Guild Wars 2

Is there some common ground here?

- At high level play, is 5-5 less fun than 4-4-2 because 5-5 is just two dungeon parties with less class diversity?
- At average level play, are off-meta compositions (such as 7-2-1) further away from the meta composition?
- At average level play, has the class diversity required to achieve average-level been reduced? (Eg, pre patch only needing 1 ps, 1 druid, 1 chrono?)
- Is the designation of the necro lich form nerf as a “bug fix” a misrepresentation or unwarranted? (Has been in the game for 5 years, and meta for 1 year, 20% cut on meta build?)

Anything agreed on here?

If you’re clearing it too early, the easiest way (without learning the rotation) is to just ask the tank where they’re heading next.

NovaanVerdiano.6174:

How is the arah thing a strawman when it’s literally the same thing, aka someone not willing to put in effort and time to learn something?
Only difference is what one would perceive as different levels of difficulty. There’s also some rewards locked behind the paths. “B-but muh legendary armor is worth more” yeah no, while it definitely costs more resources to assemble and is arguably more flashy, there’s only value in it if you see value – and with raids getting an easy mode, that value will drop in the eyes of many.

In all those months where you desperately tried to get an easy mode raid (it’s been almost a year, shouldn’t it be time to realize something?) you could have learned raids and be really close to your legendary armor; yet, you decide to furiously type away.
When will you accept that you are the selfish one here?

You also need to do arah or pvp if you want to make some of the legendaries, like bifrost.

Imagine there’s a machine with two colors. Each color corresponds to a danger level based on its hue. The higher the saturation, the more dangerous the machine is.

A colorblind person comes to operate the machine. He’s red-blue colorblind, not green-yellow. He pushes an azure button, thinking that it’s sapphire. He doesn’t learn anything, because he didn’t pull the levers.

This is why we only need one difficulty.

This post is satire, and intended to demonstrate how metaphors rarely contribute to the discussion.

This reads like a novel version of:
All Content Should Be Like Open World:
And All Skins Should Be Easy To Get Too

Personally, I think arah is ruining the game. New players in green armor can’t beat it. And my green armored friends don’t want to enjoy the other 90% of the game at their skill level.

Plus it had unique skins and recipes (they can’t beat pvp either). Declining revenues correspond with the release of gw2. Coincidence? No.

This post is satire, and demonstrates that guild wars 2 has always had hard, “exclusive” content.

Also, here are the comments most posters are referencing: (from dev ama)

Raiding, generally speaking, is a game type that appeals to a small subset of people. I think Guild Wars 2 is at its best when it appeals to large crowds, the majority of players. Why is so much effort being put in to raids?

While it seems like there is a lot of effort going into raids, the teams are actually a lot smaller than something like a Living World release. For example, with Salvation Pass, we had only about 5-6 people working on it full time for 4 months. A few others assisted with their time for a week here, or a month there, plus additional people helped when it came time for reviews. And many of those full time people work on 2 raid releases simultaneously (Bobby worked on the scripts at the same time for both releases).

Semi-related/followup: I assume you’ve got data about what percentage of active players ever enter a raid or beat a raid boss. You probably can’t give us numbers, but do you have a sense of how it compares to other games? Is it lower or higher than you want it to be?

Raid in MMOs are high-end content designed for the more hardcore player. However, from an analytics standpoint, the participation is higher than other games we’ve seen. This is likely due to the nature of our progression system in GW2.

http://dulfy.net/2016/03/05/gw2-developer-ama-on-reddit/#Raids

Rednik.3809:

Absurdo.8309:

@Rednik

You blame raids, but the devs said it performed above their expectations.

You have zero evidence to support your claims. You could easily blame HOT maps, lack of legendaries, the wvw map,the pvp season, fractals, living story,

… or whatever else, when you have no evidence.

- We have population problems, because, despite raids being good, we have implementation problems, as…
- YOU SAYING THAT RAIDS ARE BAD
- Where? I said that they are good, but here is list of problems…
- YOU SAYING THAT RAIDS ARE BAD
- Can you give me a citation please? Here is all arguments again…
- YOU SAYING THAT RAIDS ARE BAD
- …

Seriously, I can’t discuss anything with people who refusing to read. Do some, and then return back.

I hate these types of responses, because I have read your posts. (And this post is nonsensical — I think you’re trying to say that raids are good but implemented poorly).

Look, everyone is disputing your contention that raids are responsible for lower revenue numbers. You have zero evidence for this contention. (And, as I said, you could equally blame any other HOT content with your logic).

And, with posts like these, can you blame people for responding?

Rednik.3809:

Vinceman.4572:

But ok, let’s have a straight look: Where are the 4 month intervals in presenting us new fractals?

Answer is very simple actually. They listened to loud minority and made their stake on raids. And failed hard.

Rednik.3809:

Raids are not failure by themselves. Way they was implemented is, which is turned into all-time low mark for a game. And it was so hard that they even were forced to drop second raid. Remember all their brave reddit posts about how raids are great and how they happy to make more and able to? And then suddenly monetary statistics from NCsoft is released and its all gone. Then we suddenly getting a LS3 (which was postponed again and again before), instant new fractal which looks suspiciously ragtag composition from existing ones, and after all bright raid announcements – only single wing, to finish legendary collection.
Call it a tinfoil hattery, but I predict some news in future. Like either changed raid development paradigm, with different modes, or even raids going same road as fractals after first year – forgotten for years with only cosmetic changes. Personally I prefer the former, because I don’t want to see raids to be dropped and forgotten only because their auditory is narrow and development resources are finite.

@Rednik

You blame raids, but the devs said it performed above their expectations.

You have zero evidence to support your claims. You could easily blame HOT maps, lack of legendaries, the wvw map,the pvp season, fractals, living story,

… or whatever else, when you have no evidence.

Astralporing.1957:

TexZero.7910:

Zenith.7301:

TexZero.7910:

Zenith.7301:

TexZero.7910:

Zenith.7301:

You people keep debating this topic as if Anet has ever shown any history of listening to forum feedback on the collateral damage their PvP centric changes have on PvE.

The irony of this statement is real.

The same patch the people are complaining about was filled with reverts to ele dagger due to heavy handed PvP based nerfs.

But yes clearly it does take anet 8 months to admit they screwed up and revert bad changes.

Those are not revert changes. They were changes to dagger because ele in general is doing rather badly in spvp.

Almost all of those dagger changes are reverts from when they gutted DD due to its synergy with Cele builds.

Builds not used in PvE, but PvP. As I said, spvp/WvW logic behind their balance changes.

A buff to impale and reduction to cd of burning speed isn’t going to change much of the standing dagger has in PvE.

I don’t care where the build is stronger, they were global nerfs that were reverted because at the time they didn’t skill split. Does this make it clearer for you ? They reverted the bad decision they made prior to skill split balancing about 8 months later. IRONY it occurred in the worst balance patch they’ve put out to date.

Well, the irony is on you i am afraid, because the reverts didn’t happen because of the negative impacts the nerfs had on PvE. Both the nerfs and the reverts happened for purely PvP reasons. Which actually underscores Zenith’s original statement even more.

I think you all are on the same side of the ultimate issue, not sure why you’re arguing.

Scipio.3204:

Absurdo.8309:

Scipio.3204:

Absurdo.8309:

maddoctor.2738:

Astralporing.1957:

maddoctor.2738:

We don’t have a dedicated Fractal team though, or a dungeon team, haven’t you noticed?

We might have had one, if we didn’t have Raid team though.

We didn’t have a Fractal team for a long time before Raids were released or even announced. Blame the living world and the massive blob events for the neglect of fractals and dungeons. Not Raids.

The same question remains about raids as well.

I agree. But the uncertainty of the answer works both ways in the context of this thread. Why add new features (for example multiple difficulty tiers) to something that might not be worth it in the first place? I’d wait for a more definite answer before going on about Accessibility.

We also only got one new fractal in years … seems making difficulty levels is harder than just tweaking some numbers.

Or not…. Arenanet has plenty of reason not to focus resources on new fractals. Just to list a few

- New fractals doesn’t increase the replayability of FotM what so ever.
- The number of fractals they can release is 10 more, if they reach that they have to do an overhaul once again if they want to add new ones
- FotM isn’t a thing they can reasonably sell again.

Arenanet already proved it they can make scaling content rather easily. They made a fractal from scratch in less than 4 months with 50 difficulty levels and a story version. The main reason we don’t see new fractals regulary isnt because “They’re hard to do”

What are you referring to? I’m not aware of a such a fractal.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Fractured

Back then when they changed the max fractal lvl to 50, every level had the chance to be any of the fractals. (And even before that, with the exception of Jade Maw)

Also if my memory serves me right , fractals before the “Fractured” release could potentially scale to infinity, with only Agony being in the way. I remember people had so high fractal level, anet never intented them to have , but they managed to bypass the Agony gate.

On the 4 months, Kiel won the election early August 2013 and they delivered the fractal late November.

I think you’re proving my point here …

Fractals released in November 2012.
Update in November 2013 with:
- One completely new fractal
- Four Fractals based on living story content
Update in 2016 with one new fractal

In four years, we’ve only had 6 additional fractals — four based on previous content.

In less than one year, we’ve had nine raid encounters.

I don’t want raids to be like fractals.

Scipio.3204:

Absurdo.8309:

maddoctor.2738:

Astralporing.1957:

maddoctor.2738:

We don’t have a dedicated Fractal team though, or a dungeon team, haven’t you noticed?

We might have had one, if we didn’t have Raid team though.

We didn’t have a Fractal team for a long time before Raids were released or even announced. Blame the living world and the massive blob events for the neglect of fractals and dungeons. Not Raids.

The same question remains about raids as well.

I agree. But the uncertainty of the answer works both ways in the context of this thread. Why add new features (for example multiple difficulty tiers) to something that might not be worth it in the first place? I’d wait for a more definite answer before going on about Accessibility.

We also only got one new fractal in years … seems making difficulty levels is harder than just tweaking some numbers.

Or not…. Arenanet has plenty of reason not to focus resources on new fractals. Just to list a few

- New fractals doesn’t increase the replayability of FotM what so ever.
- The number of fractals they can release is 10 more, if they reach that they have to do an overhaul once again if they want to add new ones
- FotM isn’t a thing they can reasonably sell again.

Arenanet already proved it they can make scaling content rather easily. They made a fractal from scratch in less than 4 months with 50 difficulty levels and a story version. The main reason we don’t see new fractals regulary isnt because “They’re hard to do”

What are you referring to? I’m not aware of a such a fractal.

Ayrilana.1396:

Absurdo.8309:

Ayrilana.1396:

I’m not….

Had you read all of my posts, you would have seen that I was arguing that it was fairly obvious that the jagged horror mechanic would eventually get fixed. I included the part about necro being buffed as a sign of being sympathetic. It really has nothing to do with my argument though. I’m not arguing about specific classes but the entire meta itself whether that be builds or team comps.

Look, I’ve read your posts. I hate having to summarize your argument for you (because you won’t even after a page of posts), but it seems to be that people over-emphasize the meta, because some sub-optimal builds perform close to the meta.

I think you’re missing the point, at least when it comes to necros. Prior to the nerf, there were good reasons to take necros on fights like gor, sab, sloth, and xera even though they were sub-optimal. Post nerf, their dps is so bad that it’s not really worth bringing for these fights.

That’s why posters say you need to keep other classes and the meta in mind when you balance, because you risk making sub-optimal classes even more sub-optimal, that no group wants them any more.

It makes your responses on necro so puzzling.

Ayrilana.1396:

cranos.5913:

I honestly think so yes. Not necessarily equal, as classes all have their own strengths through utility ofc, but within a decent margin. IMO there should never be a scenario where one can honestly say that there’s 0 reason to bring a class. I find reaper a prime example here. The way it got absolutely gutted is something that should’ve never happened, especially considering the lack of utility.

They removed something that had gone a bit overboard. You can’t honestly believe that being able to summon swarms of jagged horrors, that can be kept alive, which deal a lot of bleeding damage, was actually intended? There’s always a reason to bring a class. It’s just that some people prefer to go with what is the most optimal.

Like I’ve stated several times already, necro was brought because of an unintended mechanic that allowed them to create tons on jagged horrors to tank while stacking bleeds. I’d hardly consider fixing something like that as a nerf otherwise why not just call fixing the glyph of elemental power as a nerf too. Or fixing scoring earth many months ago as a nerf. Or that fall damage thing that could kill other players as a nerf. This is the point that you’re missing which I have mentioned several times.

There will always be a meta which involves the most optimal builds and group composition. Those that are not the best are excluded no matter how close they may be. Let’s assume that Ele can now stack might up to 8 times without losing DPS and that sroppibg the warrior allows them to maintain full might stacks on everyone and group DPS is increased by 2K. Those that favor the meta would go with the 3 Ele per team comp and then consider the previous comp unviable. That’s pretty much sums them up.

You can buff other classes but they’ll still go with what team comp is the strongest no matter how close. Why not just nerf Ele’s damage down so that other classes are more equal. No reason to add even more power creep so they can be equitable to Ele. Not to mention the balancing implications that there would be in other game modes.

And as I had said, I was showing sympathy towards those that felt necro was undesirable and saying that Anet could always buff them. I was trying to come off as less harsh but my mistake. Next time I won’t make that mistake again. It was in no way part of my argument.

I think you’re misrepresenting a lot here.

First, if you can’t see the difference between a skill that does 100k burn ticks, or a fall damage trait that insta-kills players,

with a skill that wasn’t changed for years, and doesn’t put necro above other condi classes, then there’s not much more to discuss.

Second, stating that players only go with the meta is just plain false. Pre-patch, there were plenty of reasons to go with necro on fights like gor, sab, sloth, and xera even though they weren’t optimal. For example, in gor, bringing a necro would almost guarantee that gor wouldn’t eat a minion, because it would be epi’ed. Or, in sloth, necro helped keep condis under control.

But now, necros are so far removed from other dps classes, that it’s just sad. Necro utility will not outweigh a 5k to 10k dps loss for most fights.

So yes, the meta does matter, even if you don’t plan on following it. It matters how far you are from the meta. It’s ok to trade off for utility, but if the dps loss is too great then it’s just not worth it.

Ayrilana.1396:

I’m not….

Had you read all of my posts, you would have seen that I was arguing that it was fairly obvious that the jagged horror mechanic would eventually get fixed. I included the part about necro being buffed as a sign of being sympathetic. It really has nothing to do with my argument though. I’m not arguing about specific classes but the entire meta itself whether that be builds or team comps.

Look, I’ve read your posts. I hate having to summarize your argument for you (because you won’t even after a page of posts), but it seems to be that people over-emphasize the meta, because some sub-optimal builds perform close to the meta.

I think you’re missing the point, at least when it comes to necros. Prior to the nerf, there were good reasons to take necros on fights like gor, sab, sloth, and xera even though they were sub-optimal. Post nerf, their dps is so bad that it’s not really worth bringing for these fights.

That’s why posters say you need to keep other classes and the meta in mind when you balance, because you risk making sub-optimal classes even more sub-optimal, that no group wants them any more.

It makes your responses on necro so puzzling.

Ayrilana.1396:

cranos.5913:

I honestly think so yes. Not necessarily equal, as classes all have their own strengths through utility ofc, but within a decent margin. IMO there should never be a scenario where one can honestly say that there’s 0 reason to bring a class. I find reaper a prime example here. The way it got absolutely gutted is something that should’ve never happened, especially considering the lack of utility.

They removed something that had gone a bit overboard. You can’t honestly believe that being able to summon swarms of jagged horrors, that can be kept alive, which deal a lot of bleeding damage, was actually intended? There’s always a reason to bring a class. It’s just that some people prefer to go with what is the most optimal.

Ayrilana.1396:

I never said that so you’re likely reading someone else’s post. I engaged in this discussion before necro was brought up and involved me.

It’s really hard to discuss anything with you when you won’t even say what you want.

Here’s your first post asserting something :

Ayrilana.1396:

Balancing shouldn’t be based on what is or isn’t meta. It should be based on the classes as a whole. There are a lot of players that are so fixated on the optimal builds that they forget those are not the only builds that can be successful. There could even be builds that are only suboptimal by a small degree.

The first response, bringing up condi necro:

NovaanVerdiano.6174:

Ayrilana.1396:

Balancing shouldn’t be based on what is or isn’t meta. It should be based on the classes as a whole. There are a lot of players that are so fixated on the optimal builds that they forget those are not the only builds that can be successful. There could even be builds that are only suboptimal by a small degree.

Balance should be based around keeping all the classes on a same level so that it makes sense to pick either of them. This isn’t the case. I mean look at necro, they now had almost a year of being decent picks as condi, now they’re back to the shelves like it was for all the time before HoT-release (a place power necro never left, btw)

And your thoughts on the lich form nerf:

Ayrilana.1396:

Absurdo.8309:

Ayrilana.1396:

NovaanVerdiano.6174:

Ayrilana.1396:

Balancing shouldn’t be based on what is or isn’t meta. It should be based on the classes as a whole. There are a lot of players that are so fixated on the optimal builds that they forget those are not the only builds that can be successful. There could even be builds that are only suboptimal by a small degree.

Balance should be based around keeping all the classes on a same level so that it makes sense to pick either of them. This isn’t the case. I mean look at necro, they now had almost a year of being decent picks as condi, now they’re back to the shelves like it was for all the time before HoT-release (a place power necro never left, btw)

Which they could always improve on.

But instead, they nerfed condi necro 20% and buffed power necro 0%.

I think it’s a shame that, in 10 person content, the optimal composition is two 5-person squads. It should be different than 2 parties.

It was different before. And every class (except engie) had a place in the squad. That’s not really the case anymore.

They could have done more. The jagged horror thing was definitely something that wasn’t intended and I pretty much expected it to go away sooner or later. They could have bumped up condition damage assuming that the unintended effect of the jagged horrors wasn’t putting the condition damage above what they wanted it to be at.

I’m not sure why you’re arguing against people who say condi necro is in a bad place.

Ayrilana.1396:

Absurdo.8309:

Ayrilana.1396:

Absurdo.8309:

Ayrilana.1396:

AndyS.5630:

Ayrilana.1396:

It wasn’t intended hence the fix. You can’t assume that everything that can be done within the game is intended otherwise you can use that same argument to conclude that exploits are intended.

Players on the whole don’t trial and error. That’s actually done by a handful of players.

Degeneration mechanic has been working like that for ages. You prolong lifespan of degenerating units by healing them. This kind of bugs either gets fixed fast (Glyph of Elemental Power) or is ignored until it can be reasonably rebalanced.

There is enough trial and error to make conclusions.

There’s trial and error done by those handful of players that create the meta. That is all.

What you said does not dispute what I said in my post. A good example being AFK farming which uses a mechanics and such that by themselves are intended but not when you put them together. The same can be applied at a lesser extent to bug that are not necessarily what you would consider an exploit. Just because healing the life of something because it has health degeneration doesn’t mean that every scenario involving that is intended.

And again, you keep fixating on this which didn’t have anything to do with my argument.

I think I’m starting to understand a bit more …

Ok, let’s assume that anet never intended these minions to stay alive forever (to be clear, having another player actively heal them). Fine, I’ll give you that.

BUT, anet did intend to nerf that behavior. That is, for some reason, they think not having these minions is better than having these minions, regardless of their original intentions (or lack thereof).

What most people are arguing is that anet never expressed why this “minor fix” is better than the status quo. That, and it represents a serious nerf for necros.

Your other examples aren’t analogous. (And, well, I hate metaphors in these forums because posters stretch them beyond belief). It’s ok to make a value judgment that afk farming should not be rewarded. It’s ok to fix a skill that has 100k dps.

Arguing what anet originally intended doesn’t matter here, because anet expressed new intentions in changing lich form. That’s what players are pushing back against.

It doesn’t matter whether they explained why. The mechanic was inintended. They don’t have to explain themselves just because players chose to make a meta out of it. My metaphor was to show you that just because mechanics by themselves may be intended, how they’re used under some circumstances can be unintended. The change to Lich form was to fix what wasn’t intended.

And like I said before, this really has nothing to do with my argument earlier and is just diverting the discussion.

Please explain why the lich form nerf makes gw2 a better game. I think the game was better before the nerf (as do other players).

And if this is a side discussion, I have no idea what your main point is. Can I get a link or a one sentence summary?

Whether or not fixing the unintended mechanic makes for a better game has nothing to do with my original argument. You can find my main argument near the beginning of this thread. It got diverted when someone went specific with the necro fix and then went further off when another player misread my post and focused on damage.

So I looked through the first couple of pages —

I’m not even sure why you’re arguing with us. You seem to think that condi necro deserves a buff to its previous state, just not with minions.

It’s probably easier to revert the change, at least for now. Still, not sure why you engaged in this discussion if you don’t really care about it.

Ayrilana.1396:

Absurdo.8309:

Ayrilana.1396:

AndyS.5630:

Ayrilana.1396:

It wasn’t intended hence the fix. You can’t assume that everything that can be done within the game is intended otherwise you can use that same argument to conclude that exploits are intended.

Players on the whole don’t trial and error. That’s actually done by a handful of players.

Degeneration mechanic has been working like that for ages. You prolong lifespan of degenerating units by healing them. This kind of bugs either gets fixed fast (Glyph of Elemental Power) or is ignored until it can be reasonably rebalanced.

There is enough trial and error to make conclusions.

There’s trial and error done by those handful of players that create the meta. That is all.

What you said does not dispute what I said in my post. A good example being AFK farming which uses a mechanics and such that by themselves are intended but not when you put them together. The same can be applied at a lesser extent to bug that are not necessarily what you would consider an exploit. Just because healing the life of something because it has health degeneration doesn’t mean that every scenario involving that is intended.

And again, you keep fixating on this which didn’t have anything to do with my argument.

I think I’m starting to understand a bit more …

Ok, let’s assume that anet never intended these minions to stay alive forever (to be clear, having another player actively heal them). Fine, I’ll give you that.

BUT, anet did intend to nerf that behavior. That is, for some reason, they think not having these minions is better than having these minions, regardless of their original intentions (or lack thereof).

What most people are arguing is that anet never expressed why this “minor fix” is better than the status quo. That, and it represents a serious nerf for necros.

Your other examples aren’t analogous. (And, well, I hate metaphors in these forums because posters stretch them beyond belief). It’s ok to make a value judgment that afk farming should not be rewarded. It’s ok to fix a skill that has 100k dps.

Arguing what anet originally intended doesn’t matter here, because anet expressed new intentions in changing lich form. That’s what players are pushing back against.

It doesn’t matter whether they explained why. The mechanic was inintended. They don’t have to explain themselves just because players chose to make a meta out of it. My metaphor was to show you that just because mechanics by themselves may be intended, how they’re used under some circumstances can be unintended. The change to Lich form was to fix what wasn’t intended.

And like I said before, this really has nothing to do with my argument earlier and is just diverting the discussion.

Please explain why the lich form nerf makes gw2 a better game. I think the game was better before the nerf (as do other players).

And if this is a side discussion, I have no idea what your main point is. Can I get a link or a one sentence summary?

Ayrilana.1396:

AndyS.5630:

Ayrilana.1396:

It wasn’t intended hence the fix. You can’t assume that everything that can be done within the game is intended otherwise you can use that same argument to conclude that exploits are intended.

Players on the whole don’t trial and error. That’s actually done by a handful of players.

Degeneration mechanic has been working like that for ages. You prolong lifespan of degenerating units by healing them. This kind of bugs either gets fixed fast (Glyph of Elemental Power) or is ignored until it can be reasonably rebalanced.

There is enough trial and error to make conclusions.

There’s trial and error done by those handful of players that create the meta. That is all.

What you said does not dispute what I said in my post. A good example being AFK farming which uses a mechanics and such that by themselves are intended but not when you put them together. The same can be applied at a lesser extent to bug that are not necessarily what you would consider an exploit. Just because healing the life of something because it has health degeneration doesn’t mean that every scenario involving that is intended.

And again, you keep fixating on this which didn’t have anything to do with my argument.

I think I’m starting to understand a bit more …

Ok, let’s assume that anet never intended these minions to stay alive forever (to be clear, having another player actively heal them). Fine, I’ll give you that.

BUT, anet did intend to nerf that behavior. That is, for some reason, they think not having these minions is better than having these minions, regardless of their original intentions (or lack thereof).

What most people are arguing is that anet never expressed why this “minor fix” is better than the status quo. That, and it represents a serious nerf for necros.

Your other examples aren’t analogous. (And, well, I hate metaphors in these forums because posters stretch them beyond belief). It’s ok to make a value judgment that afk farming should not be rewarded. It’s ok to fix a skill that has 100k dps.

Arguing what anet originally intended doesn’t matter here, because anet expressed new intentions in changing lich form. That’s what players are pushing back against.

maddoctor.2738:

Astralporing.1957:

maddoctor.2738:

We don’t have a dedicated Fractal team though, or a dungeon team, haven’t you noticed?

We might have had one, if we didn’t have Raid team though.

We didn’t have a Fractal team for a long time before Raids were released or even announced. Blame the living world and the massive blob events for the neglect of fractals and dungeons. Not Raids.

The same question remains about raids as well.

I agree. But the uncertainty of the answer works both ways in the context of this thread. Why add new features (for example multiple difficulty tiers) to something that might not be worth it in the first place? I’d wait for a more definite answer before going on about Accessibility.

We also only got one new fractal in years … seems making difficulty levels is harder than just tweaking some numbers.

mazut.4296:

fishball.7204:

mazut.4296:

Just tested the “2 mesmer new meta” and it just doesnt work as intended. 50% quickness still missing, so probably its better to have another 2 dps classes instead of mesmers.

Your chronos are just bad then.

Yeah got much better group later that day, still not as good as before. But people keep being confused why KC or Gorseval doesnt die as fast.

And you actually need to stand in wells if you want quickness. May not be the mesmers fault.

Also, experienced isn’t just knowing the mechanics, it’s knowing what to do when things go bad.

For example, most groups can survive at least one green circle miss. Groups will have a backup plan for missed cannons (skip or have someone else go). And most groups can beat sabetha even with one or two people dead.

I don’t want to be too harsh here … but if every single group you join fails, then maybe the common denominator is the problem — you. I mean, there’s really no excuse to die on escort, miscommunication or otherwise.

And if you really think you’re not the problem, then, like some others have said, maybe you should try a class with more responsibility in the fight. PS war is typically the easiest class to play in raids.

I beat 7 of 9 raids today, all in pugs.

… I just think op needs more practice.

Ayrilana.1396:

Absurdo.8309:

Ayrilana.1396:

AndyS.5630:

Ayrilana.1396:

Read my post again about necro. I was speaking specfically about the jagged horrors and not the damage. Whether it was required or not to keep pace with other optimal builds is irrelevant to my post.

It’s on the players for believing that only optimal builds are capable of completing the content. Games will always have limitations but there’s more than enough buffer where players do not need the optimum in order to succeed.

Your analogy disregards what I stated while also reinforces it. You only see in extremes which is what I have seen among other die-hard meta only players. It’s always “meta = succeed” and “non-meta = failure”. You never realize that there are builds inbetween including those that are just below what is considered optimal at that time.

When you simulate timed life with health degeneration, you intend that it can be prolonged through healing. So while being awkward, keeping Jagged Horrors alive with massive healing was 100% intended.

Players don’t believe, it’s the result of their trial and error experience. Still, it’s human nature to optimize. Of course, one optimizes with regard to their goals. If someone’s goal is beating with 10x the same class, then bringing 10x the same class is their optimum. Once again, players’ behavior is sufficiently predictable to not blame them for behaving that very predictable way.

I don’t see only in extremes. The diversity was mainly related to DPS classes since like always. So while it’s possible to move to another house, you won’t want to drop electricity, water supply or sanitation.

It wasn’t intended hence the fix. You can’t assume that everything that can be done within the game is intended otherwise you can use that same argument to conclude that exploits are intended.

Players on the whole don’t trial and error. That’s actually done by a handful of players.

What lich form bugged since release?

Does the lich form “fix” justify a 20% cut in reaper dps?

Is there anything wrong with asking for a comparable buff or a walk back on the nerf?

Again, I really have no idea what you’re arguing.

The ability to summon jagged horrid and keep them alive as you summon them was unintended which is why they’re limited to a 30 second lifespan.

The DPS that they were getting was a result of an unintended mechanic. If warriors had a skill that let them do crazy amounts of burning damage, because it functioned in a way that was not intended, and then the devs fixed the skill, would you argue against it on the basis of the DPS loss the warriors now received from the fix?

You have no idea what I’m arguing because you’ve not read my posts.

I’m trying, but you’re not helping.

Yes or no: condi reaper should be comparable to other condi builds

Yes or no: condi reaper was comparable to other condi builds pre-nerf

Yes or no: A 20% nerf to condi reaper was not warranted.

Ayrilana.1396:

AndyS.5630:

Ayrilana.1396:

Read my post again about necro. I was speaking specfically about the jagged horrors and not the damage. Whether it was required or not to keep pace with other optimal builds is irrelevant to my post.

It’s on the players for believing that only optimal builds are capable of completing the content. Games will always have limitations but there’s more than enough buffer where players do not need the optimum in order to succeed.

Your analogy disregards what I stated while also reinforces it. You only see in extremes which is what I have seen among other die-hard meta only players. It’s always “meta = succeed” and “non-meta = failure”. You never realize that there are builds inbetween including those that are just below what is considered optimal at that time.

When you simulate timed life with health degeneration, you intend that it can be prolonged through healing. So while being awkward, keeping Jagged Horrors alive with massive healing was 100% intended.

Players don’t believe, it’s the result of their trial and error experience. Still, it’s human nature to optimize. Of course, one optimizes with regard to their goals. If someone’s goal is beating with 10x the same class, then bringing 10x the same class is their optimum. Once again, players’ behavior is sufficiently predictable to not blame them for behaving that very predictable way.

I don’t see only in extremes. The diversity was mainly related to DPS classes since like always. So while it’s possible to move to another house, you won’t want to drop electricity, water supply or sanitation.

It wasn’t intended hence the fix. You can’t assume that everything that can be done within the game is intended otherwise you can use that same argument to conclude that exploits are intended.

Players on the whole don’t trial and error. That’s actually done by a handful of players.

What lich form bugged since release?

Does the lich form “fix” justify a 20% cut in reaper dps?

Is there anything wrong with asking for a comparable buff or a walk back on the nerf?

Again, I really have no idea what you’re arguing.

Ayrilana.1396:

Absurdo.8309:

Ayrilana.1396:

AndyS.5630:

Ayrilana.1396:

They removed something that had gone a bit overboard. You can’t honestly believe that being able to summon swarms of jagged horrors, that can be kept alive, which deal a lot of bleeding damage, was actually intended? There’s always a reason to bring a class. It’s just that some people prefer to go with what is the most optimal.

It didn’t go overboard. While that mechanic could be awkward, it was absolutely required one to bring necro DPS to a reasonable level. So yes, the damage dealt by horrors seemed to be intended, even though underlying mechanic was awkward, weird and unintended.

Ayrilana.1396:

Then that’s on the players and not anything within the game. There’s a decently sized margin between what high successful groups are doing and what it would take to fail. It’s more than the several percent you claim. Players very well can control what builds/compositions they have in their group but that by no way means that only those that they choose are what’s viable.

That is exactly on game. It takes exactly the several percent, because after that you risk facing harder mechanics.

Ayrilana.1396:

There’s always an optimum and any change significant enough could alter what that is. That doesn’t mean that they want this, this, and this class to be highly preferred and this and this class to be largely ignored. That’s chosen entirely by the players that feel only the optimal builds are the way to go. For those that don’t, this isn’t as much of an issue.

There is no valid reason to not go for the optimum. Optimization is what have brought humans (as species) to where we currently are. Of course, you can live in the street, or even in the forest, but it’s far less optimal than in a house. Why must players choose in-game equivalent to living in the forest?

Read my post again about necro. I was speaking specfically about the jagged horrors and not the damage. Whether it was required or not to keep pace with other optimal builds is irrelevant to my post.

It’s on the players for believing that only optimal builds are capable of completing the content. Games will always have limitations but there’s more than enough buffer where players do not need the optimum in order to succeed.

Your analogy disregards what I stated while also reinforces it. You only see in extremes which is what I have seen among other die-hard meta only players. It’s always “meta = succeed” and “non-meta = failure”. You never realize that there are builds inbetween including those that are just below what is considered optimal at that time.

There’s nothing wrong with asking for some parity in condi builds, even if you can beat the fight with any class.

I’m not really sure what you’re arguing here …

Then you haven’t read my post(s).

I don’t want to put words in your mouth, but …

You seem to be arguing that lots of different builds can beat raids. Agreed.

That said, there’s nothing wrong with asking for parity between condi builds. Again, not sure why you’re arguing for a 20% nerf in the reaper condi build.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Shadowstep.6049:

There is enough of monkeys blindly following such posts and thinking prof XY can’t be taken in the raid anymore.

Read what you wrote — the issue is anyone blindly following any sort of guide, not the people posting the guide.

If you want qT to move their disclaimer to the front of the guide, I recommend (a) telling them (not the forums) and (b) making an attempt to ask nicely. Yelling at them for being the root of toxicity is almost guaranteed to get people arguing with you about what toxic means, about what cause or causes there might be, and about whether you’ve accurately linked cause and effect — none of that encourages qT to edit their article or to get monkeys to take off their blindfolds.

Or he can make his own guides. It’s much easier to criticize than create.

And there was nothing wrong with stating that rev when from a staple in most compositions to an optional one.

Ayrilana.1396:

AndyS.5630:

Ayrilana.1396:

They removed something that had gone a bit overboard. You can’t honestly believe that being able to summon swarms of jagged horrors, that can be kept alive, which deal a lot of bleeding damage, was actually intended? There’s always a reason to bring a class. It’s just that some people prefer to go with what is the most optimal.

It didn’t go overboard. While that mechanic could be awkward, it was absolutely required one to bring necro DPS to a reasonable level. So yes, the damage dealt by horrors seemed to be intended, even though underlying mechanic was awkward, weird and unintended.

Ayrilana.1396:

Then that’s on the players and not anything within the game. There’s a decently sized margin between what high successful groups are doing and what it would take to fail. It’s more than the several percent you claim. Players very well can control what builds/compositions they have in their group but that by no way means that only those that they choose are what’s viable.

That is exactly on game. It takes exactly the several percent, because after that you risk facing harder mechanics.

Ayrilana.1396:

There’s always an optimum and any change significant enough could alter what that is. That doesn’t mean that they want this, this, and this class to be highly preferred and this and this class to be largely ignored. That’s chosen entirely by the players that feel only the optimal builds are the way to go. For those that don’t, this isn’t as much of an issue.

There is no valid reason to not go for the optimum. Optimization is what have brought humans (as species) to where we currently are. Of course, you can live in the street, or even in the forest, but it’s far less optimal than in a house. Why must players choose in-game equivalent to living in the forest?

Read my post again about necro. I was speaking specfically about the jagged horrors and not the damage. Whether it was required or not to keep pace with other optimal builds is irrelevant to my post.

It’s on the players for believing that only optimal builds are capable of completing the content. Games will always have limitations but there’s more than enough buffer where players do not need the optimum in order to succeed.

Your analogy disregards what I stated while also reinforces it. You only see in extremes which is what I have seen among other die-hard meta only players. It’s always “meta = succeed” and “non-meta = failure”. You never realize that there are builds inbetween including those that are just below what is considered optimal at that time.

There’s nothing wrong with asking for some parity in condi builds, even if you can beat the fight with any class.

I’m not really sure what you’re arguing here …

nagr.1593:

Ohoni.6057:

See, the fact that players like this exist, and believe that they are justified in their behavior, is why ANet needs to create easier versions of the content, where wipes are less likely to occur, and therefore there would be less justification to exclude anyone. Trying to keep out noobs because they might cause the group to wipe a dozen times or more before they can complete the boss is somewhat reasonable, but trying to keep out noobs because it might mean the fight takes 12 minutes to complete instead of 10 would just be pointlessly rude.

This could not be more wrong, unfortunately. Most ppl who are of the mindset that you would label as ‘rude’, especially in pugs, would most likely not care not a single shred for u except that u are able to handle everything as asked without sabotaging or interfering with the group’s effort. According to a most highly regarded player whom I fully trust, a most intriguing example brought forth by the astute Absurdo observes that group time is invaluable as it differs greatly from actual time (as the world perceives it), and it increases linearly with the number of people involved in or directly affected by such circumstances as a result.

Therefore, if we accept this theorem and apply it to the situation mentioned, it would not have been 2mins lost as you or I would observe, but in fact 20min wasted given that we are dealing with raid content. Again, it’s important to keep this mind as perception of time passing becomes noticeably skewed when dealing with raid groups, regardless of the difficulty of the fight or the mechanics involved but bearing in mind that it’s simply even more rude to waste 9 people’s time, therefore it’s again the question of the lesser evils that arises when dealing with a similar situation as u introduced.

Yep, when I lead a raid, I think it’s incredibly rude to make 9 other people wait for you. Whether that’s finishing up a world boss, a pvp match, or learning the mechanics, I’ll boot you if I think I can find someone quickly.

And, @Ohoni, most raiders wouldn’t mind a 10 min versus a 12 min fight if it resulted in a kill.

Scipio.3204:

Astralporing.1957:

And even that statement is not true. The very fact that raids exist influences the development of other content.

Vinceman.4572:

If Anet officially states that there is no interference to other development things so that nobody has to suffer, I personally trust them. It was the only valid source we could get.

To both of you, it’s context. If my memory serves me right when they said this it was sort of a behind the scene post and they were talking about how they borrowed some help from other teams , but that didn’t interrupt their development schedule.

And Vinceman if you don’t think raids are taking away the rewards from other game modes just look at the two new zones and compare them to the other two we had with LS. The old ones came with a weapon set and an armor set, while the new ones have 1 Backpack / Zone. To this day even fractal doesn’t have an armor set while raids have multiple. And the list could go on.

Also edit:

Vinceman.4572:

they installed the raid team with new developers. These ppl weren’t working at Anet before.

I could be wrong but I think the lead of the raid team has been with Anet far longer than raids.

Edit 2:

I’ve looked into it on Wiki , If I’ve read it correctly 8 out of 11 dev part of the raid dev team were with arenanet and worked on other stuff , including the guy who worked on Festivals like Halloween for example

I too blame raids for every deficiency in the game.

(/s)

nagr.1593:

I really dislike those LI groups, if you don’t have enough of them then u can’t join 75% of the groups on the LFG, and since raid content is alrdy being catered to a small percentage of player’s to use the OP’s words, imagine how much smaller margin that is reduced to when majority of groups themselves are eager to reduce this number even further by essentially time-gating it as they do. If I see an exp wing clear I would join, but never do. If I’m being honest I’m probably earning like 3-5 boss kills a week and that’s hardly enough to make a dent in anything in the long run.. So tell me how I’m expected to get anywhere other square one. It’s like a never-ending conundrum, a situation where the snake almost inevitably ends up biting its own tail bc even though I’m newer to raids than others and getting less than a handful of LI in a week, other pro players in pro guilds are earning 2-3x more LI per week than me which in turn causes the LI reqs as necessitated to increase at a drastically increased rate as well.

Long story short, at times it feels raid content is limited not only to the elite players in actuality it’s being restricted to like the most elitist of the elite. Raids essentially are being time-gated, and now they are also class-gated because you have to cycle between 2-3 classes that are usually required like 99.99% of the time, i.e. chronotank(s), druid, ele. If you’re disinclined to or simply unable to wrap your head around either of those classes or the roles they’re expected to play, then gg nice try but your out of luck. Let’s sideline all other classes and builds indefinitely since we’re so focused on holy trinity atm. Tank, healer, dps and all others can just quit raids in general bc let’s face it ur not needed. No one needs support like rev anymore, esp when that support is nerfed to the ground and dps is sub-par compared to other classes with more dedicated roles. This is essentially what raids are being reduced to.. first encouraged by the devs and then supported so unquestioningly by the top 4% or so of the pve player base themselves.

Literally the third response in this thread addresses every issue you have.

TexZero.7910:

Now i’m gonna teach people who keep saying Raids are inaccessible a lesson real quick here.

You see that LFG tool. Use it.

Here’s what you do
1) Create your own group
2) Label it one of the following things, Inexperienced / Fun / Teaching / Learning run
3) Set you own req for comp & let people know what if any voice tools your using.

You are now the proud starter of a raid group.

Lets stop using this false equivocation that raids are inaccessible, when the cold reality is people whom claim this don’t want to put in the same effort those before them did in building raid groups & learning.

I hate these topics.

Zero constructive criticism.
Zero desire to join training runs.
Zero desire to start training runs.
Zero desire to find a guild to help.
Zero desire to improve.

Ayrilana.1396:

NovaanVerdiano.6174:

Ayrilana.1396:

Balancing shouldn’t be based on what is or isn’t meta. It should be based on the classes as a whole. There are a lot of players that are so fixated on the optimal builds that they forget those are not the only builds that can be successful. There could even be builds that are only suboptimal by a small degree.

Balance should be based around keeping all the classes on a same level so that it makes sense to pick either of them. This isn’t the case. I mean look at necro, they now had almost a year of being decent picks as condi, now they’re back to the shelves like it was for all the time before HoT-release (a place power necro never left, btw)

Which they could always improve on.

But instead, they nerfed condi necro 20% and buffed power necro 0%.

I think it’s a shame that, in 10 person content, the optimal composition is two 5-person squads. It should be different than 2 parties.

It was different before. And every class (except engie) had a place in the squad. That’s not really the case anymore.

Obtena.7952:

cranos.5913:

Obtena.7952:

cranos.5913:

Obtena.7952:

afrocrusade.4253:

DeceiverX.8361:

SNIP

The manner of your typing is what’s pedantic. You say 10 words in 10 sentences. Brevity=soul of wit, blabla.

I don’t think people are being ‘non-brevious’ to avoid being witty. It’s not clear to people how you come to your conclusion about diversity dying … because of class equalizations. Diversity dies when people only want specific classes, which is what was happening due to OP’ed combos of effects. Anet reversed that … diversity should AT LEAST stay the same.

It doesn’t rly tbh because of how OP quickness is, and all other boons tbh. Not taking the buff classes (warr, druid, chrono) puts you at a severe disadvantage. It’s very much worth stacking them. So by nerfing chrono all they did was giving them an extra spot on a raid group.

No, I’m actually correct because you don’t need a Chrono to stack quickness on 10 players to be successful in raids begin with … Quickness being OPed doesn’t mean you need it for success, so yes, you can raid without it successfully and have a diverse team.

This is the same, incorrect mentality that meta lovers forced on players for dungeons … people didn’t need to play only meta builds to complete dungeon content either.

Aye but dungeons were easy. Believe it or not, raiding with pugs is actually quite the challenge. I for one, don’t believe that a no quickness pug raid will have much success, unless you’re planning to spend 2h on a single boss fight.

IDK if you’re overestimating raiders by looking at qT/DnT vids or underestimating the effect quickness has, but for real, you’re making it sooooooo much more difficult not bringing quickness. You’re pretty much always gonna hit enrage.

That doesn’t change the fact that quickness is not a requirement to complete a raid, so I’m not wrong.

I think the main takeaway is that being non-diverse looks to be optimal and the easiest way to complete the fight. That, imo, is a problem.

Rednik.3809:

Absurdo.8309:

How many players do you think pvp or wvw?

Feel free to go at gw2eff and see by yourself.
At least 50% of players have 200+ pvp games. At least 40% of players have 100+ wvw rank.

These game modes have been out for 4 years. When you compare things like proof of heroics or pvp league tickets, the numbers are comparable at 20% participation.

Edit: Plus, both those game modes are available to those without HOT.

thewaterguy.4796:

I am so sick of this stupid argument, their is nothing to argue, Raids SHOULD have a story mode or easier difficulty like Fractals, The argument comes from a selfish place of wanting to be a special little snowflake that gets exclusive access, the argument that it would take away from Raid development is kind of BS if you ask me, all they would have to do is change a couple of numbers around and it would open Raids up to be available to alot more players. I will never understand it, are you that starved for content and that impatient that the idea of letting a ton of other players have access to new content when a new raid comes out might interfere with you getting a raid that the idea infuriates you?

GW2 the MMO that has always stood for respecting a players time and everyone can enjoy the same content…is actively blocking people from raiding. And don’t even bother with the “your just mad” crap guys, my problem isn’t skill, my problem is lack of a group, and not I’m not interested in spending 5-7 hours in a single raid just to have everyone go “Oh well g2g guys bye!” ugh will Arenanet just add a difficulty selector already? I’m not even asking for the same rewards, I mostly would prefer to experience the story first hand as well as learn the game mechanics for myself so that maybe I’ll have a shot at you know…breaking into raiding

Please don’t bother offering me to join a group, I have put up with enough harassment and taunting from so called “Raiders” crying about how I can’t roll with them unless I have X Y Z A B C D G H L M and at least 2 of J and if I don’t have that I’m not “good enough” to be a raider and I should uninstall…this is the type of garbage I play GW2 to avoid, and yet…here it is…

With this attitude, I can see why you dislike raiding. It actually requires cooperation with 9 other people.

You simultaneously state that your problem “isn’t skill,” and that you’re too good for a training group.

You won’t state your build. You won’t accept invitations to groups. You won’t accept criticisms on how to optimize your play.

If that’s how you want to play, fine. Do open world. Raids aren’t for you. You don’t see pvp players complaining when their sub-optimal build gets destroyed in pvp.

Finally, I’ll never understand why people want raids to be more like fractals. We didn’t get a new fractal for over 2 years. And there are no new ones on the horizon. It obviously takes anet a long time to balance multiple difficulty scales. I don’t want raids to be like that.

Rednik.3809:

NovaanVerdiano.6174:

Reasons have been mentioned plenty, in this thread and everywhere else. See some of the other responses.

And yes even if you might not believe it, it increases the development time by a huge amount and the raid devs do not want to sacrifice time for multiple difficulties in order to cater to a group of players that don’t want to raid anyway.

Every percent of players who started to do raids actually increasing value of development time spent on raids. Currently with less than 10% of players raiding regularly I have no idea why someone can even thought about raids being developed further than 4 wings total to finish legendary collection promised on HoT release. Developing content for tiny minority instead of majority is a pointless waste if development time, unless this minority is somehow paying money for everyone else.

How many players do you think pvp or wvw?

Amaimon.7823:

this topic has zero information.

If this is a complain topic, the necro’s are doing fine. people are overreacting. The necro’s are fine. Take a deep breath. Repeat after me
The necros are fine.

Now, people are overreacting, its what people love to do. If there are people barring a necro from groups, let them. If you’re a necro, you’re too good for them.

Necromancer
We feel that necromancers have been faring quite well gamewide, providing play and counterplay in many spots over the last few months. In addition to a couple of minor bug fixes, we wanted to improve the viability of necromancer power builds, which have been somewhat lacking in presence.
Rending Claws: The damage of this ability has been increased by 15%.
Ghastly Claws: The damage of this ability has been increased by 13%.
Unholy Feast: The number of boons converted to conditions has been increased from 1 to 2.
Fading Twilight: The aftercast of this ability has been reduced by 0.11 seconds.
Chilling Scythe: The aftercast of this ability has been reduced by 0.06 seconds.
Death Spiral: The damage of this ability has been increased by 66%.
Blood Is Power: The recharge time of this ability has been reduced from 30 seconds to 20 seconds in PvP only.
Signet of Vampirism: When the Signets of Suffering trait is equipped, this skill will no longer corrupt boons on players who evade it.
Lich Form—Jagged Horrors: These minions will no longer lose health over time and will instead die 30 seconds after they’re summoned.

See, there’s hardly anything I would consider a nerf in here. if anything, this is a list of buffs

The lich form nerf is a huge nerf to the meta condi build.

And I seriously doubt the power buffs make it on par with other power builds.

nagr.1593:

I just don’t understand the attitude of most ppl in this thread, especially Absurdo who’s always against me. In my previous post I proved what exp is defined as (to me). I read up on the unmentioned mechanic in sab, since no one in that group bothered to explain a simple thing to me. I now consider myself exp enough to join an exp group for this boss. what’s wrong abt it? I don’t think of it as lying or deceiving others, at least when I got majority of mechanics down and know how to respond to it.

I do feel I am too good for training runs, so u are right. In fact, I just ran with exp group for VG not an hour ago.. what happened? 3 wipes on a simple boss, got on 4th try. various complications, the rev was running hammer build and asked for kill proof, didn’t know what that meant -> insta-kick. A bit over the top for exp group not mentioning kill proof, but whatever. Then another person not speak English who said he was thai (doesn’t explain anything) who was over the top on toughness so tank was having problem and we also kick him. Then two more wipes cause they couldn’t stay on green.. I even had to step in once but we failed anyway. So if such a simple boss exp means nothing, what does that say majority of players who join them? Tell me I am a worse person/player than them bc I am more dishonest than them, and that skill doesn’t factor at all.

I take advice as long as it makes sense to me. you still haven’t defending half of your first post, esp why group time differs from the actual time (which is same as all). for instance I agree to do training run for matt with my guild. but no one else saying anything that make sense to me. I guarantee once I join exp group for sab and finish with minimal wipes some1 like Fatalyz will jump in to say how that was easy too, since I don’t have a bigger role or tank role etc.

I think you have a big opportunity for some self-reflection here.

Let’s assume, as you say, you are experienced in VG. You join a pug group where you expect others to be experienced. You want to clear the content as quickly as possible.

Except some people lied to get in the group. One group member was running a laughably off-meta build and had trouble with the mechanics. Another directly interfered with the tank’s ability to move the boss.

So, either you:

1) Teach them, despite that you joined the group to get a kill as quickly as possible, and that you personally already put in the effort to learn the fight, or
2) Boot them, and find someone else

Either way wastes time, and it’s the liar’s fault. And yes, it does matter that you are wasting the time of nine other people.

One of the great things about gw2 is that you can play how you want. Sometimes, I want to just raid. Other times, I’m willing to teach more novice members. But if everyone adopted the system you advocate, it wouldn’t let players play how they want. And it looks like even you’re annoyed when other players lie to you.

All I want is to have my groups treated with respect. That includes not lying. If you dislike the group requirements, you are free to form your own.

I would not take someone into raids if they exhibited the following behaviors:

- Lied in joining groups
- Didn’t know all the mechanics of the fight, including key ones like sapper bombs
- Thinks he is too good for training runs
- Does not take advice well
- Blames others for his mistakes, like the dulfy guide

Respect the group, and you’ll get respect in return.

But don’t, well, no one has an obligation to play with you. You can always make your own groups if you’d like.

cpchow.7416:

I spent 1000+G on my boonsharing mesmer yesterday and you are going to nerf it to the ground? Well done, anet. Mesmer is my only character and i may lose my job in the raid and WvW. Don’t tell me to play another light armor class and switch the status of my ascended equipments.The first reason is anet may nerf them in the next balance patch. The second reason is when you are not in the meta , you are over. It is stupid as they don’t care what we want and just destroy our dreams. In addition, i have to farm for another 100 hours in the ember bay and bloodstone Fen for my berserker trinkets.

I remember there was a game i have spent about USD 300 on my equipments. They were powerful and work perfectly with my build. But three months later, a troll patch come out and make all my stuff become completely useless. The build isn’t work anymore, if you want to play the game please prepare another 300 USD. They lose half of their players after that and i think anet is following their step.

If it makes you feel better, the meta is leaning towards 2 chronos, with commander gear.

Agree that the change seems really bad for raids though.

I’m not sure what gear I should change without numbers.

TheMSR.7120:

So your point is: You are a decent skilled player who got kicked several times because you left the impession that you were unexpirienced, althoug the wipe wasn’t your fault. Right? (and you are angry about the people who kicked you instead of explaining the boss)

I mean, he didn’t know the main mechanic of sabetha.

Which is fine … for a training run. Not a serious one.

I’ll try to give constructive advice first, then move on to harsher criticism.

On sabetha specifically,
- Make sure your special action key is bound to something you can press quickly. Something close to your fingers. I have mine on shift+mouse 4
- Turn on the option for aoe’s at maximum range. It helps you throw from further away.
- Zoom your mini map all the way in. It helps tell the different directions apart
- Download gw2 taco (tactical overlay) if you’re still having trouble with which direction is up. Heck, I still use it because it’s one less thing to think about during the fight.

Now, the criticism.

Sorry, but you’re in the wrong here.

As others have mentioned, if you join an exp group (or any group not labeled as training, really) then you need to know the mechanics. Do whatever it takes to get this done. Join training runs, watch YouTube videos, ask guild members whatever.

This is especially essential in sabetha and matthias, as mechanics are assigned semi-randomly and have the potential to wipe the group. As a small aside, teamspeak is extremely useful for groups here as a commander can call out what to do when something goes wrong (e.g. backup, skip it, wipe).

If you don’t know the mechanics, you’re wasting everyone’s time. Period. Take your “two attempts,” say 15 minutes, multiply it by 9, and you’ve wasted over 2 hours.

Pugs have no incentive to train you. They’ll never see you again. And they can easily get someone else who actually knows the fight. Guilds do have an incentive to train, because they’re dealing with repeat players.

It’s ok not to know the fight. But the solution is to learn it. Not go into pug runs and expect them to train you.

Rednik.3809:

OnizukaBR.8537:

Kill mechanics force player to learn, because you learn or you dont pass, take green circles for example you have to learn to gather 4 people there or you will die ( one people missing and its not a wipe you may still heal thorugh). Now you saying people that cant learn to go to green circle now that they will kill the party will learn if the green circle does way less damage?

They will learn how green circle mechanics work, and that it’s dangerous, but without instant wipe for everyone. Because why melee or tank guys should be punished hard with wipe on training run when mistakes was made by ranged group? Purpose of training encounter is learning doing your role, not dying because someone else made mistake once.

You are joking right? right? Its pretty obvious that these people will just tank through it with heals/vit, will learn nothing and actually be worse at actually raid because you know they completed the other version so they know what they are doing.

Again, they will learn what green circles are, how and when they appear in fight and how you must act to counter them. And when they go to normal raid, they only need to know that all mechanics are same but more deadly, so they must pay more attention.

Green circle is not an instant wipe for everyone.

Why doesn’t the first third of the fight count as a “training mode” for green circles? The boss isn’t moving, and there’s a lot less pressure to get to them.

Edit: Actually, most bosses let you “train” during the first stages of the fight. Several bosses become more difficult because you need to deal with all the mechanics at once.

Blaeys.3102:

maddoctor.2738:

Rising Dusk.2408:

I hadn’t actually registered the use of the term “raiding party” as being related to raids, and instead assumed they meant like the first group on the islands. It would be pretty fabulous if we found Cami’s body at the entrance to the Door of Komalie, though, and had to bust in to stop whatever was trying to come out.

hype intensifies

And then our “friend” Lazarus will use his newfound power from the bloodstone to re-seal the gate. OR he might use it to OPEN the gate so we go inside for some other purpose. Maybe Primordus will go inside and start making Titan Destroyers to conquer Tyria. Endless possibilities

Another reason raids need multiple difficulty tiers or modes – it would allow them to incorporate content or zones (like the above examples) that tie more heavily into lore and story.

The current model doesn’t allow for this kind of thing without causing more issues than it solves.

I just want to be excited about a new raid without people complaining about minor lore elements

Would you want to slow down open world content if it needed to be balanced and designed for 3 different difficulty levels? My guess is no.

Replace “raid” with “open world” in your suggestion and tell me how you feel.

We only ask that raids receive fair treatment, and not be delayed for players it’s not designed for.

Edit: Also, sorry to be harsh on OP, but OP gives a wish list, without diagnosing any problem with the status quo

Rednik.3809:

CptAurellian.9537:

I won’t dispute anything of that, because it’s pretty close to my ideas. As I said, we’ll probably never definitely know why certain things happened, as we simply don’t have a proper control experiment. There’s just one kind of argument that I question and that’s the kind “LFR/easymodes/whatever worked so well in WoW, we need it here”, because there’s no data to support such claims.

They are obviously worked well in WoW because they are still in game, they being kept there by developers who obviously have all statistical data available, and this is a model from most successful PvE raiding game from all times. Even now.
So, this is pretty much proven. Feel free to bring other successful raiding games, without easy modes and with popularity even slightly close to WoW one.

WoW also has increased level caps with each expansion. Should gw2 do the same? Wow is the most successful MMO of all time.

This line of discussion is, well, pointless. Argue why your position would be good in Guild wars 2 (and, in a thread that’s relevant to your topic).

CptAurellian.9537:

Constant growth while there was only one mode of raiding (Classic and BC), more or less stagnation when they introduced easymodes (WotLK), constant decline with the usual short bumps from addon releases ever since Cataclysm, with which they introduced LFR. That’s certainly a strong point for the effectiveness of easymodes and LFR.

Data: https://www.statista.com/statistics/276601/number-of-world-of-warcraft-subscribers-by-quarter/

There’s probably a lot of confounding variables in there. I’m sure you would see subscriber decreases in GW2 too, even though there’s only one mode.

Still, wow is a much different game than GW2, and I generally dislike the LFR comparisons. What works for one may not work for the other. In particular, wow content only needs to last a couple of years, while GW2 content needs to last the life of the game.

Hypairion.9210:

Can’t dodge while I’m knocked down. Can’t use shroud if you get one shot. Endurance regen isn’t even a factor for something you couldn’t dodge.

Did you even read my post? 32k hp in ONE hit. That’s a bit much don’t you think?

But ofc all the idiots will say “just learn to dodge”, or “you have shroud”, as if i dont already kittening know that.

Dodge the knockdown. Simples.

Or just the OP could use a stun break…guess all of these solutions are too hard…

I agree it’s easy to knock on this guy, but I’ll try to give actual advice.

Plague signet is probably the most useful stun break to bring, if you need one.

Also, you can still go into shroud while knocked down, if you are getting combo’ed.

Not to be snarky, but you can play a lower tier swamp if it’s too hard for you.

Most pug groups I’ve played with are able to beat t4 swamp.

Blaeys.3102:

TexZero.7910:

Astralporing.1957:

TexZero.7910:

zero need for a story mode.

do LS3 and you can get a recap. Walk into wing 3 and talk to glenna and you can get a recap. YOUTUBE still exist…..

At this point if you still truly care about the story, you’d have used any of these options.

It’s even better, because at this point you don’t even need to play ls3 either. After all, if Youtube covers all your needs…

It’s basically what you guys are asking for because it’s clearly not the gameplay your after. May as well just sit back and watch cinematics all day long.

It really isn’t.

It is possible to simply tone the mechanics down rather than completely remove or invalidate them when developing tiered difficulties. It doesn’t have to be one extreme or the other.

Oversimplification like this doesn’t really address the issue.

The OP is asking for a mode with no rewards so he can focus solely on the story. I don’t think this is an oversimplification.

What problem are you trying to solve? Why do the people you know not raid? And do they want to?