Guild Wars 2

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.

Arnath.2319:

Most of the lore is in the cleared instance. The only “missing” component is minor dialog during the fight and actually fighting the boss.

Most of the lore is in cleared instance, but all of the experience is in the bosses, experiencing the lore is what we want. I want to play a game, not read about it.

The thing is, you can experience that right now. Nothing is stopping you from fighting the bosses.

We have covered this already. Multiple times. In multiple threads. Over and over and over again.

But instead, you want a “story mode” raid.

I want a Dungeon Mode, exactly the same as raids except dungeon level of difficulty, doable with five players. With slower to acquire rewards or different rewards.

Something that will have no replay value.

No replay value for YOU.
Dungeons are very popular and still see lots of replay to this day.

Will require developer resources.

True, but if the smallest dev team can produce this much content in a few months, taking 1-2 devs from the expansion team (or the cancelled legendary team) to work on scaling the raids down for 5players seems very reasonable to me.

And cater to an extremely small segment of the population.

You mean… just like raids currently do?
Allowing a dungeon mode would open this content to everyone, catering to the overwhelming majority of the population.

It seems like you want less of a lore mode and more of a easy mode raid. Especially since fighting the bosses + finished instance seems to meet your lore criteria.

Easy mode raid is a bit off topic, and I recommend you comment in the plethora of threads on this issue. But, briefly, not all content needs to be complete-able at all skill levels, as long as there is a variety of content to choose from. There’s no easy mode arah explorable, for instance, and that has a lot more lore.

DiogoSilva.7089:

Absurdo.8309:

I do appreciate your thoughtful posts.

Still, if raiding is in the minority, then lorehounds, who are not satisfied with a completed raid instance, and who cannot beat the raid, must be even smaller.

Story modes for lore have no replay value. It’s a one and done. Seems like an incredible waste, especially when most of the lore can be gathered through a completed instance.

I see it more like the personal story or the living story chapters.

It’s a one time deal (unless you replay it with different characters), but it would attract the story-driven crowd (and not merely the most dedicated lorehounds, which I agree that they should be a minority – I’m talking instead about your average player that does GW2’s story instances but doesn’t exactly cares about going to the LFG asking for cleared instances) AND give those people something to do while they wait for season 3. In addition to that, it could be a gateway to make people more familiar with the raid mechanics and get them to try the harder version without getting intimidated by the idea.

Killing two birds with one stone.

EDIT:

And this isn’t just “likes raids” small. This is a group that meets all of the following criteria:

- Dedicated enough to be interested in lore.
- Can’t beat the raid.
- Is not satisfied with a finished instance
- Is not satisfied with just fighting the boss

It seems like a very minor segment of the population with very demanding requirements. I think everything you already want is in regular mode raids — story mode is not necessary.

A story mode for raids should be marketed by Anet like part of a living world chapter or anything related to that. It should appeal to everyone that enjoys completing story instances in this game.

If that wouldn’t appeal to enough players, then the concept of living story wouldn’t either.

Also, I doubt that your average non-raider is aware that raids are telling a story potentially relevant to their interests. If more people knew what it was about, then there would probably be more people demanding it, don’t you think?

I’d rather have a dedicated season 3, than some cobbled together story mode raid.

I don’t think you would be making this argument if there was less of a content drought. And given the time it’s taking to make season 3, let’s have the raid people do raids and the story people do story.

Edit:

DiogoSilva.7089:

Give the story mode its own achievement list (or share most of its achievements with the ones from normal raiding, excluding the prestigious ones), give it a one-time reward like all story instances, make it soloable but scalable like arah’s story path, and you would have something very close to your typical story instance.

It would attract:

• All players who do story instances;
• AP hunters;
• Mastery hunters;
• All players that participate in new, accessible content during patch day because it’s new (aka, the entire playerbase that enjoys living world);

And if they made it more like a dungeon path instead (repeatable), it would further appeal to:

• All dungeon players.

That’s a lot of appeal, isn’t that right?

And the epic raiding mode would still exist as it normally does, on top of all that.

This sounds less like raids, and more a completely different game mode. That is, living story. And it sounds like they’re working on it already.

Is this pvp? If you are serious:

- Necros are extremely vulnerable to cc. Most only bring one stun break – plague signet. And their only source of stability is in reaper shroud. As an engie, you should be able to chain cc
- Time your burst after they leave shroud.
- You can bring throw moa to negate the shroud.

Good luck.

countytime.8134:

A guardian can kill a warrior from full health instantly, yet my Scrapper had to ber nerfed into uselessness. Why is this ok?

Is this in pvp? Guardians are arguably in the worst state there. If you are serious, here’s some suggestions:

- Bring the trait that triggers endure pain (it’s in the meta build). And bring endure pain too. Now you won’t get bursted.
- The meta build also has shield master, which reflects projectiles while blocking.
- The meta build also has stability in enrage, so you won’t get cc’ed as often.

Good luck.

STIHL.2489:

Izithel.6853:

Can I have my Legendary backpiece then without having to bother doing Fractals/PVP?

The Difference between me, and every Stuck up Elitist on the Forum, is I believe you should, and I sincerely hope that Anet has plans in the future to make Legendary Back Items for all the other game modes.

Why other people can’t believe the same, seems that they miss this is a game. But by all means, shove that stick all the way up, and pretend that it’s pride.

Seems like you’re ignoring all the counter-points in this discussion:

- Legendary armor has the same stats as ascended, which is achievable in all game modes
- All the new legendaries are tied to particular game modes. The old legendaries were mostly pve, but you could buy them off the tp.
- Not all skins and legendary items have parity across all game modes
- If all you want is the legendary armor, it makes more sense to put an alternate method in another game mode. Doesn’t sound like you like raids to begin with.
- Most raiders are ok with legendary armor in different game modes.
- Having legendary armor in easy mode devalues the prestige of the skin. For all the new legendaries, you knew the player had to be good or dedicated enough to acquire it

Ad hominem does no favors for your argument.

Arnath.2319:

BobbyStein.2315:

Kossage.9072:

Izithel.6853:

Yup, the only ‘lore’ you might miss by not fighting the actual bosses is some meaningless boss banter to give them some personality and vague hints at what the notes and environment proceed to explain in a crystal clear manner.

I’ve seen quite a few comments like this both here and on Reddit, and I feel I must chime in on this subject which is very dear to my heart as a player interested in Guild Wars 2 lore. I’d argue that people, who don’t play through raid content and only appear after the instance has already been cleared, do miss out on lore. There’s more lore in the raid than just the spoken exposition at the end of Salvation Pass or the written contents of the scattered journals.

The raid team delivers the narrative in many other ways as well as per Guild Wars tradition and have even invented a new, exciting way to do so which is currently exclusive to raids (I hope we’ll see them expand that great narrative concept to other group content like fractals etc. if possible).

I just wanted to call out your thoughtful and informative post. You’re exactly right. A person can get pretty much all of the optional and supplementary lore by exploring a cleared raid instance. They will miss out on character interactions, enemy dialog, and player commentary that would be triggered during fights, however.

We try to structure the cleared raid instance experience to still convey all the most important bits of the narrative. If we’re not meeting that expectation, then we’ll have to look at ways to improve this. You’ve all given us some great feedback for consideration. Thanks for that.

Entering an empty raid instance to experience lore is unacceptable, this has already been discussed numerous times. This is a game, we want to play and experience the lore.

Telling your players to enter an empty raid wing is just as bad as telling your players to go read a wiki or watch a youtube vid.

It is not fun.

I believe you would prefer it if people actually purchased and played the game? Purchased the HoT expansion?

“GW2 the MMO that there is no point in playing because it’s just as fun as reading a wiki page”

Look at Living World Season 1, why do the devs want to bring it back? Because they know that content matters, they know reading about it from a wiki, or npc is NOT fun.

Until they make Raids accessible to everyone this issue will continue to get worse.

I don’t want to sound combative, but let’s think through what you’re asking.

Most of the lore is in the cleared instance. The only “missing” component is minor dialog during the fight and actually fighting the boss.

The thing is, you can experience that right now. Nothing is stopping you from fighting the bosses.

So you have everything you are asking for.

But instead, you want a “story mode” raid. Something that will have no replay value, will require developer resources, and cater to an extremely small segment of the population.

And this isn’t just “likes raids” small. This is a group that meets all of the following criteria:

- Dedicated enough to be interested in lore.
- Can’t beat the raid.
- Is not satisfied with a finished instance
- Is not satisfied with just fighting the boss

It seems like a very minor segment of the population with very demanding requirements. I think everything you already want is in regular mode raids — story mode is not necessary.

Rezzet.3614:

Absurdo.8309:

Can the condi nerf people give an example of how they think condi is op? Like some of the above posters stated, the meta consists of three condi (necro, mesmer, warrior), two power (thief, Rev), and three defensive (engie, druid, ele). And all of these classes are currently played. It’s even balanced 3-3-3 if you count dh in the power group.

Posts like these aren’t really constructive, because they fail to identify (any) problem. Just as you need defence against physical damage (protection, invulns, reflects) so too do you need defence against condi (clears, resistance)

Frequency , Low CD+ number o f conditions spammed
Conditions being able to Outdps Power builds while being Debuff skills Ie Confusion,Torment,Weakness
COnditions being able to fully shut down power builds with stuff like Weakness while there not existing a counterpart version of said skill towards conditions
the Only professions able to fight this condi spam meta are basically warrior because of the 30s resistance stance, Druid, and ele
and again the fact that conditions match and surpass Power burst builds
a term as Sustained Damage Burst should not exist in the first place

and the easiest one Condition has no mitigation it flat out ignores armor

Can you give a specific example of something that’s op? All I see here are generalities.

Vitality and condition cleanses are the comparable “armor” to condition damage.

And, unlike physical damage, conditions do their damage over time (thus resulting in less burst) and can be cleansed. You have more reaction time in dealing with condition damage.

Blaeys.3102:

Absurdo.8309:

Blaeys.3102:

Lord Darghaz.2314:

Rednik.3809:

I’m playing this game more than majority of raiders. I don’t want to play raids because I had more than enough of them in WoW and this game promised to be not wow-like.
So what exactly wrong with asking for not wow-like endgame and wow-like endgame rewards model? Like, you know, fractals, pvp, wvw, all that stuff that was working as endgame pretty great for everyone, before anet decided to drop everything and pump out content and shinies for raids only?

I wonder why people cant stop calling games with raids “WoW clone” or “WoW-like”
GW2 is now WoW-like because WoW introduced raids earlier?
ok…
As far as i know, fishes were one of the first living things that had eyes.
Lets assume you have eyes, too.
Congratulations, i guess you are fish-like now

I am sure you got the idea.

GW2 is far away from being WoW-like.
And tbh i think you just want to provoke with this “wow-like” thing.

When this game came out, it was an improvement over the typical “wow-like” model in just about every way – scaling zones, scaling based on group size, no trinity, dynamic event system, shared resource nodes, and so on (a lot of things).

When raids were introduced, instead of applying that same level of innovation and creativity, they chose to carbon copy almost every core raiding mechanic used by Blizzard – reintroduced the trinity, no scaling, heavy reliance on enrage mechanics, etc. I’m not saying they should have scaled or gone non-trinity. I’m saying that the Anet team didn’t create GW2 raids – they just lifted the exact same model used in that game in the (most likely) attempt to up numbers by dragging raiders from that game into GW2.

I just wish they had put the same creative effort into the core raiding system that they obviously did in every other core element of the game.

What constructively would you change? I see nothing but criticism in this post.

There is an entire CDI full of ideas – all of which I’m sure would pale in comparison to what the Anet team – if they put the same creativity into raiding they put into the game’s launch – would come up with.

And to your earlier point about difficulty levels and the example of a world boss – While I think raids should have a more casual mode, I also think open world bosses should have a more hardcore mode/rewards – accessed through the same mechanic guilds currently use to access guild challenges (triggered instances – possibly using the guild event item scribes make).

A wider range of difficulties – across all game modes – is something we should all want.

I hate to get into a forum spat, but I’m not going to read through an entire CDI — especially when you’re the one claiming raids could be better, and when most raiders think anet did a good job. I’ll be happy with your elevator summary.

And the thing is, there are harder world bosses. Like triple trouble. And there is easier instanced pve content, like dungeons and fractals. Even within raids, there are easier bosses, like trio and vg.

And that’s how it should be. It adds variety for players of all skill levels.

DiogoSilva.7089:

BobbyStein.2315:

I just wanted to call out your thoughtful and informative post. You’re exactly right. A person can get pretty much all of the optional and supplementary lore by exploring a cleared raid instance. They will miss out on character interactions, enemy dialog, and player commentary that would be triggered during fights, however.

We try to structure the cleared raid instance experience to still convey all the most important bits of the narrative. If we’re not meeting that expectation, then we’ll have to look at ways to improve this. You’ve all given us some great feedback for consideration. Thanks for that.

I am still of the opinion that there’s nothing wrong with the story being delivered through gameplay. That’s what players that enjoy storytelling in a game expect out of it in the first place. Storytelling in gaming is not only about written text or cutscenes, it’s also about putting ourselves inside it and interacting with it. Giving the tools for people to check the lore on a cleared instance is a nice extra, but it’s as interesting as asking them to read a movie’s summary on the internet instead of downright watching the movie and experiencing it first hand, don’t you think?

The inherent flaw with storytelling in raids is that it wants to appeal to two distinct audiences. That’s why a story mode is a simple and elegant solution, and possibly better than forcing the narrative designers to sacrifice storytelling through gameplay for the sake of “lorehounds”. I know that you’re sick of this talk by now, and that there may be plenty of background problems with it (for example, the raid team may not have enough people or time to implement such a feature), but I’m just defending my position.

I do appreciate your thoughtful posts.

Still, if raiding is in the minority, then lorehounds, who are not satisfied with a completed raid instance, and who cannot beat the raid, must be even smaller.

Story modes for lore have no replay value. It’s a one and done. Seems like an incredible waste, especially when most of the lore can be gathered through a completed instance.

Blaeys.3102:

Lord Darghaz.2314:

Rednik.3809:

I’m playing this game more than majority of raiders. I don’t want to play raids because I had more than enough of them in WoW and this game promised to be not wow-like.
So what exactly wrong with asking for not wow-like endgame and wow-like endgame rewards model? Like, you know, fractals, pvp, wvw, all that stuff that was working as endgame pretty great for everyone, before anet decided to drop everything and pump out content and shinies for raids only?

I wonder why people cant stop calling games with raids “WoW clone” or “WoW-like”
GW2 is now WoW-like because WoW introduced raids earlier?
ok…
As far as i know, fishes were one of the first living things that had eyes.
Lets assume you have eyes, too.
Congratulations, i guess you are fish-like now

I am sure you got the idea.

GW2 is far away from being WoW-like.
And tbh i think you just want to provoke with this “wow-like” thing.

When this game came out, it was an improvement over the typical “wow-like” model in just about every way – scaling zones, scaling based on group size, no trinity, dynamic event system, shared resource nodes, and so on (a lot of things).

When raids were introduced, instead of applying that same level of innovation and creativity, they chose to carbon copy almost every core raiding mechanic used by Blizzard – reintroduced the trinity, no scaling, heavy reliance on enrage mechanics, etc. I’m not saying they should have scaled or gone non-trinity. I’m saying that the Anet team didn’t create GW2 raids – they just lifted the exact same model used in that game in the (most likely) attempt to up numbers by dragging raiders from that game into GW2.

I just wish they had put the same creative effort into the core raiding system that they obviously did in every other core element of the game.

What constructively would you change? I see nothing but criticism in this post.

Jahroots.6791:

The OP definitely didn’t create a very productive topic, but the discussion has moved past his list of grievances.

Don’t try to dismiss objections by oversimplifying things. ‘Easy mode’ raiders want to be able to play through the kitten raid at a level they personally find challenging without a hassle, see the story and yes, get some of the goodies. Accept that while you are comfortable with things as they are, lots of people are not, and their views are also valid.

All of the other endgame content is accessible or scaled in some way after all.

Why does all content need to cater to all skill levels? The reverse is certainly not true — for example, world bosses usually do not require anything more than pressing 1.

And I’m ok with that. Because there’s other medium and hard tier content.

All content has unique rewards. There’s plenty of easy and medium tier content. Why do easy-moders have to complete these exact encounters?

The only answer I’ve seen is loot. There’s nothing stopping them from trying the bosses right now. And most of the lore can be seen from a completed raid instance.

To be clear, are people here complaining about the profession wins you need for the legendary armor achievement?

If so, then I don’t think any change is necessary. Having the pvp legendary require well-rounded players is reasonable and in line with other legendaries.

Also, an I the only one that changes classes based on my team and the opposing teams class composition? You can basically get your profession wins that way.

Profession mmr seems like a terrible idea. It could be easily gamed, and your mmr would be too spread out over several classes.

No thank you. The queue times would skyrocket.

I’ve solo queued almost this entire season. If you’re losing, pre mades are not the problem.

And, at least in my experience, I’ve found the team match making kinda good. If there’s a two or three man on the other team, then there’s usually one on mine. And if there’s not, it’s usually because the pre made is not so good.

Maybe the players that are losing have reached their skill cap? Since you can’t go down in the lower tiers, you’ll advance even with an average 50% win rate. Until you get to the point where you can’t win at all.

Can the condi nerf people give an example of how they think condi is op? Like some of the above posters stated, the meta consists of three condi (necro, mesmer, warrior), two power (thief, Rev), and three defensive (engie, druid, ele). And all of these classes are currently played. It’s even balanced 3-3-3 if you count dh in the power group.

Posts like these aren’t really constructive, because they fail to identify (any) problem. Just as you need defence against physical damage (protection, invulns, reflects) so too do you need defence against condi (clears, resistance)

Kinda wanted this thread to be up top, especially with Tuesday raid hype.

Raids are the most fun I’ve had in gw2 in a while. Just wish I could do them more often. At least, after Tuesday, I’ll have more raid to choose from!

Please lock this thread, I’m not sure I’ve read one bit of constructive criticism. Indeed, the whole point of this thread is “stop making raids” not “this is how we can do it better.”

I should just keep a copy paste of all the common responses:

On legendary armor: Ascended armor has the same stats as a legendary. So you are not losing anything by not getting it. The stat change is of questionable value. And all game modes have unique skins.

On ascended rewards: I’ve honestly never heard this one, because it is completely bonkers to anyone who has actually raided. It takes weeks to get a single piece. You can get them much faster by crafting — even in a single day if you buy the time gated stuff. And T4 fractals has a much higher drop rate for ascended items.

On rewards generally: All of the rewards are time gated weekly. You can make much more gold in open world pve or by farming fotm 40.

On easy mode: It’s ok to have content that caters to different skin levels. Think raids are too hard? Don’t want to invest the time? Great! You have open world. You have dungeons you have fractals.

It’s very clear from this thread that all easy mode raiders want are the rewards. Despite that all content has unique rewards. Despite that nothing is stopping them from trying right now to beat the raid. Despite that most of the legendary stuff is locked behind some sort of content.

I don’t play wvw. I don’t throw a tantrum when they are given new content or unique rewards.

I just got a precursor in fractals yesterday. One of my party members told me I could make more gold selling the legendary than just the precursor. But I don’t want to map complete, after already doing that two times. So I sold the precursor.

Do what you find fun. Don’t envy others when they get content you like, or some brand new skin.

Blaine.6135:

Whenever I try to link the codes provided in this post, my response is just blank. Do I have to alter the codes given in any way to make them usable, or am I being an idiot?

I’m not 100% sure. You definitely need HOT to link the code. You may need to unlock the legendary armor collection (by beating one boss).

Arnath.2319:

Beorn Raukar.4328:

Arnath.2319:

The raid team could be making new dungeons or fractals, or just like the cancelled legendary team they could be helping with living story.

Raids are costing us content. Fact.

Raids are content, and that is a Fact.

Content that less than 5% of the playerbase consumes. Why are raiders incapable of thinking about other people and the survival of this game? Wasting dev time on content only a small percentage of people will ever see is how games die.

This is in the OP. If this won’t convince you, I’m not sure what will.

Output from the raids team isn’t coming at the expense of other projects in development. Raids are made independently of Living World. We do communicate regularly with that team (and we share some resources and assets in both directions) but neither team prevents the other from doing its job.

Siobhan.5273:

hardy.7469:

So when there’s another massive content drought and raids are the only thing being released in terms of content and story, will you still say the same thing to gloss over how inaccessible the only major content updates are to the majority of the players?

Do you NOT want to follow the trend of making raids easy to get into for all players? Was it your intent to have an outdated view of them?

Just because you said the raid lore is “side” and not “main” lore doesn’t ignore that for almost 8sh months, it’s really been the ONLY lore (and content) to come out.
Unless you would rather us NOT play the game and instead just read the Wikipedia for the game?

Also if the raid lore is relevant to other stories that you’ll make it available in other places? Why not just make it accessible in the first place!?

This sums it up for me! Thanks, hardy!

Also, a huge thanks to Bobby Stein for posting here and not continuing the trend of Reddit posting that is going on with alot of the GW2 staff. It’s nice to be able to come to the games actual official forums and find relevant information without looking for the pertinent links to it on a 3rd party site.

Reddit is a lot friendlier than the forums. And frivolous/insane arguments can be down voted.

Methal.9045:

I’m currently playing a condi/crit warrior. Which I’m sure ya’ll are bout to dump on me for playing. (Considering how questions go in /m in LA.)

My main question is, i’ve been running fractals like there is no tomorrow. They dont seem challenging enough for my tastes. Still find them fun though.

I’m not looking for a “challenge” where you just throw your body at a mob till it dies, nor overly mechanical challenges, where im left constantly dodging kitten and never able to swing my shiny new bolt at the boss. But rather longer fights, with higher rewards.

However what I’m not looking forward to is “world of warcraft” stat/gear/build checks where if I’m not the “raid cookie cutter build” im a pleb unworthy of participating. I loath this kind of crap. That said though I think people need to be serious about their builds and make them work as best they can.

Yes im picky.

What suggestions do you have?
I’m currently in a “Friendly” guild what does little to no…ok they really dont do any grouping content whatsoever aside from guild challenges on the weekends.

I think many groups would accept the condi PS warrior variant, especially on VG or Matt.

Solutions to starting raids include finding a raiding guild, joining (or starting) a training run, or hopping into a pug with low requirements.

Sure, I’ll choose to support the more positive thread.

hardy.7469:

Absurdo.8309:

DiogoSilva.7089:

Vinceman.4572:

And a big NO to making raids easy! They are good as they are and many decent players have been successful in there. We don’t need the last percent of content to be like the other 99% cakewalk.

I’m not saying that raids should be easy. I’m saying that the story-driven experience that raids offer should also be available to players that enjoy story-driven content but not hardcore, organized raiding. All Anet needs to do is add an optional story mode. It’s quite simple. If their content appeals to two distinct audiences, then it should be accessible to both audiences.

Again, there is no story driven experience. All story elements are available in a completed raid instance.

If you want to experience the boss fights, you still can (although you won’t necessarily beat them).

Making a story mode just seems like a massive waste of time.

Then why not when the final wing is out after x amount of time, introduce a completed empty (beat) version of the raid anyone can explore solo so you don’t need to bother people asking for a beat instance to go into.
There’s definitely no reason NOT to do that.
I mean a bunch of heroes cleared this area right? I don’t see any logical reason why you can’t just code an empty version of the raid that anyone can generate by running in the instance or something.

I would support this idea in a broader system that made bosses selectable. It’s a pain when you fight them out of order or want to fight them twice.

So, ideally the system would allow you to select: boss 1, boss 2, boss 3, or completed.

DiogoSilva.7089:

Vinceman.4572:

And a big NO to making raids easy! They are good as they are and many decent players have been successful in there. We don’t need the last percent of content to be like the other 99% cakewalk.

I’m not saying that raids should be easy. I’m saying that the story-driven experience that raids offer should also be available to players that enjoy story-driven content but not hardcore, organized raiding. All Anet needs to do is add an optional story mode. It’s quite simple. If their content appeals to two distinct audiences, then it should be accessible to both audiences.

Again, there is no story driven experience. All story elements are available in a completed raid instance.

If you want to experience the boss fights, you still can (although you won’t necessarily beat them).

Making a story mode just seems like a massive waste of time.

Ohoni.6057:

BobbyStein.2315:

• It will not be necessary to play Forsaken Thicket—or any future raid—in order to complete Living World or expansion stories. Raids do not gate main story progress.

But do raids still gate raid story progress? Because I want all the story, both raid and living world, it doesn’t make me feel better that the gated content does not link up with other content. What we’re missing is a way for players who for numerous reasons aren’t part of the “hardcore raider” environment to still be able to experience the story, environments, and general content of the raids.

All story elements are available in a completed raid instance. Ask someone to open it for you, I’m sure they’ll be happy to.

Kiktor.9503:

Hey, i heard there is code for them.

any1 knows them, like 15-30-50 LI?

and forum admins, its legal to use them?

I know people fake chat codes. However, if you have the initiative or research ability to figure it out yourself, you can probably handle raids.

It’s not against any rules. I would consider it unethical though.

Sarnax.8357:

Lets be clear, we are not asking for easy content. Let the raiders have their fun. God knows I was one of those folks not to long ago in WoW. Make it as hard as it can be for that segment of players to enjoy.

What we are asking for though is a story instance so we can enjoy playing through the lore and not miss out on anything. Reading or seeing a youtube vid is ok, but we play a video game and having a story instance would just feel right.

I think all the lore is available through a competed raid instance

Please don’t destroy raids, it’s the most polished content in the game right now.

MashMash.1645:

The main issue, and this was alluded too in a woodenpotatoes video, is that gw1 had fantastic story and lore. GW2 is, and lets be honest, a steaming pile in those areas. Its horrendous – we all know this. And HoT did nothing to improve this – it arguably got worse.

So, on one hand you have the GW2 story which the bulk of population despise/hate/dont care about, and on the other hand you have content related to GW1, which is what people really wanted & had been hoping for, locked away behind the raid – where that bulk of the population will never be able to go (for various reasons). Its a double whammy.

Does that mean all future content related to GW1 will be shut away in instanced raids? And everyone else gets the terrible GW2 story? That would be a shame.

Edit: Just saw the new raid wing trailer – more GW1 stuff. Le Sigh.

Seems we’re getting mixed signals in this thread. OP doesn’t like the raid story. Some raiders like it. Some non raiders (seem to) like it because it relates to gw1, but lament they’re “locked away” from it. (Spoiler: you’re not).

Seems like a catch 22 to me. Have a bad story non raiders complain. Have a good story non raiders complain.

In the end, story doesn’t really matter for repeatable content. Let’s pretend living world season 2 was good (and some was). How many times have you replayed it? Not many, is my guess.

I feel like this thread is full of complaining from people who don’t actually raid, and wouldn’t be affected by a story, good or bad.

STIHL.2489:

Bast Bow.2958:

STIHL.2489:

At best, all I have read is people trying to justify their elitism, that is like someone trying to justify acting like a Jerk, it does not matter what you say, at the end of the discussion, you’re still acting like a jerk.

Agreed, totally. Pointing that out and acting the exact same way, but being in a different camp, isn’t the solution. It’s behaving the exact same way but just being on the different side of the table.

Too bad you haven’t responded to my former message too, Stihl.

LOL, that is because there is no discussion going on here, None of the people responding to me came here to be changed, you can see from their first posts to their last, they did not arrive to this topic with an open mind thinking that maybe there was another way then the path they have chosen, they arrived with a single goal, to attack and win.

Sadly, forum battles are more like PvP then PvE, there is no scripted fight here where you can simply memorize the moves and win. Which is why they are loosing.

OK, what is your takeaway point? How would you improve the situation op commented on?

My personal opinion: It’s lamentable that some players kick based on AP for low tier fractals. Ultimately though, it’s no real time lost because they haven’t started yet.

And as long as we’re giving anecdotes, this hasn’t been my personal experience. I have an alternate account, did fractals, and was never kicked based on my low ap score.

As for raids, again, fine as is. Pug groups can set whatever requirements they want – they don’t owe it to you to have them join the group. If you disagree with the requirements then you can start your own group. It’s really easy with the lfg tool.

Takeaway: Some people are jerks, not everyone, but things are fine as is.

The hype is real.

SweetPotato.7456:

Yes, please do something about this, i have many more screenshot, but am lazy to go thru them and sensor the names.

Most of those seemed like close games to me.

If you won it was probably really good matchmaking.

NikeEU.7690:

STIHL.2489:

Now, most Elitism, specifically PvE elitism, stems from players being deceptive about wanting harder content when in reality they simply want better rewards for themselves, and then make a fuss to the devs that they should have harder content, but what they really want is something they think they are good enough to get, while no one else is, and to ensure this goal, they become total jerks about who they run with, to ensure that the scripted encounters remain trivial to them.

Now, this is not good for a games community, …

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man

But hey, you did a good job of knocking down the strawman, so kudos to that I guess.

I’m not even sure if it’s a good knockdown of the strawman, because if the content was truly that easy, then players could bypass the problem with “all welcome” groups.

Swagger.1459:

Absurdo.8309:

Story doesn’t really matter for repeatable content. Fractals have no story. The explorable dungeon paths barely have a story.

You play a story once. You play good content several times over.

That’s fine, doesn’t change my impression that the story is not good.

Most of the storytelling game wide hadn’t been that great either, so it’s not just me pulling things out of thin air.

OK. As someone who raids though, this kind of criticism is on the level of: “I don’t like how Dessa looks in the fractals lobby.”

Even if anet adopted your suggestions, it would not make raids more fun, or pull in any long term players. If anything, the cynical side of me says that we would get more people complaining about being locked out of the story.

I’d rather have the developers focus on raid gameplay and mechanics, than make a story or cut scene of fleeting value.

I also rarely encounter this problem. That said, I also play reaper.

If it’s such a problem, why don’t you just not use blasts in combat with a guardian?

Story doesn’t really matter for repeatable content. Fractals have no story. The explorable dungeon paths barely have a story.

You play a story once. You play good content several times over.

I think resistance is fine, because you can’t keep it up 100%, and it can be corrupted.

Plenty of skills make you take reduced or no physical damage. Plenty of traits reduce movement impairing conditions. Resistance seems fine as is.

I feel there’s a lot of hyperbole here.

Yes, eles are great team fighters. But they can be killed, and they can’t save everyone. I think necros are a good counter to eles, because they can corrupt boons and keep poison pressure.

And you can win without an ele, even if the other team has them. I do find you usually need someone that can “tank,” but other classes, like druid, can do it.

Yesterday I fought a team with two eles. We had none, but we did have two necros and a druid. We won handedly. Everyone was in Ruby, so they at least knew how to pvp.

And if you truly think you can’t win without an ele, then you can switch to one. I frequently switch classes in solo queue to balance our composition.

eyestrain.3056:

I’m between a 2-3. I also don’t want to waste three hours, especially when failing a raid leaves you with literally nothing (and success is pretty scanty in vg/gors). What i’m seeing are straight up 1s with a density that I never saw even back in dungeon elitist days.
The other thing is that the communities doing dungeon runs back then also found those hardcore dungeon runners a bit of a joke since most of them were copying speedrunners reaching for record times without actually understanding the point, and consequently making those runs 10x longer with gear checks and kicking imperfects for 30min before actually running pretty easy content.

To anyone who complains about pug raid requirements, the solution is always the same: start your own group with whatever requirements you want.

I don’t think you appreciate pug raid requirements until you actually lead a group. You organize the voice communication. You organize the class composition. You organize the roles. You’re not only concerned with your own time, but the time of nine other people.

And you get people who don’t know what they’re doing. Wrong gear. Can’t dodge. Lag. First time. Etc.

Well, I’m in a pug group. I have no long term interaction with any of these people. So I’m going to try to get it done as quickly as possible for everyone.

There’s a big difference in the consequence of failure between a raid and a dungeon. A bad group may take an extra 5 or 10 minutes on a dungeon. A bad raid group won’t beat the boss and will waste hours in the process.

To go in another direction, think of it as a market for raid groups. As a raid leader, there’s a huge pool of players to choose from. On busy days, I can set the requirements very high because there’s a lot of demand for groups. On slow days, I temper my requirements. If groups set high requirements its because they can actually get players that meet them.

So, form your own group. Be the demander instead of the demandee. But don’t be surprised if your fights take longer.

I personally enjoy gameplay over story. It’s nice to have a narrative, but it shouldn’t be the central focus of raids.

Jumpin Lumpix.6108:

Absurdo.8309:

It’s good to have an avenue to communicate with the other team. Don’t let a few bad players ruin it for everyone.

I know some players can be extremely rude. If you don’t like their comments, you can turn off whispers and map chat.

It’s not about turning it off I want to eliminate the possibility of the enemy team identifying another player in any way sort of like how it is in wvw

Again, why, if you can just turn it off?

There are different reasons for wvw. You may want to organize something in your world only. It would get spammy with three teams. The are also ways to identify individual enemy players. The reason there’s no name is because it’s more important in wvw to know what team the enemy players are on, than their actual names.

We had the bunker meta in season 1, and it wasn’t that fun. For me personally, I haven’t really encountered the 1-shot meta. Of course, if you’re a thief in berserker, you can’t just charge into AOE spam and expect to survive.

It’s good to have an avenue to communicate with the other team. Don’t let a few bad players ruin it for everyone.

I know some players can be extremely rude. If you don’t like their comments, you can turn off whispers and map chat.

Dinosaurs.8674:

Thaddeus.4891:

Dinosaurs.8674:

GameGuard.8610:

That wouldn’t fix the ussue. Prob is you shard capped after 6 bosses so last 3 you wont get any shards

The whole “being capped after 2 wings” thing is irrelevant because the magnetite reward per boss is not going to stay the same if the cap is still 100. It will be reduced such that clearing all three wings gives 100 magnetite, likely to about what it was at the release of the first wing.

What do you mean, the never changed the quantity of shards being dropped from boss. We used to drop 50 shards per wing 1 clear while we had a cap of 100, we are still dropping 50 shards for wing 1 and 2 while we have a cap of 100 and unless they decide to now change thing it will still give us 50 shards for wing 1, 2 and 3 while having a cap of 100.

They could drop the amount of shard each boss give us so completing all 3 wings give us 100 shards. But that’s a direct nerf to the reward of raid and I don’t see any reason for that. The current reward for the raid is okish only. I don’t think it should be buffed, but I certainly don’t think it should be nerf and unless they change the value of shards, leaving the cap at 100 will be a nerf in reward for 1/3 of the raid no matter what.

This will just push people to complete only 2 out of the 3 wing each week. We should be able to choose if we want to complete 1, 2 or 3 wing at a giving week with no penalty if you want to complete all 3 wings. I understand a penalty for repeating the same wing during the same week, but getting no shards for completing a wing for the first time is just stupid.

Game Update Notes January 26 2016:

Raids

• Increased the quantity of magnetite shards awarded for failed boss attempts and successful boss kills in Spirit Vale.

I think it was changed again later but this was the first one i found. This is when they buffed it so that you didn’t have to clear 3 times to max out magnetite, because they were giving a magnetite reward based on the value you would receive if there were 3 wings. So hey look it has changed in the past.

Regardless of whether the reward per boss is better or worse when wing 3 is released, 100 shards for the entire raid is fair considering the primary reward is the boss drops. You could certainly say that the boss drop reward has too much variance between players, but on average the loot reward per boss is much, much better than the magnetite reward per boss. So I don’t see why people would just stop clearing after two wings.

Furthermore, it’s really obvious that the reward was always intended to be 100 shards for the entire raid. Magnetite is intended to be the “backup reward”, and so the prices on the magnetite vendor are set up to work with the 100/week level. This is why it was 100 from the start even when there was only 1 wing.

You’re saying it’s unfair to nerf the rewards to keep it at 100, and that it’s stupid leave the reward as it is because then there is no magnetite reward from the third wing. feel like you think the only solution to that is that rewards be increased since we are doing more work, but to me the obvious answer to that critique is that you’re suggesting that they should have only given 33 shards per wing per week, even from the start. Why should you get the full 100 shard per week reward for only doing a third of the work? Really though, once you have the fights down raids are pretty lucrative as is in terms of reward per time invested, so I don’t see how you can claim we deserve additional magnetite when we have been getting the full reward for a fraction of the work this entire time.

I’m not sure you’re asking the right questions for this issue. I think the most relevant question is: Are the raid rewards, with shards, under-tuned or over-tuned?

Personally, I think they’re a bit under-tuned, given the weekly lockout. And shards are, at least to me, the most valuable reward from the bosses. So wing 3, without an increase in shards, would be an indirect nerf to rewards.

I do like how you can trade in minis for shards. And, in that sense, raid 3 will allow for more of that trading. But we have that now, and the rewards still seem under-tuned.

There’s nothing holy about a shard cap at 100. It could be any number. I think the analysis should focus on whether 100 will be an adequate cap for three wings.

Tornupto.2304:

STIHL.2489:

Celine.6857:

I just don’t understand why having Ley Gliding is such an issue, when this is way more achievable than having ascended gear and particular builds one may not be as familiar with just to complete a raid.

Well I can’t speak for anyone else, but I have nothing against this requirement, I would just like another way to get Exp for Gliding, as opposed to having to HoT Maps, which I don’t like.

If you are interested in Raids, you just need to raid w1 and w2. The bosses reward you with many EXP. If you’re not interested in raids the requirement is nothing that you will encounter.

Yep, in fact, we seemed to go over this several pages ago.

Jahroots.6791:

It’s funny that this topic has progressed so far down this path, I only recall two players with actual complaints, one sounded like they hadn’t started raids at all while the other was sort of trolling.

The posts that appear to ‘challenge’ this mastery requirement are simply suggesting that masteries aren’t as easy to get as some players claim. Somehow, it got entirely out of hand from there.

How about we switch this into something a little more positive. Some speculations perhaps? I’m imagining a ‘chase’ of sorts. The boss pursues us along a path (maybe islands or platforms) with some kind of DPS or mechanical requirement needing to be met in order to progress further. Failure to do so would result in a wipe. I’ve enjoyed encounters like this.

I’m also hoping for a chase. I’m imagining something like 5 guys fight the boss while the other 5 drop bombs from above.

Um, isn’t the obvious solution the same way you change +5 to +7’s? Like, 75 relics and the original +5 infusion?

I really don’t understand any other argument. It seems like an obvious oversight. There’s no reason why it should be more difficult to get AR for someone who has the +5 ar, +5 stat infusion, than someone who got the cheap versatile infusion.

STIHL.2489:

Bysvyken.6235:

I do wonder if a lot of the whiners have even beat vale guard?

I am more wondering why all these elite raiders feel the need and urge to attack other posters for simply expressing their feelings on the matter, which is rather ironic, because it seems that people who raid, are the first to attack all other game modes, and put them down, but if anyone says anything negative about raids, they just can’t let it go.

If someone says “Well kitten this, I’m out” they were not talking to you to start with, they were talking to the OP, you’re not gonna change their mind by calling them names, or insulting them, so… why do it?

Why don’t you instead just talk about your opinion of the change, and just let them express their opinion?

Several opinions in this thread are factually incorrect, misinformed, or so far out of the norm that the opinions do not deserve equal weight.

To address some points above, I find that real world analogies are rarely helpful on these forums. People nitpick on the analogy instead of the merits of the idea.

The fact is, you’ll get enough experience from raids to level up the masteries.

The fact is, several of the bosses already require mastery points, or players gain an advantage from certain masteries.

The fact is, it really doesn’t take that long to max out mastery points. Took me less than a day. It’ll take even less time if your only goal is ley line gliding.

The fact is, several of the meta builds require HOT content to unlock. See, eg, vipers stats.

And, just my opinion here, I’d rather experience the HOT masteries in a raid like environment, than cow-tow to a minority of players who can’t spend a couple of hours unlocking it. Dive bombing during shatterer or the patriarch is incredibly satisfying. Can’t wait to see what they put in raids.