Guild Wars 2

Interesting post. Im one of the people advocating raids, however I would want it to impact the people who dont raid as much as possible. A few rules that would need to be followed for any kind of raiding in this game.

1) No gear grind.
2) No gated content so anything that is a raid must also be able to be experienced as a dungeon or dynamic event. For example a instanced Dynamic event to replace raids would also offer that content as an open world dynamic event.
3) No raid only gear. Anything found in a raid should also be found elsewhere in the game.
4) Dont make raiding the whole game focus. Continue to release other stuff alongside raids. Try to come up with an idea that reuses other content. For example 10 / 20 person versions of current dungeons.
5) Offer something challenging that requires teamwork.
6) Be instanced and schedulable.
7) Be for 5 + people.

Your idea does well in following these rules. The only issue I see with it is being able to balance this properly so it doesnt turn into another zerg like the world events. I would love to be able to take as many guildies as I have into one of these though. Not having to worry if people are gonna show up.

Alice.8694:

I’ve yet to see an argument posed in support of raiding that cannot simply be used to improve 5 man and world events.

You should really be trying to make the case that raids bring something these do not. And if you cannot make a case for raiding that doesn’t also fit into these categories fine, perhaps you should be asking for improvements of world events and 5 mans instead. Since this is more likely to happen than instanced raiding dungeons.

World events offer the scale but not the challenge. Dungeons offer the challenge but not the scale. World events dont scale well when the zerg arrives.

blakkrskyrr.7413:

Drapar.1589:

blakkrskyrr.7413:

the only thing I can see as being good raid material is the charr siege of ascalon fractal, only larger scale and more involved than running to a gate and making your way through streets to defeat a boss. nothing too lengthy though. I never did WoW raids because I never had the time.

they didnt take that long tbh.

if you didnt have a kitten group / wipes.

ok. but apparently they would take nigh upon 4 hours straight to complete. at least that’s what i’ve been told by a friend who did them all the time.

4 hours sounds about right but you could do that over several nights. 2 × 2 hours was the norm for my guild.

domxnik.1453:

Let’s get this straight, people. Everyone who doesn’t want raids are obviously scared because of how other games have done them. You all have seen Guild Wars 2, and we know how differently they do things.

Why are we asking for raids or dungeons that allow more people? Because guild that have a active community have nothing to do together, especially if they are a PvE endgame guild. The guild has to split up and do easy dungeons in groups of five. Sure, meta events need a revamp, but I don’t see them becoming harder since everyone is allowed.

We need raids for guilds on the PvE endgame side, that are looking for a large group challenge other than those events. There doesn’t have the be better gear, just skins, like dungeons. They could revamp dungeons and make them harder, but that still doesn’t bring more guild members together like raiding does.

nice post

Drapar.1589:

AcidicVision.5498:

Why is this in suggestions now? The OP was a question, and we are discussing the merits and issues with larger party, instanced PvE content and it’s impact on “end-game” perceptions. Besides some hypothetical solutions to convey an idea, this wasn’t a suggestion thread, so why condemn it to the abyss?

Moderator has moved it + renamed the tittle since my english is crap.

They removed your title because your english is bad and replace it with “Why not make more dungeons and like raids or sort of?”?

Really? That sentence is bad, bad english. The correct way to chage your thread title would be to say “Why not make raid versions of the current 5 mans”. or evn better to tell the whole story “A discussion on how to implement large scale, raid like content without damaging the game”

Hyde.6189:

There’s no reason that 5-man encounters can’t be made just as difficult and interesting as any raid encounter. Unfortunately none of the encounters in GW2 are that great, except maybe a couple of those in Arah, but that’s just because ANet’s PvE encounter design needs some work, not because we need raids.

Of course you can make 5 man just as challenging as raids. No one will question that. This isnt about whether 5 mans are difficult. We want raids because we want that difficulty but with a larger group so our whole guild can join in. I do agree the 5 mans do need looking at a bit in terms of encounter design and structure.

AcidicVision.5498:

Would it make some of you feel better to just remove the word “raid”, and change it to “larger, challenging, group focused PvE activities that require team coordination”?

We don’t have that now. World bosses are massive zergs where the other players might as well be NPCs for all they effect you. An occasional boon, maybe a res if you screw up. They don’t know what you are doing, you don’t know what they are doing, and it really doesn’t matter. Might as well be playing with 30 Trehearnes.

Dungeons (with minor exception) are rote and can be done with no communication other than the occasional “skip this”, “ill run this”, " ::ping lucky drop in /p ::". Even Fractals are straight forward enough that parties don’t need to communicate.

In GW, over the course of seven years, you could have done Underworld or Fissure of Woe hundreds of time with other people that have also done it hundreds of times, but you would all still have to chat, plan, ping mobs, doodle approaches on the map. And when you failed, you failed hard. It was brilliant.

That’s what people are asking for, all stigmas of a “raid” removed, we want to play with larger groups of people through content that demands more and challenges us as players and as a cooperative, cohesive, highly functional group.

I really like your posts acidic.

Vorch.2985:

Ubung.7423:

Vorch.2985:

There is no need for large group content to be instanced, imo. That is the most exclusionary concept of raids.

There are already dungeons that do this. All were asking is to make the groups inside them larger so we dont have to split up.

.

I would be ok with multi-team instances that require 2, 3, or even 4 teams of five to coordinate in order to complete them (the more teams, the harder it would be to implement). This would keep enemies balanced to 5 man teams while giving people who love raids the mass coordination they desire

However, I am adamantly against large 10-20+ man teams in instances. In these large groups, individuals tend to work less as the expect the rest of the group to pick up the slack. This then leads to people asking for dps meters and the like to make sure people are all contributing (people already asking for these now…). It also allows the slackers to receive the same rewards.

It also leads to even more exclusionary behaviors such as requiring the showing of build and equipment (things that are already happening in 5-man groups).

With content balanced to smaller groups, you don’t need to have add-ons and the like to know if people are pulling their weight. The group simply fails. As such, you need everyone to be much more active. Sure, there are going to be people who contribute more to the success of the group. Still, if you have 2 or more of these individuals, the group will struggle and quite possibly fail.

I actually think that the lack of tanks and healers in the game would stop any slacking in the raid. Becuase they dont have a tank to protect them or a healer to keep em up when they screw up then they would have to be more active and contibute more to the group. If not they would die and keep dying and then you have to train them to be better.

As for forcing showing builds and other such nonsenese, well people will be people. Pretty much everything has a downside if people misuse the tools given to them.

xiv.7136:

cesmode.4257:

I want to also add that while we are talking about “fight mechanics”, arenanet needs to get more creative and not just add tons of HP and one-shot abilities. Taking 5-10 minutes to kill a dungeon boss wouldn’t be all that bad if the mechanics were a bit more interesting than “stay out of red circles, and kite the boss”.

I know that this has been brought up many times in many threads, and I hope they have a team of people working on it.

You must not have done any 80 dungeons.

Fractals are full of crazy and complex mechanics.

Even CoF has a lot of mechanics for several bosses. And don’t get started on Arah.

While your right there are examples of good bosses in the game there are also quite a lot that are how he described them.

Korrigan.4837:

I’m even against 10 man raids. As I said, 5 people are easy to get “on the fly”, even in smaller guilds. 10 man are already harder to get together, and will require organization and scheduling. Not to mention that 10 man dungeons will mean 10 man dungeon gear, which will become the best gear, and therefore forcing people to do those 10 man dungeons to remain competitive.

Ubung.7423:

Fair question. This is because anything open world can be joined in by anyone. Whether they be a fresh lvl 80 or an experienced dungeoner. For the content to be challenging enough the fear of failure must be a large part. So when someone new to 80 comes a long and does things wrong (no hate for him, hes just new) he will cause the event to fail. Therefore the challenge of the encounter is very random depending on who joins.

See my previous post (the one following what you quoted). Other games, like EQ, didn’t have raids in instances, yet still provided highly challenging large group content.

I never played EQ so i cannot judge. I can only judge based on my own experience and from both wow and gw2 open world bosses just arnt challenging due to the zergy nature of those events. They were fun they just didnt provide a challenge.

cesmode.4257:

I want to also add that while we are talking about “fight mechanics”, arenanet needs to get more creative and not just add tons of HP and one-shot abilities. Taking 5-10 minutes to kill a dungeon boss wouldn’t be all that bad if the mechanics were a bit more interesting than “stay out of red circles, and kite the boss”.

I know that this has been brought up many times in many threads, and I hope they have a team of people working on it.

I agree.

cesmode.4257:

Ubung.7423:

Wait why am i seeing several people so much against raiding then say 10 man dungeons would be fine? Is there some confusion here. All a raid is, is a group made up of multiplae parties. So anytrhing above 5 people is a raid.

A raid is not defined by gear grind, locked off content or exclusive gear. All these are added to raids. They do not define the raid.

I am against raiding because of what follows. I am OK with 10 mans because most guilds could form a group to experience the content, even very small ones. If the content was made for 20 or 25 people, this then forces the player to be part of a larger guild if he/she wants to experience the content. Limiting it to 10 is perfectly sound.

I am against raids in general because what follows is a gear treadmill, more powerful items only obtainable via raids, it encourages the elitist progressives which in my opinion is not what this game is about… If arenanet put in a 10 man raid with only unique skins, no stat upgrades at all, I would be OK with it. If the skins were purely skins, no stats at all…

Fair enough. Tbh whatever group sizes they offer 10 should be one of them. Its 2 x a normal group so it aint too hard to fill. I think they should put in two group sizes, 10 and 20. As for the other issues with raiding your right ive already accepted that. They dont need to be in the game to add raids. I will happily fight alongside you guys to keep that out of the game.

Also the content can be reused from other parts of the game and just tuned for larger groups. Both instanced DE’s and 10 / 20 man dungeons would provide what we want while still allowing other people to access the content in either the outer world or the 5 man versions.

Korrigan.4837:

Ubung.7423:

Instanced Dynamic Events would be a unique raiding proposition.

Why instanced? Why ruin the massive multiplayer by turning the game into a lobby games where people wait to do dungeons?

They need to add more complex events IN THE OPEN WORLD. If one really needs that “raid” fix, he can find it in other games, and still play GW2 too thanks to its subscription model.

Fair question. This is because anything open world can be joined in by anyone. Whether they be a fresh lvl 80 or an experienced dungeoner. For the content to be challenging enough the fear of failure must be a large part. So when someone new to 80 comes a long and does things wrong (no hate for him, hes just new) he will cause the event to fail. Therefore the challenge of the encounter is very random depending on who joins.

Vorch.2985:

There is no need for large group content to be instanced, imo. That is the most exclusionary concept of raids.

There are already dungeons that do this. All were asking is to make the groups inside them larger so we dont have to split up.

Sylv im just not gonna respond to you now becuase you seem adamant in trying to put words into my mouth. I have made my feelings clear in this and several other threads.

JSmooth.7654:

cesmode.4257:

Zeldain.5710:

cesmode.4257:

Im curious what all of the pro-raid folks thought the end game would be when they purchased GW2. Or did you think you could eventually influence Arenanet to cater to your needs(the progression-style endgame that most of the MMO community likes)?

Whether or not arenanet always had plans to put in ascended gear(which they did), theres your progression via fractals. This already PO’d so many people. Isnt this enough for you guys?

Point 1: There is no way that I believed ArenaNet wouldn’t have some type of content for guilds, in the form of at least large-scale instances. Or progression. It’s like we’re living in an alternate reality – “COME PLAY GUILD WARS WHERE YOU WILL NEVER SEE YOUR GUILD!”

Point 2: See point 1. 5 people aren’t a guild. They’re on the right track with fractals but they need a) more progression and b) larger numbers (minimum of 10 players, preferably 20 or above.)

Well, let me show you the door to exit GW2 and the door to enter WoW. Anet has not ruled out 10 mans, but they do not want raids. I dont see why the playerbase feels they could change this.

I think I know the answer… it is mechanics and group coordination. I dare say that most of the current content, be it current dungeons or open-world, does not require a lot of either. I believe when the players say, “We want raids!”, they actually want complicated/fun fights that requires a larger group of players to coordinate with each-other and actually think about what they’re doing. A lot of the current content could fill this void, but doesn’t in execution… IE zerg fest/corpse run.

Indeed we do, thank you. I understand peoples fears of it turning into another wow but thats not what most of us want despite what people may have seen.

Vorch.2985:

You could grab the commander title and have a group take on a temple of the gods. You can even argue that there should be more content in the PERSISTANT world that requires complex coordination of lots of people.

Or you could make an argument for dungeons that require two 5-man teams to coordinate with each other.

However, I don’t think that GW2 should simply slap on raids. It’s better to offer something unique rather than go blow for blow with more established games.

Instanced Dynamic Events would be a unique raiding proposition. Imagine a raid where parts of it affected other parts. So for example if you put down some extra mobs in a side area at the start it cuts of reinforcements for the third boss. Or the resources of a mine can be rerouted to your party so you can make a boss easier.

As for the outdoor stuff i dont think they can make it difficult enough whilst keeping it inclusionary for the outdoor world people. Whether or not its instanced your still saying to people cant just join in and help.

Wait why am i seeing several people so much against raiding then say 10 man dungeons would be fine? Is there some confusion here. All a raid is, is a group made up of multiplae parties. So anytrhing above 5 people is a raid.

A raid is not defined by gear grind, locked off content or exclusive gear. All these are added to raids. They do not define the raid.

ASB.4295:

And now with vertical progression becoming a major focus in GW2, there’s no reason not to use raid instances(like Urgoz/Deep) to give the large majority of players what they want: a real challenge and meaningful rewards.

Feeling bad for the scrubs and bads who cannot get into those raids and therefore attain the gear? Easy: Just make the gear a timed exclusive to the raid, and allow non-dedicated players to attain it via non-raid means at the same time you introduce a new and better raid/gear tier. That way scrubs won’t cry about inaccessibility, and the dedicated player will always have the privilege of staying one step ahead than the rest.
The treadmill has to be facilitated in this game; players always need a goal worth working for. Skin and titles don’t satisfy a enough players that can keep the game alive, both financially and in a communal sense. GW1 was not a real MMO and could get away with it, GW2 can’t.

Your both wrong and have a bad attitude. We true raiders do not want to exclude non raiders from anything. We only want the large scale difficult fights. We want the content not the carrot.

People with different preferences are not scrubs, they are just people like you and me. They just dont have the time or the patience to raid and that is fine. The game should cater to them just as much as to us.

Sylv.5324:

ASB.4295:

Feeling bad for the scrubs and bads who cannot get into those raids and therefore attain the gear? Easy: Just make the gear a timed exclusive to the raid, and allow non-dedicated players to attain it via non-raid means at the same time you introduce a new and better raid/gear tier. That way scrubs won’t cry about inaccessibility, and the dedicated player will always have the privilege of staying one step ahead than the rest

This is exactly the type of attitude showing why I hope they never allow raids. All it does is set the community against each other.

One person out of 2 pages. I think the majority in fact do not believe in what he said.

cesmode.4257:

Two words: Gear treadmill. If they put in raids, Id imagine they would put some sort of gear treadmill to keep players running through the raid each night and each week for better gear. Itll be just like WoW and any other MMO. I play this game because it isnt like every other MMO. Granted, the recent Item treadmill that was introduced is a step in the wrong direction. But if they put in raids, god help us all. Id probably stop playing and go raid with friends in that other game.

raids dont require a gear treadmill. We want raiding for the content only not the gear scaling. In fact I dislike gear scaling, so much content has been left behind and wasted due to it.

Been saying this since pre release when people on the GW2 guru forums told me the elite meta events would be the raiding equivalent. As we know they ended up being a zerg with no real challenge. I actually dont beleive the outdoor events can be challenging enough as the basic idea of them is to allow anyone to join in and help.

It can easily be added without any of the issues that people have with raiding.

Remove gear grind.
Remove gating, dont lock off content (make 10 / 20 person versions of the dungeons or 10 / 20 person instanced dynamic event).
Remove raid only items, allow anything to be obtained elsewhere.

Conwolv is right pretty much every type of player is covered in GW2 apart from raiders. Whatever it is it needs to be instanced, 10+ players, require teamwork and be very very hard.

UnderdogSMO.9428:

Ubung.7423:

Sylv.5324:

Ubung.7423:

Yup agree to disagree. I just wonder why you think Anet who managed to evolve pretty much everything else in the genre would screw up raids so badly.

My problem isn’t with ANet.

Well since you dont want to share exactly why it is you dont want raiding then I cant tell you a way to make it not effect you. So far the only one that cant be fully argued is dev time taken which tbh is up to Anet to decide whats best. Were just requesting something, they decide whether what were asking for is valid.

Traditional raiding wouldnt work ((mostly do to the combat system)) but I for one am all for some sort of large guild/team Tower attack/defend instance setting with waves of enimies that get harder in difaculty with each wave.

the only thing that make’s raids suck in other MMO is its the only way to get the best gear and not everyone always gets rewarded at the end….. GW2 dosnt have to do that

I think traditional raiding parties could work in this game. The bosses that wouldnt be great for it need tuning for 5 man anyway. Like the last boss of Sorrows Furnace story which offers a nice example of a raid boss in 5 man mode.

They could also go the way of instanced elite DE’s. Its very possible they could scale these for specific group sizes and could then concentrate on making them hard instead of just accessible.

With this addition GW 2 would offer something for every type of mmo player out there.

Sylv.5324:

Conwolv.4329:

We’re looking for solutions, but you (Sylv) only seem to want to keep those players from enjoying the same game you enjoy.

It won’t be the same game.

Anyway, it’s okay for games to be different from each other. ANet has made some very deliberate choices because it wanted to create a different kind of game, with a different atmosphere and different priorities. That’s why many of us play GW and GW2.

You guys knew that there would be no raids way before launch, but here you are, disappointed that the game that said it did not want to add raids still doesn’t have raids.

I think that you should have bought GW2 on its own merits, instead of criticising those who did and would prefer that it stays that way. That makes me even less inclined to agree with you, and trying to guilt trip me about it even moreso.

I bought the game on its merits. I spent a lot of time on the GW 2 guru forums and it was understood that the elite dynamic events would be the alternative for raiders coming to GW2. It didnt work out like that so now I come on the forums and tell Anet this.

Sylv.5324:

Ubung.7423:

Yup agree to disagree. I just wonder why you think Anet who managed to evolve pretty much everything else in the genre would screw up raids so badly.

My problem isn’t with ANet.

Well since you dont want to share exactly why it is you dont want raiding then I cant tell you a way to make it not effect you. So far the only one that cant be fully argued is dev time taken which tbh is up to Anet to decide whats best. Were just requesting something, they decide whether what were asking for is valid.

Sylv.5324:

Ubung.7423:

As long as its done right there is no reason not to offer something for the guilds out there that wanna play this game. It would add people to the game and more people = more revenue.

I understand that you are adamantly for it, and I understand some of your reasons, but I am adamantly against it. Fortunately for either of us, it’s ANet who will decide to add them or not, so we’ll have to agree to disagree.

Yup agree to disagree. I just wonder why you think Anet who managed to evolve pretty much everything else in the genre would screw up raids so badly.

Namu.5712:

I agree world event difficulty is null in the face of the zerg. And ruins a group of players looking for a challenge to achieve that when the boss they are fighting is zerged down by 20+ random people.

Namu.5712:

I don’t see any reason why raid content couldn’t be added.

Thank you.

Sylv.5324:

Ubung.7423:

We already mentioned how you dont have to gate the content to add raids. Use current elite DE’s or 5 man dungeons and just instance them and tune for 10 / 20 person. Reward dungeon tokens or karma, everyones wins.

I’ve seen a lot of raiders not be satisfied by that, though. This topic was discussed a LOT before launch, and has since been. So it just creeps and creeps and then morphs into the usual wow-style raid anyway.

Weve all seen plenty of people with misplaced ideas but not having something based on the fact that it could be abused is silly. I dont think its fair to penalise people for the small amount of people who ruin it for the others.

As long as its done right there is no reason not to offer something for the guilds out there that wanna play this game. It would add people to the game and more people = more revenue.

The current dynamic events, even the hardest dont offer the type of challenge raiders are after. What we need is more like make too many mistakes and you fail and have to start the boss again. Something that requires pinpoint teamwork and skill usage and avoidance. While DE’s are fun they just get zerged down by a bunch of people while you just whack at the boss.

Sylv.5324:

Conwolv.4329:

Just because in your experience you’ve had a harder time with it than others shouldn’t keep AN from building that type of content for those who can.

ANet disagrees with you, and have said that they don’t want group size to be a barrier to experience all of GW2’s content (and rewards).

We already mentioned how you dont have to gate the content to add raids. Use current elite DE’s or 5 man dungeons and just instance them and tune for 10 / 20 person. Reward dungeon tokens or karma, everyones wins.

Sylv.5324:

Conwolv.4329:

If there’s nothing gained from the raids that you cant get outside of it, what’s your problem with it Sylv?

I’ve already listed several of my problems with it, and in this case, I would like ANet to stick with its view of large raids: that they are not necessary in GW2.

I covered most of your issues within my post. Enabling you to safely ignore the raiders and do your own thing. So what else is it thats bothering you about raiding? Id like to know so we can figure out a compromise to keep everyone happy.

10 and 20 are probably the two best numbers to shoot for. Its not like it would take much more to add a 20 man once youve added a 10 man even though it would be the 10 man my guild would go for. Would still be nice to have the option.

Conwolv.4329:

I’m perfectly ok with making everything in the “raid” available outside of the raid as well. Offering them from doing related content (5 man side stories related to the raid storyline gives tokens to buy that dungeon set).

As for content being exclusive, it’d still be far harder to craft a legendary than it would be to get 10-20 players together a few times a week and get a dungeon set. There’d likely be lots of pugs going on like there are now for 5 man content.

It just seems that ArenaNet really built the game for everyone BUT the raider. Literally, everything else is in the game and designed better than other MMOS, but raids. Just seems short sighted.

I hope with future content that ArenaNet gets past their dislike of raiding in other games to give us their version of it in this one.

Just seems without it, the game is incomplete. Which makes me sad.

Glad you agree. Really its mainly about the content rather than the rewards. As an added bonus of this though it makes old raids not obsolete. One really silly thing with WoW is that earlier raids become useless. At 80 i am locked off from doing Karazhan, no matter how much i want too i cant go back there and get the same challenge as before.

Conwolv.4329:

(Reposted from my locked thread) (SNIP)

Totally agree with you here mate. Im in exactly the same boat. Really like the game but sadly the lack of challneging content for guilds put me and my guild mates off the game for good. This could have been our new main mmo but instead were still looking.

Sylv i understand where your coming from and your right. But this doesnt have to mean no raiding, it just means we need to look at raiding logically and fairly.

1) Dont offer rewards that are not available elsewhere in the game. Dungeon tokens could work, karma would also work.

2) Dont gate content, when designing your raids make them extensions of current game mechanics. So either 10, 20, 25 person versions of current dungeons or current elite Dynamic events that are instanced and tuned for 10, 20, 25 people.

Examples are a raid version of sorrows embrace or a raid version of the shadow behemoth.

3) Dont put the whole game focus on raids. Make sure there is plently of other content for the people who dont want to raid. Basically release a raid whenever you release a dungeon or some new dynamic events.

As for guild vs guild that wont fix anything as its not pvp we want, its pve. Right now though this game offers a little distraction for me when I want to be my major MMO.

I totally agree with you. The game relies on the high hp high attack paradigm way to much. Another couple of bosses that display good mechanics are in Sorrows Embrace. 3rd boss Kudu and his golems is pretty good. The last boss is excellent tbh.

Fixing this would allow for 10 / 20 man raids to be added to the game should the devs ever decide to add them.

Amra.6028:

Ubung.7423:

I also dont want everything the same as wow, i really like most elements of GW 2. If they added raiding and tuned up the dugeon bosses id be a happy player. No need to go all passive aggressive and tell me where to go.

You may need to clearly suggest how you think raids should look, because “big bawz 10 spellz” doesn’t make it any more facerolly, that’s what mass fights are like in GW2 due to not standing around and having someone take all the damage.
Plus, would you think someone would raid if it wasn’t for better items? Haven’t seen people raid purely for the fun in years. There can be no incentive to go raiding if you get the same for less effort in fractals, but adding something raid-only will cause uproar, people already get kitten because they “have to” do things for their monthly they don’t agree with.

endgame = something that makes players come back every day for years.. and years..and years. ( after level 80 )

It doesnt need tanking, it just needs 10 / 20 (however many) people that need to coordinate. Thats why I think the bosses need redesigning because upping the hp and dmg of a boss doesnt scale well as eventually you get to the point where it has to one shot people to do the correct amount of damage. It needs to use interesting mechanics. For example the charge mechanic on Thaddius in Naxxramas ( http://www.wowwiki.com/Thaddius ) would be very cool and wouldnt require a tank.

For a lot of bosses in wow the auto attack damage that the tank took was alongside the damage from special attacks so can be seperated if you replace tank with dodge.

As for people who enjoy raiding. Well you might not like it and the people you know might not either. But not everyone is the same and I enjoy raiding for raiding and so do others. Finally raiding as i said shouldnt have the focus it does in wow. Arenanet can still keep pumping out other content just offer a raid once in a while, reuse content if need too just make it hard.

Chamone.6890:

Ubung.7423:

I also dont want everything the same as wow, i really like most elements of GW 2. If they added raiding and tuned up the dugeon bosses id be a happy player. No need to go all passive aggressive and tell me where to go.

I don’t see why you want WoW-style raids in GW2. They aren’t fun, the only reason people do them in WoW is because of the gear treadmill, not because they’re enjoyable.

Dungeon bosses I do agree with you, they are too weak and predictable to offer any kind of meaningful challenge. I don’t see that making them bigger and throwing more people at them “fixes” that though.

The AI in this game is pretty much non-existant. A boss simply follows its programmed attack pattern, and mobs simply move towards you and attack, nothing more complex than that, ever. There is no challenge in beating AI opponents in this game whatsoever. I don’t see that changing if they made Raid bosses.

This is why WvW is the best part of the game IMO, all your enemies are human-controlled and unpredictable.

Ok again like above, you may not understand why some people like raiding but they do. A lot of people do them for enjoyment. My whole guild for one.

I dont think throwing 10 people at a boss is gonna fix it. I think they need to work on bosses then add a 10 man mode once it works properly. The 10 mode isnt a fix its an optional gameplay preference. One that has enough fans to warrant taking a look at.

Boss skills are what keep raids fresh. A poison trail following the boss that drops goop that people have to avoid or receive loads of damage. A pair of bosses that must be killed simulataneously. A boss that drops environmental weapons that must be used to chip off his armour. This is what made raiding so much fun for me. The challenge of getting through the raid with my guild.

A good example from within the GW 2 game already is Ralena and Vassar from Ascalonian Catacombs. In my groups one player is asssigned to keep the attention of one of the bosses while we nuke the other one. Also with the rocks to keep them apart. Its a good use of boss skills while not requiring a full on tank. Another good boss is Kudu with the golems with different skills.

Finally the reason I want raiding in the game is because what we have now is epic and easy (dynamic events) or small scale and difficult (dungeons). I hope the game has room for something both epic (large scale) and difficult. I want to do what we already have in dungeons on a larger scale and a few tweaks as mentioned before.

Ok first of all what i was saying did not take into account value for money. The game is excellent value for money for what it is. Secondly im not referring to vertical progression in any of my statements. Im merely proposing some form of raiding for the game. One of the major differences between an FPS and an MMORPG.

I also want to clarify that I think a lot of the game is great. I love dynamic events as a replacement for quests, i love not needing a tank and healer although it would be nice for the dungeons to have a lttle more structure and more interesting mechanics, i love the fact that I downscale to content making stuff ive done previously not obsolete.

Rieselle it was also marketed as agame for people who like MMO’s so it should feature something for them as well. To be honest i dont actually care about the vertical progression method (gear grind) i only want the dungeons bosses tuned up and raids.

Amra Im not expecting more than what I paid for. Im laying out feature the game lacks that I think could bring in more people and keep more people after 80. While box price is enough now Arenanet will eventually need cash shop sales to continue. Im not expecting elements of anything, im suggesting something i think would add to the game, im not raging.

I also dont want everything the same as wow, i really like most elements of GW 2. If they added raiding and tuned up the dugeon bosses id be a happy player. No need to go all passive aggressive and tell me where to go.

I gotta add that while I agree with the fact that Guild Wars 2 offers a lot of different options for level 80 play. It still does not offer anything for the guild size group wanting a difficult experience. Open world is widely accepted as a zerg when there are more than 6 people offering very little challenge.

Also to respond to people who ask why dont you go back to wow. The reason I dont just go back to wow is that I feel this games other mechanics combined with some form of raiding would make this game perfect (tune the bosses in dungeons though, less hp more interesting skill usage)

Lastly raiding doesnt need to be the same old wow formula. GW2 can avoid stuff by not having a gear grind. Not gating content by having a 5 man version. Ideas could include instanced epic meta DE, a WvW like experience with npc’s, standard dungeon style raids or even an copy of an entire zone, up to 30 people can enter and the difficulty is dialled up to 10. Content would need to be instanced for two reasons, 1 to ensure the maximum possible challenge without bothering anyone and 2 to allow guilds to cordinate there raid nights.

Tiger and Amra. You guys asking that actually reinforces our point. If your comparing GW2 to an FPS in terms of what content it should have you doing it wrong. GW 2 is marketed as an MMORPG. This means long term goals. Also games like BF3 and CoD have taken mechanics from MMORPG’s like leveling to keep people playing longer.

Karizee.8076:

Ubung.7423:

Ok id like to know where you get your numbers

There ya go!

http://www.wowprogress.com/

34,876 guilds beat one boss in MoP. Just one boss – not the last boss, the first boss.

34,332 were 10 man guilds. That’s 343,332.
2,823 were 25 man guilds. There’s 70,575.

For a grand total of 413,907 players.

They have a 10 million playerbase, that’s 4%. I rounded up to 5% to account for bench players.

That seems to be correct but there is something worth mentioning. People in the east dont raid much, its popularity according to that website is in the EU and US. Cant find much info on subscriber numbers for just the EU and US but I did find this.

http://users.telenet.be/mmodata/Charts/Subs-1.png

(linked from http://mmodata.blogspot.co.uk/ )

I think we should use the current subscriber figures for WoW west in our calculations which is 5.1 million subs (although this number is from 2010 I think we can rely on it for now. From the rest of the graph when the total subs = 10 – 12 mill the west subs has been 4.4 to 5.4. 5.4 only being reached when the game hit 12 mill subs). So with your number of raiders at 413,907 and a subscriber base of 5.1 mill we get a total of 8% of people who completed the first boss. I couldnt find the part where it detailed 10 or 25 man guilds so I just used your raider number. You could probably lose a few and it would end up at 8% dead on.

Which I think is still an amount of players you would want to try to at least offer something for. Thats 413,907 more players playing and paying.

Karizee.8076:

Ubung.7423:

Vasham.2408:

SNIP

WoW certainly got the difficulty right with its raids and heroics. Ive had many an enjoyable night facing bosses with interesting mechanics. I dont think you’ll find anything in GW2 that even comes close to the complexity of say Mimiron. Guild Wars really needs to look at boss mechanics and add some form of raiding.

Doesnt mean you need to take away from the other aspects of the game just add something for the endgame raider to take part in with his / her guild.

Karizee, this game doesnt need to focus on raiders and soley support that market. It simply needs to offer something for those players to do in the current game and you add more players. Also heroic raids were only meant to be beaten by a few. Most of em had normal versions too and there were only a small amount that didnt. Many more did those raids and enjoyed them.

Even their normal raids only has 5% of the playerbase participating. Raiding is really a dead concept.

GW2 has the large outdoor events for the “epic feel” and the escalating difficulty of Fractals for players that want to test their skills in a team environment.

Ok id like to know where you get your numbers because that seems very low and tbh I think its from a very very old ghostcrawler quote. Here is some data from 2011 that shows 31% of people beating Baleroc heroic the 2nd to last boss in Firelands.

Your statement only holds true for the last boss heroic Ragnaros with 2.2% of players having beaten him. Even then it shows enough people trying and succeding at raiding. Certainly enough to add some raiding into the game while not being the whole focus of the game.

Vasham.2408:

SNIP

WoW certainly got the difficulty right with its raids and heroics. Ive had many an enjoyable night facing bosses with interesting mechanics. I dont think you’ll find anything in GW2 that even comes close to the complexity of say Mimiron. Guild Wars really needs to look at boss mechanics and add some form of raiding.

Doesnt mean you need to take away from the other aspects of the game just add something for the endgame raider to take part in with his / her guild.

Karizee, this game doesnt need to focus on raiders and soley support that market. It simply needs to offer something for those players to do in the current game and you add more players. Also heroic raids were only meant to be beaten by a few. Most of em had normal versions too and there were only a small amount that didnt. Many more did those raids and enjoyed them.

Lorath.2504:

But this is not quite that simple. They want to keep people playing the game. The question is – how many people are satisfied with what the game offers and how many finished the content and are ready to move on. And what AN is willing to do to make them stay (and its clear that they already started moving away from what was advertised initially).

Im one of these people. Big fan of the game up to level 80 when the lack of raiding put me and my guild off for now. Lack of anything remotely challenging for a largish guild to do together pretty much kills the game for me as anything more than a single player experience. Still willing to come back if they do implement them though.

While its a solid game with a lot of content its very lacking in the MMO for the PVE side.

I gotta agree with ya. Two things that added to the game right now would help guilds.

1) Some form of raiding whether it be instanced meta DE’s, 10 / 20 man dungeons or an entirely new form of raiding. There is a distinct lack of challenge in this game for groups larger than 5. For this id hope for 10 / 20 man versions of the current dungeons because this would not gate any content for people who didnt want to raid. Also reward karma or dungeon tokens for these so gear isnt exclusive. Also no gear grind, all raids can be done with the 80 exotics.

2) The ability to make raid groups in the open world. If you wanna get your guild together for some DE’s you have to split up into 5 man groups. The ability to see people in your group on the map and to be able to join their overflow instance would help guilds a lot.

Me and my guild really like this game. We want to make it our main MMO but we enjoy raiding for the teamwork and skill required. For people like me adding some form of raiding to the game would really encourage cash shop sales. Another market that this game could cater too.

Ari Kagura.9182:

Personally, I’d like to see some form of instanced raid content (meaning: dungeons requiring more than 5 people to complete them). I mean, Dynamic Events are cool and all, but for those times when we want to get a bunch of guildies together to tackle on content, then I wouldn’t mind jumping in to do a raid. I don’t speak for all raiders, but I like raiding because I like being around the company of large amounts of people. I wouldn’t care what kind of loot I get as long I found some enjoyment in the run.

I suppose implementing one in GW2 might be tricky since everyone’s role dynamically shifts between damage, control, and support; as opposed to traditional methods where one person is almost always shoehorned into either tank, healer, or damage. Obviously, the encounters should be moderately challenging, and not a total zergfest.

Also, in most MMOs, the statistically best gear often comes from high-end raiding. It might be interesting to see what kind of rewards and incentives there would be using GW2’s philosophies behind loot. For people who play to see bigger numbers for every new piece of gear, they may not be able to find it in GW2; but for people like me who enjoy raiding for the thrill and challenge of it, then I can’t wait to see what’s in store.

Honestly, I miss dungeons like The Deep and Urgoz’s Warren in GW1. I actually I had some fun in those two, despite being somewhat strict on what professions fit within the meta-group. Since GW2 allows a lot more freedom for group composition, the only requirement would be just being competent in playing your profession.

This is pretty much how I feel right now. There just isnt anything challenging in the game that I can do with my guild for more than 5 people. The DE’s are just a zerg. I also think they cant be fixed by their very nature. You need randomn people to be able to come and join an event so you cant make it too hard or less skilled people will increase the difficulty too much (if the DE’s scaled propely).

Also for people worring about gear grind and exclusion neither of these need to be implemented into raids. Raids should have a 5 man version so anyone can experience them. Raids should not have a gear grind and should just offer cosmetics. Raids dont even need to be the focus of the game.

In fact I believe they should do 10 / 20 man version of the current dungeons and any future dungeons, just tune them for a raid environment where teamwork is essential. Offer dungeon tokens as the reward. This would add a new raid whenever they add a new dungeon and allow the focus on content to stay as it is.

As an added bonus i think they should do a 5, 10 and 20 man explorable version of the story mode dungeons as well. Very quickly you have a ton of raiding content thatn doesnt exclude people nor does it offer better gear.

10 / 25 man dungeons are pretty much what GW 2 lacks. Even if its not perfect most other gameplay styles are covered by content. In my eyes this would round out the package and make this a game to really challenge for the number 1 spot.

Big thumbs up on the possible addition of 10+ person dungeons. Would love to see this in the game. Would fill in the only gap i feel this game has. I know stuff could be improved but still this would allow the game to appeal to the whole range of mmo gamers.

Nvidia GTX 570 – GS – Goes like Hell edition in SLI. DX11.

64 bit Windows 7.

Zhaneel.9208:

What is so great about raiding? Other than being forced into an alliance, what makes it so much better than grabbing a group of 5 people for explorable mode dungeons?

Is it the fact that loot is exclusive and you have to run the same raids over and over again with some vain hope of getting loot? Is it that raids take 3-4 hours to complete? What makes this fun? Help me to understand why raids are superior, because I don’t see it.

Group size, difficulty (although explorables are somewhat close), length is somewhat of a factor. Mainly group size and difficulty though. Not loot, for me anyway. I enjoy getting together with my guild (which are also a group of close friends) to do something really challenging that takes teamwork and skill to acheive.

Raids arnt superior to other forms of content they are merely an alternative. Another way to experience content. As ive said before, raiding isnt a bad thing, just the way raiding was handled was bad. We dont need gear grinds, exclusive content or a total focus on raids. We just need something for groups of over 5 thats really hard.

warmonkey.8013:

I want the raiding without the grind. Without the need for you to ever go into a raid to either see the content or obtain the gear. 10 / 20 man dungeons that reward dungeon tokens would be an option. Instanced 10 / 20 man versions of meta dynamic events that reward karma would also work. Both these options reuse current game content so wouldnt require heavy focus on raids.

What this game doesnt have right now is a real challenge for groups over 5. Raiding itself is not bad its just the way it was implemented that was flawed. There has been a lot of good raid content in other mmos and i would like to experience this in guild wars 2. With the more actiony style of combat they could do some interesting things.

Lack of raiding even without the gear grind is whats bothering me. There isnt anything difficult in this game for groups of over 5. Anything in the outside world just gets zerged after 6+ people join in.

Any mmo that really wants to crack the mmo market has to appeal to a wide variety of people. And some type of raiding would widen the games demographic.

I aint played WvWvW too much yet so I cant comment on that. As for the holy trinity, im actually not sure. Id have to see my whole guild in action in a explorable which we havnt managed to do yet. Done them myself but my guild needs to catch up in levels.

I dont need the gear grind I just need a challenge for me and my guild to take on together.

GSSBlunaspike.4153:

Lance Coolee.9480:

Renegadeimp.8439:

The game was designed to cater to everyone. Ramping up the difficulty would cause a mass exodus of players that like to sit back and enjoy the game.

Theres also a reason why MMO’s that have steep difficulty are very low populated.

Not sure I can agree w/ this statement.

<That game which shall not be named> had plenty of incredibly challenging content and they still managed to break what is it now, 15 MILLION subscribers (I still can’t get over that number).

The key is to have content that catered to both player bases.

That game hasn’t had challenging content in like two expansions now. If you found it challenging, awesome. I can’t agree.

As for the level 80 areas being over turned, I disagree also. I don’t think you said that, but someone else did. I thought they were really fun. As I said my favorite encounters so far were the Temple Events. I enjoyed the hell out of those.

I would bet though that most, if not all, of the people saying “oh the content is so easy” can’t show one screenshot of them completing say Balthazar.

This is why we had raids. They seperate people but also allows them to enjoy content at their own pace. Right now everything is easy / zergy once you hit about 5+ people. There is plenty in this game for people who dont need a challenge. For people who like a challenge there are explorable dungeons which are limited to 5 people.

We need somthing like raids to offer that highly difficult content for larger groups. Raids without gear grind or exclusive content / gear.

Wow focuses too much on the raiders.
GW 2 focuses too much on the non raiders.
A balance will bring an amazing mmo.

My problem with GW 2 right now isnt the lack of endgame as such as the lack of a challenge at endgame. There is literally nothing in this game that is difficult for a party of larger than 5. Raids in wow offered that challenge and I personally enjoyed them a lot. Its the one gamestyle currently absent from the game and could bring in a lot more people.

I also dont believe adding raiding would be a problem if dealt with correctly. This means no gear grind, offer rewards already in game for the raids (dungeon tokens or karma). Re use existing content to create the raids, so no exclusion from any content (example 10 / 20 person dungeons or instanced dynamic events).

What guild wars does right now it generally does well, however its missing a key component for some.

Killface.1896:

Well if they want to they could kill old games like wow by adding pure pvp servers + raid in next expansion ;Ð

Game need more end game stuff and more lvl 80zones,in orri now we have 2-3player on each event mob.

Gotta agree with you. Nothing in PVE is both difficult and for over 5 people. Something needs to fulfil that playstyle

Dead.7385:

SNIP

I agree with you. The game does have some interesting bosses. They just need to make more like those. The more interesting mechanics, the more environmental attacks, the more tactical choices required the better. Dungeons dont need much just a good tuning here and there.

Hopefully they would able to get raids, in some form, to work in this game. I really hope so because right now there isnt anything challenging in this game for more than 5 people.

Dead.7385:

Cutsforhugs.9730:

Raids won’t work in this game. I highly doubt it. They could add it, sure, but it wouldn’t be a piece of cake to balance at all.

If they did add raids I can’t wait to read the one shot posts. Raids without agro management would be tough to do, unless they made all bosses kinda static like the dragons etc.

But if they did you could toss “Legendary” armor skins on the token raid vendors. That would be kinda neat.

They would have to be designed in a slightly different way tbh. The dungeons could also use this. Switch the damage away from the auto attack and into skills. Add more obvious telegraphs. Make their skills interesting e.g like the golem guy from citadel of flame.

Algreg.3629:

okay, I gave this some thought after I just was in yet another temple of Balthazar and temple of Grenth event. I do not intend to flame anyone here, but everyone who thinks the game is too easy: Please take a step back and ponder – maybe you are simply good at the game? At Balthazar, I saw 50 percent of the people being downed constantly because they didn´t bother to leave areas of incoming damage or analyze where the priest was going with his “slow” teleport. 30 % of the raisers died because they didn´t bother to watch the champion and priest closing in and breaking up raise to dodge. the event failed because people were not able to keep their dps on a single target. Then the usual Grenth experience – people plainly ignore the shadows or keep attacking them for 0 damage. Noone can expect a newbie there to know about the mechanic, but to stick to a strategy that obviously results in no damage without asking about it in chat…. All in all, I now think at least half of the players are still over their head in anything above victory by numbers (dragon events) or small groups of wolves on the normal pve map.

Regardless of whether the content is too easy or the players are too good you still need something to retain those people. Some form of raiding would accomplish that task, giving those who like a challenge the ability to do so. Currently the only difficult content is limited to 5 people and even that is hard for the wrong reasons like people in this thread have said.

There is nothing in this game for guilds of over 5 people who like a challenge.

Caveat for people who havnt read my previous posts. Raiding without gear grind or exclusive content or gear.

Shinzan.2908:

But then you’ll have a bunch of content people like me won’t see, I disliked this about GW1, stuff like Domain of Anguish, Underworld or the Deep just weren’t doable with pugs, not that they would take a first time player along anyway.

See this is where the dealt with properly part comes in. Your right you do not want to cut off content to people who dont raid. So what you do is retune some of the content already in the game to make it more difficult and open it up to larger groups.

2 examples;

1) 10 / 20 person versions of the explorable dungeons. Tune it for the extra people. Content is still available in 5 man mode.

2) Instanced meta dynamic events for 10 / 20 people. Make them much harder. Content can still be done in the open world.

Both are rewarded with gear already in the game. Number 1 could offer dungeon tokens. Number 2 could offer karma rewards.

Cortechs.3265:

Not only that, but you end up with the “Rift problem” where the designers are forced to add more and more Raid content, leaving little-to-no resources for the design of content for non-raiders.

Many of us chose GW2 because it didn’t have raids, and because all of the developer resources would not be wasted on Raids and progression itemization.

Now this is something that certainly should be taken into account when adding a raid like experience. In my above examples the content is reused from whats already in the game so you dont really have to worry about the dev time taken. It would take some time to tune the dungeons / instanced meta DE’s for a larger group but not enough to take anything away from the game itself.

To all im just trying to say that raiding itself isnt the evil a lot of people think it is. It was the way certain other games dealt with raiding that was the problem. Making it the whole focus of the game and restricting content and gear was a mistake. One Guild Wars 2 doesnt have to repeat.