work on him, but he also deals very little damage. In fact, his attack skills have incredible hit counts, but each hit doesn’t do more than 2 to 3 damage to the heroes by itself. If this champion is near the other champions though, he will heal them.

If the champions fall before Mordremoth’s spell is finished, the heroes can directly attack the Elder Dragon and hopefully leave a dent on him.
The dragon recovers and lets out a massive shockwave, knocking the heroes to the sides of the arena before he casts his vine maze spell again.

When Modremoth is wounded, he will get angry, at which point he will spend less time trying to mend himself and more time trying to destroy his opponents. Cycles get longer, his attack patterns change, and the jungle grows thicker.
Over time, visibility will decrease as light fades and darkness takes hold of the arena.

If Mordremoth is almost defeated, he will use his wings to shield himself while summoning a horde of champions to protect him, sharing his power with them while he draws life from the earth itself.
For each of these champions defeated, the other remaining champions become stronger. If all champions are defeated, Mordremoth resumes his fight against the heroes. For every minute the champions are not defeated, Mordremoth regains 5% of his Max HP.

So, was everyone able to picture how it would feel to fight this thing?

Great summary. Thanks for taking the time to do this.

Dalanor.5387:

Waikd.4632:

Regarding the reward progression of raid encounters:

I believe there should be:
1. Consistently high (monetary) rewards.

• Doing difficult content with an organized group should be flat out the best way to make money in GW2. There must be a significant difference in compensation between rubbing your face on the keyboard in a zerg (e.g. halloween content, event farm trains, EoTM), and actual difficult content.

• Say a player on his own, doing easy content, can make 10-13g per hour. A raid which is expected to last 2.5 – 3 hours, and has an entrance fee of 10g per person could for example then easily reward 50g per person, or items that can be sold for an equivalent value of 50g. Rewards that could be considered here are ascended armour inscriptions.

I’m pretty sure a lot of people would flip the table due to these.
2-3 hour raids are way too long to this game with this fast paced combat and that amount of gold generated out of thin air is just too much if it’s not weekly gated.

You wouldn’t have to spend all 2-3 hours in there in go. Raids in other games save your progress, there’s no reason why GW2 wouldn’t be able to.

Dalanor.5387:

Exactlly this mindset what frustrates a lot of regular forum users from the Dungeon sub. People in the CDI requires challenging content meanwhile want beat it no matter what they use (gear and build), how many player they have (scaling), what skill they have (pug friendly) therefore turn the whole challenging content into non-challenging.
These proposals aren’t request for challenging content just for a different content that has the same “gimme reward now when i push the i win button” difficulty.
Honorable mention to the exceptions again.

Seen this multiple times in this thread now and would like to post the following clarification:

RE: Difficulty

Allowing content to be scalable; completable with multiple builds, class combinations, gear sets, and whatnot, says nothing about the difficulty of said content.
It is well within the realm of possibility to create a challange with more than one solution.

As multiple people have now voiced said strange comparison between X and Y are the reasons the game isn’t difficult and referenced the dungeon subforums, it is far more likely that this is an idea permeating within the dungeon subforum and not elsewhere in the game. This is not a development problem.

RE: People outside of the Dungeon subforum community

They are not poor players, or whatever. This has never been a we vs them issue.
Please focus on the raiding, not the players. This is not a trial, this is a game development discussion.

Crysto.7089:

I’m just scratching my head at so many of these suggestions. I haven’t read past CDI threads but this is really depressing more than anything else. Its not a matter coming up with how to resolve an issue with someone’s suggestion when the core idea of it is just so against what I enjoy about the game.

Then maybe raiding isn’t for you. Just like PvP isn’t for everyone, etc.
If you mean something else, you’ll need to clarify your position.

maha.7902:

This thread is full of people vehemently opposed to raiding giving “ideas”. This thread is full of people vehemently opposed to any sort of skilled play giving “ideas”.

That is why it is a discussion. People opposed to raiding can still offer a valuable perspective, which in turn can give a creative person ideas on how to solve said percieved problems without compromising the integrity of what raiding is.
If no one would ever listen to people opposed to a concept, our technology would never have advanced to where it is today. The fact you can play a videogame on the internet is because of dissatisfied people.
It’s a better idea to address their concerns, rather than dismiss them. In fact, what many people have against raiding is exclusion to begin with, and they are not wrong.

As for people opposed to skilled play, I haven’t seen anyone speak up against that, so you might want to point them out to me.

maha.7902:

Do you see why skillful players are frustrated with this thread when they’re just being drowned out by endless complaining about the imaginary stacking problem, people who have deluded themselves in to thinking support doesn’t matter, and suggestions like upscales being allowed to raid (as if that wouldn’t dilute the difficulty or anything) or making the rewards terrible so people wouldn’t be “required” (ok just how people are “required” to flip the TP or do dungeons to make money ohwaittheyarent) to raid.

As a skillful player, I do not feel frustrated with any of the above. I consider them parts of an ongoing discussion, and not something to anger myself at. There is no need to project your personal feelings on everyone else.

And yes, some of those are strange sentiments to have, but they are being repeated by one or two people in total, which is far from what anyone would describe as a popular idea. In fact, there are more people arguing against their ideas than there are people arguing for those ideas. The most constructive voices are trying to find a middle ground that doesn’t compromise on difficulty or anything.

Let’s invoke Godwin, that’ll lend credibility to your argument.

Ohoni.6057:

In that case, I’d like C to be: Get rewards while doing my job, so I can make money and play the game at the same time.

Yeah, which is kind of the point, this is a game, if you aren’t having fun then the devs have done something wrong. If you’re playing the game, you should be doing the activities you enjoy, not the activities that are a chore to you but that offer the loot you’re looking for.

I guess we’ll just have to agree to disagree on this one.
In my opinion and experience, having no unique rewards in areas like this partially devaluates the content.
Luckily for me, it seems most people here share my point of view on this particular matter.

And a certain recent sci-fi MMO crashed against the reef of believing that people in raid-oriented threads were representative of their larger game population. I would expect most people in this thread to be all for raids getting whatever raiders want and forget about everyone else, but don’t expect that the larger community to be happy with that outcome if it happens.

But Prestige is directly lined to the inability for it to be acquired by alternative means or traded. The entire value is on the basis that the person MUST have completed the content themselves and that the content is an impressive feat to complete.

Prestige should not be attached to gear. Gear should be about style and widely available. If you like under the delusion that other players are impressed by what you do, and care what gear you equip, then Titles are good enough to establish that. There should not be skins that only “the cool kids” can get.

In that case, you’d argue in favour of making all gear unbounded, so everything can be bought on the trading post.
After all, you make gold with everything you do in the game, so none of the rewards would be out of your reach then.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Evening All,

Relics of Orr podcast about the CDI below:

http://www.relicsoforr.com/?p=3403

‘In this special episode we chat with guest host Soren of Gaiscíoch about the Raiding CDI and how Guild Wars 2 could create unique raids.’

Chris

P.S: Thanks Relics of Orr and Soren for your feedback.

Nice. Thanks for the link.

Ohoni.6057:

And that’s pretty much my point. You shouldn’t have to do A or B, there’s should be a C) do the things I enjoy doing and also be able to progress towards those rewards. I’m by no means saying that the current game is in a perfect state on that regard, so bringing up areas that currently don’t work is irrelevant, all I’m saying is that I don’t want to see raiding make it even worse, by adding a whole new area of the game that many players just will not enjoy, and locking more cool skins behind it.

In that case, I’d like C to be: Get rewards while doing my job, so I can make money and play the game at the same time.

NoTrigger.8396:

Naetell.3815:

That’s what I’ve been saying for a long time now. The stats/traits/skills balance in this game is horrible.
Not just for raids, but for all of GW2, this is a severe limiting factor in what you can do.

your " horrible balance " is the reason why the combat system keeps alot of people hooked in PvE.

the game was advertised with “this is a skill based game” and not “this is a facetank game”.

Fixing that won’t make this a facetank game, or less of a skill based game. In fact, it could make it more skill based. You’ve got to stop thinking in terms of A or B, when this is clearly not a binary question.

phys.7689:

in this game you are actually wrong. Theres is very little use for other playstyles to use the other stats.

• Control is COMPLETELY decided by skills/traits/runes/sigils no stat gives you an advantage on control other than immobilize and cripple, and thats a minimal gain for a huge stat disadvantage
• Support is mostly decided by skills/traits/runes/sigils except for healing, which is a stat who would only be extremely useful if they forced you to take damage no matter what you do. Which imo would be a bad design for this game. Might, protection, swiftness vigor, blinds weakness aegis stability etc, minimal effect through gear stats, and overall not worth it. you go all out and sacrifice most of your stats, and you ll get like what 60%? duration? A coordinated team would be better off having one other person use support skills/abilities because that would give at least double uptime.
• durability is somewhat effected by stats, but skillful play mitigates it way better than any stat, skill full play by a group of people would still mitigate it better. Proper use of aegis, groups using protection, and weakness. proper use of reflects, walls, sheild skills will always way outweigh the benefit of a stat.

Like it or not, right now, this game your stats have little to do with your role. what skills/traits/runes/sigils you pick determines your role. Stats determine how fast stuff dies, and how many mistakes you can make. This design is why the berzerker meta exists. unless they start to make stats effect skills more than just passive offense versus passive defense, this will always be the case.

That’s what I’ve been saying for a long time now. The stats/traits/skills balance in this game is horrible.
Not just for raids, but for all of GW2, this is a severe limiting factor in what you can do.

Zephyron.7081:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Iason Evan.3806:

I think a lot of the discussions so far have been really cookie cutter and not outside the box. I understand wanting to take raiding that you love and just plop it wholesale into GW2. Let’s brainstorm though.

• Make raiding gear uniform—when you start the raid you get to pick gear at a vendor from various stat selections—

• Players can side kick up to 80 in Raids so that anyone can do them at whatever level. The level cap in this game isn’t going anywhere so why do Raids need to be considered only playable by level 80 characters?

• Have Raids where groups of players fight each other at the end. If only one group is playing it defaults to NPCs.

• I’d like to see a Raid where players get to be the boss. If no player is available then it’s an NPC. You could have a gauntlet-style-defense-point-raid where a group of players are 5 different bosses sequentially fighting against another group of players trying to complete the Raid.

• Can we make Control classes mean something more in Raids? Support? Maybe doing DPS to a Raid Boss in a certain situation isn’t even possible. You have to do other things in order to bring the boss down.

Let’s spend a few pages of this CDI getting away from traditional notions of what Raids are and spend some time coming up with things that have never been done.

Yes can we please move away from the traditional tropes of raiding and discuss how to utilize the core mechanics of GW2 to create a new type of challenging co-operative instanced content.

We also don’t need to talk about levels or scaling for the time being.

And those that want to continue to chat with Crystal about progression then please do so.

Chris

I agree…more out of the box ideas are needed. The suggestions made above are awesome!

Especially these ideas:

• Have Raids where groups of players fight each other at the end. If only one group is playing it defaults to NPCs.

• I’d like to see a Raid where players get to be the boss. If no player is available then it’s an NPC. You could have a gauntlet-style-defense-point-raid where a group of players are 5 different bosses sequentially fighting against another group of players trying to complete the Raid.

You may want to also look at the new Fable game in development. Merge aspects of PvE and PvP. The most gratifying experience is defeating another human mind.

Rewards seem to be a bone of contention for most. I suggest GW2 only offers Gold for a reward upon completion of a very long raid. LOTS of Gold!

Raids should be at least four hours long to complete if done successfully the first time through without wiping.

Note for those who haven’t played any raids ever before:
Four hours sounds like a huge time commitment, but the idea behind raiding is kind of like a huge dungeon you don’t have to finish in one day. You can do a part now, and then another tomorrow.
They often reset on a weekly or bi-weekly basis.