I agree with the other posters here — this is a pretty bad idea.
If you already raid, then raid-fractals add nothing. Worse than nothing, because you’ll repeat the same content when you fractal.
If you are interested in raiding, then fractals already serve as a stepping stone in skill level. And if it’s the same, then you’ll be bored when you raid, because it’s more of the same.
And, somewhat ironically, but t4 raid-fractals would have a higher barrier to entry, because it requires more ascended gear.
New fractals are far superior to recycled content.
I don’t expect you to know this as you probably haven’t been a part of project work before.
Keep the personal insults out of the conversation. They only serve to derail topics and shutdown threads.
I raid with organized groups every week – I have raided end game hardcore progression – even have some world firsts. Outside the game, I have owned my own business for almost 10 years and am an extremely successful professional in my field who is called upon to build goal oriented teams for my clients.
I only post this to refute the silly personal attack. The point is, keep to the topic at hand and leave the personal stuff out of it.
It doesn’t matter when the wings were developed – and the size of the map is something you see for yourself ingame. Again, consider the law of conservation of energy. All effort has to come from a finite pool – and, in the case of things like voice acting, map design, writing, etc, these are one to one correlations with non raid content (voice acting a raid boss’s line is identical to voice acting an open world character’s).
It wasn’t a personal insult. It was an assumption based on most people not having experience in project work. There’s really nothing wrong in that. It’s very much a part of the topic as the complaint was that they were misrepresenting the size of their team. I disputed it.
You cannot say that the raid map is the same as any of the other HoT maps or even the core maps.
I didn’t say it was exactly the same.
I said it was roughly the same size. It was in reference to the art and environmental resources used to develop the map.
I believe their may be some tasks associated with raids that are easier to do than others. But, when you add in all of the other elements that do have one to one correlations with other content (voice work, map development, fight balancing, writing lore – which they have bragged about, etc), the idea that SIGNIFICANTLY (key word) less effort was required seems a bit silly.
There is more that is put into open world maps than instanced maps. They are not equivalent or even close for that matter. It’s not really the same size as there’s not much walkable space. If there was a map that was the size of all of Heart of Maguuma, but only consisted of a small island the size of claw island, would you consider that map to be larger than the others? There’s also very little vertical space as well.
Also, what makes you think that the raid team doesn’t develop the maps themselves? I’m pretty sure that they develop all of the raid bosses too including the balancing. That’s the vast majority of what you see. The lore is fairly small in raids compared to the living story and chances are a lot of it will be used for LS3 in some way. Voice work is contracted out so I doubt it has any impact on any other areas of the game.
I stand by what I’ve listed above, but I also respect that you feel differently.
Personally, I think they overstated how easy raids are to develop in an effort to downplay community emotions regarding the content drought, and people have latched onto that as an argument for something else entirely.
I don’t mind that they use resources to develop raids – even if it is greater than they have led people to believe (which I feel is the case). I just believe that, to justify the use of any resources that would otherwise be used elsewhere, raids need to have greater appeal than they currently do.
A bit of a harsh reply, but,
If you claim that resources are over-allocated to raids,
And then encounter evidence that the opposite is true,
Then the logical position is to recant or reform your argument.
Not double-down on a position when the evidence is against you.
Because I don’t see the counterargument being as strong as people claim.
The raids, as they stand, have a lot of character and extemporaneous design – the river of souls, the Twisted Castle, the room of statues, the little cemetery before Gorseval, etc. Compare that to just about any Fractal – or even a map like Drytop or Southsun, and they seem pretty comparable. Voice acting is probably on par with any fractal (there is even PC voice responses). Fight designs rival anything in Southsun or any story instance. There are collection events and ambient mobs scattered throughout.
I just don’t see them as somehow less than just about any comparable location in the game (instanced or open world) – with some exceptions.
Anet’s claim that they had to put less effort into them than that other content really does feel like a meagre attempt to quell complaints during the recent content drought. Once you start actually looking at what went into them (especially from an ancillary resource perspective), this seems even more likely.
What evidence would change your view? We already have the rough developer counts per team.
Would you require to know the development time towards each project? And keep in mind that they started developing raids before HOT launch.
And then consider whether you’re applying the same evidence standards towards your point of view.
I think the logical conclusion from “a 4 person squad beats VG” is VG isn’t as difficult as we thought it was.
Other conclusions seem needlessly circuitous.
This is a faulty syllogism (for the reasons I list above, where are anything but circuitous), and I think most people who have played any serious raid-based game see that pretty clearly.
Looked pretty circuitous to me.
I can see why it is easy for people to want to make that connection, but anyone who has raided for any length of time has seen examples like the 4 player kills many times over and realizes it doesn’t speak to the difficulty of the content as it is experienced by the greater community, but rather to the dedication and skill of the individual group involved.
Ive brought this up multiple times in this thread because it is important to the core issue – difficulty, hardcore vs casual, accessibility – none of these are finite concepts or terms. They are defined by individual perspective.
This reads like: I know the evidence is against me, but trust my point of view.
If I see a group defeat a boss with 40% of the intended party size, that speaks to the difficulty of the encounter.
And, anecdotally, vg is not a bad pug encounter at all.
You and I both know what it takes to do something like this – and it has nothing to do with the accessibility of raids to the general public.
You analyze the individual encounter. You learn every tiny thing about it by doing it over and over. You then tailor your strategy, build, playstyle, stats, group synergies, etc in such a way as to hard counter the mechanics (such as using the Mesmer abilities to distort through the green circle damage). Then you try and try (often for weeks) to bring all of that together picture perfect.
It is an impressive feat – it deserves recognition – but it isn’t the way 99.99999% of the population raids. And, it most definitely doesn’t prove accessibility for anyone other than that group that spends the hours (or weeks or months) to do EXACTLY what I outlined above.
Again, I was in one of these guilds in WoW. I saw firsthand what they do (and again, it is impressive).
But using it to say that raids are accessible to wider groups of people or to argue against tiered difficulties is just an inaccurate comparison -
and I think most of the people trying to make that argument know that. It just seems like a good way to make their point when it really isn’t.
There are logical arguments against the implementation of tiered difficulties, such as potential strain on Anet resources, that are worth debating and discussing. However, using the 4- player or super speed clears really aren’t among them. They are based around a niche playstyle where some really smart players tailor everything around playing a single strategy perfectly.
I think saying raids isn’t as hard as you claim them to be, and then showing this video, is a valid argument.
In my opinion, raids are of a similar difficulty to arah.
I don’t expect you to know this as you probably haven’t been a part of project work before.
Keep the personal insults out of the conversation. They only serve to derail topics and shutdown threads.
I raid with organized groups every week – I have raided end game hardcore progression – even have some world firsts. Outside the game, I have owned my own business for almost 10 years and am an extremely successful professional in my field who is called upon to build goal oriented teams for my clients.
I only post this to refute the silly personal attack. The point is, keep to the topic at hand and leave the personal stuff out of it.
It doesn’t matter when the wings were developed – and the size of the map is something you see for yourself ingame. Again, consider the law of conservation of energy. All effort has to come from a finite pool – and, in the case of things like voice acting, map design, writing, etc, these are one to one correlations with non raid content (voice acting a raid boss’s line is identical to voice acting an open world character’s).
It wasn’t a personal insult. It was an assumption based on most people not having experience in project work. There’s really nothing wrong in that. It’s very much a part of the topic as the complaint was that they were misrepresenting the size of their team. I disputed it.
You cannot say that the raid map is the same as any of the other HoT maps or even the core maps.
I didn’t say it was exactly the same.
I said it was roughly the same size. It was in reference to the art and environmental resources used to develop the map.
I believe their may be some tasks associated with raids that are easier to do than others. But, when you add in all of the other elements that do have one to one correlations with other content (voice work, map development, fight balancing, writing lore – which they have bragged about, etc), the idea that SIGNIFICANTLY (key word) less effort was required seems a bit silly.
There is more that is put into open world maps than instanced maps. They are not equivalent or even close for that matter. It’s not really the same size as there’s not much walkable space. If there was a map that was the size of all of Heart of Maguuma, but only consisted of a small island the size of claw island, would you consider that map to be larger than the others? There’s also very little vertical space as well.
Also, what makes you think that the raid team doesn’t develop the maps themselves? I’m pretty sure that they develop all of the raid bosses too including the balancing. That’s the vast majority of what you see. The lore is fairly small in raids compared to the living story and chances are a lot of it will be used for LS3 in some way. Voice work is contracted out so I doubt it has any impact on any other areas of the game.
I stand by what I’ve listed above, but I also respect that you feel differently.
Personally, I think they overstated how easy raids are to develop in an effort to downplay community emotions regarding the content drought, and people have latched onto that as an argument for something else entirely.
I don’t mind that they use resources to develop raids – even if it is greater than they have led people to believe (which I feel is the case). I just believe that, to justify the use of any resources that would otherwise be used elsewhere, raids need to have greater appeal than they currently do.
A bit of a harsh reply, but,
If you claim that resources are over-allocated to raids,
And then encounter evidence that the opposite is true,
Then the logical position is to recant or reform your argument.
Not double-down on a position when the evidence is against you.
I think the logical conclusion from “a 4 person squad beats VG” is VG isn’t as difficult as we thought it was.
Other conclusions seem needlessly circuitous.
This is a faulty syllogism (for the reasons I list above, where are anything but circuitous), and I think most people who have played any serious raid-based game see that pretty clearly.
Looked pretty circuitous to me.
I can see why it is easy for people to want to make that connection, but anyone who has raided for any length of time has seen examples like the 4 player kills many times over and realizes it doesn’t speak to the difficulty of the content as it is experienced by the greater community, but rather to the dedication and skill of the individual group involved.
Ive brought this up multiple times in this thread because it is important to the core issue – difficulty, hardcore vs casual, accessibility – none of these are finite concepts or terms. They are defined by individual perspective.
This reads like: I know the evidence is against me, but trust my point of view.
If I see a group defeat a boss with 40% of the intended party size, that speaks to the difficulty of the encounter.
And, anecdotally, vg is not a bad pug encounter at all.
I don’t expect you to know this as you probably haven’t been a part of project work before.
Keep the personal insults out of the conversation. They only serve to derail topics and shutdown threads.
I raid with organized groups every week – I have raided end game hardcore progression – even have some world firsts. Outside the game, I have owned my own business for almost 10 years and am an extremely successful professional in my field who is called upon to build goal oriented teams for my clients.
I only post this to refute the silly personal attack. The point is, keep to the topic at hand and leave the personal stuff out of it.
It doesn’t matter when the wings were developed – and the size of the map is something you see for yourself ingame. Again, consider the law of conservation of energy. All effort has to come from a finite pool – and, in the case of things like voice acting, map design, writing, etc, these are one to one correlations with non raid content (voice acting a raid boss’s line is identical to voice acting an open world character’s).
It wasn’t a personal insult. It was an assumption based on most people not having experience in project work. There’s really nothing wrong in that. It’s very much a part of the topic as the complaint was that they were misrepresenting the size of their team. I disputed it.
You cannot say that the raid map is the same as any of the other HoT maps or even the core maps.
I didn’t say it was exactly the same.
I said it was roughly the same size. It was in reference to the art and environmental resources used to develop the map.
I believe their may be some tasks associated with raids that are easier to do than others. But, when you add in all of the other elements that do have one to one correlations with other content (voice work, map development, fight balancing, writing lore – which they have bragged about, etc), the idea that SIGNIFICANTLY (key word) less effort was required seems a bit silly.
I’m not sure how you can claim with a straight face that raids contain the same amount of environmental elements than open world maps.
I’m also a proponent of a closer to weekend reset day (like Friday).
But I realize this would probably never happen.
Raids should remain with one mode. The percentage of players wanting a harder mode is really low , and having an easier mode makes no sense. How much easier should they be? VG was killed by 4 people!!!
The fact that VG was killed with 4 people only illustrates that there are players out there with tremendous skill and the desire to microanalyze everything needed to do this kind of thing. It does not, in any way, speak to the accessibility of the fight. Every raiding MMO out there sees groups like this doing amazing (borderline crazy) things like this. There will always be a tiny group of players looking to develop speed run or limited number metas to do things like this.
In fact, it creates even more need for multiple difficulties. As these small groups get better and better at raids, the gap between PVE players will widen way more than we see now. As Anet works harder and harder to challenge these small groups, more and more people would be left behind with a single difficulty level. There will be greater need for challenge motes, tiered difficulty levels and a deeper pool of potential players raiding.
That will dictate the implementation of core systems designed to address this. What they DESPARATELY need to do is accept that and implement tiered or variable difficulties now – to retain the number of active raiders and warrant continued development on raids.
I think the logical conclusion from “a 4 person squad beats VG” is VG isn’t as difficult as we thought it was.
Other conclusions seem needlessly circuitous.
Create a squad.
LFM VG training run. Bam, genius.
And it seems you beat escort without a LI requirement. So instead you could do:
LFM VG.
Or, just join a guild.
Well, I want to ask you Vinceman: Why do you think the LS is ONLY for the rest of the players (the non raiders). Do you have any official statement of the developers regarding the LS3 claiming that they will deny the right to play this content for raiders? On the other hand I saw such a statement from the devs. telling us that the raids were DESIGNED with the idea in mind to make it non accessible to most of the players.
I haven’t said anything you have written above. I am just very pleased that there is content Ohoni and others aren’t enjoying at all plus that they feel excluded.
I don’t care about LS3. I will play it once for the story, maybe twice due the achievements and then go back to raids – the best decision Anet has ever implemented into this game.
I will state forever that we need content like raids because the skill gap between players is so high a “one for all” wouldn’t please the best of the best a.k.a. the elite. Due to easy raid mode development being too expensive to produce I think it’s better to deny content for some players if the rest of the game is big enough. GW2 is offering such amount – may the complaints become silent in the night. ^^I don’t know why you still go back at “skill or skill cap” as the reason ppl are not participating when you have lots and lots of replies about the logistic being the problem and not how hard the content itself is.
The reality is it’s not the “skill of the elite” that sets the “elite” apart so much as the gaming disposition of the “elite” being coherent with raid logistic.
Remove the logistic so raids can be reasonably tried by all and you will see the “elite” population suddenly exploding and routinely beating all the bosses senseless every week like the current “elite” already does.
I’m glad Potato guy was honest about this and didn’t try to disguise his success as him simply being so far above mere mortals. Being elitist isn’t about being factually “good”. It’s an attitude that some ppl have that seek to look down on others. Don’t be an elitist. Be a good player (Elitist – kittenbaggery).
What are your constructive solutions? In my experience, people find groups through the lfg all the time. I think the actual problem is the weekly lockout, because there’s little incentive to fight bosses again later in the week.
And, future tip, name-calling rarely helps.
Name calling? If you are referring to my usage of “Potato guy” to refer to WoodenPotato it wasn’t meant as an insult. Far from it. But, if he feels offended by it I’ll gladly apologize.
If however you find the word “elitist” insulting then don’t be one. I was targeting people who themselves say they are “the elite”. If the hat fits…
Now, as for the constructive solutions I’ll repeat what I already said before:
1) Offer legendary armors to other game modes (similarly difficult and costly).
2) If you can’t or won’t do #1 for a reason or another (possibly because they would have to make more collections and skins etc.), replace raid specific currencies that are asked in legendary gifts (looking hard at the 150 LI) by something more universal but equally long/costly that would be obtainable through other gaming areas. People already have to complete the entire raid to unlock the collections so, really, their skill/willingness to at least try isn’t the problem wouldn’t you agree? What does doing it 150 times instead of 30 times proves skill-wise?
If you say it makes the armor less prestigious because this LI bloating block so many out of the armor you aren’t defending the raid skill prestige so much as your own selfish interests. People who can’t do raid 150 times still won’t do it regardless of the armor. This should only be a problem for ppl who were planning on making the armor mean something it never could to begin with: skill is the barrier. It’s not.
These suggestions show that you aren’t concerned with your stated problem (accessibility), but the reward.
Fine. Just don’t hate on raids because you can’t get legendary armor.
And, for the record, I am ok with alternative ways to get legendary armor, as a low priority development item.
People keep bringing up this idea that raids should be for hardcore and living world should be for casuals – with fractals somewhere in between.
That idea might sound like it makes sense, but in reality, it splits the playerbase in ways that are not healthy. Anet saw this early on – its why there are difficult achievements, challenge motes, fractal levels, etc. in the game. The goal has always been to keep player together – to have them playing in the same areas or content, even if they weren’t playing the same ways or at the same level.
I do not see them changing this philosophy – and I do believe that they will see their misstep with raids sooner rather than later – and apply that same approach here. Otherwise, I do not see how raids can survive in the game.
A game mode can survive the inclusion of more players – through the introduction of layered difficulties. In fact, common sense says that it is the healthy approach – one that gives the developers reason to care more about raids.
Do you really think that Anet can legitimately continue regular support of a PVE game mode designed for a smaller percentage of the game population? More people raiding – through tiered difficulties and other accessibility tools – means they have a reason to insert raids into the game more often.
As an example, we haven’t seen new PVE guild mission in 3+ years, even though I would argue more people do missions than raid. So, if they use the model, develop separately for the separate groups based on game interest, we should see the next raid in 2020.
I don’t want that any more than anyone else – but that means creating more mass appeal for raids. I know some people don’t want that (often for extremely selfish reasons, imo), but it needs to happen or Anet will eventually have to abandon the idea of raiding altogether, for the reason I list above (their effort has to go where the players are).
The team developing raids is small compared to the rest of the team. You already have your wish regarding resource allocation.
Actually, I think multiple difficulty modes split the player base.
Assuming rewards are balanced correctly, you would not see many experienced players in easy mode. And you would not see new players in regular mode.
I learned a lot from playing with experienced dungeon players. About my class, tactics, and the encounter. You would not get the same kind of experience from easy mode.
And, there are already easy starter raids — escort is a good example.
Fractals are the exception, not the rule. And you can hardly call their easy modes successful. There’s no incentive for someone who can beat T4 to go back to a lower tier. And I believe that many would jump straight to t4, if they had the agony resist. As a result, you often find the “easy modes” harder than t4, because the players aren’t as experienced.
And yes, I think the raid team can continue to produce good content, as long as they aren’t bogged down by these types of requests.
Well, I want to ask you Vinceman: Why do you think the LS is ONLY for the rest of the players (the non raiders). Do you have any official statement of the developers regarding the LS3 claiming that they will deny the right to play this content for raiders? On the other hand I saw such a statement from the devs. telling us that the raids were DESIGNED with the idea in mind to make it non accessible to most of the players.
I haven’t said anything you have written above. I am just very pleased that there is content Ohoni and others aren’t enjoying at all plus that they feel excluded.
I don’t care about LS3. I will play it once for the story, maybe twice due the achievements and then go back to raids – the best decision Anet has ever implemented into this game.
I will state forever that we need content like raids because the skill gap between players is so high a “one for all” wouldn’t please the best of the best a.k.a. the elite. Due to easy raid mode development being too expensive to produce I think it’s better to deny content for some players if the rest of the game is big enough. GW2 is offering such amount – may the complaints become silent in the night. ^^I don’t know why you still go back at “skill or skill cap” as the reason ppl are not participating when you have lots and lots of replies about the logistic being the problem and not how hard the content itself is.
The reality is it’s not the “skill of the elite” that sets the “elite” apart so much as the gaming disposition of the “elite” being coherent with raid logistic.
Remove the logistic so raids can be reasonably tried by all and you will see the “elite” population suddenly exploding and routinely beating all the bosses senseless every week like the current “elite” already does.
I’m glad Potato guy was honest about this and didn’t try to disguise his success as him simply being so far above mere mortals. Being elitist isn’t about being factually “good”. It’s an attitude that some ppl have that seek to look down on others. Don’t be an elitist. Be a good player (Elitist – kittenbaggery).
What are your constructive solutions? In my experience, people find groups through the lfg all the time. I think the actual problem is the weekly lockout, because there’s little incentive to fight bosses again later in the week.
And, future tip, name-calling rarely helps.
I will state forever that we need content like raids because the skill gap between players is so high a “one for all” wouldn’t please the best of the best a.k.a. the elite. Due to easy raid mode development being too expensive to produce I think it’s better to deny content for some players if the rest of the game is big enough. GW2 is offering such amount – may the complaints become silent in the night, again: I don’t care any longer. ^^
Nice, now we have a self-proclaimed “elite” who asks to deny other players from “their” content. I guess this post should be used as a perfect reference in any future discussions.
That guild wars had enough content to please everyone?
That guild wars has easy and hard content?
That there’s always been content that players have not been able to complete?
I think we can cut the hyperbole. People enjoy different things in this game. Pve players don’t ask anet to make pvp more like pve. Same with wvw. Same with pve.
So why should raids be more like open world?
We’ve survived with hard content since the launch of guild wars 2. Hard content keeps players who’ve mastered the easier content in the game
I think the best evidence that this would actually work is in the game right now – the first encounter in the Stronghold of the Faithful wing.
My guild has recently started taking multiple groups to successfully complete that fight – even with people who enjoy non meta builds. That isn’t something we can enjoyably do with the rest – but could (and would LOVE doing so) if there was a dual tier of difficulties.
That encounter feels like what I would like to see in a lower difficulty mode. If every fight offered two modes – one that was tuned around the level of that fight and one that was tuned around (or tuned higher than) Gorseval or Matthias, I think it would be well received. In fact, based on the fun people are having with that first fight, I know it would. This would probably even allow Anet to make the higher difficulty MUCH more difficult (as many agree they aren’t currently that challenging for the higher end raiders).
And, it is worth noting, while it isn’t the sole defining factor of the fight, part of what makes that first encounter feel more open is the lack of an enrage timer. Little changes like that can make enough of a difference in many cases.
I have a different takeaway — developing raids at different skill levels is far superior. You have easy raids like escort and hard raids like matthias. Diversity is king.
and more words.
I’m with Ohoni on this one, discussing Bioshock is way off topic.
I see guilds training raids all the time.
…you really didn’t read what i wrote at all. Or didn’t bother to understand what i wrote.
I really have no idea what point you’re trying to make.
Do you need to join a super special raid guild to raid? No. Plenty of people pug.
Does joining a guild help? Yes. It’s helpful to have repeat players.
There is no raid “lifestyle.” Just people who enjoy that type of content. It’s ok not to like it.
If you are having trouble filing your guild group, you can fill the gaps with pugs or join a bigger guild.
Ok guys what your discussion contributes at this point?
Raids could stay as they are now if pve mode has endgame to pursue. If HoT wasn’t so pointless to play people wouldn’t be lured for pve loot in raids (legendary armor, skins, gear and achievements). It’s same with problems with league awards in pvp – too many people to just grind to get pve stuff.
Make pve worth playing by being profitable and fun game mode and viable alternative to different parts of game (pvp, raids, wvw). Then raids can stay as they are and casuals are happy and hardcore players are happy.
Agreed – I think dungeon, fractal, and living world should be developed concurrently with raids.
I see guilds training raids all the time.
…you really didn’t read what i wrote at all. Or didn’t bother to understand what i wrote.
I really have no idea what point you’re trying to make.
Do you need to join a super special raid guild to raid? No. Plenty of people pug.
Does joining a guild help? Yes. It’s helpful to have repeat players.
There is no raid “lifestyle.” Just people who enjoy that type of content. It’s ok not to like it.
If you are having trouble filing your guild group, you can fill the gaps with pugs or join a bigger guild.
Some content needs to be challenging and only challenging.
Obviously, there are many who disagree with this statement.
Providing multiple difficulty tiers in no way alters the harder experience – and I firmly believe that most hardcore players are mature enough to not feel that something someone else is doing in a completely different instance – that they acknowledge isn’t as demanding – someone diminishes their accomplishment.
It’s either out of selfishness or some silly grade school playground “you can’t play with my toys” complex.
It is because earning the same unique skin rewards would certainly diminish the feeling of accomplishment.
How is my raid skin unique and a strong statement about my skill if everyone else has it from doing “ez mode raids”?
I don’t mind everyone else having it from doing normal raids – it just means they’re also good – but the initial statement about MY skill remains true. But if they get it from “ez mode” raids then the message my unique skin tells becomes lost.How many LI do you have?
127. Why does it matter?
Do you feel diminished by players buying their LI?
It’s a lot faster if you make your point without asking these types of questions.
I’m sure his answer is “no.”
That doesn’t mean that an easy mode raid wouldn’t diminish current rewards, even if a very small minority currently buys raids.
I’m not sure Anet should design content over the small minority of players that compete the content through in game gold.
But to the merits. Lets take an easy example — the gorseval infusion. It’s sellable on the tp. That doesn’t diminish the value of the infusion though, because it’s hard to achieve. That means a player who has it completed the difficult content or shelled out tons of gold.
Another example are the old legendary weapons. You can buy them on the tp. But their value, and sense of accomplishment would be diminished if anet reduced the material requirements or made it easy to get a precursor.
Some content needs to be challenging and only challenging.
Obviously, there are many who disagree with this statement.
Providing multiple difficulty tiers in no way alters the harder experience – and I firmly believe that most hardcore players are mature enough to not feel that something someone else is doing in a completely different instance – that they acknowledge isn’t as demanding – someone diminishes their accomplishment.
It’s either out of selfishness or some silly grade school playground “you can’t play with my toys” complex.
It is because earning the same unique skin rewards would certainly diminish the feeling of accomplishment.
How is my raid skin unique and a strong statement about my skill if everyone else has it from doing “ez mode raids”?
I don’t mind everyone else having it from doing normal raids – it just means they’re also good – but the initial statement about MY skill remains true. But if they get it from “ez mode” raids then the message my unique skin tells becomes lost.I actually agree 100% with this.
What many of us are advocating is tiered difficulty and tiered reward. This is about the experience of the raid, not unrealistic expectations about comparable rewards.
Anet does a good job of allocating rewards based on skill level – whether it is through the gold/silver/bronze system, enhanced difficulty achievements (my mini clockheart is still my favorite mini for this very reason) or straight levels (as with fractal and gold fractal weapon skins).
I would NEVER want them to deviate from that (let me say it again very loudly – NEVER ). You do something that is harder, you deserve a way to show that off.
This is solely about accessibility to the experience.
Just to recall the counter arguments, here are several ways tiered rewards hurt normal raids:
1. It splits the player base. Players would naturally go the best time/reward tier. You see this in fractals — if you have the ar, you go to t4.
2. It slows down development on future raids. Developers would need to now account for scalable bosses and mechanics in designing raids.
3. It limits raid mechanic creativity. Some mechanics are not easily scaled down. And making everything scalable limits design choices for future raids.
And, per my usual reply, there’s plenty of content if you’re looking for an easier experience. And there’s always been hard content.
Again – about degrees. I’m not saying it was completely stamped out, just that with raids, they really have deviated from their typical approach to community and content accessibility – resulting in a much higher level of this kind of thing.
Literally and patently false.
Nothing they’ve done has changed or removed your ability to get into the content. Nothing they’ve done has removed your tools to form your own groups.
Again, this is your opinion, just as what I have said is my opinion. It is why I stress this conversation isn’t about absolutes – its about degrees.
This is all based on the perspective we bring to the situation.
There is a actually a great book about this from Umberto Eco entitled Kant and the Platypus. It talks about how our personal and cultural experiences/beliefs form our opinions and even our definitions of things around us – even those we hold to be sacrosanct (which you apparently do with the above).
In short, our personal perspectives define our personal realities. That is where our divergent opinions come from.
I respect that your opinion is different than mine. If you cannot find a way to respect the same of mine, then there is no point in the two of us continuing to contradict one another. It will just become a vicious circle with no end.
Sorry, there’s no reason to respect an opinion of you don’t put anything behind it.
Claim: Raids are not assessible because it’s hard to find a group to play with.
Response: It’s actually pretty easy if you make an lfg post or join a guild.
Reply: But it’s my opinion.
If all of your replies are just “it’s my opinion”, them it’s rational to dismiss them. It’s no longer a dialog — instead it’s a soapbox.
Do you actually raid?
Extremely occasionally. It’s really, really hard for us to organize 10 people for an attempt at even the easiest of the raid bosses (and we do have some experienced raiders in our guild)
I have never been in a static raid group. I almost aways pug. I learned all of the bosses in pug groups.
You might have started doing this earlier. At this moment, pugs are generally divided in two groups:
1. experienced people wanting to raid only with other experienced people
2. inexperienced people generally wanting to hitch a ride with group 1.Even the first group tends to have really iffy chances of success. That’s based on what i hear from the experienced raiders from my guild, since i can’t verify it myself, as i don’t qualify for those LFGs (i do treat LFG requirements seriously). Second group… best not to dwell on it.
I see teaching runs in lfg all the time. I see guilds training raids all the time.
And, huh, I guess I reliably raid in pug groups. What was your original point again? That you can only raid with a specific set of 9 people who’ve adopted the raid “lifestyle?”
Sure they could, but why should they is the question?
To give players wider access to huge chunk of repeatable content? For the game famous for previous big periods of content drought, that a pretty vital goal.
Ofc you can say that they can give a lots of another content instead of that. But you know that they are not going to do it.
Your complaint doesn’t seem to be with raids, boy with the content drought.
They are releasing a new fractal and a living story in 2 weeks.
Can you summarize your point in a couple of sentences? I am missing something here.
If you want to reliably raid, you really need to have a known group of players you can group with. Especially if you only start learning. LFGing just means you have to start everything from beginning every time.
So, either you already have such a group available in your guild(s), or you need to look for such a guild. First is a function of luck – some people will have it, most will not. Second requires you to make friends based on gameplay needs – so, “let the game dictate your friends”.
Next, you need to get those people together. The lower the pool of available players, the greater time requirements on each of them. That means, that unless that pool is really big, you must schedule in advance – and that at least some of those players might need to change their RL activities to allow for it. It may not be so strictly necessary once you have raids on farm status (as the time needed for both preparations and actual fight gets shorter and shorter), but is pretty much unavoidable during the learning process.
Basically, if you have some friends, you can almost always just log in, say that you want to do a dungeon, get a group and just do it whenever it may happen. If you want to do raids with your friends, and some key people from your group are offline due to some RL stuff, then that’s it. You won’t be able to replace that tank, or healer, with a phone call to one of the guildies that are generally inactive, but can log in when someone needs a 5th for something. They won’t be experienced enough.
Again, not a problem if you are in a big guild with strong raiders’ representation (but then, i really doubt everyone in such a guild are really your friends).
There are a lot of ways to get into raids.
Not when those “solutions” are the very problems preventing people from raiding in the first place.
If you don’t like raids, fair enough. That’s not an argument for easy mode raids or the elimination of raids.
It’s not raids themselves i dislike, but the social demands/pressure they create if you want to participate in them.
Easy mode, in my case, would solve that issue. So would, most likely, the 5-man same difficulty version.
Do you actually raid? I have never been in a static raid group. I almost aways pug. I learned all of the bosses in pug groups.
Sure, it’s easier with a static group but it’s by no means required.
Under your logic, there would be no lfg posts.
What is stopping would-be raiders from raiding?
The organizational/preparational part, mostly. Most players are simply not willing to let game dictate their lifestyle or friends. And raids are very uncompromising on that part. Unlike WvW that you brought up.
LFM VG learning run
LFM VG exp
LFG VG; <insert class here>Bam, I’m a genius.
Seeing as you have completely missed a point, you sure are.
But seriously, there are so many solutions to get into raiding if you want to.
Yes, and all of them require you to let game dictate your lifestyle and/or friends. Or be extremely lucky (by being the person that already has the correct lifestyle and friends).
For WvW, you need to play on peak hours and run with your server to make progress.
No. For your server to make progress. You can make progress anytime. May be slower, but it will be there. Skirmishing and off-peak coverages are still a major point of WvW.
For map metas, you are bound to a timer.
Yes. If you haven’t noticed, that was the main problem with HoT metas, that the april patch partially helped with. Problem so big, that this patch ended up being necessary.
Can you summarize your point in a couple of sentences? I am missing something here.
There are a lot of ways to get into raids.
I don’t see how it’s a “lifestyle,” any more than pugging other content would be.
If you don’t like raids, fair enough. That’s not an argument for easy mode raids or the elimination of raids.
What is stopping would-be raiders from raiding?
The organizational/preparational part, mostly. Most players are simply not willing to let game dictate their lifestyle or friends. And raids are very uncompromising on that part. Unlike WvW that you brought up.
LFM VG learning run
LFM VG exp
LFG VG; <insert class here>
Bam, I’m a genius.
But seriously, there are so many solutions to get into raiding if you want to.
Plus, WvW and map metas present a different kind of organizational “challenge.” For WvW, you need to play on peak hours and run with your server to make progress. For map metas, you are bound to a timer.
Honestly, this excuse seems kinda weak.
He makes valid points of how ridiculous the LFG system is abused by Legendary Insights and ideas of how Ascended Gear is needed by some people. Can do it in exotic gear, heck some have even done it in Greens aka [KING]. And that Legendary Insights can and will be faked soooo……..they are pointless for judging skill level they are more so showing how much you have played raids but not so much which bosses you have killed.
PS: Chat Codes are fun!!!
People can, as always, make their own groups if they disagree with the requirements.
It’s about accessibility and cohesion with the rest of GW2 endgame.
As long as one piece of the puzzle – that includes story (however slight) – is designed for a smaller subset of the PVE population, there is no way to tell the story and provide a big picture experience that logically fits together.
The reality is raids do not fit well with the original vision of this game. All you have to do is look at early articles, blogs, etc, from the developers to see that even they believed that.
I’m glad raids are here – I’m glad there is challenging content – but if they plan to continue developing raids, they need to fix this underlying problem – which means making them more accessible to players of all kinds, including those not interested in meta builds, who are less skilled and who simply do not want to invest the time raiders do into the minutia of their characters.
This is not a little thing – it is potentially destructive to the GW2 endgame experience, imo. We can only hope they understand this – and that someone there remembers some of those core tenants that made the game so popular at launch – the reason many of us left those raid heavy games to come here (and bring our communities here).
Yes, arah explorable and aetherpath destroyed the very fabric of guild wars 2.
No, wait, it was ok to have story elements behind hard content.
You keep bringing this up, but neither Arah nor Aetherpath rely on enrage timers – so neither of those examples really punished players for using non-meta builds or playstyles. They were still accessible – with the same chance of success – regardless of gear, builds and playstyles. That is one of the things that made that content superior to raids – it was purely about skill rather than overcoming the artificial barriers those timers enforce (now whether or not they were difficult enough is debatable). Again, I’m not against difficult content.
The analogy/comparison just doesn’t work.
You can walk into raids right now with non-meta gear. And beat it.
You can walk into raids right now with non-meta builds. And beat it.
Enrage timers aren’t the reason groups fail (besides gorseval, which is a dps check). It’s almost always mechanics. And an enraged boss won’t wipe the group.
Escort doesn’t even have an enrage timer. I’ve never seen trio hit enrage. I’ve never seen KC hit enrage. I’ve never seen Xera hit enrage.
Plus, these hard dungeons have “enrage like” mechanics. The final boss in aether will cover the floor with lightning. If you don’t complete certain tasks fast enough. One of the arah bosses will summon adds to kill a terminal if you don’t kill her fast enough. Another destroys projectile blocking barrels as the fight goes on. Another will destroy the reflect shields if you use them too many times.
There has always been hard content. Enrage timers do not independently make a fight hard.
EDIT: You do not have the same chance of success of beating these hard dungeons with sub optimal gear or builds.
EDIT 2: And all open world events do have time to complete timers. This makes triple trouble, in particular, hard.
(edited by Absurdo.8309)
Yes, arah explorable and aetherpath destroyed the very fabric of guild wars 2.
No, wait, it was ok to have story elements behind hard content.
That argument got refuted more than once already, and yet you keep using it…
(but just to repeat it again: if raids were at the arah difficulty level, i’m pretty sure there wouldn’t be as much backlash against them as it is now)
I disagree. This is a matter of opinion, but I think they are of the same difficulty level. I don’t think fresh or even somewhat experienced 80s could beat the content.
People were buying arah paths right up until HOT. I would consider that hard.
And, to address the argument I actually quoted, those dungeons contain much more relevant lore and story, yet the content is still hard. Rebutting the argument that anet never puts lore or story behind hard content.
It’s about accessibility and cohesion with the rest of GW2 endgame.
As long as one piece of the puzzle – that includes story (however slight) – is designed for a smaller subset of the PVE population, there is no way to tell the story and provide a big picture experience that logically fits together.
The reality is raids do not fit well with the original vision of this game. All you have to do is look at early articles, blogs, etc, from the developers to see that even they believed that.
I’m glad raids are here – I’m glad there is challenging content – but if they plan to continue developing raids, they need to fix this underlying problem – which means making them more accessible to players of all kinds, including those not interested in meta builds, who are less skilled and who simply do not want to invest the time raiders do into the minutia of their characters.
This is not a little thing – it is potentially destructive to the GW2 endgame experience, imo. We can only hope they understand this – and that someone there remembers some of those core tenants that made the game so popular at launch – the reason many of us left those raid heavy games to come here (and bring our communities here).
Yes, arah explorable and aetherpath destroyed the very fabric of guild wars 2.
No, wait, it was ok to have story elements behind hard content.
Raiding as it is now is not well received by the majority of players (that is my opinion, btw, but it is based on what I see in game talking to people) – and, even if they don’t post here, there is a good bit of animosity toward them.
Not well received because those people can’t find a group or guild, got nothing to do with the encounters or story or whatever in the instance.
I agree. The problem is not the mechanical design of the raids, which are well done.
It is an accessibility and overarching design issue. And one I think they need to fix before starting development on any new raids. They need to use some of the amazing creativity and new MMO thinking we saw in so many areas at launch to make raiding a true cohesive part of the GW2 experience.
What is stopping would-be raiders from raiding?
I get the feeling most of the complainers just don’t like raids. That’s ok. I don’t like wvw. But that hardly means it’s not accessible. Same with raids.
Someone on Reddit pasted a quote from an article Rubi Bayer wrote back in 2012 ( https://www.engadget.com/2012/01/23/flameseeker-chronicles-we-dont-need-no-stinkin-endgame/ ) that read as follows:
‘No endgame/no raiding is perceived by a lot of people as “nothing left to do once you reach level cap.” It’s understandable because we’ve been taught to think that way by a lot of developers over the years. Once you get to the end, that’s where the really good stuff is, so hurry!
There might be something epic at the end; we don’t know. The development team might go nuts at some point in the future and decide to bring Bubbles out of the shadows as a 250-man instanced raid. We don’t know. We can speculate until the cows come home, but (say it with me) we don’t know. Until then, let’s just appreciate what Jon said. ArenaNet doesn’t want to give us a game that completely and fundamentally changes once you reach endgame. If the team did that, it would mean that once you reach endgame, either you do not have the game you paid for in the first place or you do not have the game you paid for until you reach endgame. I don’t know about you, but neither of those options is appealing to me. I’ll take the entertainment I paid for right out of the gate, thank you!’
This hit home for me. It reminded me of why I bought GW2 and fell in love with the game in the first place. The idea that the entire game is end game – that the raiding model from other games simply isn’t needed to instill a sense of accomplishment and fun.
It really feels like Anet has forgotten why a lot of people left those other games to come here – or why so many non MMO players decided this would be their first. Somewhere along the way, they stopped trying to do something new and decided to copy/paste the same tired end game every one of those other games uses.
I’m tired of fighting against the tide – of trying to regain a little of that amazing game we had in those first years – but I’m not going to stop, because I still think it is worth the effort. I can only hope that Anet isn’t so jaded or worried about the next expansion that they ignore these pleas. We need to know that the spirit of the game showcased in the quotes above and that we saw early on still drive the game’s development. We need to know that community and an open inviting game are still important to them.
Raids can still be a part of that picture, but this stagnant, stale and uninspired model they are using goes against everything they said in the early days – and really feels like they have just given up and committed themselves to being another me-too in the MMO space. With the way they have implemented them, they are doing exactly what they said they would not – fundamentally change the way people play at endgame. Worse, they are segmenting the community in much the same way we see in all of those other MMOs.
I know that sounds harsh, but it’s something they need to hear.
I’m not sure what argument you’re trying to make here. I think that you want more content like open world and world bosses.
Fine. Most raiders are ok with Anet developing this content.
But here’s a harsh truth from the other side. After 3 years, I don’t want a boss I can 1111 to death. It’s just too easy. I enjoyed that when I started, but not anymore.
Really all I do is raid. Some fractals and dungeons sprinkled in, but not really.
Raids will eventually get stale. As all content does. And then I’ll take a break or just quit.
I’m sure there are other players like me.
What I don’t get is why you want to waste developer resources on content we already have. During the biggest content drought in Guild wars 2.
Make dungeons. Make fractals. Make living world. But please, have it be something new. In game, raids are not nearly as divisive as you put them to be. There are tons of groups at all skill levels doing them.
Because talking to other players is super difficult……
It’s almost like those allegedly exclusive guilds aren’t recruiting or something…..Oh wait reddit/gw2 forums and even in game daily there’s adverts for guilds.
According to reddit survey, there is like total 40+% players who want to try raiding. If raid teaching is so widely accessible, then why these numbers are so high? It’s not like people have problems to join WvW/PvP/general PvE guilds, but suddenly all of them are too lazy to find a raid one? Why there is so many threads, topics and posts here and on reddit, under literally EVERY dev post?
Your logic is not working here.
Are you one of these players? It would help to get first hand accounts to diagnose the problem.
But I suspect one of the many solutions has already been posted.
A general-purpose pve guild that doesn’t organize interested raiders is not successful.
How is this statement toxic?
Because raids are not general-purpose pve?
In a 500 person pve guild, they are.
And, as I repeat in every thread this is brought up, the context of that statement was a poster who was complaining that he couldn’t find people to raid with in his guild. Even though there were interested raiders. That makes a bad guild, in my opinion.
Really, toxic is such an overused term.
I agree that toxic is an overused term, but it definitely fits here. Again, look at the examples above( https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/Future-of-Raids/page/2#post6237796 ) – and, if still needed, here is a link to another (REALLY NSFW) example -
This level of nastiness – and the death threat I received (attached to the earlier response in this thread) are examples of toxic behavior – if they aren’t, then that word doesn’t apply to anything, imo.
This is a systemic problem that can be tied directly to how they chose to implement raids in this game. When you purposefully build content for a small segment of the PVE population, it will result in a segmented population.
When that segmentation is based on perceived skill or commitment levels, then you end up with part of the population feeling superior/scornful (looking down on non raiders) and another part feeling jealously (people who feel bad because they cannot experience the fights).
Neither is good for the game or the community.
I’m not going to defend name calling.
But your view is far more divisive.
You don’t want any story elements in raids, no matter how minor or tangential.
You don’t want anet to continue raid development (in its current form).
You want anet to devote resources to easy mode raids and other easy content.
Compare this to the typical raider view.
Continue to develop raids as is.
Continue to develop other content, preferably faster.
While you don’t deserve the name-calling, people understandably get upset when you seek to destroy the content they enjoy.
What makes them repeatable is the rewards and the exhilarating effect of overcoming something extremely difficult
By the time you get to the point where content being repeatable or not starts to matter, you already have it on farm mode and difficulty becomes a nonissue.
Then why waste resources making an easy mode if they are already on farm status?
A general-purpose pve guild that doesn’t organize interested raiders is not successful.
How is this statement toxic?
Because raids are not general-purpose pve?
In a 500 person pve guild, they are.
And, as I repeat in every thread this is brought up, the context of that statement was a poster who was complaining that he couldn’t find people to raid with in his guild. Even though there were interested raiders. That makes a bad guild, in my opinion.
Really, toxic is such an overused term.
Haven’t you noticed, that everyone that does not raid now is either unskilled, or lazy, or both, and should feel bad for it, and “git gud”?
Nope. I don’t raid in GW2, or in any game at the moment, and nobody calls me unskilled or lazy. They don’t tell me that I should feel bad for not raiding and they don’t tell me to ‘git gud’.
Oh, come on, you yourself were the one claiming that no guild that isn’t raiding can be called succesful. If this kind of attitude has now spread so much that they are even shared by some nonraiders, it reinforces my point even more.
A general-purpose pve guild that doesn’t organize interested raiders is not successful.
How is this statement toxic?
Like we already stated in other threads: It’s more a “I don’t want to raid” than a “I am not able to raid.” in your case.
Definitely. And for some reason you don’t believe that choice should be respected?
No one is saying that. Rather, I think anet should focus on content that would cater to you, like living world.
You seem to be upset at the mere existence of raids. Which, to be fair, lines up with your principles.
But you can’t design content in an MMO that caters to every single player. For example, I don’t like wvw. I find the combat on that scale uninteresting. Do I demand that anet turn wvw into raids or pvp? No. Because I know people like wvw. And because I have pvp and raids to enjoy. I don’t need to like everything.
I know you do. Fair enough. But not many people share your view.
This seems to a complaint against the content drought, not raids.
It can be both.
Why do you need an easy mode? Isn’t more dungeons, fractals, and living world superior?
Those things are all different. They provide an experience, but not the same experience. We can have dungeons, fractals, and living world, and appreciate those, and still want to run Forsaken Thicket without the “wipe until you make it” elements.
It would provide much more variety if you decided to become interested in raids.
you don’t “decide” to become interested in raids, you either are or you aren’t. I can absolutely guarantee you that there will never be a time in which I will want to play raids in their current form.
And there’s already a variety of difficulty levels within the raids. Like escort and trio. This is how it should be.
Although many of those are gated behind other portions of the raid, so you can’t experience those portions without first clearing the previous portion that week, or joining with someone who has. I don’t think anyone is complaining about the variety within raids, we’d just like a way of accessing that variety that has fewer of the issues inherent to “challenging content” raiding.
I already know that one of your first principles is: “All content must be complete-able at an easy/medium difficultly level.”
I don’t think many people share this view, and it certainly isn’t applicable to guild wars 2, ever.
The OP’s concern seems to be the content drought. Which is a valid concern. But it is unfair to assign the blame for this on raids.
If all the raid wings were released at the launch of HOT, would you still be upset?
I know you would answer “yes.” But I think most would answer no. Easy and medium content still rules this game. The problem is that there hasn’t been any new content, other than raids, in a while.
This seems to a complaint against the content drought, not raids.
Why do you need an easy mode? Isn’t more dungeons, fractals, and living world superior? It would provide much more variety if you decided to become interested in raids.
And there’s already a variety of difficulty levels within the raids. Like escort and trio. This is how it should be.
(first note for hardcore players – pls no hate on this topic, ok? thx )
Well, I thought about that in nearest or next big patch, players could get the opportunity to play raids in the mode called “story mode”.
This would work in this way:
1. You could play all the raids in this mode without other players to read the story, dialogues, etc. with no rush. (you could play with npc’s)
2. Of course, the player did NOT receive ANY awards and achiv, which normally can be earned by playing raids with other players in the normal mode. (or maybe only some golds at end).
Really such a thing would be cool, because certainly there are people who care more about the story contained in these raids than the huge prizes and legendary armor. (Including me and my girlfriend).
_
So yeah… What do you think?
(sorry for my english xD )
There are tons of threads on this topic.
1. Almost all lore comes from a completed instance.
2. There’s almost 0 lore from the boss fight
3. An npc at the beginning of wing 3 summarizes the lore
4. Anyone can experience the boss fights
5. A story mode as you describe provides no replay value.
I think it’s clear that Ohoni’s are:
1. All content must be available at an easy skill level
2. All skins must be available at an easy skill levelIt’s fine to hold these views. And Ohoni’s been consistent in their application. You’re unlikely to change his mind in these regards.
But guild wars 2 is not the game Ohoni imagines. There’s always been hard content. And there’s always been exclusive skins.
Eh, sort of. I mean you’re close, and I appreciate that you are least tried. It’s a bit more like:
1. All content must be available at a moderate skill level
2. All skins must be available to players of all skill levelsI mean, for 1, many of you seem to consider most content in the game “easy,” and by that measure, yeah, I want easy, but by a more realistic measure, the content average of GW2 would be moderate, some of it much easier than that, a very few things slightly harder. I think it’s ok to have some content that is only available if it’s harder, but the harder it is, the less you should miss out by not performing it. Ideally, all you’d miss out by not doing something very challenging is the experience of doing something very challenging.
2. makes an important distinction, because I’m often accused of wanting to be “handed” things, and that’s not my point at all. I value having to work towards goals, and have no problem with rewards that involve a long and complex process to unlock them, I just don’t agree that long and complex processes should lock you into a single specific game type, one which you might not enjoy or be talented at, for long periods of time. They also should not require that you be an above average player. I think that high level skill should provide a reasonable shortcut to the goal, and that specific activities can be more efficient than others if they want to encourage those options, but ultimately it should never become a hard barrier of “do this one specific thing OR never get the item.”
I think that since GW2 offers such a broad range of gameplay experiences, it’s cruel to block progress towards goals players might have behind content that they clearly might not enjoy.
You’re basically saying: ‘He put in time and effort to get a shiny, I want this shiny too but I don’t want to put in all that effort so they need to change the way I can get the shiny.’
No, that’s flawed reasoning. I’m willing to put in equivalent time and effort, I just don’t necessarily want to do it the same way. It’s like if someone puts in the time to go to law school, become a lawyer, works as a lawyer for a bit, and can afford to buy a $75K car, that’s fine. But then if someone else wants that same car, and works as a plumber for more years, not doing ANY lawyering at all, then he can buy that car too, and that’s also ok. Nobody is having anything taken from them just because that plumber is allowed to earn that car through means other than lawyering.
And let’s remember that the both of you start on an even playing ground from the moment you start playing the game, so don’t you dare claim it’s about equality.
That’s not true at all. Both player’s avatars may start at level 1, but there’s no reason to believe that both players start at a level ground. One might work a full time job while the other only works part time or not at all, so has more time to play. One might have family that needs attention while the other does not. One might have a physical or social disability that limits how well they can play, or maybe one just has better than average coordination and can play better. There are all sorts of factors that would lead one player to have an easier time doing certain activities than others.
I commend you for stating your principles.
We disagree on #1, and I don’t think I’ll change your mind. Fair enough.
I respect #2, and to some extent sympathize. I think the ideal system is to have the armor sellable on the trading post, like the original legendary weapons. It’s worked pretty well for the gorseval infusion. But I honestly don’t think it’s going to happen anytime soon. And I think I’m in the minority here — many like having skins tied to particular achievements.
And this is a weak preference for me — I would not prefer lesser solutions, like easy mode, because it diminishes raids.
But, again, good on you for stating your principles.
I think it’s important to identify first principles like these to avoid long walls of text. Honestly not many people read those.
I think it’s clear that Ohoni’s are:
1. All content must be available at an easy skill level
2. All skins must be available at an easy skill level
It’s fine to hold these views. And Ohoni’s been consistent in their application. You’re unlikely to change his mind in these regards.
But guild wars 2 is not the game Ohoni imagines. There’s always been hard content. And there’s always been exclusive skins.
Again, it’s fine to hold these views. And it seems pointless to argue over them. But other games, like single player games, are more consistent in applying these two principles.
The discussions aren’t even toxic so the argument that’s brought into here from time to time that players are afraid of posting here is nonsense.
I would disagree with this statement. There are a lot of derisive statements in these threads, including people calling people lazy, bad players, etc. Not long ago, someone told another player his social guild was “bad” because they didn’t raid. Your own statement insinuates that people asking for this are in the extreme minority, and therefore wrong – when both sides (at least on the forums) seem to be about the same size in terms of numbers (a point that really doesn’t mean anything anyway).
To Anet’s credit, many of the worst examples of this have been deleted (including one posted just this morning in this very thread) – and rightfully so.
Additionally, I have both been attacked in game because I have dared to express my opinion here – and I have been thanked by people who told me directly they didn’t want to post for fear of blowback or negativity. Last time I brought that up on these forums, I was basically told it was my own fault.
It isn’t easy to post about this topic. You have to be ready for some pretty hateful comments.
To compound that, Anet insists on moving all of these threads to the raiding subforum, where – for obvious reasons – there are more raiders than casual players.
But, none of that should matter. The point of the forums is to provide a place were all voices can be heard.
So, let’s agree to stop the argument about which group is the biggest or who is or isn’t represented on the forums (a topic that has been beaten to death) and just continue the dialogue about the topic at hand in a mature and civil manner.
To your credit, you seem to be one of the more thoughtful posters on your side of this debate.
But even you have called for the discontinuation of raids (if they continue in their current form). A lot of people like them. Expect vigorous opposition. I won’t excuse people who insult you, but don’t mistake people who disagree with you as insults.
And, to be honest, I’m starting to doubt whether these insults are real to the extent you describe them. I called that guild “bad.” One poster complained that he was unable to join a raiding guild group in his 1000 person guild. The guild wasn’t bad because it didn’t want to raid. The guild was bad because it failed to connect would-be raiders. I’m not sure what’s the point of a general purpose 1000 person guild otherwise.
We get the same tired arguments with the same cast of characters in each of these threads. I want the lore. I want to beat everything. I want the legendary armor. They don’t really justify an easy mode, but feel free to repeat them.
Lets get this back on track for a second because CLEARLY the point has been missed here:
This is not about gear, this is not about taking away the difficulty or the challenge raiders enjoy, this is not about giving more access to legendary armor…
This is about letting people who “want” to raid, for the enjoyment of the STORY enjoy actually doing it at a relaxed and leisurely pace so that they can enjoy the content rather than having to find 9 people capable of being as dedicated to the game as they want to be
Can we focus on the actual topic instead of deviating the topic to derail things?
You have personal story to enjoy story.
You have living world to enjoy story.
There’s easier group content if that’s your thing.
You have all you want already. And it’s fine to want more of that. But don’t destroy raids in the process.
I wouldn’t mind a boss that had stealth as a mechanic. That would increase the desirability of engies and thieves.
We’ve danced around this point in a lot of threads, but the reality is pretty straightforward – without the mass appeal something like a casual experience would create, I would rather see them abandon raiding altogether at this point.
If they allow raiding to take over the GW2 end game experience, then this isn’t the GW2 that millions of people bought into any longer. They need to focus on the larger PVE community or they will see the game population start to dwindle.
Even if they get back to regular open world PVE updates, this will happen. As long as people feel like they are being left out of the end game experience(for whatever reason – even if you believe it isn’t true), then they will feel SIGNIFICANTLY less enthusiastic about the rest of the game. I know my play time and gem store purchases (neither of which were insignificant) have both dropped way down since the introduction of raiding in the game.
You can argue the need to keep raids hardcore all you want, but that doesn’t change any of what I just said.
ArenaNet needs to get back to the basics that made this game so popular in the first three years. And they need to remember why things like scaling, dynamic events, etc brought so many players from other games (and players new to MMOs) to GW2. Everyone was on equal footing – and everyone felt like they were respected and included in the entire story. That is something a lot of other MMOs failed to do – thus the migration to this game.
Without that, I don’t see GW2 retaining anywhere near the population they have had in the past.
The team working on raids is really small. Like maybe 2-5% of the entire team.
Some people really like raids. If you are offended by their mere existence, then perhaps you should refocus on what you find fun and play that.
I like Option 3: Continue with the status quo.
If you want easy content, you have the entire game.
I’ll ask this question on every one of these threads I see. Give me your 30 second answer — no one likes reading walls of text.
Why does this content, in particular, need an easy mode?
Well, this explains why my friend didn’t get the mastery unlocked when I took him for a bandit trio.
I’m not against this, I never considered Mcloud or trio a true boss, but yes, it should be more clear they aren’t fully considered as raid bosses.
That’s an interesting point. Can you outline how that could be made clearer? I can pass along your suggestions, if you have ideas on what could be presented to dispel any misunderstanding.
Well at the event window on the top right of the screen you could have with the event title like “Siege the stronghold” an “Raid event: Siege the strongold” “Raid Boss Encounter: Vale guardian” . And in the mastery window “Complete a Raid Boss Encounter to unlock”
Interesting suggestions. I don’t know if they are feasible in an interface sense, but I know the team will take at look at this.
With all the wings released, could the achievement just list the bosses that qualify?
For example, I find how the regional gathering dailies (like shiverpeaks miner) list the qualifying maps very helpful.
Being unable to organize a raid of 10 in a guild of 1000 members is, frankly, utterly bizarre. How in the world are they ‘obviously successful from a social perspective’ if they can’t even get a group together which is 1% of the guild’s total size?
Perhaps, just perhaps, the number of people interested in raids was lower than those 1%? Which in no way tells us anything about how succesful the guild is, by the way. But might say something about how popular Raids are.
Actually, the poster confirmed that they had a raid group for guild veterans, but that the group was generally full. The poster did not indicate whether the guild had training runs or a secondary group. Based on the posters complaints (that he was not able to get into raids) probably not.
Don’t really want to sound too negative here, but the arguments I’ve been hearing lately from the other side seem to be based on speculation and misinformation.