Guild Wars 2

Rising Dusk.2408:

While we’re on the subject, can I start the T2 collection even though I’ve never opened the T1 reward box? I don’t know who I want the free ascended set to go to yet, but I want to start working on the T2 collection.

Yes, I think all you need to do is talk to a master crafter in lions arch.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Malediktus.3740:

Story mode is waste of development time, zero replay value

Which is (hopefully) a lesson that story mode dungeons taught ANet.

Honestly, I think people would play story mode dungeons if the rewards were the same as explorable. The difficulty and time-to-complete is similar.

But (more directed at OP) story mode dungeons would be nothing like a story mode raid. What he’s asking for is an easy mode, not a separate encounter.

Plus, two of the raids are much easier than the others, providing a stepping stone into the others.

I really like how the fractal blur mechanic adds an element of randomness and chaos to the fight. And some are really creative, like bunny and skyhammer! Here are a few suggestions for more of these blurs:

- A shockwave, either from a falling anvil or a molten berserker tantrum
- A pack of pocket raptors
- Archdiviner popping in to do his aoe attack (and, if possible, spawn cages on people!)
- Grawl Shaman spawning some totems
- Old Tom doing his aoe venom attack
- Any of sabetha’s minions or the bandit trio spawning for a couple of seconds
- Those annoying pull portals from thermanova reactor

Feel free to add your own! I know I will as I think of more.

Rising Dusk.2408:

• Flux Bombs is one of my favorite instabilities. It’s consistent and adds a new mechanic to think about how to handle.
• I generally dislike the Mistlock where it blurs Fractals together as it adds too much of a random element where you can’t predict what is happening when and certain spawns are much more dangerous than others.
• Toxic Trails is pretty painless right now after the nerf, it just requires players think about where they’re standing and where they drag the mobs. Realistically you should just CC the mobs together and lock them down before killing them. If my teams do that, I have no problems on glass builds taking everything down.

I like the randomness of fractal blur — it makes repeating the content different each time. Plus, bunny and sky hammer are hilarious.

Make Rye Known.6273:

Hey, I was thinking if it would be possible to get a story mode for the raiding content, similar to Arah.
The reason I would like this is that though it is not as big a story gab from living season 1 to season 2 if you didn’t play in 1, it still feels like I am missing parts of the story and it’s just a bit annoying tbh.
It shouldn’t drop loot or anything but just a mode you can go into for the story an take your time.
I am not a raider but I know if I was raiding I wouldn’t be focused on the story, so it could probably also be nice for some of the raiders.

and also what do you guys think about this idea?:3
(sorry if it has been asked before, I haven’t been on the forums for a looooong time).
Rye

But, arah doesn’t have a story mode. At least the kind you imagine for raids.

Here’s what arah has:
- 1 single player instance that is the capstone of the personal story
- 4 group instances of varying difficulty, that are generally harder than the average gw2 content. Each instance has lore elements that are relevant to the story, but unnecessary to understand it.

Here’s what raids have:
- 9 group instances of varying difficulty, that are generally harder than the average gw2 content. Each instance has lore elements that are relevant to the story, but unnecessary to complete it.

… that’s actually very like arah. Arah doesn’t have a story mode like you’re suggesting.

Most forum users find these posts extremely tedious, because they’re rarely constructive.

Most are of the form:
“I want X,” or
“I want X because I like Y”

They rarely explain why they want X or why they can’t get Y. But I’ll try to be helpful.

1. If it’s too hard for you: Join a large guild or a training run. Most large guilds train raiders. I find most training runs are on Sunday, but I see them throughout the week too

2. If you don’t like the raid format: Competed instances have all story elements. And there’s an NPC at the beginning of wing 3 that summarizes everything. There’s not much story in the actual boss fights, but you can still experience those without beating them.

I hope these work for you.

And yes, we’ve rehashed this topic a couple of times. To the other posters: I’ve rarely found a wishlist, without identifying the problem, helpful.

Rednik.3809:

Daniel.5428:

Just think how many weeks you needed to get the gear…..gw2 was all about tactics cuz most of the ppl already had ascended gear and dulfy published guides right after 2-3 days since release…..so don;t tell me wow raids were easier. If you consider this joke of a raid hard, then you can’t play anything except the trinity……In the end, you need no trinity in gw2, just to know how to rotate your spells…..this is the thing ppl can;t do, they just go press 1-2-3-4-5, activate everything then stay on auto-attack for 50 seconds cuz of cooldowns.(because,ofc, switching weapons is not good)

This “joke of raid” usually require to memorize and keep attention at more mechanics that usual 10man wow ones. Add to that an awful UI, no helpful addons, tiny number of proper training raids and small raiding community overall (yeah, there is new data on gw2eff, feel free to look at).

In case anyone was wondering about the actual data:

Percentile of players with shards
50% of players have 0 shards
20% of players have 104+ shards
10% of players have 318+ shards
1% of players have 2744+ shards

Draw conclusions as you will, but this seems pretty good to me.

Edit: By insights

50% of players have 0 insights
20% of players have 2+ insights
10% of players have 21+ insights
1% of players have 220+ insights

Rising Dusk.2408:

Zania.8461:

I suspect that the (fairly outrageous) prices of the ascended gear is due to the ability to bypass leveling the crafting skills. Which makes them largely useless for anyone who has the said skills leveled.

Regardless of this fact—which is a good point overall—it ultimately means that they’ve introduced a supposed relic / matrix / page sink that will never realistically get used except by accident.

It would have been much more useful if they had reduced the gold cost to raid vendor levels and then made the (pristine) relic cost very, very high so you either have to play a metric boatload of Fractals to gear up or get to L500 crafting. That would have been a fair trade.

Here is the dev response to this on reddit:

We considered a pricing model more akin to the raid vendor, but a couple things led us away from that structure and to the current one.

First off, we wanted to ensure that crafting remained the primary way for most players to get their Ascended equipment. Due to their nature, Raids will never become the primary way for players to obtain Ascended, but that was a very real risk with Fractals as they are far more accessible and easy to farm.

Secondly, if the primary cost was a token instead of gold, we wouldn’t be able to use either Pristines or Research Pages as players have had to long time to stockpile those already. Since we didn’t want to add yet another token to Fractals, it made sense to make gold the primary cost and have the tokens be secondary.

Ultimately, after much internal debate, we decided the gold-based structure would be the best for the long-term health of the game.

Source

Zania.8461:

I suspect that the (fairly outrageous) prices of the ascended gear is due to the ability to bypass leveling the crafting skills. Which makes them largely useless for anyone who has the said skills leveled.

Alternatively they are banking on prices of ascended mats going through the roof which would make these competitive.

Yep, it’s a combination of 1) an alternative method of crafting and 2) stabilizing matrix prices are really high now.

Ascended weapons and armor were added to BLING because there are some players who do not want to do any crafting, but do want to play Fractals. BLING gives these players access to Ascended weapons and armor without forcing them to level up their crafting skills.
For players who are interested in crafting, crafting remains the most efficient way to obtain Ascended weapons and armor on-demand, which is intentional, as Ascended crafting is the big payoff for leveling your crafting skills.

A large portion of the cost comes from the fact that Stabilizing Matricies nearly doubled in price when the patch hit. Over time they should return to their normal price range, which will significantly reduce the discrepancy.
If for some reason the values do not normalize as we expect them to, we can certainly look into adjusting the vendor’s pricing in a future patch.

Source

New vendor

New Instabilities

Great changes to existing fractals

Power builds useful in high level fractals

… Just, thanks

Pompeia.5483:

Tempests have plenty of group support. All reapers have is condi strip, blood is power, and sometimes transfusion (though that is a crutch).
Viper tempest can pump out might and fury with fire fields and provide vigor and regen instead if needed. They also make easy-mode tanks with infinite protection and 50-60% damage reduction.

I don’t mind if you play viper tempest. But groups take viper reapers over tempest for a reason.

Full disclosure: I’m not 100% what the viper tempest build is, but I’ll assume it uses dagger. I’m going to ignore tanking builds since reaper can also tank with minimal build changes.

On VG: Reapers can epi bounce and maintain damage at range for green circles.

On Gor: Reapers can epi adds and bounce and provide good cc

On Sab: Reapers can epi adds, and bounce, and kite flak if needed

On sloth: Reapers can epi adds, and bounce, and cc, and pull conditions, and projectile block

On trio: Reapers can epi adds, and bounce

On matt: Reapers can pull conditions, cc, and transfusion

On escort : Reapers can epi, and hold back wars

On KC: No use for reapers here

On Xera: Reapers can pull conditions, epi and bounce, and cc

Yes, Viper ele may be able to provide might and fury (if they can manage the blast). But other classes do it better. Again, it’s ok to like viper ele, but reapers are generally superior.

Pompeia.5483:

I have 165 LI, to date. I do not run meta builds. I use my own intelligence to figure out what works and adapt. However, I started meta to prove myself to a group of people I now raid with. They know I can handle myself and do not need to ask about gear, skills, or traits. That is what you have to do. Problem is, with pugs, you will always have to prove yourself with new people.

Meta builds are there for the lazy and the, well, not skilled at reading traits and logically assessing what fits with what and where (I have a coworker that just clicks whatever he wants in trait lines and leeroy’s everything). They come up with these meta build things to make it easy and, honestly, allow for more margins of error. There is no reason you cannot, if you know how the game works, come up with compatible, budget builds that allow you to play just as well as anyone else. Just know the role you aim for and do not step on toes.

And just because I can; shameless plug, Viper tempest does more damage to a single target than reaper in the same gear. If not for epi, reaper would not be taken. (P.S. my reaper is my main)

But viper tempest provides no group support…
And necros do have epidemic…
And power tempest does more damage…

Meta builds just mean the best builds. Doesn’t mean you’re lazy for using them, it means you are trying to be the best.

MLinni.6109:

It probably depends on luck if you happen on the wrong people who only slavishly adhere to the “recommended” section of Metabattle.
While I can see the problems of both “n00bs” and “elitists” (exaggerating both extremes), I think the problem mostly stems from the conflicting design goals of ANET.

Most “elitists” would probably take more people along if there wasn’t a hard cap on time.
I do remember the mic drop thing in the HoT developers’ video announcing “the berserker meta to be dead”. But then they design encounters where you are pressed for time and thus HAVE to bring the party compositions which crank out the most ye olde DPS or fail.
What do these guys want really? Unless they’re sure what direction they want to build in, I guess the controversy like this will never be able to be resolved.

Actually, on some bosses, faster is better (even without a timer). This is especially true on bosses that have group wipe mechanics, because faster means you have fewer opportunities to screw them up.

coso.9173:

maybe the content itself should not require a specific build to be able to complete it?
I think that’s what the devs should be aiming for. Not having 1 (or in some cases 2) choices that are useful for PVP/raids, but a wider range of options.
condi build? pure DPS sustain build? burst DPS? all of them should be useful options for DPS, same for tanks and healers.

Across all classes, there’s 15-20 meta builds you could bring.

Of course, there’s nothing stopping you from doing the raid with like-minded folks. Groups can and have beat the raids with odd compositions, like 10 necros.

But there’s also nothing wrong with pug groups expecting the best from their pugs. Meta builds are, by definition, the best builds for the content.

Blaeys.3102:

maddoctor.2738:

Menadena.7482:

I am more than happy to let the min/max people get away from the rest of us and hang out in raids or such. Unfortunately they insist on bringing their gaming culture everywhere, like gaming missionaries forcing their ideas on everyone.

I think the opposite is also true. Players who don’t follow the meta want to enter min-max groups and thus we get threads like this one.

It is very possible (likely) that both are true -

which is exactly why game modes like raids need varied difficulty/tiered experiences where possible.

The meta is only an issue in areas where the game incorporates mechanics, most notably enrage timers and hard DPS checks, that are designed around a meta. Vary the experience for different playstyles and it becomes much less of an issue.

Or just have different game modes for different play styles: open world, living story, fractals, raids.

Blaeys.3102:

When people post videos of 8 for VG, 6 for gorseval, I think people misinterpret what that really represents (which we have talked about many times in these threads).

The hard core and specialized raid groups/guilds did the same thing in WoW. They microanalyze the fights/builds/stats and tailor make the smaller groups to take advantage of particular boons or aspects of the fights (same is true of the groups that do the fights with 10 eles and blast water fields). They then practice and practice until that one pull they get perfect (often for hours or months), which they then post online.

That is an admirable accomplishment, but it is in no way whatsoever representative of how the vast majority of groups approach raids – and it definitely has nothing to do with or justifies diminishing the need for a training or variable difficulty mode . Anyone who has raided in any game has seen it dozens of times and understands that simple fact.

I have talked about this exact topic and reasoning before. I understand some don’t see it the same way, but anyone that has raided hardcore in other raiding games understands it. Ive been in some of those groups that take advantage of mechanics or boons (in WoW, specifically) to do some things the developers obviously didn’t think would be possible. It is a very particular playstyle – and can be fun. But it isn’t representative of how standard raiding works or fits into a game.

Looking at those groups to justify the exclusion of easier modes is disingenuous, imo. I can see how people who haven’t seen this kind of thing in the past can connect the dots, but it really is apples and oranges.

But … at least there’s something to support his position. Groups can and have beaten these bosses with fewer people than intended.

I think people get upset because there’s actually a possibility of failure in raids. Yes, for some groups it’s faceroll. But there’s always that possibility of a wipe. That’s not present in most gw2 content.

It’s ok not to like it. It really is. But that’s no reason to nerf or make an alternative form of this content. There’s plenty of other content to play.

The most common argument here (now) is that it would get more people into raiding. Train them. Well, I don’t believe that. You can train right now. You could make a guild run right now to train people.

So do it. Be your own solution. But I expect all we’ll see is more anet bashing.

Blaeys.3102:

NikeEU.7690:

Blaeys.3102:

Now that the “challenging content” is here, it is time to logically expand on that content to create a system that encourages advancement, fits with the other storytelling tools in the game and opens new experiences for players with multiple playstyles and interests.

It already does all of those things. Guess we can close the thread now since the existing raid satisfies your requirements.

Your reply shows exactly why the conversation needs to continue. It is about degrees and the perspective of the player. While you find the system open and meeting the criteria I list, there are others (myself obviously among them) who do not. All of those opinions are important and of value to both the community and Anet.

Debating (calmly and respectfully) where the lines are drawn and if/how they can be improved upon is exactly why the thread should remain open and active.

What criteria do you value, and how have you not found them met?

I find it difficult to debate with easy-moders because I have no idea what their thesis is. That is, what problem are they trying to solve?

The title of this post is practice mode raids. (Note: not easy mode). The first stage of each boss is practice for the later stages. Why is this not enough?

It’s very strange to me that all the posters advocating for a WoW-like raiding system have never actually experienced that system. (Full disclosure, I haven’t either).

What do the easy moders hope to accomplish with such systems?

Flex raiding — groups have already beat most encounters with as few as 6 people. Is it that hard to grab extra players off the lfg?

Planned obsolescence — All wow raids eventually become obsolete, because of increased level caps and gear tiers. GW2 raids need to last the lifespan of the game.

And, as always, what keeps players from training right now? (Spoiler, nothing).

I’ve also noticed an increase in anti-raid rhetoric lately:
- Players calling for no more raids
- Players calling for raids with no GW2 flavor

Scipio.3204:

OnizukaBR.8537:

Second, people run old raids for mount because they cant get the mounts on the current expansion, as the easier mode dont give any mounts, so they need to wait for the next expansion to release, then they go to older content on the max difficult and solo a content that was done by a 25-man raid ( So all the epic feeling of the raids die right there ).

Probably you are right, I’m not that familiar with the WoW raiding system

Why are you making arguments based on WoW if you don’t know the system?

I don’t know that much about the WoW raiding system either. I was under the impression that when a new expansion comes out, the level cap increases and there is a new tier of gear.

That won’t happen in Guild wars 2. There’s no rush to experience the content (as it’s meant to be played), because you can always do it. Contrast that to WoW, where it’s (presumably) a ghost town on most raids, unless there’s a peculiar reward. Even then, I don’t think soloing a 25 person instance is how the content is meant to be experienced.

If you want to argue that “all content should be experienced by all players,” go ahead. But keep in mind that’s not how the majority of content in gw2 operates.

Scipio.3204:

Absurdo.8309:

No gear-treadmill is an argument for single difficulty.

Can you elaborate?

I’ll quote myself (from the same post)

Since there’s no gear treadmill, causal and hardcore raiders are literally on the same level.
Plus, raids only get easier as time passes.
- It’s much easier to learn raids if you’re surrounded by expreienced players
- There’s resources—including guides, guilds, and learning runs—to help new players
- Future elite specs could make the encounter easier
No gear-treadmill is an argument for single difficulty. Players can hop into this content right now, and forever.

Essentially, all content gets easier over time, and there’s no rush to beat the content. You can beat the content 1 year from now and be rewarded with still-useful stuff.

Blaeys.3102:

Sykper.6583:

Simply saying ‘It will generate interest’ or ‘It will increase those numbers raiding’ are not good enough reasons to hijack the purpose of raiding as a whole in this game.

No one wants to hijack anything.

It is very much about ensuring the health of raids for years to come. Like you said, there is a gear/level treadmill in WoW that eventually causes raids to fall behind. But there is a time toward the end of each expansion that more casual players can experience the raids (not LFG) due to the gear transitions. That is by design because developers realize there is a need for that – for both story progression and general content reasons.

There is no gear treadmill in GW2 (and hopefully never will be). While that alleviates many issues when compared to a game like WoW, it creates others. Less hardcore players will always be a step behind the hardcore raiders – and there will always be an experience just out of their reach. While I agree that the upper level rewards and satisfaction of beating an encounter at the highest level remain important concepts, I also believe there needs to be an intermediate step for those players to experience the raids – both for story and to enjoy the content. Without that, you risk alienating large groups of people, disenfranchising them from the story (however thin the connection) and making them feel like they are somehow less important to the makers of the game.

For all of those reasons, there needs to be some kind of variable difficulty built into the raid experience in GW2. Other games realized this – even ones that started off with the “go hardcore or go home” approach to raids. It will happen in GW2 eventually. Doing it now – and building into the system – ensures that it will have a minimal impact on the hardcore experience so many people wish to retain.

Since there’s no gear treadmill, causal and hardcore raiders are literally on the same level.

Plus, raids only get easier as time passes.
- It’s much easier to learn raids if you’re surrounded by expreienced players
- There’s resources—including guides, guilds, and learning runs—to help new players
- Future elite specs could make the encounter easier

No gear-treadmill is an argument for single difficulty. Players can hop into this content right now, and forever.

Blaeys.3102:

Anka.5086:

Ranael.6423:

The real question is : What is so difficult in the raid right now that needs an extra mode to overcome?
I mean the encounters are already ramping up in term of difficulty during the phases so normally once you get the basic mechanics of P1, you jump to P2 and learn the new added mechanics and so on.
Why have an easy mode to learn P3 if one is not able to go past P1?

Let’s go scientific!

• Link to Survey made by Mind101 reddit user;
  https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/4nvt7z/results_raiding_in_guildwars2_a_survey_on_your/

I’m going to copy and paste his highlights of the survey;

What has kept people from trying out raids:
I have no GW2 raiding experience, and despite having the right ascended gear for it, people refuse to bring me along and I don’t get access/invited to guilds that do or might do learning parties.
It sounds like (from posts on places like Reddit) Raids require top-notch skill and equipment, and you are considered a hindrance if you don’t have both. That’s a bit intimidating…
I’m a casual, guildless player who doesn’t play often, and more importantly not regularly (maybe twice a month, when i can?). I wasn’t there at the beginning, and now, if I try to join a group, i can only try find pugs who are training for the raid. Those groups never fill. The other option is to join an “experienced group”, well, I’m not experienced, that would be a lack of respect for the other party if i were to join such a group.

Why people stopped raiding:
The gameplay is not fun at all since most of the time, you don’t even know what’s healing you or where damage comes from. You barely even have to dodge in order to survive. Raids in general don’t take advantage of GW2’s combat system in order to create fun, engaging gameplay. There are pretty much no exciting moments during a boss fight, so I tend to fall asleep before the boss is even finished.
Bored of looking for a guild that I both have fun with and can raid with. I hate corner staking and skipping mobs in instances, finding such a guild not disgusted by raid is a bit hard.
Not out of choice – most of my friends quit the game due to the state of things and time differences are hard. I’’d love to get into it but am worried if I don’t have the ‘right’ gear or knowledge that I’ll be kicked from squad. Worried about the opinions of 9 other players and not letting the team down.

From that survey we can see that players that are willing to raid feel their lack of raid exp, general lack of coordination and know-how in pug groups are putting them off from actively participating in raids. Therefore, it might be a good idea to have some system in place for those new players to practice boss mechanic and improve raid coordination.

I think this is very important – and telling, especially since the information comes from a source other than the raiding subforum (which has always, understandably, been a little lopsided).

I think some people are worried that any changes would mean they will lose their challenging content.

That simply doesn’t have to be the case. The OP’s idea is about generating more interest in raiding – to ensure the game mode remains healthy and actually warrants continued long term development support.

Yes, the current raids are starting to get stale for a lot of raiders. That isn’t going to get better anytime soon. Unlike games like WoW where raids are the primary focus at end game, raids are just a small part of the GW2 developers endgame efforts (and will likely take a back seat to things like fractals and open world moving forward).

Long term, the only thing that will keep them alive is community support for the game mode – and that means getting more people involved in them. It can’t be the special club for a small group and expect to warrant large scale support.

It is very easy to cherry pick someone who supports your opinion.

Raiding as a beginner, thoughts, suggestions and an overall assessment of attitude & mentality

Tldr of the post: From the perspective of a new raider, would-be raiders only have themselves to blame for not raiding.

I wont pretend the posters opinion was not controversial (with the top post suggesting a training mode), but the OP’s post is at +103.

No one wants a special club. But there’s not much stopping would-be raiders from raiding.

Pros of fractals as a stepping stone to raids:
- It’s different content, giving players an opportunity to play both fractals and raids
- Their reward structures are separate
- If a player is not interested in fractals or raids, they still can play the other

Cons of a training mode:
- There’s no reason why players can’t train now (I see training runs in lfg and guild all the time)
- The mode, by design, has little replay value
- Anet would need to develop the mode for the current bosses and all future bosses
- It provides no value to those who can raid or those who don’t want to raid.
- That is, and not to be too snarky, but it’s only for players who can’t handle failure/challenge of a normal raid
- Some raids are much easier than others and can serve as a stepping stone
- Training mode will not train if it’s too easy

I can imagine a spec that heals the group proportional to the amount of damage they deal out.

But, at least in pve, you’re right, there’s no competition. The druid buffs are just too valuable. That’s why ventari and healing ele have fallen out of favor, even though they can competently heal a group.

Anka.5086:

Wouldn’t it be nice to have practice raid mode? Here’s my suggestion for ‘’Practice Raid mode’’;

• There should be no trash mobs.
• There should only be raid boss with significantly reduced hp and damage so that even 5-man can complete it.
• Obviously no loot rewards.
• Boss mechanics should be the same as normal raid mode

This will not only help players whom are finding it difficult to get into raids because of exp difference and also veteran players to learn different roles in raids e.g. tanking at Xera, canon duty at sabetha etc.

What do you think?

Edit:

+ There should also be an option to skip to the boss you want practice. For example; if you want to practice Xera there should be an option to skip Escort, McLeod, and KC.

If you want to practice, why can’t you do so in normal mode?

And I agree there should be some way to select raid bosses.

Sykper.6583:

Blaeys.3102:

When you look at it, your statement doesn’t really equate to further division. Saying that tiered difficulties will divide the player base just like it is being divided now because of open world is a zero sum start (eg, there is no further division).

But there would be. Right now all interest in raids is funneled into only one difficulty, all persons interested. Adding a difficulty either harder or easier would immediately divide the interest and population, of who knows what the divide would be, into those who want to do the normal, and the ones that want to do the other mode.

Blaeys.3102:

I posit that bringing new people into to raids will result in two groups. The first will be the casuals who just want to have fun in the raid. I say more power to them – more people having fun, the more successful the game is, and the more justification Anet has for investing in more raids. That’s something we all want.

Assuming they need more justification, sure. Is this really necessary though? That’s a question you have been dodging for a while, is it necessary to spend resources creating an easier mode for players who do not want to go through all the hoops that the normal version has to get what they assume is a ‘raid’ experience. You can not make that argument, that raiding can be more successful if they added an easier mode nor can you suggest that bringing in players who normally would not be able to raid the current raid content, to this new content, would generate further success.

Blaeys.3102:

But it is the second group that will have the impact I’m talking about – and the one that moves the needle even further. The group that wants to learn to raid but doesn’t want to beat their head against the wall learning the mechanics.

Excusing the hyperbole there, that particular line I pointed out is extremely important and has been a question left unanswered for a long time now. How does one learn to raid without learning the mechanics? Do you introduce the mechanics in the easier mode but do not make them threatening whatsoever? How would that teach them to deal with it in the normal version, why not just do the normal version and train the normal version while getting currency for wipes?!

Every single time you say that these ‘raiders’ who are interested in raiding but do not want to engage, learn and adapt to the raid encounters but simply just want to win, I feel you are taking a side that is strictly ‘not a raider’. It is anything but raiding if you remove failure from the equation. You aren’t giving these raiders who do not want to try the normal raid a raid, you are giving them a win button.

Blaeys.3102:

So, at worse, it’s a zero sum, only not really, because you would still have more people sharing similar experiences (which could still be considered less division). At best, it deepens the interest in raids, justifies more development and encourages more people to put in the work to tackle higher end challenges – giving those that raid (pug or organized) a deeper pool and more opportunities to raid.

Similar experiences, kind of like how that VG in the Fen is a similar experience for open world groups to have a taste of a raid am I right?

Let’s face it, there will be a net loss of raider population going into normal mode, as those raiders who weren’t quite confident of their skills yet very possibly could have raided normal mode just fine, were caught by an allure to do easy mode. Upon doing easy mode, they might it entertaining or very likely boring, as the ultimate PvE challenge has been trivialized.

Regardless, their perception of easy mode would taint and likely harm their chances of doing normal mode properly, depending on what extent the easy mode diverges from the normal, certain mechanics they could have avoided all together, now they cannot, and they have an entirely different fight. Oh joy! The easy mode did not prepare them whatsoever for the normal encounter! They will have to relearn it.

OR, if the easy mode is just a slightly tuned down version of normal, then there will still be complaints about how hard this easy-mode is. Because people are selfish and lazy, they certainly don’t want to learn, and they believe they are raider material until they get the pressure turned on and they either drop out, or strive and experience a thrill not felt anywhere else in the game right now.

Agreed. Easy modes will divide those who currently raid. It also won’t help train any potential raiders.

Based on some other easy-moders in this thread, all they seem to want is rewards. If they actually wanted to learn to raid, nothing is stopping them.

Blaeys.3102:

TexZero.7910

1) Multiple difficulties not only undermines the objective goal of raids, but their design. Additionally, they eventually long-term end up segregating communities and causing divisive design goals that limit how complex and challenging mechanics can be due to having to be watered down at the low end.

2) Not with any of the proposed methods in this thread, and none that are ultimately a realistic design choice for any aspect of gameplay.

3) Loaded question with an impossible answer because anyone can tell you, you’re asking for the impossible. If they have to make more, that means more time and resources being spent. So lets not pull the in a vacuum or perfect world scenario questions and stick to the realistic scope. Man power doesn’t come out of thin air and isn’t free.

4) Im all for more 5 man challenging content, fractals have proven they can do this. Unfortunately the same adverse to change and hard content crowd is now complaining over the changes to them as well. Other aspects of play should remain as is. They (Open world and Living story) are intentionally designed for the majority of the population.

Thank you for both the response and the productive tone/answers.

I admit the one question was a bit loaded. I promise I wasn’t trying to bait you into a response. I was trying to determine to what level the objection is more objective ( ) vs emotional. I think you answered that well in your other responses.

I think your answer to the first question really deserves more discussion – among everyone, because I think it probably gets to the heart of why there is so much disagreement around this topic.

You talk about the objective goals of raiding – and their design. While I agree that the objective goal the developers had in mind was solely to provide challenging content, I don’t believe that it should be the only goal. The reason I don’t believe that is because I think there has always been overarching goal that GW2 has tried to attain to – to be more inclusive and community focused than other MMOs. With the introduction of raids, for many people those two goals came into conflict (especially for people like me who lead large fairly casual guilds).

I think raiding could be a part of that bigger picture without disrupting the challenging experience that meets the objective goal you describe. Was this part of the dev’s original plan? Obviously not based on their statements. But, that doesn’t mean they cannot evolve. Again, we have seen this in many other games with raids.

Let’s make raids a real part of the narrative – a real link in the GW2 development chain with the same importance and level of support we see for fractals or living story or WvW. But, to justify that, there has to be greater appeal. They really need to fit more with the implied goal/position of the game itself, which I don’t not currently feel they do. I think they can do that without removing the challenge (which I really want as well, btw – I even think they are probably a bit too easy for top level raiders).

I don’t want raids to fail. I don’t want challenging content to go away. I simply feel raids, as they are designed, aren’t really sustainable in this game. With some work – namely, extending the appeal (again, as other MMOs have done) – that can be remedied and we will have a stronger more appealing game for it.

Again, thank you for taking the time to humor me on this. I realize you and I disagree with one another. Let’s have a discussion about those disagreements (as you have definitely done above) rather than just argue (which is what much of this thread has devolved into).

I’m trying get your take-away point to generate discussion, but it’s hard to see your point. Is it that raids should be more inclusive because the rest of the game is?

We’ve had hard content before. Why can’t hard content stay hard and easy content stay easy?

Further, most proposed easy modes would divide the player base, just as open-world and raids divides the player base.

Scipio.3204:

Absurdo.8309:

1. Accepting this premise as true, that does not mean there should be an easy mode. In fact, beating raids can be a long term goal for some players

That wouldn’t stop however. I do believe if fractals had the T4 version only a lot less people would run them altogether, because introduction to a certain type of content matters a lot.

Every time I see a raid discussion bought up on reddit, I see a lot of people being discouraged to even try them because of what others tell about raids. Having options would mean they also could have the long term goal of clearing the current one.

Absurdo.8309:

2. People would raid more if they could practice the mechanics

2. I’m not sure this is true. Most raids ramp up in mechanics, allowing groups to overcome them before encountering a harder version. There’s nothing stopping anyone from practicing right now

That point is more like “Less people would stop raiding”. In short if people crack his head against a brick wall for too long without succeeding, eventually they would back out. I saw this happening a lot. If people had the chance to crack his head against lets say a wood wall and have a sense of accomplishment that way he will more likely try the brick wall again.

Absurdo.8309:

3. I agree that raid rewards should have a second look. Especially with repeating a boss later in the week. That doesn’t lead to easy mode raids though

That is not the conclusion I drew. On first time clearing if you are in a decent group raids currently award more than any other content in the same timeframe. On the top of that: exclusives , chances at ascended and a sure way to build a full ascended. I don’t see increasing the rewards as the way for drawing in more people. Only those will raid who raided before.

As for increasing the rewards on second round, that is as delicate topic as this is. I don’t see what rewards you can add on second clears that will motivate an average raider to do it again without turning raids into a grindfest. Considering top guilds are able to clear all three wings close to a hour , what should they be able to earn at top, but still enough to motivate others? But still, this is a different topic

In short, I don’t believe increasing the rewards within a reasonable frame will do anything with the problem of long term raiding population. And wether this issue is solved with easy mode or not, this is a valid concern. Looking at the LFG (the only thing we can look at) I don’t think the number of people we have now can and will be able to support let’s say 4 raids with as many bosses as this one have. And I’m already afraid about the popularity of the second raid if it will have the LI as the main motivator.

I’ll try to boil down your arguments again.

You think that the main barrier to more raiders is that players initially find the content hard, and then give up.

I think the underlying reason is these players simply don’t like hard content. That is, they see the content is hard, decide they don’t like it, and move on.

And that’s fine, of course.

I don’t think an easy mode would produce more raiders. Just more people playing easy mode (and less raiders, since some would shift to this category).

But, there’s tons of easy content, and more in the pipeline. We don’t need an easy mode to satisfy these players.

Plus, there’s a bit of a double standard to the easy mode argument. Raiders don’t demand a hard version of everything.

And, finally, there are already easy mode raids that players can get their feet wet in. Escort and trio.

Blaeys.3102:

1. What is your single biggest objection to multiple difficulties in raids?
-
2. Would it be possible – in any way – for ArenaNet to implement tiered difficulties in a way you would be comfortable with? If not, why not. If so, what would that look like?
-
3. Would you have a problem with tiered difficulties existing if they did not change the way they develop/have any impact on the current tier of difficulty whatsoever (eg, didn’t add to development time, didn’t share the same rewards, etc)? (purely hypothetical)
-
4. Would you be interested in very challenging content outside of raids – including fractals, living story, etc? If so, what would that look like?
-

Before answering these questions, I think we need to go even more basic. Why does this content need to be easy?

I’ll note that easy modes are not the norm in Guild Wars 2. Most content has a single difficulty mode. That includes: open world, world bosses, dungeons, and raids. Content that does have an mode is: fractals, SAB, guild missions, and adventures.

And to answer your questions:

1. I know you asked for one objection, but these two weigh equally in my mind
1a. There is no need for easy mode raids because there’s tons of easier content, and anet continues to produce easy content
1b. Easy mode raids would split the raiding player base. That is, it works be harder to find a group for normal mode.

2. No, for the reasons mentioned above

3. If it didn’t affect the current raids, (including the pool of players to play with), then I would not be opposed to easier versions. I’ll note that I think unbound guardian is a solution to this question, and I support more like it.

4. Yes. But I support easier versions too, as long as it’s not the exact same content. I like the variety between escort and matthias, or new swamp and molten duo, or cof and arah.

Scipio.3204:

Absurdo.8309:

As much fun as is it is to spar with you, this thread is no longer productive. The mods should close it.

This thread hasn’t been a discussion for a long time.

I already wrote down my points yet none of them have been countered. If you want to provide a meaningful discussion here they are:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/Different-Raid-Difficulty-Would-Satisfy-Most/page/13#post6279439

OK.

I’ll attempt to summarize your points:
1. There’s currently no long term goals in HOT
2. People would raid more if they could practice the mechanics
3. Raid population is shrinking (because people already have their LI’s / will have legendary armor)

There are some good observations in here, but I’m not sure how that translates to easy mode raids:

1. Accepting this premise as true, that does not mean there should be an easy mode. In fact, beating raids can be a long term goal for some players
2. I’m not sure this is true. Most raids ramp up in mechanics, allowing groups to overcome them before encountering a harder version. There’s nothing stopping anyone from practicing right now
3. I agree that raid rewards should have a second look. Especially with repeating a boss later in the week. That doesn’t lead to easy mode raids though

I think that the players that don’t like raids, just don’t like raids. That’s ok. The solution is develop other content that fits their needs too. Trying to develop a one-size-fits-all solution seems more likely to disappoint everyone.

Blaeys.3102:

After 15+ pages, I’ve responded to many counterpoints and defended the concept of varied difficulty raids (which isn’t solely my idea – that is a little misleading and disingenuous of you to say) many times. And, I think some good points in favor have definitely been made (and not just by me).

What I try not to respond to are posts or comments that attack the person posting rather than the ideas – which is a fairly common practice here. If I did that, this thread would be 3 times the length it is now.

I also think you are making some misleading statements here intended to derail the thread and invalidate legitimate opinions. Whether a change is made or not, of course Anet should be paying attention. People on all sides of this argument have made some really good points. Making a statement like “I hope they aren’t listening to you” is just belittling and ridiculous.

What comments have I made that have been misleading?

As much fun as is it is to spar with you, this thread is no longer productive. The mods should close it.

This thread hasn’t been a discussion for a long time. Here’s a summary of recent events:

1. You reopen a week-old thread with no new commentary.

2. I ask for clarification on one of your comments

3. You propose a training raid or a gold/silver/bronze timer based reward system. You also propose an open world system where content gets progressively harder.

4. I offer two criticisms of your timer based reward scheme. I offer 6 criticisms of your new map scheme.

5. You respond to 0 of these arguments. You claim that your system could help with content droughts.

6. I think it would take longer to release everything under your system

7. You think that content designed for everyone would reduce droughts. You think that common experiences, like fractal scales, should be valued.

8. I think that common experiences across difficulty are a negative, because I don’t play easy and hard versions of the exact same content.

9. You argue that the teq reward system is like your timer based reward system. You think that a lack of survival gear wipes raid groups.

10. I ask point-blank why you think timers cause wipes. I offer five criticisms of your suggestion.

11. You don’t respond to any arguments. You clarify your analogy to the teq reward system

12. I respond that the teq reward system is nothing like the timer based system you propose

13. You double-down on the teq reward system

14. I respond that the teq system is similar to the current raid system. I respond that the teq system does not encourage easy/hard modes in practise.

15. You respond to zero arguments, while simultaneously claiming that you don’t ignore them.

You can post ideas, sure. After this long, they’ve been fleshed out. But don’t pretend this is a discussion. You necro’ed a dead thread, and then failed to discuss anything.

Blaeys.3102:

Absurdo.8309:

Finally, I would be careful about white-knighting. When run the risk that you’re arguing for no one.

It is interesting how this is a much different discussion on Reddit or even in the general GW2 subforum (prior to being moved) than it is here on the raiding subforum.

More directly to the point, however, I think we are both a little blinded by our perspective on this topic – and neither is going to change his mind.

But, I do take issue with the idea that I am the only person wanting something like this, which is provably untrue (again, you are stretching), especially if you look outside this subforum (and take into account the people who have given up on the discussion after being browbeaten and even threatened).

You also claim that I ignore your counterpoints (which I don’t ignore – I just usually disagree with) – while at the same time telling my argument is weak, unsupported or worse. Respect that people have different opinions – and that those opinions are based heavily on their own perspective. I know mine is.

What I see in game – what I hear from my guildees, from people online and others in the game (some of whom have reached out to specifically ask me to continue the points in this thread) – is that they are not happy with the current raiding model in the game right now. While that may not be a huge group in itself, I do feel it is representative of a decent enough percentage of the playerbase to keep the dialogue open and continuing.

Honestly, I know I’m not going to change your mind. I’m more worried about other players or Anet taking your ideas seriously.

I’ll agree though that continuing this particular discussion is not productive. Despite your calls for a dialog (again), it’s clear that you just want to post your ideas and then peace out (that is, not discuss them at all).

That’s fine. I’ll just let my counterpoints stand on their own then.

Blaeys.3102:

Absurdo.8309:

Blaeys.3102:

Absurdo.8309:

Finally, your solution isn’t anything like teq. Usually, if you can get to the first burn phase, you beat the boss. Also I never see groups say “let’s only go for the first chest guys! The others are too hard.” The first three chests are pity rewards. You get pity shards in raids for failures too.

---

I was speaking only about the chest reward system from Tequatl – which was a bit obvious (again, I think people are stretching to come up with criticisms).

You can’t look at the reward system in isolation.

The fact is, almost no maps fail teq if they can reach the first burn phase.

When talking specifically about reward structures, of course you can look at it in isolation (again, you’re stretching).

And, it most definitely wasn’t always the case that the fight was a guaranteed win after phase 1. The intermittent chests were there to reward stepping stone efforts and encourage continued efforts (the same as they would be in raids – while also giving less dedicated players a way to enjoy the content).

And yes, magnetite shards do this to a tiny degree, but that doesn’t mean the system I outline wouldn’t work (again, using a faulty analogy to stretch your argument). The point has more to do with enabling a training or easy mode with minimal reward to encourage people to participate (and, in the process, learn to raid and possibly move to improve in the pursuit of gold, deepening the pool of hardcore raiders – all while justifying more developer resources toward the game mode).

It really is a win-win. And, I really do think you are stretching a lot in some of the arguments.

Also, I know I’m fighting against the tide here on these forums. I really hate that Anet keeps moving any of these discussions to raiding subforum (but do understand why). The reality is that most of the people who would be interested in this don’t really come to this subforum. That wont stop me (and a few others) from continuing to champion this cause, however. It really is something Anet needs to see.

This is a pretty odd hill to make your stand on.

Backtracking a bit: You purpose a certain type of reward system for raids. You claim that the reward system is not unprecedented, citing teq. I respond with several criticisms, including how your proposed system is not like the one in teq at all. You reply that I need to look at the system “in isolation.”

Ok…

First, if you’re citing the teq reward system in support of your argument, it’s valid to analyze how that system works for teq. In essence, you’re saying: “This system would work great for raids, but don’t look at how well it works for other content!”

But I’ll look at the teq system “in isolation:” (as much as I can)
- It has a hard enrage timer: fail to kill the boss, and you lose
- The rewards are the same no matter how fast you beat it (before enrage)
- The system rewards fails with something
- The best rewards are heavily rated towards success

… this sounds a lot like the raid system.

And, of course, in practise:
- The system does not encourage maps to split between easy and hard versions
- If a map reaches the first reward tier, then 95% of the time they’ll beat teq

Your system is far from a win-win — it’s a lose-lose.

For raiders: Group requirements become more stringent, because everyone wants gold
For non-raiders: they can’t get bronze anyway, because timers do not cause wipes. Mechanics do.

I’ve tried to consistently address the merits of your views. In response, all I get are claims of bias or that my arguments are weak. This is not the type of discussion that you seem to call for.

Finally, I would be careful about white-knighting. You run the risk that you’re arguing for no one.

Blaeys.3102:

And everyone realizes you do not see a problem with the current model. That doesn’t mean that others feel the same way. There is definite room for improvements/greater inclusion in the current raid system. I even think they are starting to experiment with how that might come about (the escort in wing three – testing new ways of tanking, surviving, etc).

No one wants to take the challenge out of raids. This is about extending that experience to more players, which can only result in good things, imo (more justification for raid dev resources, better ways for raiders to train, easier for Anet to include story in raids, etc).

You can fight against this, but I believe it is an inevitability – just as it has been in most other raiding games. Put some thought into how raids can be more inclusive without hurting the current challenge. Someone like you could have a lot of productive feedback to offer via ideas and opinions if you can look past the “I don’t want anyone else to be able to raid” mentality.

I’m all for improving raids. For example, I think there needs to be some incentive to repeat raids later in the week.

Your idea is just really bad.

If my view was “I don’t want anyone to raid,” I would’ve said that. Instead, I attacked the merits of your idea.

I just think other solutions are better to get people into raids. There are guilds. Training runs. Easy raids. Stepping stones. If someone wants to raid, they can.

If someone doesn’t want to raid, that’s ok too. There’s lots of other content. Including new content in 2 weeks.

Blaeys.3102:

Absurdo.8309:

Finally, your solution isn’t anything like teq. Usually, if you can get to the first burn phase, you beat the boss. Also I never see groups say “let’s only go for the first chest guys! The others are too hard.” The first three chests are pity rewards. You get pity shards in raids for failures too.

---

I was speaking only about the chest reward system from Tequatl – which was a bit obvious (again, I think people are stretching to come up with criticisms).

You can’t look at the reward system in isolation.

The fact is, almost no maps fail teq if they can reach the first burn phase.

And the teq chest reward system is not meant to act as a difficulty level. Rather, it is meant to give some rewards for failure. No one says “this is too hard, let’s only go for chest 2.” Like pity shards.

I’m not going to make your argument for you (because I think the idea is harmful and could destroy raids), but triple trouble is a better argument for you. Still, TT difficulty is more a function of organization and number of players.

And, just to be clear, have you been in groups where timers caused a wipe? That is, the group performed the mechanics but just ran out of time? And are these experiences the majority of your wipes?

Blaeys.3102:

Rednik.3809:

Sykper.6583:

Ding Ding, we have a winner. This was one of the problems with why this ‘Wildstar’ system was an issue.

This issue is super easy to counter, just implement fractal tier chest system as reward for a kill. You killed boss in gold frame – you got all 3 chests (bronze, silver and gold), you killed boss in silver and then in gold frame – you got 2 chests (bronze and silver) and then gold one after gold kill.

This.

As for slipping into silver – for top tier groups that would be the equivalent of wiping. If you got silver, you just reset the fight and do it again (would require a way to reset it) – with each reward (gold, silver, bronze) available each week.

This isn’t a new system for GW2. The daily rewards for Tequatl and other bosses work exactly like this. There is a precedent in the game.

As for the having to kill bosses multiple times a week issue that Vinceman brings up, there are pretty simple solutions to get around that issue as well.

As far as failing from mechanics – this system would allow groups not interested in gold level rewards (or who are practicing) to stack more survival gear (as sort of a player created training mode). It creates more accessibility and build diversity without taking away the challenge or reward offered to top end groups.

There really is no down side. I think people are stretching to find criticisms here.

We all realize there are a lot of players very happy with raids. No one is trying to take that away. It really is about extending the experience to more players (many of whom would really enjoy it – despite what a few people want to believe).

This suggestion is terrible for raids.

Lets back up a second. What problem are you trying to solve here?

I think you are trying to make raids more “accessible,” but you really mean easier. Ok. The thing is, timers rarely cause wipes, and you have yet to present any evidence otherwise.

You can go in tankier gear. You can bring 2 healers to every single encounter. You won’t wipe from the timer.

So, you’re trying to solve a problem which doesn’t exist.

Now, let’s move onto the merits of this suggestion.

First, this suggestion would absolutely hurt current raiders. As you mentioned, some groups like to play it safer than others. Bring 2 healers, maybe a dh, etc. Under your proposed system, such compositions could be rendered unviable or unwanted.

Second, we constantly hear complaints about how hard it is to get into raiding. Your suggestion makes it even harder. Groups would only want very experienced players in their gold groups.

Third, group toxicity would increase. You died? Great! You just caused a silver reward. While wipes can sometimes cost a kill, many groups can power through them. Not so with timer based rewards.

Fourth, you spilt the player base. Want to go for silver vg? Too bad! Only gold and copper groups at the moment. You’re making it three times as hard to find a group.

Finally, your solution isn’t anything like teq. Usually, if you can get to the first burn phase, you beat the boss. Also I never see groups say “let’s only go for the first chest guys! The others are too hard.” The first three chests are pity rewards. You get pity shards in raids for failures too.

Tldr: The problem you are trying to solve doesn’t exist, and your solution would severely harm raiding.

Astralporing.1957:

Absurdo.8309:

And this solution is trying to fix a problem that doesn’t exist. Groups almost always fail from mechanics.

They fail from mechanics, but the timer is still quite often the reason behind that failure.

In order to finish the encounter before timer runs out, players discard builds and strategies that might have made the encounter easier for them otherwise. They also play under greater pressure, making it more likely that they will make a mistake.

Some people consider it a desirable thing. I’m not one of them however.

(still, the bronze/silver/gold system based on time is bad, for many reasons mentioned already. I remember it from GW factions, and it was generally despised then.)

Which builds have you discarded because of the timer? While pug groups are unlikely to accept a trash build, you could still probably beat the bosses with them.

Rednik.3809:

Sykper.6583:

Ding Ding, we have a winner. This was one of the problems with why this ‘Wildstar’ system was an issue.

This issue is super easy to counter, just implement fractal tier chest system as reward for a kill. You killed boss in gold frame – you got all 3 chests (bronze, silver and gold), you killed boss in silver and then in gold frame – you got 2 chests (bronze and silver) and then gold one after gold kill.

I think you misunderstand the problem. If you the group wants to get gold, and slips into silver for a couple of seconds, they’ll need to redo the encounter. Plus, more gradients of success/failure only leads to a tightening of group requirements.

And this solution is trying to fix a problem that doesn’t exist. Groups almost always fail from mechanics.

Blaeys.3102:

Absurdo.8309:

I’ll disagree on multiple difficulty modes solving content droughts. It would just take longer to release anything. While it would, in theory, cater to more players, there would be longer gaps between any content being released. I think this was the main complaint — there was no non-raid new content before bloodstone fen.

If raid content had offered something for more playerstyles, then it would have been considered as part of the regular content release schedule my more people. That would have help alleviate the drought concerns.

The inverse is also true – more difficult (very difficult) content in other game modes would reduce the wait for hardcore players as well.

As to your point about fractals – it is about creating common experiences. Yes, people playing T4 cant be in a T1 at the same time, but it does mean that both groups are getting to experience the content (story, base mechanics, setting, etc). That is more important than most want to realize.

Walling off content (even soft walls) removes that commonality. It is no longer the same game played different ways. It is, in essence, two different games. The more we separate players like this, the more polarized the community becomes, which isn’t healthy for the future of the game.

I don’t know about others, but I view common experiences as a negative. If I want to play easy content, I don’t want a watered down version of something I’ve already done. And similarly for hard content.

As to content droughts, well, I don’t know what else to say. Your suggestions would make them even longer. And a hard instance is a far cry from a hard open world map. Each would cater to different types of players.

Blaeys.3102:

Absurdo.8309:

I don’t see how raids are different than the dungeons of old. There’s no reason why different content can’t have varying degrees of difficulty. Not everything needs to be easy.

There is also no reason the same content can’t have varying degrees of difficulty (fractals for example). They even realized this with dungeons early on (thus the story modes – a model I don’t think worked perfectly but did show they understand the need).

I understand (and partially agree with) some of your counterpoints, but see a major benefit to spreading the difficult (and casual) content throughout the game. It would alleviate the content drought issue – and not just for casuals. Hardcore players wouldn’t have to wait 9-12 (or more) months between compelling content drops either.

While it might take longer to put out specific content types, it would make the game as a whole more appealing to more people.

I’ll disagree on multiple difficulty modes solving content droughts. It would just take longer to release anything. While it would, in theory, cater to more players, there would be longer gaps between any content being released. I think this was the main complaint — there was no non-raid new content before bloodstone fen.

And, if you’re goal is to solve player segregation, then fractals is not your solution. If you can, you only play t4. There’s no reason to do the easier ones.

Contrast this to escort. Even if you can beat the harder raids, there’s still reasons to do this one. Or, heck, even bloodstone fen. Gliding around can be fun, even for raiders. I know I enjoy it. I don’t need every single piece of content to have varying sets of difficulty.

Blaeys.3102:

cranos.5913:

Blaeys.3102:

cranos.5913:

Blaeys.3102:

As for legendary armor, I know they intimated that it will be solely based on raids, but I believe they will/should reconsider. “Legendary” should entail mastering every element of the game (including PVP and WvW).

How can you believe this after 4 years of old legendary weapons being purely gold based, the new legendary weapons being solely open world based and 2 legendary backpieces that focus entirely on a single game mode?

Never has any legendary required you to “master all game modes”.

Regardless, it is how it should be. Grinding out raid content should reward ascended pieces, but doesn’t warrant legendaries, imo. That should require reaching the pinnacle of every game mode (legendary in PvP, etc). It should be about prestige and mastering the game.

There’s a big difference between what they “will” do and what they “should” do. They’ve quite clearly chosen to add different legendary items to different content. (pvp backpiece, fractal backpiece, open world weapons, raid armor)

The only game mode that currently does not have a specific legendary piece tied to it is wvw.

Furthermore I disagree. I believe every game mode should have their own rewards to distinguish themselves from other players and show their dedication towards their preferred mode.

Making ppl do everything will just water down the skill level required to get that legendary anyway. Just look at what they did to pvp already solely because of the backpiece. Being legendary rank says absolutely nothing about skill level and surely isn’t regarded as the “pinnacle” of the game mode by any serious pvper.

The same can be said of grinding (or even paying for) raids. Legendary armor will not be a status symbol as many hope, but rather as just another thing to grind for. And, while the idea of legendary sets for each game mode sounds admirable, it isn’t really feasible given the development time required. It would be years before we saw them all.

If they required mastering every part of the game, it would, at least, add some prestige to owning the sets. It would mean those people did more than just grind one area of the game over and over.

This discussion about legendaries is, at best, off topic. At worst, it’s disingenuous, because the same argument applies to every legendary in the game.

On topic, I hope ANET is developing the next wing. I know they did develop some while making HOT, so they may not be able to stick to the 3 month time schedule.

Blaeys.3102:

Absurdo.8309:

Blaeys.3102:

The one thing I will say (and Ive said this a lot) is that the idea of casual players go to section A of the game and hardcore go to section B isn’t a viable model. It separates the PVE community and waters down developer resources.

Umm, isn’t this exactly what you want with an easy mode?

Absolutely not. The exact opposite in fact.

Right now, hardcore players are pushed toward raids while more casual players are pushed toward Bloodstone Fen (current end map). This is the polarization I was talking about.

What I want is for them to make both of these areas offer something for more audiences. In raids, that would mean either a training mode or a gold/silver/bronze reward based on kill time (which would be my preference).

But what we don’t talk about is what this mindset shift would look like in a place like Bloodstone Fen. What I would like to see in open world is incremental waves with ever more challenging content. Basically, instead of events (and world bosses) appearing on a schedule, they should come as a natural part of event chains where difficulty ramps up higher and higher the longer the players “hold” the area. It starts off easy – offering a more casual experience but eventually becomes eye-bleeding hard – with raid level bosses appearing on the map. I believe that, as the map ramps up, casual players would opt to move to map instances where the content remains more casual – while more and more hardcore players would enter the map to face the later challenges.

There are many ways they could do this, but the perfect example of how this might work would be in Cursed Shore – defending the gates of Arah. Instead of defending against the same group every so often, the attack event would continue to add more difficult opponents (think a wave of 5-10 Gigaticus Lupici) until the players eventually have to fall back (at which time we have to retake the gates and start over – with the more casual experience).

In Fractals, this would mean making lvl 100+ islands rival raids in complexity and difficulty. The lvl1-50 would offer the casual experience while the 100+ would be the hardcore experience – giving people a breadth of experiences while still encouraging them to play the same content. That same concept could work for guild missions (even incorporating insane versions of Tequatl for “legendary” level missions) and for living story steps (more challenging challenge motes).

This is what challenging content should have been, imo. Just walling off raids and saying “this is for the hardcore players” and “XYZ is for the casuals” creates the polarizing effects I mentioned (and that we are definitely seeing).

Design a game for all of your PVE players (with story and compelling content in ALL of it), but use the resources and strong developer knowledge to vary that experience enough to make sure those game elements appeal to a variety of playstyles.

I have to wonder what the current raid team could do if they were tasked with making Mai Trin or later steps in the “defend the gates of Arah” example I give above more difficult.

These ideas … sound not so good.

First, let’s talk about timer rewards. I know this is your pet solution, but it would only make raid groups have more stringent requirements.

Groups will only want very experienced players if they’re going for a gold time. Groups will only want the meta composition. Since there would be more gradients in what constitutes a success, groups would be less inclined to risk a close kill.

And, as always, timers are rarely the reason the groups fail. It’s almost always the mechanics.

Second, let’s look at your map suggestion. I kinda like it, but I don’t think it would fit well with gw2. In no particular order, here’s why:

- It asks players to leave the map once it reaches a certain point. Despite that these players built the map up in the first place.
- It encourages map hopping
- If you want to get to the hard content, you have to waste your time with easy content, or map hop
- Hard open world content is generally not well-received (see first version of chak gerent). Mainly because it requires organization in a massive scale
- Individual contribution is diminished in large content
- You can’t really choose who to play with in large group content

Finally, let’s look at guild wars 2 to see how radical your suggestions really are.

-Open world content is generally easy, with a single difficulty per map.
- Between maps, there’s variation in difficulty. That is, ruins of orr is harder than Queensdale.
- Dungeons have a single difficulty. Some are harder than others. Some, like arah, are on such a different level that in the vanilla game people bought runs.

And let’s look at HOT:
- Open world maps are easy to medium in difficulty
- Each map has a single difficulty. Some maps, like dragon stand, are harder than others.
- Raids have a single difficulty. Some are harder than others. They are on a different level than vanilla HOT that some people buy runs.

I don’t see how raids are different than the dungeons of old. There’s no reason why different content can’t have varying degrees of difficulty. Not everything needs to be easy.

Blaeys.3102:

The one thing I will say (and Ive said this a lot) is that the idea of casual players go to section A of the game and hardcore go to section B isn’t a viable model. It separates the PVE community and waters down developer resources.

Umm, isn’t this exactly what you want with an easy mode?

pranker.3748:

I’ve checked a part of Teatime the other night and they had a few interesting ideas about extra rewards.

a) keep the ‘’1st clear of the week’’ lot for all kills, with a shard cap and smaller chance of ghostly infusions, ascended gear etc.
b) unlocking a higher weekly shard cap via raid merchant for shards themselves

I believe Boott and Brazil came up with those 2, respectively.
Not sure if everybody saw that episode but still worthy ideas, any comments, replies etc?

I’m not sure I understand (a), based on your description.

I believe the larger problem is no incentive to repeat raids during the week, which (b) does not address.

pranker.3748:

Honestly I’m really hoping for a constructive debate how, why, how many times you can get loot in reruns. Hopefully we can get enough attention to show that rewards are a major problem in raids atm.

Right now if I got it right (correct me if wrong) we should keep the spirit shards cap as it is, keep the original clear rewards, add some sort of 2nd/3rd clear rewards in the form of t6 materials/liquid gold/better overall rewards. As a 2nd solution it looks like it could be smart to remove weekly restrictions for rewards and make them daily (while shard cap stays the same). Point is to incentivize players to do more raids, get properly rewarded for doing so yet not force people into having ‘’yet another chore’’ to do.

Agreed that there needs to be some incentive to repeat raids during the week.

I’m not 100% sure why people seem opposed to shards as repeat rewards. It could be something like repeat kills award 5 shards per day, which doesn’t contribute to the shard cap.

Plus shards have less potential to disrupt the market, as rewards are account bound, except for the ghostly infusion. Granted, it could impact the ascended materials market. But perhaps less that straight gold or an exotic.

I don’t really get the “chore” argument. It would apply to anything that gives repeat rewards. And, at least personally, I don’t feel the need to play every bit of daily content on a daily basis.

Still, I’ll support any daily repeat reward. I just don’t think we should limit ourselves by demanding specifics. Let’s agree it’s a problem and let anet implement the best solution.

Jerus.4350:

Absurdo.8309:

pranker.3748:

Artemis Thuras.8795:

150 shards: weekly.
individual boss chests: daily.

Possibly with added: can open wing to any boss^. Since they would reset daily now and it would make getting to sab/matt/xera much more difficult for many.

^Requires clear up to that boss at least once to open?

Sadly I still see requiring to find 9 other players the biggest problem with raiding, not the loot. This would alleviate some problems, for a while but risks burnout much faster.

100% agree on shard cap! The daily reset would probably be turn off for some people struggling to make a full clear, so might as well just leave it as it is and after the wing has been cleared it resets.

Other than that I’d prefer to quit the content because of burnout than because of incapability of Anet to create satisfying and ’’fair’’ (loot wise) content.

I actually think a daily shard cap and a weekly loot cap could work too.

Regardless of what they do, there needs to be some incentive to rerun raids later in the week.

Please no on the daily shard cap unless it means we can still clear raids in one night and get 150. I’d rather not be forced to spread my raiding out throughout the week. I like the idea of it being an option but I’m still trying to get a lot of Viper jewelry and ugh, I don’t want to have to pug raids every day rather than just all night on whatever night I choose each week.

I wouldn’t mind a daily shard cap of 150, but I’m sure some would see it as too much. If we’re throwing numbers out there, I think 100 would be ok.

I’ll note that unless the daily cap was super low, you would be able to get your gear much faster.

pranker.3748:

Artemis Thuras.8795:

150 shards: weekly.
individual boss chests: daily.

Possibly with added: can open wing to any boss^. Since they would reset daily now and it would make getting to sab/matt/xera much more difficult for many.

^Requires clear up to that boss at least once to open?

Sadly I still see requiring to find 9 other players the biggest problem with raiding, not the loot. This would alleviate some problems, for a while but risks burnout much faster.

100% agree on shard cap! The daily reset would probably be turn off for some people struggling to make a full clear, so might as well just leave it as it is and after the wing has been cleared it resets.

Other than that I’d prefer to quit the content because of burnout than because of incapability of Anet to create satisfying and ’’fair’’ (loot wise) content.

I actually think a daily shard cap and a weekly loot cap could work too.

Regardless of what they do, there needs to be some incentive to rerun raids later in the week.

Blaeys.3102:

Dominik.5162:

It DOES matter for alot of people.
Just because you think it doesn’t matter that raids are the only piece of content that isn’t developed for casuals, doesn’t make your point more valid.
This point just isn’t valid.

And yes it is ok to raise a topic about this “extend” raids, but people have every right to diagree and refuse this topic.

I actually agree with pretty much everything you say. Those disagreements are healthy and the entire reason we have a forum, imo.

The impetus for my reply was to respond, with my opinion, to those who continually bring up the “this is what raids were designed for, so shut up,” and, even worse, the “omg, you just want to dumb the game down, so shut up,” responses we see throughout these threads.

Posters looking for a change (for the most part – there are some extremists I don’t agree with on both sides) understand what raids were initially meant to accomplish in the game – and most definitely have no desire to see the game dumbed down. My opinion (and it is just that) is that, for the sake of these arguments, that really doesn’t matter.

Many of us are here to ask that they consider a change – one that I personally feel would be healthy for the game. Extending the experience, for me, isn’t about taking anything away or diminishing anyone’s accomplishments. It is about giving more people an experience they would consider fun that fits with their playstyle. It isn’t any more complicated than that.

And, for the record, thank you for the reply and respectful debate points. It is obvious we disagree, but it is good to see that we can do so respectfully.

I just fail to see coherent reasons given for easy mode raids.

First, it is a valid argument to say that raids weren’t designed to be easy. Other content, like open world pve, is better suited for those that desire easier content.

But let’s move on to the affirmative arguments for easy mode. The main two mentioned in your post are 1) story and 2) easier gameplay.

1) On story, well, there’s not really a lot of it in raids. Yes, it involves gw2 flavor (as I would expect anything in gw2 to have) but it barely ties into the main story or the open world maps. For those that still want to know the story, you can experience it all in a completed instance.

Plus, this argument has not been levied against other hard content in the game. There are juicy lore tidbits in several of the dungeon paths (including arah), and a direct story tie-in with aetherpath.

2) On difficulty, there’s tons of easier content in this game. Arguably, almost the entire game. We are not in a short supply of easy content here. If you want easy content, well, you have it. Heck, if you want more easy content, you have that too, in the recent living story releases.

Also, raids are not easily converted to a (successful) easy mode. First, you need to find 10 players. Even in easy raids like escort and trio (are these too hard for easy-moders?), players have trouble finding groups. Next, players need to learn the mechanics. Contrary to the argument that timers wipe groups, I’ve found that the number 1 group killer is mechanics. Finally, you need to balance rewards. You want to make a move that people will play, but one that will not take away from normal mode. Easier said than done.

If you want an easy mode, then put forth good arguments for it. Talk about “debate” and “discussion” is pointless if you have no affirmative reasons for easy mode. Until then, all I see is anti-raid.

I really believe the backlash against raids was because of the content drought. Now that we’re starting to get regular content again, I’ve seen fewer complaints.

Blaeys.3102:

Let’s not turn this into another discussion about raid difficulty (there are a few threads about that already).

My guess is the OP is upset because raids require (kinda) the completion of the gliding mastery line.

If that is the case, I strongly disagree. Raids are part of the bigger picture – part of endgame – and not meant to stand alone. Requiring something like gliding (and updrafts) is fine, imo.

To the point of whether or not raids are the cause of the downtick in revenue – while I disagree with the current format of raids in the game (I may have mentioned that in a thread or two ), I do not believe raids can be blamed for the issue.

The big culprit is, of course, the content drought, especially in open world. People got used to a release cadence that could not be maintained once expansion development was integrated into the process. The result is less of the game we grew used to during the first few years, and that has disillusioned a lot of people.

Would the removal of raids fix that in any way? Only Anet knows, but I seriously doubt it. However, I do think going the other direction – adding a more casual version of the raids – would give those players more to do during any future droughts and alleviate some of the angst (but, again, that is better discussed in another thread).

Back to topic as a TL;DR – if the OP is referring to mastery requirements in raids, I disagree that it is any issue whatsoever. Raids are part of the endgame, but they are not the standalone endgame.

I think most raiders are fine with varying raid difficulty (like escort and trio). Or even open world bosses with raids elements (like unbound guardian).

It’s just the duplication of existing raids or rewards that people have a problem with.

I am 100% on board with new living story chapters, open world maps and events, and fractals.

It’s just that when I’m not in the mood for raids (either because I want something easy, or because I only have 15 minutes) I’d rather not play a watered down version of something I’ve already done.

Oh, and agreed 100% that the content drought is the source of any revenue reduction.

OnizukaBR.8537:

Blaeys.3102:

I’ve said this same thing many times.

The counterargument that most give is that they timers are there to discourage “cheesing” the fight in all Nomads gear or something.

My response is, so what if people want to do it in all Nomads or something else non-meta that allows them to do the fight slower than the current groups? I say let them.

Just add in gold/silver/bronze reward tracks based on how fast the boss is killed. That way, you still reward the work the current groups are putting in – while opening the fights to a wider array of play styles.

This would allow players and communities to control their own kind of “easy mode.” Guilds looking for a more casual experience could take groups in designed around experiencing the fights rather than killing fast.

To me, this would be a win-win. Rewards would still be based on skill, but the experience would be open to a wider range of playstyles.

Adding rewards based on how much time left on the clock would be a huge problem.
You just creat a system where you wont have anyother dps besides Tempest ( or the class that become the best dps after a balance change patch ), because now for example “Hammer DH bring good dps and protection” it doesnt matter because now you only want the best DPS to hit gold reward. So reward tired to timer is the most toxic ideia you can put in a group content. Because now you get happy when you down a boss even if only two people stands. With the timer reward, people would call names if someone go down at end of the fight and because of it you get silver instead of gold.
So its easy to see how this reward system would be the worst ideia ever.

Agreed 100% — I have no idea why anti-raiders want a timer based reward system.

At least arguing for no timer is consistent with them wanting to nerf raids. (But they fail to understand that mechanics, not timers, wipe most groups).

Blaeys.3102:

I’ve said this same thing many times.

The counterargument that most give is that they timers are there to discourage “cheesing” the fight in all Nomads gear or something.

My response is, so what if people want to do it in all Nomads or something else non-meta that allows them to do the fight slower than the current groups? I say let them.

Just add in gold/silver/bronze reward tracks based on how fast the boss is killed. That way, you still reward the work the current groups are putting in – while opening the fights to a wider array of play styles.

This would allow players and communities to control their own kind of “easy mode.” Guilds looking for a more casual experience could take groups in designed around experiencing the fights rather than killing fast.

To me, this would be a win-win. Rewards would still be based on skill, but the experience would be open to a wider range of playstyles.

No thank you. You are not responding to the most common counter arguments, including the post above yours.

1. Most of the time, groups fail because of mechanics, not from timers.

2. A timer based reward scheme only tightens acceptable class compositions, which anti-raiders complain about.

3. You can trade-off dps for healing/tanking at the risk of going into enrage. This is an acceptable trade-off, because you shift difficulty from the middle of the fight to the end of the fight.

4. Enrage will not instantly wipe the group

5. You can beat some bosses in full nomad teams, which is actually more difficult