Guild Wars 2

Blaeys.3102:

Of course raids are a divisive force in the game.

• Just days ago in these forums, you had someone belittling another player – saying he was in a “bad guild” because that guild didn’t raid – people are looking down on non raiders. I myself have been attacked through whispers multiple times in game for daring to disagree about the direction of raiding on the forums. In another thread just today, you see someone calling another group “pups” in an obvious sneer because they mentioned having a hard time on VG. The hate is real and it is at a level not seen before raids.

• The recent Apathy article on MMORPG talks about nothing to do in the game. Likewise, a lot of people talk about the content drought as if raids never happened. They don’t consider them part of GW2 – for good reason. They do not fit with the rest of the game at all.

• People keep bringing up these teacher guild or run scenarios, but if you look at the lfg over any real period of time, it is obvious that, if they do exist, they are very very rare. It is a red herring to avoid talking about the real issue – raids have divided the community. If anything, looking at lfg only proves the ultra exclusive club that raiding is becoming.

• The gap between raiders and non raiders will only widen as things like legendary armor and new raids make their way into the game. While this seems benign, it isn’t. A cohesive PVE community is critical in a game where new content is often dependent on numbers and people actually getting along in the open world.

• People are starved for substantial new content – and, even as a small team, raids detract from that. As an example, lot of people have been asking for a summer festival – a return to the queen’s gauntlet. The small raid team could have probably retrofit that event and given it to us this year – something small that would have appealed to a much larger group.

• I’m not even convinced that this is sinking in with Anet – or that they are even seeing it. I worry they rely a little too much on their forum player liasons and miss out on some important information. Even worse, I worry that it is falling on deaf ears – that they are so tied up in marketing the term “player tears” in a blind attempt to bring a new type of player to the game that they fail to see the true impact raids are having on the game.

As bad as it sounds, I do hope that we have seen the last of raids in 2016. If they are going to continue with this kind of content, they need to re-center and come up with a better way – one that fits with the game as a whole and is more inclusive of the community as a whole.

I’ve tried several times to distill this discussion to first principles. We’ve had proxy arguments over lore, difficulty, and accessibility. It’s clear what your true motivation is:

You want ANET to stop making raids because you don’t like them.

It’s ok to not like everything in this game. But most players don’t demand that anet focus exclusively on their desired content.

To address your specific points:

1 – I’m the one who called that players guild “bad.” I’m not sure how calling a guild bad belittles the player. Regardless, my comment was in a discussion where a player complained that he wasn’t able to get in to raids because no one in his 1000 person general purpose guild wanted to play with him. Here’s the original quote:

And if your 1000 person guild can’t raid, well, that’s a pretty bad guild. I’m sure some people in a big guild raid. Get them together and hop in.

I later clarified that the guild was bad because it failed to connect interested raiders. The guild isn’t bad because it doesn’t raid but because it doesn’t organize interested players into a raid group.

Regarding your other “sneers,” I’m not sure how “pups” really counts — that at worst denotes an inexperienced player. And that poster complained that he spent 100s of hours on VG. But he didn’t ask what he was doing wrong.

I can’t speak to the whispers, but if they attack you that’s obviously wrong. Not to victim blame, but you’re the one calling for the destruction of content a lot of players enjoy.

2 – I’m not sure what you’re using as your baseline of “fits into the game.” Pvp and wvw don’t really fit in with other content. Super adventure box doesn’t either.

3 – Almost any big guild that raids has a teacher run. There was a reddit post a while back with dozens of guilds willing to teach newer players.

I’m still amazed that people are willing to pug teacher runs — there’s very little incentive to do so. But some do, and good on them. But there’s nothing stopping anyone from learning these fights. Heck, the people who want to see what the bosses are like can hop in.

3 – Not really sure what point you’re trying to make here. Almost all content has some sort of exclusive reward. And raids require much more cohesion than open world. Open world rarely requires any community interaction, just a lot of players.

4 – ANET has stated several times that the raid team does not slow down other development.

This comment seems more in line with “ANET can only develop things I like.”

5 – Not sure what this means either. I mean, anet can’t do everything people want on the forums, as many ideas are contradicting. And several, like easy mode raids, are shortsighted.

We’ve discussed lore, story, easy modes, and accessibility. I’ve tried to give you the benefit of the doubt throughout those conversations. But you really lost me here. I would never recommend the destruction of content that people enjoy.

TerminalMontage.5693:

At least in the LFG. My guild isn’t too raid focused, so I resort to LFG. And majority of the groups I see in the Looking For More raid tab are always selling groups.

I usually just end up sitting in the Looking for Group tab for a while then give up.

Do these selling guilds so overwhelm the “Looking for More” tab that you can’t see non-selling groups? In my experience, they don’t.

If no one is picking you up from LFG, reconsider your post description. Or create your own group. Or join a guild.

Blaeys.3102:

Absurdo.8309:

This diversity is healthy. Contending that anet should scrap content, just because you don’t like it, is not.

Not sure anyone (or at least not many) are advocating scrapping anything if it can be helped. If anything, people are looking to expand on that diversity of content – because, just as you say, it is healthy for the game.

What isn’t healthy for the game is the divisive nature of raiding in its current form. You don’t have to look past this thread to see a great example of it – and it is having a negative impact on the game. yes, some did exist with dungeons and fractals, but, tbh, not a lot. Raids, in their current format, brought it to the game. Were just looking for a way to fix this without the need to scrap anything.

And, I realize you probably don’t see it. That goes back to the idea of different perspectives and approaches to the game – which we’ve touched on in multiple posts..

I just want the openness and community focus we saw at launch and for the first few years back in the game – and I think they can do that without taking anything away from anyone.

Apologies for being a bit combative here, but you said you would have ANET stop making raids if they continued in the current form.

Blaeys.3102:

If this is the planned path for future raids, I, personally, would rather they abandoned them altogether. That said, however, I would prefer that they look to solve this issue instead – and offer raids in a way that doesn’t create those barriers.

That statement itself is divisive. People enjoy raids in their current form.

You call raids divisive. I really don’t see it. Is arah divisive because some people can’t beat it? Aetherpath? Just because people disagree on the value of easy mode raids doesn’t mean raids are bad or divisive. What makes them divisive?

This is a trick question: Would you still be upset at raids if they released them all with the launch of HOT?

If no, then your real problem is the content drought.
If yes, then you’re upset that ANET commits resources to some content you don’t enjoy. But, again, diversity of content is a good thing.

Astralporing.1957:

Absurdo.8309:

Can you imagine if you replaced “raids” with “wvw” or “pvp”? I’m sure only a fraction of players play this content too, and it’s just as “accessible” as raids.

…“as accessible as raids”? Surely you’re joking. If you’ve said “spvp tournaments” i might agree, but pvp in general? WvW?
…did you even try to play one of those modes?

What is stopping you or any other player from raiding?

I’m honestly not really sure what players mean when they say accessible. Does it mean easy? Does it mean in-game experience? Does it mean quickly mastered?

I’m not sure what definition you’re using, or what other players are using. And I don’t really want to quibble over the relative accessibility across all content. But wvw and pvp have their barriers too. Not all players can compete in high ranked play. Not all players can consistently win matches. And not all players can participate in organized wvw play.

The main point is that it’s ok to have a variety of content in the game. Some people like raiding. Some people like pvp. Some people like living world. This diversity is healthy. Contending that anet should scrap content, just because you don’t like it, is not.

Gunsnroll.2657:

Get the code, ping it, if you have the experience they won’t know, if you haven’t, they will notice.

http://gw2.ninja/chatcodes

This is very annoying for those of us that actually organize pug runs.

Blaeys.3102:

If this is the planned path for future raids, I, personally, would rather they abandoned them altogether. That said, however, I would prefer that they look to solve this issue instead – and offer raids in a way that doesn’t create those barriers.

Can you imagine if you replaced “raids” with “wvw” or “pvp”? I’m sure only a fraction of players play this content too, and it’s just as “accessible” as raids.

This is why raiders understandably get upset at these types of posts.

And I’m still not sure what makes raids so inaccessible.

Blaeys.3102:

Absurdo.8309:

1. Not all of your examples fit the easy mode most imagine for raids. I think the only true examples are fractals and super adventure box.

Most content has a single difficulty level. Open world (with different rewards for participation), world bosses, dungeons, personal story, map metas, guild challenges, guild puzzles, guild rush.

Living story does not really count as multiple difficulty levels. It is a single difficultly level with some achievements. The achievements are not meant to be repeated, and some don’t even change the difficulty of the encounter (e.g., don’t get hit by sandstorms).

There are three tiers of difficulty for guild missions.

Living story offers a range of achievements and challenge mote challenges (that do ask you to repeat the content)

Dungeons had story modes and explorable modes (and Aetherpath even had achievements to reward players trying more difficult approaches).

Open world tries to offer reward based on how much you contributed (a variation on the difficulty theme, but along the same lines).

Now, whether or not they offered a high enough level of difficulty is beside the point (I don’t believe they did – which is part of my overall point) – all of these areas (and many others) reward the player for attempting more difficult content in those game modes. Raids should follow the same model.

You mention that you don’t want harder versions of past content because “new is better than revised old.” I can relate to that. But what about the next round of content? Let’s have the developers forget about the past content and focus on offering a greater range of difficulty/reward tiers in all PVE content (including raids) moving forward. That way, we all get new content on a more regular basis that is geared toward the community as a whole.

I still think this is the right way to go. I still believe the current raid model is bad for the game and the community. But, I also still believe that Anet sees this and will eventually work to fix it.

And, so its clear once again – this is my opinion.

I don’t want to quibble too much on your examples, but they do not reflect easy/hard modes, at least in the way easy moders imagine it. It’s not the same/similar fight with easier mechanics.

Yes, the missions label themselves easy, medium, and hard. But there’s only one difficulty level for each challenge — for example, there’s only one difficulty for save our supplies. Only one for ghost rush. (*Aside: This is the ideal, because it offers different content at different skill levels).

Similarly for dungeons and dungeons story mode. There’s only one AC story, only one COF path 1. But there’s varying difficulties across all dungeon paths.

Most living world achievements do not change the difficulty of the encounter, but require you to do something different than the normal. I will give you that some are actual hard modes, like the hearts and minds challenge mote. Still, this content is not designed to be repeatable, that is, there’s no incentive to repeat the challenge motes, and the motes do not need to stand am their own, like a easy/hard mode raid would. And raids have similar hard mode achievements.

Even going forward, I don’t want easy/hard modes for all types of content. I’d rather have two new things than one new thing.

I know this is all your opinion. That’s fine. I know you care. That’s fine too. But if you want a dialog, prepare to be challenged on your views. Anyone can give an opinion, but dialog is something else entirely.

Again, why do raids, in particular, need an easy mode?

Blaeys.3102:

NikeEU.7690:

Stop making posts where you disguise your subjective opinions in declaratory tones as if they were obvious facts.

By posting on the forum, I am, of course, expressing my opinion – the same as anyone else on the forums. I never pretend otherwise. To express opinions and have real, productive, two way dialogue is the whole point of the forums.

If we had to say “in my opinion” every time we posted something, it would get a little tiring.

Read in the light most favorable to Nike, I think he’s expressing discontent that many easy-moders express their opinion (“I want easy mode raids”) without facts, reasons, or evidence why.

Although blunt, I agree with this opinion. That is, most easy-moders don’t answer the most important question: Why does this content need to be easy?

Blaeys.3102:

I think the big issue with raids in GW2 is that they really do not fit in with the rest of the PVE content – and it doesn’t make sense from a community/resource perspective to have them stand alone.

To fix that, Anet is going to have to either make them more accessible baseline (which I don’t think is the best solution), do away with future raiding completely (again, not a great solution), or go with a tiered difficulty model.

Why raids need tiered difficulties

As others have said, GW2 is not a raiding game, but that doesn’t mean that raids cannot be an engaging part of the game. They just have to implement them in a way that fits cohesively (and logically) with the rest of the PVE experience in GW2. As much as some people (and probably even some developers) don’t want to hear it, that has to include accessibility and scaled difficulty/rewards.

This exists in open world (gold/silver/bronze), fractals (difference between a lvl 1 and a lvl 98), adventures (again, gold/silver/bronze), living story instances (challenge motes and achievements), guild missions (low/medium/hard difficulties) and more. In each of those areas, there are gradient difficulties. Arguably, hard could be ramped up considerably in some areas – which I am all for – but the point here is that they need to apply that same logic to raiding.

The need for hardcore content – and what it could look like

If there is really a need for a hardcore experience (which I would support), I think the answer is to create a team within Anet whose exclusive role is to add logical tiers to EVERY PVE element of the game. Let them make an eye bleeding tier of guild missions (super powered version of test subject alpha chasing the group through Proxemics Lab or a rogue Giganticus Lupicus in Cursed Shore as a new bounty target, for example), crazy suicidal level versions of the current fractals (raid level mechanics and even enrage timers in lvl 100+ fractals), splinter paths in jumping puzzles that would make Indiana Jones curl up in a ball, along with raids (which would need lesser difficulty versions to balance everything out). They could even use the guild challenge instancing model (using the guild world boss event flag) to create superpowered versions of the current world bosses. That would not only set GW2 apart from other games more, it would enrich the experience for everyone.

Why other games included tiered raiding
As far as the comparison to other games, the move to include lesser difficulties didn’t kill raiding in any of those games. Easy mode in many of those games was just a formality. Due to gear and level treadmills (again, not a fit for GW2), every raid since day one of those games eventually had an easy mode. All the easier modes did was let those people in a little earlier. The exception was flex mode raiding, which was introduced to let different sized groups of friends play together – and, ironically enough, was probably based on concepts from – and the success of – GW2.

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Regardless, this needs to happen or we will see the game community become more and more fractured as time goes on, which isn’t good for atmosphere and future success of the game (not saying the game will fail – just that it is changing in some negative ways).

These arguments fail to address the prime question with regard to easy mode raids.

Why does this content, in particular, need an easy mode?

I know I’ve asked this question before, but I’ll continue to ask it until I get a satisfactory answer.

I won’t go over the arguments, again, in depth, but here’s the 30 second elevator version:

Diversity of content is superior to the same content at multiple difficulty levels. It provides new content to new players when they get better, and a variety of content for veterans to play. There’s usually no incentive to play both the easy and hard mode versions of the same content.

And to address your specific points:

1. Not all of your examples fit the easy mode most imagine for raids. I think the only true examples are fractals and super adventure box.

Most content has a single difficulty level. Open world (with different rewards for participation), world bosses, dungeons, personal story, map metas, guild challenges, guild puzzles, guild rush.

Living story does not really count as multiple difficulty levels. It is a single difficultly level with some achievements. The achievements are not meant to be repeated, and some don’t even change the difficulty of the encounter (e.g., don’t get hit by sandstorms).

Guild bounty and guild trek don’t really count as multiple difficulty levels. It is the exact same content that most be completed multiple times. The “hard mode” just means you need more people.

So I don’t think easy modes are the norm in Guild wars 2. Even if they were, there are notable exceptions, like dungeons.

2. I don’t want hardcore versions of content I’ve already completed. As noted above, it’s far superior to have different content that is hard.

3. I’m unfamiliar with other games. I’m not sure they have much relevance in this case because gw2 has no gear treadmill. You can beat raids with the same armor you got in the first months of gw2. That’s amazing. This content needs to last years. Players eventually get used to content and master it. The same thing happened to dungeons, and it’s happening to raids. It’s already getting easier.

Cristalyan.5728:

Absurdo.8309: " This device will only help pve players. Whether or be jumping puzzles, guild missions, or just faster open world events"
Well, if so, can you tell us, please, how this device can help a mesmer? Or a mesmer owner is not a player?
And I know the mesmer very well – I play a mesmer for the last 1 and a half year. Daily – only mesmer. This is the reason I expect from Anet the step 2 – to solve the “issue” with the quickness and alacrity – because I know that only the Portal is not enough to kill the class.

I would use this device even as a mesmer, because it would free up a much more valuable utility slot.

The only strategic uses are in pvp and wvw, and you can’t use it there. And maybe dungeon speed runs, but that community is really small, and they may still bring a mesmer anyway.

This discussion is about the cooldown of the device. It has no bearing on a mesmers ability to bring alacrity and quickness.

Cristalyan.5728:

In my opinion, Anet is using WMPD as a brilliant approach to destroy the mesmer class. It is clear that somewhere in the staff, somebody is loving the mesmers from the depth of the guts.
1. Still, only WMPD is not enough. That pesky mesmers proves to be very resilient. So, i think the CD for this portal should be reduced not to 5 min, but to 30 seconds. In this way the “portal bot” nickname will be not a burden for mesmers anymore.
(NOTE for dungeoners/ fractal players – you are 5 in a team. I don’t remember any dungeon/fractal where you need more than 5 portals. A mesmer is no more needed here for portals. That shows the “generosity” of these players – never think to the others, think only to yourself – YOU need a low CD on a …. device stealing the skill of another class, so DON’T ever consider the teammates as something to be taken into account).
2. The second step should be to solve the problem with he quickness and alacrity. And of course the way the mesmer shares this. But with a banner/ flag/ well identical with WMPD this mesmer “issue” can be solved. The banner giving quickness and alacrity for 15 seconds for example. With a CD of 2-3 minutes. And the well sharing the boons. On a 2-3 minutes CD. That is OK – because in a raid team you can have only 10 members. And 10 members using 10 banners/ wells barely achieves permanent quickness/ alacrity. And the mesmer will be free from the “alacrity bot” nickname. And I think the mesmers will be free from the burden to play this game also.

If you think this device will destroy mesmer, then you don’t know mesmer.

This device will only help pve players. Whether or be jumping puzzles, guild missions, or just faster open world events.

Ardid.7203:

I’m going to make a very, very silly and not really accurate comparison. Yet I’ll do it to reflect how I feel about all this. Here it goes:

Let’s say “The Lord of the Rings” movie trilogy is the whole story.

Now let’s imagine we all can see “The Two Towers” and “The Return of the King” without any problem, but “The Fellowship of he Ring” is only available to people who can play piano. They will also receive a cool piano as a reward for their performance.

Of course, everyone can read the novels, and read the reviews, and ask a piano player friend to narrate the whole movie. But it still isn’t the same as seeing the movie.

Playing the piano is a nice skill to have, but you’ll need to invest a lot of time just to get the basics, and anyone who can’t invest that time just will never be able to see the movie.

Fun thing is we all paid the ticket for the movies. But as long as you can’t play the piano, you’ll not be able to see the beggining of the story, period.

Some people who can’t play piano are asking if they can just sing instead. They are also saying they don’t want the great piano prize, they would be happy with only seeing the movie. On the other side a bunch of piano players say they want the movie to remain exclusive only for them.

I’m sure I could sing decently if I practice for a time. The time I would need to learn how to play piano, and all the equipment involved is just beyond my possibilities. Yet I don’t understand why the first movie have to be only for people who play piano.

I think this is a false analogy. I find that these types of analogies rarely aid in these forum discussions.

All that is stopping you from raiding is you. All you need to do is walk in.

And the lore in raids is not the main event. It’s not the blockbuster movie. It’s more akin to the LOTR DVD commentary, the GW2 novels, or the star wars extended universe novels.

The main event is personal story and living world, which is pretty easy.

And lets not pretend that lore elements have not been behind hard content before. See arah explorable, aether path.

Ardid.7203:

Making a party of 5 pugs to go into Aether Path is quite possible to do.
Making a group of 10 to go into a Raid is HARD.

I’m not talking about the raid itself or the combat mechanics involved. I’m talking just about getting enough people available and coordinated at the same time of the week.

An easier, 5 man mode without the full rewards, made just to play the whole story would be really welcome for me.

Well, aether resets daily, so the pool of potential players is larger. That said, I have no problem organizing/joining pug groups, especially early in the week. I am not part of a static group — most of my raid kills are in pugs.

Hesacon.8735:

I’ve found no compelling reason to go reaper in pve or wvw, necro seems to be better for power builds. I use reaper in spvp, but that’s because my pve or wvw builds doesn’t work with the trinket/rune selection in spvp.

Reaper is extremely good for condi builds. Look at the viper horror build for fractals and raids for more info.

Blaeys.3102:

Absurdo.8309:

Blaeys.3102:

Absurdo.8309:

Timed rewards would be the worst of both worlds.

Easy-moders: They didn’t change any of the mechanics, I still can’t beat it!

Raiders: Off-meta compositions discouraged, in order to maximize dps and receive the greatest reward.

No thank you.

Be careful when advocating for a hypothetical constituent. It’s clear you can beat raids. Where are the lore hounds who can’t beat raids? Where are the pve’ers who’ve exhausted that content?

It’s hard to address “your” concerns because they’re not really yours at all. Each argument can be countered with a hypothetical player with exotic preferences. No amount of suggestions (just try it! try dungeons! go to a completed instance!) can sate a hypothetical player.

This is far from hypothetical. Those people are in my guild. They are in the so called “bad guild” that someone criticized in another thread (another reason we don’t see more comments here on these forums). To a degree – they are me – a raid/guild leader that wants to experience the content with my less dedicated friends in a more casual situation.

I disagree that the timed reward solution is a bad one, but I’m also willing to admit that maybe it isn’t the perfect solution. I know that Anet can do better. They did at the launch of the game when they turned many other traditional MMO tropes on their heads – creating the game I came to love.

The point is, the current solution, for many in the community, is restrictive, in many cases unfriendly and, imo, a bad direction for the game to take.

I also will say again – every other MMO out there sees this issue and makes provisions for it in some way. Some didn’t on day one of raiding – but they all eventually saw the need. Anet will too.

I – and many others (this isn’t hypothetical) – see a need for change. Ive offered one way that change could manifest. I’m not saying its perfect. Just that a. its better than what we have now and b. I’m not a developer – I’m sure Anet could come up with something much more inventive that addressed the issue.

I called that guild bad because they weren’t able to try raiding among a guild of 1000 people. That thread was about the accessibility of raiding.

Have you tried forming raid squads in your guild?

Do you beat the bosses? If not, why do you fail?

Do you offer tips to new raiders or just try the encounters over and over? Are players willing to adjust their play styles?

Do you ask why would-be interested players don’t join your groups?

Have you tried some of the easier raid bosses?

Do your players want to explore the world of guild wars 2? Then world exploration. Do they want epic looking bosses that require 0 skill to beat? World bosses. Do they want objective based open world encounters? Map metas, guild missions. Do they want a story? Living world, personal story. Do they want easy or medium instanced content? Dungeons, fractals. Do they want instanced content that requires group coordination? Raids.

I’m playing scatter-shot here, because I’m not sure why your guild can’t beat raids. Could be because of poor organization. Could be you have a lot of new players. Could just be that your guild isn’t interested in raid type content.

But that doesn’t mean easy mode is your silver bullet. It’s likely that your guild just wants more living story content. And you’re latching on to the one thing released with some degree of consistency.

Let’s agree to stop making this personal.

I had actually forgotten that it was you that made the “bad guild” comment in the other thread. I’m sorry if me bringing that back up was offensive to you in any way. I just didn’t agree with the comment or the context at the time (nor do I now).

This isn’t about living story. This isn’t about my individual situation with my guild. In fact, we do all of the things you link in your post above together every single week. The only thing I really cannot do with everyone from my guild is raids – and many of them are interested in the experience (and that is a legitimate interest). They aren’t hardcore raiders. They aren’t interested in the minutia of raiding. They just want the experience.

The undeniable fact here is that every other MMO out there sees why this is needed and make provisions for it. All PVE content fits together in some way in this game, through lore, through guilds, etc. As tough as it may be to do, those areas need to be accessible (while still offering casual and hardcore experiences) to all PVE players. Other games with raids inevitably come to this conclusion. Anet will eventually as well.

I’m honestly not sure what’s stopping these players from trying, especially with wing 3. It’s hard to cure the symptom if you don’t know the disease.

gashen.3874:

what makes this discussion even more ridiculous is the fact that the rewards in the raids are magnetite shards which you can exchange for (guess what) ascended gear. this only compounds the fact that those who don,t have ascended gear to start with can,t even get into the place

Lets gloss over that you don’t need full ascended to raid. Lets gloss over that the best way to acquire ascended trinkets are outside of the raid, and, along with weapons, are what you should go for first. Lets also gloss over the other things you can get with shards.

Ascended rewards allow you to gear more characters for raids. They also allow you to gear for other parts of the game, like fractals and wvw.

This criticism also makes no sense in light of fractals, where ascended gear is required. The best method for acquisition is high level fractals, when you presumably already have ascended gear. Doesn’t stop you from gearing other characters, as noted above.

And if we’re talking about the fastest or most efficient way to acquire ascended gear, raids don’t qualify. It’s much faster to gold farm and then just craft them.

Blaeys.3102:

Absurdo.8309:

Timed rewards would be the worst of both worlds.

Easy-moders: They didn’t change any of the mechanics, I still can’t beat it!

Raiders: Off-meta compositions discouraged, in order to maximize dps and receive the greatest reward.

No thank you.

Be careful when advocating for a hypothetical constituent. It’s clear you can beat raids. Where are the lore hounds who can’t beat raids? Where are the pve’ers who’ve exhausted that content?

It’s hard to address “your” concerns because they’re not really yours at all. Each argument can be countered with a hypothetical player with exotic preferences. No amount of suggestions (just try it! try dungeons! go to a completed instance!) can sate a hypothetical player.

This is far from hypothetical. Those people are in my guild. They are in the so called “bad guild” that someone criticized in another thread (another reason we don’t see more comments here on these forums). To a degree – they are me – a raid/guild leader that wants to experience the content with my less dedicated friends in a more casual situation.

I disagree that the timed reward solution is a bad one, but I’m also willing to admit that maybe it isn’t the perfect solution. I know that Anet can do better. They did at the launch of the game when they turned many other traditional MMO tropes on their heads – creating the game I came to love.

The point is, the current solution, for many in the community, is restrictive, in many cases unfriendly and, imo, a bad direction for the game to take.

I also will say again – every other MMO out there sees this issue and makes provisions for it in some way. Some didn’t on day one of raiding – but they all eventually saw the need. Anet will too.

I – and many others (this isn’t hypothetical) – see a need for change. Ive offered one way that change could manifest. I’m not saying its perfect. Just that a. its better than what we have now and b. I’m not a developer – I’m sure Anet could come up with something much more inventive that addressed the issue.

I called that guild bad because they weren’t able to try raiding among a guild of 1000 people. That thread was about the accessibility of raiding.

Have you tried forming raid squads in your guild?

Do you beat the bosses? If not, why do you fail?

Do you offer tips to new raiders or just try the encounters over and over? Are players willing to adjust their play styles?

Do you ask why would-be interested players don’t join your groups?

Have you tried some of the easier raid bosses?

Do your players want to explore the world of guild wars 2? Then world exploration. Do they want epic looking bosses that require 0 skill to beat? World bosses. Do they want objective based open world encounters? Map metas, guild missions. Do they want a story? Living world, personal story. Do they want easy or medium instanced content? Dungeons, fractals. Do they want instanced content that requires group coordination? Raids.

I’m playing scatter-shot here, because I’m not sure why your guild can’t beat raids. Could be because of poor organization. Could be you have a lot of new players. Could just be that your guild isn’t interested in raid type content.

But that doesn’t mean easy mode is your silver bullet. It’s likely that your guild just wants more living story content. And you’re latching on to the one thing released with some degree of consistency.

Blaeys.3102:

Vinceman.4572:

When is a reward called a deserved reward? Only when the last people in GW2 will call out: Now!
And these persons are the ones standing afk in open world maps during events. The demand will never end.

The other thing is that there is only a minority that wants changes to raids. The overwhelming majority has absolutely no problems with the one difficulty or if so, I don’t here them for any reason. And let’s be clear, the group of people that is complaining has always been bigger than the one who is not. In this case it is surprisingly not true.
Raids are already easy enough, even good pug groups can carry one baddy through most of the bosses if not all. It’s not about my personal needs because if my guild mates aren’t online I am also struggling to beat the harder bosses and this is actually how I like things to be implemented.

First, it definitely isn’t a minority. Most people are afraid of these forums – especially this sub forum – because of how nasty personal attacks can get (I’m actually impressed that we haven’t seen more of that in this thread). As for me – I’m a loud mouthed opinionated advocate (which is the nice way of describing me ), so I don’t suffer from that trepidation.

Lets get this out of the way now – I don’t want a lesser reward for lesser effort. That goes against everything in this game. That is why the gold/silver/bronze reward system works in the rest of the game.

I want a tiered experience with a tiered reward.

Right now, removing the enrage timers and implementing a time based tiered reward seems like the best way to do that.

That doesn’t change how you or any other current raider would play the content. It just lets other people in on a raid based experience. That is only good for everyone – it justifies continued development of raids, it gives people an entry into raids who may never try otherwise and it retains the prestige of being good in the game (even heightens it because more people will realize how difficult hitting those benchmarks really are).

Timed rewards would be the worst of both worlds.

Easy-moders: They didn’t change any of the mechanics, I still can’t beat it!

Raiders: Off-meta compositions discouraged, in order to maximize dps and receive the greatest reward.

No thank you.

Be careful when advocating for a hypothetical constituent. It’s clear you can beat raids. Where are the lore hounds who can’t beat raids? Where are the pve’ers who’ve exhausted that content?

It’s hard to address “your” concerns because they’re not really yours at all. Each argument can be countered with a hypothetical player with exotic preferences. No amount of suggestions (just try it! try dungeons! go to a completed instance!) can sate a hypothetical player.

Blaeys.3102:

Absurdo.8309:

Blaeys.3102:

Absurdo.8309:

Enrage timers are rarely the problem. It’s almost always the mechanics. The only exceptions are gorseval and sometimes sabetha. Groups low man the raids and beat them in sub par gear. ]

Then you wouldn’t have a problem with removing enrage timers from all of the fights?

My original premise was to remove timers and replace them with the gold/silver/bronze reward system. That way you don’t limit strategic choice or gear – but still reward people for doing the fight in the time it was designed to be completed in.

That would be an adequate solution, imo – especially if, as you say, enrage timers aren’t a big deal anyway.

Arah explorable and aetherpath are different from raids for this very reason. With timers, there will always be that finite wall in place. Arah and Aetherpath never had that wall (regardless of how easy you find the timers in raids to currently be).

You could remove enrage timers right now, but that wouldn’t make easy moders happy. They still wouldn’t be able to beat it.

Again, enrage timers force that dps / tank trade off. It rewards groups that bring high dps. Conversely, if you bring more tank/heal, you’ll need to actually use it at the end of the fight.

As I’m sure you know, enrage won’t wipe a group (with the exception of gorseval, because you can’t use updrafts). I’ve beaten plenty of bosses while they were enraged.

And the escort on wing 3 doesn’t have an enrage timer.

Then, once again, what is the harm of removing them if the mechanic to reward faster kills is implemented?

If I want to bring a tankier group, I want the same reward, assuming my group can last through enrage.

Sometimes my groups enrage on matthias, because we bring two healers, or someone dies. But if we can survive through increased damage, I think we deserve the reward.

Blaeys.3102:

Absurdo.8309:

Enrage timers are rarely the problem. It’s almost always the mechanics. The only exceptions are gorseval and sometimes sabetha. Groups low man the raids and beat them in sub par gear. ]

Then you wouldn’t have a problem with removing enrage timers from all of the fights?

My original premise was to remove timers and replace them with the gold/silver/bronze reward system. That way you don’t limit strategic choice or gear – but still reward people for doing the fight in the time it was designed to be completed in.

That would be an adequate solution, imo – especially if, as you say, enrage timers aren’t a big deal anyway.

Arah explorable and aetherpath are different from raids for this very reason. With timers, there will always be that finite wall in place. Arah and Aetherpath never had that wall (regardless of how easy you find the timers in raids to currently be).

You could remove enrage timers right now, but that wouldn’t make easy moders happy. They still wouldn’t be able to beat it.

Again, enrage timers force that dps / tank trade off. It rewards groups that bring high dps. Conversely, if you bring more tank/heal, you’ll need to actually use it at the end of the fight.

As I’m sure you know, enrage won’t wipe a group (with the exception of gorseval, because you can’t use updrafts). I’ve beaten plenty of bosses while they were enraged.

And the escort on wing 3 doesn’t have an enrage timer.

EDIT: You probably could beat most bosses in full nomad. There was a group that beat vg with 10 heal eles, going for the longest kill. It just requires you to use your heals and tankiness wisely.

Blaeys.3102:

Absurdo.8309:

No one called for an easy mode aether path, and that directly tied into living story. It even hinted at the sylvari dragon link.

No one called for an easy mode arah explorable, and that directly links into the dragons and blood shard.

Because of mechanics like enrage timers, raids are significantly more restrictive and exclusionary than either aetherpath or arah explorable.

If what you are suggesting is that an easier version of the raids be on par with aetherpath and arah – in terms of difficulty and accessibility – I would be 100% behind that idea.

Enrage timers are rarely the problem. It’s almost always the mechanics. The only exceptions are gorseval and sometimes sabetha. Groups low man the raids and beat them in sub par gear.

Enrage timers offer a balanced trade off —- do we bring more, squishy dps, or more tanky healers?

I would consider raids on a similar difficulty as arah and aether path, especially when they first came out.

Blaeys.3102:

Excluding people from experiencing the reveal of the White Mantle’s return means they missed chapter one of the next living story. Even if the story was minimal, it was still the big reveal of the antagonist they will be dealing with throughout that story.

It isn’t about lore – it’s about players being part of their story.

As for the breadth of content argument – it isn’t really breadth of content if X part of the game is designed for X community and Y is designed for Y. That is basically building different games within Tyria. While that is acceptable when talking about PVE versus PVP, I think it is unneccesarily restrictive when talking exclusively about PVE.

Of course, it comes down to development resources. I honestly don’t believe extending resources to ensure easier and harder content is more evenly spread out in the game would not take the effort people think it would – and I definitely believe it would be worth the effort.

No one called for an easy mode aether path, and that directly tied into living story. It even hinted at the sylvari dragon link.

No one called for an easy mode arah explorable, and that directly links into the dragons and blood shard.

No one called for an easy mode triple trouble, and that also directly ties into living story.

The reality is that very few players care about the minutiae of lore. Still, anet has bent over backwards for these players. All lore elements are in a completed raid. And anyone can experience the bosses by raiding right now. There’s even an open world event right now with a living world plug in.

I honestly think that the lore argument is hypothetical. Where are these lore hounds? Based on your previous posts, or seems that you’ve beat at least some of the raids, and encountered the lore.

People hate on raids because of the content drought. They see raids come out every 4 months and want content that they like too. Understandable. But I think if all 3 wings were released at the same time with HOT, people wouldn’t complain. They would realize that raids are a very small part of the game.

I want raid designers making raids. Fractals devs on fractals. Living world on living world.

You want a living world story. Fine. Let that content cater to you, not some raid-lite version.

We don’t know how long it would take to make an easy mode. Gaile dropped by on these forums and told us not to guess. She also warned that designing multi-modal experiences could be very complicated. And you don’t have to look very far for evidence — we haven’t had a new fractal in years.

Sarrs.4831:

difficulty ‘levels’ for raids are better provided via breadth of content rather than multiple modes

This is the best argument against easy mode raids, and I will repeat it in every one of these blasted threads.

There’s no real strong argument on why this particular content must be easy.

I’ve heard the arguments for “lore” and “story,” but, well, those arguments are easily countered. Almost all the lore is in a completed instance. Anyone can experience the boss fights. And story is not the focus of raids. Where are the calls for an arah explorable easy mode? Aether path easy mode?

Breadth of content seems objectively superior. Sometimes raiders want to do something easier. Our maybe they beat raids for the week. Now they can do other content. And when new/less experienced players get better, they’ll have new content to enjoy.

And, even within raids, there’s a variety of difficulties. Wing 3 escort may be the easiest encounter. I was in the most non-meta pug last night and we beat it. Others can start here too.

Don’t like hard content? That’s ok! Play what you like. But easy mode very every single thing in this game would get boring, fast.

Blaeys.3102:

Absurdo.8309:

Blaeys.3102:

Absurdo.8309

And if your 1000 person guild can’t raid, well, that’s a pretty bad guild. I’m sure some people in a big guild raid. Get them together and hop in.

Maybe the reason he is in that guild has nothing to do with raiding. It has to do with finding a group of people he enjoys playing with and wants to experience the game with.

With my guild, the barrier for entry is “low drama” and a willingness to have fun in large groups.

Excluding people because they are not good raiders – or leaving a guild for the same reason – is anti-social, pure and simple, and goes against everything I started playing GW2 for.

This also illustrates the need for different tiers of difficulty perfectly. Personally, I like the challenge of the raid. I like min/maxing and taking on the challenge. But, I would also love to experience that content at a lesser difficulty with my friends who are less interested in those things. Every other successful raiding MMO out there offers that experience. It is sad that the most social MMO on the market chooses not to. It is time to fix this disparity.

And, once again, I really disagree with the “doesn’t raid well = bad guild mentality.” That is the kind of elitism we never want to see in this game (and rarely did before raids in their current form came along).

If you can’t find people to raid with in a 1000 man guild, then the guild is either extremely specialized or a pretty bad guild.

Or it is a guild built around community and low drama instead of raiding.

I understand the need for some to push the “raids are for us only” mentality, but this is taking it a little too far, imo. Leave the insults out of it.

Every successful raiding game realizes the importance of varied raiding experiences to provide the greatest level of entertainment to the community as a whole.

Here is a dose of reality for people – GW2 chose to do what they did for one reason and one reason only, imo -

Marketing.

The game had the reputation of being a casual focused game. They wanted to bring in new players and decided to target raiders. They chose not to include a more varied experience because they wanted to be able to tout the “hardcore” label without people bringing up the easier modes. They wanted to be able to brag about player “tears” because they thought (misguided, imo) that is what would bring raiders from other games to GW2.

The problem is, this approach took them away from their roots. It transformed the end game away from the inclusive nature we saw at launch and for the first three years. Even worse, it is splintering the community (and even splintering some very good guilds).

The worst part is it isn’t necessary. Every other raiding game out there realizes this (or came to realize it after time). They all (at least the successful one) offer some kind of tiered difficulty or mechanic to appeal to the community as a whole.

The ability to market “hardcore” isn’t worth the schism in the community. It isn’t worth the transformation of GW2 end game away from the community and inclusionary focus that made the game great/different when it first came out.

And, for the love of everything, do not call some of the best, most social guilds in the game “bad” simply because they don’t offer raiding. That is just insulting and plain wrong.

I don’t mean to insult any guilds here. But, in my opinion, if you can’t find 9 other people to raid with in a large (non-specialized) guild, then it’s bad. Surely some players in a large guild raid? A large guild should be able to connect or organize those players.

Being a “community” and “drama free” doesn’t stop you from raiding. (Which is what this post is about).

I think people overstate this “schism.” Play what you like playing. No judgment there. But, as plenty of posters indicated above, there’s plenty of ways to get started.

Blaeys.3102:

Absurdo.8309

And if your 1000 person guild can’t raid, well, that’s a pretty bad guild. I’m sure some people in a big guild raid. Get them together and hop in.

Maybe the reason he is in that guild has nothing to do with raiding. It has to do with finding a group of people he enjoys playing with and wants to experience the game with.

With my guild, the barrier for entry is “low drama” and a willingness to have fun in large groups.

Excluding people because they are not good raiders – or leaving a guild for the same reason – is anti-social, pure and simple, and goes against everything I started playing GW2 for.

This also illustrates the need for different tiers of difficulty perfectly. Personally, I like the challenge of the raid. I like min/maxing and taking on the challenge. But, I would also love to experience that content at a lesser difficulty with my friends who are less interested in those things. Every other successful raiding MMO out there offers that experience. It is sad that the most social MMO on the market chooses not to. It is time to fix this disparity.

And, once again, I really disagree with the “doesn’t raid well = bad guild mentality.” That is the kind of elitism we never want to see in this game (and rarely did before raids in their current form came along).

I have a feeling we’re having a proxy argument here.

If you can’t find people to raid with in a 1000 man guild, then the guild is either extremely specialized or a pretty bad guild.

It has nothing to do with the difficulty of the encounter. Feel free to have guild drama free runs. Feel free to run with bad players. There’s nothing stopping you.

Difficulty is something different. Some players like content with the possibility for failure. Others don’t. There’s content for both. I’m still not sure why the exact same content must be at all difficulty levels. There’s Guild missions, world bosses, dungeons, and fractals for players who don’t want hard.

This thread is about accessibility. You have guilds. You have pug runs. You can grab 9 other players and just hop in. Nothing is stopping you.

What incredibly important niche do the high-cooldown people imagine this item replacing? I hear the fire and brimstone, but no concrete examples.

A five or ten minute cooldown seems reasonable to me.

Phoebe Ascension.8437:

Rising Dusk.2408:

I see a large number of pub training runs when I pub, and I also train up anyone in my guild who’s interested in raids when we go together. You just need to find a group willing to take you and be willing to spend some time looking. Seriously, search the guild recruitment forum on this board and you’ll find tons of hits.

Raid guilds ‘Represent or get away’.

Result: you either join a Raid only guild, or a large guild, with a few members that do raids, but often can’t come together because issues of synergie of being online, or you don’t join raid guild. All have downsides.

Raid only guild: you almost can’t do pve, dungeons, fractals , pvp , wvw with them.

Big build, but that’s not as interested in raids then ‘raid only guild’: You can do more stuff with this guild. But often you just fall out of boat (12/10 raid members), or people are not online at the required time, or you want to pvp, but the guild is to pve focussed for that, etc. One guild cannot ‘sustain’ all modes. Even the 480/500 ones, bar a few exceptions maybe.

No raid guild: All the issue’s described in op = correct.

Non represent raid guild: Tried, done it, failed. You need a ‘leader’ figure, setting some rules in raid only guild, and our guy left gw2. When that happened the raid guild (non represent) just died slowly. Dicussions, people not showing up etc. And ‘non represent raid guild’ is an absolute over the top rarity, i’ve been searching non stop for them and only found this one that got ‘killed’.

And to all these big forum guru’s, (often being leader of guild or being well known in their guild): you are lucky to be in a good guild. Now i could be a traitor and leave my very fine friendly, big (2x 480/500) guild, but i won’t. Finding drama empty guilds is hard, I’m not taking a chance. Ofc this guild requires represent most of time (they would allow represent during raid, but definitely not perma represent other guild). And rightfully so.

Conclusion: OP is correct, and people like Rising dusk do not realize the luxury throne they are sitting on, currently for raids. No offence meant, just a wake up call.

I got 11900 hours, 30710 ap (no bragging, just showing how close i should be to raid viable), 4 chars fully Ascended raid viable, 11 ‘Legendary insight’, all achievement except eternal in raid 1, yet people keep discarding me as trash.

There’s nothing stopping an experienced player like you from forming your own group.

Like others have said — there are so many options to get into raids. And now is the best time, with wing 3 just out.

And I’m not sure why players don’t understand that there’s no incentive for a pug group to bring a new player. I lead pug groups all the time. I spent several hours learning each fight. I have no desire to repeat that process.

That said, there’s still pug groups in training runs. And guilds to join. Guilds have an incentive to train people because they’ll be repeat players. And if the raid guilds want you to rep? Well, they’re putting forth the effort, after all. Least you could do is return the favor.

And if your 1000 person guild can’t raid, well, that’s a pretty bad guild. I’m sure some people in a big guild raid. Get them together and hop in.

Amineo.8951:

I have a better idea: Make dungeon mode for raids, accessible for 5 people with difficulty that you would expect for a lvl80 dungeon by removing some mechanics from bosses (Vale Guardian split phase, Gorseval ghosts, Sabetha Cannons, Sloth poison area etc…), problem solved.

Or, wait, let’s just make new dungeons and raids.

I’m ok with other methods to acquire (different) legendary armor.

I’m ok with medium and easy content being polished and good.

Easy mode raids are not a good solution — more new content is.

This seems to be an odd complaint with the release of wing 3, because no one has any experience.

Astralporing.1957:

Miellyn.6847:

It all boils down to path of least resistance. If you offer an easier way to aquire something, most people will use it.

That means they are raiding only to get the loot, they don’t care where they’d get it. That means they would have been equally happy if that loot ended up somewhere else (say, in fractals. Or dungeons. Or raids done with lower difficulty).

Miellyn.6847:

It has nothing to do with not wanting the difficulty. Stop your strawman argument that the current raids are a failure because people would use the path of least resistance.

There are 2 kinds of people doing raids. Those that wanted raids in the first place, and those that are doing them, but didn’t specifically want them (actually, there are also people that actively dislike raids, but are still doing them for legendary armor, but let’s ignore that distinction for a moment). What you’re saying is that the second group is much bigger than the first, and that the first is so small that they can’t sustain the content without artificially inflating their numbers with people that would have been completely fine not doing raids. That’s not a strawman, that’s really what your argument means.

Miellyn.6847:

And the fractal difficulty was already suggested here with T3 as the current difficulty. It would also lock you out of legendary armor as golden weapons and armor chests only drop from T3+ chests.

Err, no. One person said something about t3 (when wanting not one easy mode, but four difficulty tiers), and one more (you) decided it means no good drops in easy mode.

I’d rather see the difference in drop rate and amount only, without restricting anything from easy mode. Say, the average amount of rewards for easy mode would be around 1/3 compared to current (notice, it would mean 1 full year of doing easy raids to get enough insights for legendary). Hard mode would get current rewards and easy mode rewards (which, notice again, would be a reward upgrade, and end up being 4 times better than doing easy mode).

Path of least resistance you mentioned earlier would make people use the mode they feel comfortable with, that still offers them the best reward rate. For people that can relatively reliably do current raids, it would still be hard mode, not easy. Unless they really, really hate the raids they’re doing now and would rather see their path to legendary slow down significantly than do them again.

Why is wanting rewards a bad thing? I think most players play for a combination of rewards and content. I know that I’m only currently playing pvp because of the legendary back pack. Content doesn’t need to stand without rewards to be good.

And if easy moders are looking for easy content, you got it. Why does this content need to be easy?

Blaeys.3102:

It isn’t about making sure were informed – it is about experiencing the full story.

I can have someone tell me about the first 3o minutes of a movie and I will understand what is going on, but it isn’t the same as actually seeing it. This is even more true when we are talking about interactive storytelling.

Season 3 may come around and prove me wrong, but if season 3 is centered around a conflict with the White Mantle, then those who don’t raid will be coming into the movie 30 minutes late – they will have essentially been left out of chapter one (again, even worse since video games are about the player’s experience as much as the story itself).

I know it means more developmental work, but walling off an entire game mode and saying “this is where the hardcore kids play” is not conducive to a good storytelling environment.

PVE content should be developed around the story – with all players in mind. Then you should incorporate variable difficulties (through achievements, challenge motes, tiered levels, etc) that give players of all skill levels and interests something to do in all of those modes. There is no reason for raids to be this exclusive – just as there is no reason you cannot put optional facemelting challenges in a fractals/ story steps / even world bosses (using phasing via the guild event trigger flags).

Raids cannot be walled away (even a soft difficulty-based wall) if they are part of the story. Its like writing a book for an English speaking audience and then writing the prologue/introduction in Latin (yes, I could learn Latin, but I bought a book I thought I could read in English).

Build the game for your community – and then deal with the variables therein.

I don’t think this is a proper analogy. I generally despise analogies on the forums, but I think raids are more akin to star wars extended universe novels, and personal/living story is more akin to the movies.

The reality is that the lore in raids is a side show. That said, under your standard, no hard content could ever have any lore elements at all. Seems like a waste given how varied gw2 lore can be. And we’ve already had much more relevant lore behind hard content before — see arah and aether path.

Taegos.4132:

Mesmers around the world disagree with you…

No.

I love mesmer and would be psyched for a lower cool down.

The watchwork portal device is already in the game and has a 90 second cooldown. It’s just really expensive.

You don’t generally bring mesmer for portal. When you do, like for jumping puzzles, mesmer would still have a much lower cool down.

It’s not like we’re talking pvp or wvw here, where portal can provide combat advantages.

There is no challenge mote – the challenge starts as soon as any player crosses into the jade maw area. The line for crossing over is farther back than you would think.

You can tell if it starts because you should get a countdown challenge on your buff bar.

Make sure the jade maw you’re doing is on a high enough level to qualify for the challenge. Good luck.

I start my own groups if I don’t feel like waiting in the lfg.

There’s no information in the OP about when he tries to find a group.

There’s no information in the OP about what he’s posting. Is he specifying a boss/wing? Can he play multiple classes? Does he have experience?

Until then, I’m going to assume the worst:

Looking for experienced group to teach me to raid. Healing guardian. Can’t use voice clients.

Blaeys.3102:

The idea of raids having to be the most difficult content in the game is based on preconceived notions from other games (and it isn’t necessarily true in those games).

A raid is a 10 player instance. That is all it is. It is another place for us to play the game. Designing it for a small percentage of pve players makes no sense, imo.

I think the most legit argument against a casual mode in raids is the developer time argument. Unfortunately, the only ones that can speak to this point are the developers. I can posit it isn’t an issue and someone else can posit that it is. The truth is neither of us knows.

The idea that a casual mode raid would somehow split the raid community or harm the current raid structure doesn’t really makes sense to me. Ive seen a lot of people try raids and quickly decide that they weren’t worth the headache. To them, it just felt like a neverending cycle of fail with no reward (tangible or otherwise). They still wanted to raid (play interesting content with 9 other people), but did not like the time and detail commitment involved.

A lower difficulty raid would enhance the raid pool in two ways. First, it would give the people I discuss above a place to ease into raiding – still seeing some success while they learn the basics of the mechanics in a less demanding setting that offered some minor reward (could be very minor).

Second, it would offer a place for higher groups to provide training and it would offer guild leaders like myself a place to quickly take people from my guild into a fun activity (and fun should still be important, even in raids).

To the idea of gameplay before lore or lore before gameplay, different people weigh the importance of these things differently – which is the entire reason different tiers of difficulty are needed. That is just common sense.

For the record, if the difficulty were on par with something like Aetherpath (which I think is some of the best designed content in the game), I would be fully behind it. The fights there were designed to reward skill and teamwork without excluding builds, armor sets, etc. There was no reliance on artificial barriers such as enrage timers – which only serve to enforce stricter meta builds (which, imo, hurts gameplay diversity, but that is another topic altogether). If raids were designed that way, yes they would eventually become faceroll for a lot of people, but they would still offer real challenge without the exclusion factors we see now.

Finally, to the point of weak strawmans and the general direction of these discussions – there are people on both sides that will always see the other side’s argument as weak. It is because they (we, because I am probably one of these people) go into reading opposing posts with a preconception and strong desire to make sure their voice is the one listened to.

The reality is there is no real right and wrong here – just two opposing viewpoints from people who play the game differently. Neither is out to destroy the game for anyone. They (again, we) just have strong feelings about how the game should feel. Try to keep that in mind, keep the discussions civil, and focus on making your points as clearly as possible – and, most importantly, if you feel someone is wrong, debate the ideas without making it personal – do not belittle them or how they want to play the game.

I do appreciate civility. It’s refreshing?

That doesn’t mean there’s no right answer, or that both sides have parity in their arguments. Put another way, anet must make a yes/no decision on easy mode raids.

I still would like to hear a (coherent) argument from first principles. That is,

Why do raids, in particular, need an easy mode?

Again, I have no desire to straw man, but here’s the top three responses:

1. Because I must be able to complete all content

2. Because I want the rewards

3. Because I want to experience the lore

And, well, these responses are just not in line with the rest of the game, as:

1. There’s always been hard content. And there’s plenty of easy and medium content

2. All game modes have unique rewards

3. The lore in raids is not super relevant, and more relevant lore is behind hard content.

Give me a solid foundation to argue against. Without that, the technical points don’t really matter.

dulfy.1493:

Hey everyone, I have written up some guides to the second and third boss of this current raid wing for those interested in reading. They are some of the most enjoyable bosses in this raid so far and has some pretty interesting mechanics. As always, the raid mechanics aren’t complicated to figure out so going in blind and looking up when your are stuck is usually the better option.

• Boss 2
• Boss 3

I will try to have the guides to boss 1 and the maze up later as I still need to do some more research and capture the footage.

Thanks for these — I find these guides really useful during the first week.

Oldirtbeard.9834:

BlaqueFyre.5678:

For your reaper to be used in raids you will need Condi gear either Sinister or the better version Viper’s. Power reaper isn’t used in raids. For support you could level a Druid for heals and getting healing gear is realistically inexpensive

Would the Zerker ascended pieces be ok to mix with the exotic healing gear, and what would you suggest Zealots, Clerics?

I’m partial to the Druid simply because having that Raven Staff would be cool as heck with my Norn.

Full disclosure: I run zealot armor on my druid, but it’s probably not the best choice.

I would recommend magi’s armor, especially if you’re going to mix with zerker trinkets. Unlike zealot, magi’s has healing power as the primary stat. Magi’s is also a lot cheaper — I believe you can craft it or get it from AC dungeon tokens.

That said, druid is a hard class for a first time raider. There was a similar thread about this topic. The consensus seemed to suggest reaper (with condition gear), warrior, revenant, or guardian. The heavy classes are nice because they all use berserker and you can generally share all your ascended sets between them.

Astralporing.1957:

Miellyn.6847:

Every content splits the playerbase as long as not 100% play it. Strawman argument.

Notice, that it was Absurdo that used it.

This point is much more subtle than you’re giving me credit for. I’m not talking about splitting the player base among people who raid / don’t raid. I’m talking about splitting the player base among possible raiders.

I’m going to make up numbers for a sec. Let’s say there are 100 raiders across all skill levels – low, average, and high.

Now let’s say easy mode comes out. I’m going to ignore for a sec players that easy mode will bring in. The raiders spilt 50-50 across easy and normal mode. But they also split across skill levels. So only low skilled players play easy mode, and only high skilled players play normal mode. That makes easy mode harder, because the groups won’t be as skilled. It also exposes new players to less advanced tactics. And while it makes hard mode easier, the player pool becomes much smaller, making the groups much harder to form and risking stagnation.

The same holds true if easy mode attracts new players. But now easy mode is even worse off — new players are grouped with low skilled players, resulting in harder encounters.

And this is only of the rewards are balanced. If they’re overtuned towards easy mode, then the hard mode player base even further, and there’s no incentive to improve. If they’re overtuned towards hard mode, then players would only complete it once. As a new player interested in raids, you would be better off learning the real thing. It turns into a T4 fractal situation — the only reason to run the lower tiers is if you’re new or can’t run T4. This makes the lower tier fractals harder because the groups are worse.

Instead, it’s much healthier for the game long term if all skill levels are playing the same raid. It’s worked incredibly well for dungeons — four year old content that players still complete. Recall the early days of GW2, when all the dungeons were difficult. Then people learned the encounters. Then the experts started speed runs. Then those tactics permeated into all runs because the experts also played with medium and low skilled players. And now, most dungeoneers are medium or high skilled. And new players, who want to learn, are grouped with these players.

The same thing is already happening to raids. There are countless training runs. Even in normal runs, the enrage timers are not so tight that the experienced players can teach and carry one or two newer players. And everyone is better off — raiders get more people to play with, and new people learn the encounter.

TL;DR — One difficulty level promotes a diversity of skill levels, which is better for the game long term.

I have no desire to argue point-by-point about this topic. Maybe others do. I find the most productive discussion starts with first principles, which is why I try to list the “30 second elevator pitch” in most of my posts. When you see the easy moders try to do this, their argument just seems wrong from the get-go.

I don’t mean to straw man, but these seem to be the their first principles (or some combination):

1. All content must be complete-able or mirrored at a low skill level.

2. Hard content cannot have unique or better rewards.

3. Any lore elements, no matter how minor, must be complete-able at a low skill level.

I just don’t think this game mirrors those principles. Here are mine:

1. It’s best to have a diversity of content, easy, medium, and hard.

2. It’s ok to have unique skins as rewards for hard content.

3. It’s ok to have hard content have better rewards, but stat-related items should be attainable from a variety of sources.

4. Lore should never come before gameplay.

Best of luck in the new raid. I would note, again, that this is the most exciting time to hop in because no one knows what they’re doing.

Flumek.9043:

Vipers condi necro.
Hands down.
Idk how none of above said that.

-exotic condi gear is sooo close you dont need ascended
-its ezpz 100% reliable ranged DPS (and very decent)
-it carries whole wing 2
-extra survivability that allows few mistakes

Its not a “must have” like healer/tank/boonsharer/mightgenerator – its role is a tankier easier DPS ele – but its sooo ezpz it is the ultimate pug carry.

Recommed it to every baddie you know.

I love necros. That said, I’m not sure it’s the best for a first time raider.

At least for ascended, Viper gear is harder to get that berserker, especially with regard to trinkets. Although I would generally agree that exotic would not be so far out of reach.

Some of the “advanced” tactics (although not too advanced), like epidemic bouncing, might be too difficult for a first time raider. Even if they don’t bounce, a mis-timed epidemic ends a sloth run.

Condition transferring may be too much to handle for a first timer.

You do bring up some valid points though. Necros can generally stay at range. (Although, this is not really helpful for any encounter but matt). And the dps rotation is pretty simple.

Endless Soul.5178:

I’m fine with raids being hard and exclusionary. What I’m not fine with is lore being locked behind raids. Yeah, I know there are workarounds, but that’s beside the point.

What lore is locked behind raids? Almost all lore is available in a competed instance. As for bosses, there’s nothing stopping you from fighting them right now.

A lore-only instance would be a huge waste of developer resources, as lorehounds would only go in it once.

Other hard content also has much more relevant lore tie ins, like arah and aether path.

Personal opinion, but I think PS warrior is a good starting class. Most groups take 1-2 of them. They are also durable and the rotation is pretty easy.

Most groups will take a character that has ascended trinkets and weapons.

Ideally, you should aim to have multiple classes to raid with to increase your chances of filing a role that the group needs.

If by purple you mean legendary gear, that is far from necessary to get into raiding.

Good luck.

danielrjones.8759:

I don’t really care either way if they give an easy mode or not. If they did, I doubt I would ever play it. No reason to. What I don’t understand is those against it, I mean if you have no intention of running easy mode then what difference does it make to you if someone else does? Listening to people complaining about something they have no intention of doing sounds childish. imo the bottom line is there are those who don’t want easy mode for a reason, they want to be viewed separately from the casuals.
If the value a person places on themselves is how others perceive them in a make believe world, you’ve got bigger problems than not wanting easy mode.

Here’s a couple of reasons to oppose an easy mode, even if you never play it:

Easy and medium instanced group content already exists in dungeons and raids. This content is more amenable to easy modes than raids.

If you are the type of player that plays content at varying difficulties, it’s much better to have different content at an easier level than easy mode raids. I’d rather play fractals + dungeons + raids. I would never do raid + easy mode raid.

Easy mode raids split the player base. As someone who raids, it’s preferable to have a larger player pool. I know some argue that they could learn in easy mode, but most/all are capable of learning in normal mode.

It would be a waste of developer resources. It would either take away from raid development, or take away from dungeon/fractal/living world development. The latter content aligns more closely with the values of people who like easy mode.

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

Banzairush.4962:

Absolutely no. Raids are supposed to be hard not watered down. There are fractals and dungeons for you. It would be a shame to see half the players wearing raid only skins.

He clearly said he was fine with lesser rewards. I would even be fine with no rewards at all. Honestly, what could possibly be wrong with a story mode version as long as the rewards are still exclusive to the people who beat the raid normally?

I’m not asking for the same rewards for less effort, nor am I asking to make it a soloable, I just want to keep up with the story.

Almost all the story is available through a competed raid instance. Also seems like a huge waste of resources, because players generally don’t repeat story modes.

Sotha.1283:

Why do I (and I think many others) need easy mode?

I would call myself an experienced player. I know my profession, I know the combos, skill rotations and I can use them. I was speedruning dungeons and fractals. I have ascended gear and 161 mastery points. I made a lot of things, others call hard, solo.

So where is the problem?
I don’t have a guild or friends to play with. I became casual player, due to real life, but still I would love to go there and experience new content.

So why do I need an easy mode?
It would allow me to go there with pugs, with any professions composition like in low level fractals. It would allow me to learn the mechanics. It would allow me to experience new content.

It would be a great TRAINING for newbies like me!

I don’t care about rewards. All I want is to start a game and enjoy it.
Do not send me to other content, couse I did it. Do not send me to YouTube to watch how others play to learn the raids. Do not force me to join the raiding guilds. Give me a chance to try the raids without requirement of siting there for hours looking for group and then dying inside the instance till I become disappointed and tired.

Please.

//Pardon me any language mistakes. English is not my native laguage.

Why do you need an easy mode to learn?

Yesterday, I beat the first boss of wing 3 with an all pug group. None of us really knew the encounter.

The only thing stopping you is you. This is literally the best time to learn since everyone has zero experience. Jump in and try it.

I didn’t realize every patch had to have a pvp update.

Seems like this is in the wrong sub forum.

Easy mode raids are called dungeons and fractals.

Raids are not the cause of the current content drought.

Hard content like arah explorable and aether path does not have an easy mode.

It’s better to have a variety of content at different skill levels than the same content at multiple skill levels. You get more cross pollination that way. For example, in fractals, a player that can do T4 has no incentive to do any other skill level.

I believe easy mode raids are called dungeons and fractals.

Mitch.4781:

Darknicrofia.2604:

the first boss has no enrage timer and other than watching for warg spawns, has 0 risk in the entire run.

split up the group 3-7 (3 run mushroom cave and tower, 7 escort) and the entire thing is a joke.

So could I create a pug group tonight and expect to get past the first boss/event?

I wouldn’t call it a joke, but I formed a pug group and we did eventually beat the first boss.

Blaeys.3102:

Absurdo.8309:

Blaeys.3102:

The topic here is access to the experiential story (ie, being the protagonist in a fun and engaging narrative). The current raid design limits that access and I feel that is bad for the community as a whole and general flow of the storytelling process.

I agree with you that name calling is not warranted. But I’m somewhat sympathetic — this subform gets some comments that directly contradict dev statements and are so exotic that they border on the ridiculous.

As to the merits of your suggestion, raids are not living story, and they are ill suited to serve the purposes you suggest. Raids need to be hard and repeatable, and living story doesn’t.

And add to varying difficulties, well, you have it. There’s so much easy and medium tier content in this game. And, personally, I’d rather have different content than difficulty levels for everything. If I want easy content I world boss or do cof. If I want medium tier I do fractals. If I want hard I do raids. It would be boring if it was all the same.

And, please, please, actually try a raid. I think you’ll find how little lore there is in the actual boss fights. And, if you can’t beat it, you’ll get the “lore” that only the bravest and skilled were able to challenge these bosses.

I am raiding (leading groups, actually) – every week – with multiple guild teams. My friends look to me as their guild leader to lead – so I do it. I min-max my chronotank in a mix of commanders/assassins and zerker gear, and I’m very good at playing it.

On top of that, I’m an old school raider. I led progression level raids in WoW (10 and 25 man – even back to 40 man) for more than 6 years. I even led a group with some world first achievements (including one of the hardest ones in the game on Mimiron’s Head in Ulduar).

I understand the appeal of raiding. I understand the appeal of hardcore content.

I also came to GW2 for a different kind of experience. I came here because the developers, at launch, understood the importance of community above all else.

I mentioned that I lead 2 guild groups every week. My guild has more than 100 active members right now. We keep it active through the drought by engaging in weekly open world events, guild missions, guild hall silliness and much more. As part of that, I see the angst and hear the issues of many different kinds of players – most of whom will never post anything on these forums (many because they just don’t want to deal with the vitriol – and many because they are more introverted than I am).

And right now, I see a need for a deeper more inclusive raid experience. I see it not because I am against the current raiding structure (I would continue raiding the current versions even with changes). I see it because I see a vast group of players (my guildees) who are starting to feel left out of the experience (again, key word) of raiding because they choose to play slightly differently than I do.

What it comes down to – in relation to this thread is -if raids are going to be part of the player’s story in GW2, then they need to be designed with that goal in mind. I do not want to lose the harder core experience (in fact, I want it expanded to the rest of the game). I just don’t see it as the most important element in this particular game.

The most important element here is community – and a wider range of raiding experiences would only serve to make the community stronger, imo.

I don’t understand – is your lore argument hypothetical? Or does it actually impact you?

I’m not sure why a wide range of experience has to be through raids, there’s plenty of other content.

And you put anet in a tough position — either they can’t make hard content with lore flavor, or they must design one-off easy modes for everything. I’d rather have those resources but towards something that’s closer to your goals, like living story.

And, for what it’s worth, I think arah has much more lore, was on a similar hard difficulty level, and they never made an easy mode for these. Rather, there was always other easy and medium content, and the main lore story wasn’t that hard.

ox DigitalShaman xo.2816:

My guild of 90 people has steadily evaporated over the last few months, which is a sad thing. We’re a PVE heavy RP guild that gets a lot of mileage out of the game thanks to making up the stories that we share between us, on top of the slow Living World™ updates.

Rather than me just chiming in with my voice, I can say we don’t care about raids. To our perceptions (and people are welcome to challenge them) far too much effort is being put into this content and other areas of the game are being massively neglected.

The worst part about the raids is that many of us were looking forward to them, however the unforgiving difficulty curve means that we simply can’t get the people in there to do it. I have my ‘A team’ for fractals who are all good people. I have several others who are good players, but to get the raid done you ideally need ten people with:-

• Ascended gear.
• Impeccable ability.
• A reliable connection

It means our guild efforts were hindered. Sometimes one person’s timing was off. One of our people had internet issues. Tempers started to fray after months of banging our heads against a wall with Vale Guardian and people just weren’t having fun any more.

There needs to be a difficulty slider for the thing. Vale Guardian is such an enormous DPS check that I’d argue it’s terrible to design to have it as the first boss. It is effectively blocking anyone but the hardcore out of sections of the game’s story. When that story has previously been provided through Living World updates, I think people have every right to be unhappy.

Personally I do enjoy a good challenge but even I find Vale Guardian to be an extremely unforgiving fight. Even during the times I’ve done it with PUGs, I’ve had to ask myself if I’m really enjoying it. Plus, I shouldn’t have to PUG, I don’t know those people. The whole point of Guildwars is that I should be able to play it with my Guild.

You are complaining about the content drought, not raids. The devs explicitly stated that raids do not impact development in other areas.

As to raid difficulty, some people like difficult content. Should they be ignored too? HOT came with easy, medium, and hard content. Raids are the hard. It’s ok not to like them. I don’t like wvw, but I know others enjoy it.

As to VG, dps is not your problem. It’s mechanics. Groups have beat it in green gear, six man, you name it. Heck, yesterday I led a pug group, and got impatient when the Rev was taking forever. So I decided to nine man while we waited. We beat it.

I’m sorry your guild doesn’t like raiding. But a lot of people do. And it’s not raids fault if you can’t find fun things to do in game.