Guild Wars 2

FrostDraco.8306:

What happens is, I help person A, B, C, D, then person D stays there and keeps following me after i have asked them to let me solo.

That person might think you’re leading a HP train. And may either not speak english, or have their chat disabled – both are quite common actually.

Ayrilana.1396:

Except we’re talking about strikes on nodes which makes it every five strikes we would get an extra strike for plants and every 100 strikes we would get 7 extra strikes for wood/ore. If this is frequent/regular (the first one perhaps) then so is the rate that it’s at right now.

I don’t know about you, but i tended to get an extra strike every second/third node (and double additional strikes weren’t that rare either), that was definitely frequent enough.
Now i get no additional strikes at all.

TexZero.7910:

Also to touch on your last point about content length….Weren’t you just saying that 1hr a day of learning to raid was too much for casuals and here you are asking for 1hr fractals ?

There’s a difference between devoting 1h of your time every play session to do something that ends in failure (in hope that a month or two from now you, maybe will be able to succeed), and devoting that same time to 1h of a dungeon or fractal in which you run a really high chances of succeeding.
Most people really don’t like to hit repeatedly with their heads against a wall in hope that someday that wall will crumble. And, considering that nowadays mmo games are for most players a place where they come to unwind and have fun, you can hardly blame them for that.

That’s because they’ve really given up on their original hope of having a significant population of players that would play both modes. Besides, you couldn’t use that bonus in raids anyway, and open world no longer matters.

DakotaCoty.5721:

I’d rather the AP cap stayed – I am into PvP lately which means 1 match = daily completion, and I’m only 1,700/15,000 into it. (I think the cap is 15k?), I’d rather it stays as it gives me something to strive for.

Well, for me it’s 15k/15k, so it doesn’t exactly give me anything to strive for anymore.

Sublimatio.6981:

we should get many colours of the fractal weapons and acquire them for their respective CMs. for example dark-green ones for nightmare CM

I’d rather see the current two partial sets for nightmare (green and purplish) expanded to full sets. Still, the general idea is good (and the purple fractal skins do look nice).
And to not make it too much of a grind i’d suggest that the drop would not be the skin or weapon, but a box offering full selection within that set.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

If they dropped the raid team today, it wouldn’t mean we would get any more content or the other content any faster. The raid team is tiny.

Do you really think that fractal team is bigger (or even equal)? Or that it receives as much help from the core team? I don’t think so.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

some large subset of the community hates either scenario

I believe that most of the players that advocated it in the first place are no longer playing though (most of them were hardcore vets that sunk a ton of time each day in the game, and got burned out long ago).

Caointean.7983:

Yeah, I believe the bug is due to two things : some Squad bug which made player not count as part of the squad though there were in the same instance – which would explain why only some people of a squad received the mail through the first roll – and then the bosses-marked-as-not-cleared bug for members affected by the squad bug. Because we killed the VG (didn’t get my chest, but some did), and were able to carry on. But when I opened the instance again on my own, the VG was back with its pre.

If you bugged, the game simply didn’t count the kill for you, so your personal counter for that wing remained at the previous state. Killing any further bosses would not increase it – you’d still be counted as missing the early part of the event chain, and thus would start the new instance at the point when bug kicked in for the first time. In the initial instance, however, the boss was dead (even if it wasn’t counted for you personally), and thus you were able to move to the next event in the chain. In short, the game reacted as if you were dc’d during the kill.

Thus, the team can’t just check your boss kill history for that week – it’s entirely possible it was completely clean if you bugged at each boss. They must check if you attempted any raids in that time, and then check the instance logs separately for whether the boss got killed.

Or at least i assume that’s what is happening.

Vinceman.4572:

Astralporing.1957:

Oh, i agree. That’s why the rewardless option is no option at all. The mode is needed for reasons other than rewards, but it does need rewards in order to not end up abandoned. Which is why the discussion about rewards is going to surface eventually in any easy mode thread.

And what is your opinion in the level of those rewards? I’m asking seriously because raid rewards at their current state are awful compared to almost every other content in the game.

Oh, i agree about that as well, which i’ve said many times already. The rewards for normal mode should most certainly be increased.

Vinceman.4572:

So, if you hand out some decent loot to easier modes/tiered levels you have to increase the rewards for the normal mode as well as the challenge mode a lot which will of course drive people into farming raids

People are already farming raids. As long as the weekly lockout remains, the situation is not likely to change all that much – all people able to do normal mode bosses are already trying to do as close to a full clear every week as they can. Can’t really get any further than that.

maddoctor.2738:

Astralporing.1957:

Oh, i agree. That’s why the rewardless option is no option at all. The mode is needed for reasons other than rewards, but it does need rewards in order to not end up abandoned. Which is why the discussion about rewards is going to surface eventually in any easy mode thread.

An option that can work without rewards:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/Raids-need-a-solo-story-mode/first

Any kind of content, that requires more than one person to complete, needs rewards to keep it active. However, this is a problem with so many other parts of the game:
Try to do LS2 story achievements now and you won’t easily find a group to do so
Try to do Migraine achievement and you will find out it’s not very easy to find a group for it
Try to do any of the Raid achievements (and CM in Wing 4) and you will see that it’s not as easy to get a group for those either

The problem with one-time rewards isn’t something new to an easy mode for Raids but something that plagued the game for years, even since release, I think everyone should remember the old Arah Story mode.

How is what i was saying any different than this? Yes, the new mode would need a reasonable, repeatable reward if it’s going to stay relevant.

Miellyn.6847:

It doesn’t matter if it’s a new tier or the existing content. Why do we need more easy content if easy content is boring?

It’s boring for you. We’ve already agreed that the new mode wouldn’t be for you though, so that’s nothing new.

Miellyn.6847:

What makes you so important that the difficulty should be centered around you?

What makes you so important?

Miellyn.6847:

What about players that are not as good? If you lower it too much you won’t play it as it is boring for you unless the rewards are overtuned.

I’m not against fractal-style difficulty tiering, offering something to those less skilled than i am… or more skilled than you are.

Miellyn.6847:

If you go for T2 or T3 Fractal difficulty you deserve T2-3 Fractal loot.

In fractals, it’s for the most part the same loot, just acquired at a slower rate.

Miellyn.6847:

Jockum.1385:

Would you be ok with Anet stopping releasing new raids and only making revamps for the next 4 years?
New content can’t be replaced by some reworks.
We got 2 new fractals since 2013. That’s not much. Imagine a single new raid wing – which is added in 2021.

Did you ever thought about that fractals take so long to develop because of the difficulty tiers?

No. It’s like that because there was no fractal team at all throughout the majority of the game (the five fractals from the fractured release were made by LS team). It’s creation is relatively recent. And it seems to receive less attention and be able to draw on less overall resources than the raid team.

Miellyn.6847:

2) And because easy content is boring we need to bring down raids to the same level?

Again bringing up as an argument something that’s not true. Noone is asking about making the current mode raids easier. We’re talking about a seperate difficulty tier.

Miellyn.6847:

3) So dungeons and fractals are also not accessible because they have not guaranteed success?

In a casual guild group approach he’s speaking of? Yeah, pretty much guaranteed. In the last 4 years i failed a fractal maybe 2-3 times. The last time i failed a dungeon was at my first attempt at the Twilight Assault, which was during the week it got released. The main difference between a skilled hardcore run and a casual one is not succes rate, but completion time.

maddoctor.2738:

Then why do you complain that the game doesn’t have instanced content to do NOW?

And how do you know he wasn’t complaining before?

maddoctor.2738:

Exactly. If they add multiple tiers of Raids or an easy mode, it needs a reason to exist other than “do this for training”. Many want an easy mode to train for the harder version of raids but in the end a tier of difficulty for training purposes is a waste of resources and development time.

Oh, i agree. That’s why the rewardless option is no option at all. The mode is needed for reasons other than rewards, but it does need rewards in order to not end up abandoned. Which is why the discussion about rewards is going to surface eventually in any easy mode thread.

Sephylon.4938:

Legendary armor, in terms of stats, are the same as ascended. Fractals and crafting are, in my opinion, an easier way to get ascended than raids. Legendary equipment only offers the convenience of a free stat swap at your leisure and whim. You can stat swap ascended armor and weapons at a cost at the mystic forge.

At a cost, losing the runes, and you need an access to the forge (which often can not be so easy).
Try to disassemble as much as you want, but the truth remains, that legendary armor is not only a gear from a separate tier, offering valuable utility. It’s also the only such armor in the game. As such, it shouldn’t be locked behind a single side content aimed for a minority of players.

At the moment, it’s not just the “raid armor”. It’s primarily the “gw2 legendary armor”.

Vinceman.4572:

Sentinel.5731:

Vinceman.4572:

Shadowwarrior.7159:

At the end I got my kill (and loot) on saturday, but as far as I understood I would still be eligible for the gift.

No, you should not because you got your weekly loot. There is no point in getting additional stuff.
If somebody hasn’t gotten their rewards for a specific boss, it’s ok to get a compensation otherwise not!

Thats not what Anet said. All that matters is whether or not you completed a raid boss during the bug.

And? You really think you deserve anything although you haven’t missed rewards?

He certainly does, because Anet said they will send the rewards to everyone that raided during the time bug was up. Not just those that were directly affected by it.

Miellyn.6847:

It is also plain stupid that legendary weapons require mostly open world, but that seems fine because you play it right? How does your WvW player completes a HoT legendary?

Partly true. I’m not complaining, because it doesn’t personally affect me that much. At the same time i acknowledge WvW players’ right to ask for a separate path to those legendaries. I wouldn’t even think to tell them that they shouldn’t have it, just to preserve some sort of “prestige” or “exclusivity”.

Miellyn.6847:

Yes it it perfectly fine that a part of the team creates more challenging content as another part of ArenaNet creates less challenging content like open world. Not everything in this game has to cater to your needs.

Well, if you think it’s perfectly fine that the content for you was created at the expense of content for me, you can’t really say that it’s wrong if the opposite happens.

TexZero.7910:

Additionally, i have to entirely disagree about raids being designed to “Shut Out” people. They have a minimum barrier to entry that is, be geared and know your specific role. This is literally the same barrier used for open world PvE.

Oh come on, part of the stated design goals was that this is a content most players should be unable to run. Not “not interested in”, but “unable”. Yes, they were designed to shut out majority of the playerbase. How well they are fulfilling that goal is a separate issue (and one we apparently don’t agree on), but the goal itself is not up for argument.

Miellyn.6847:

Astralporing.1957:

Vinceman.4572:

I still don’t know why people like you are either not able to read or not willing to. Again for you: I’m not against easy mode raids, I’m against easy modes with the current raid rewards + moving off raid developers from developing challenging content – I have no problem in taking LS developers and delay the next LS releases.

You had no problem however with assigning devs to raids, hadn’t you. You don’t think, i hope, that assigning a number of dev spots to raids didn’t deduce those spots from other types of content, right?

Most people from the raid team were specifically recruited for raid development. They didn’t work for ArenaNet before.

First, not all of them (not even most of them, actually). Second, even if specific people were hired for raids, that cost money that could have been used to hire someone else to do something else (and while it’s true that not everything can be done faster by hiring more people, it’s also true that a lot of things in this game could use more people). Third, lot of stuff for raids were done not by the raid team, but by the core team (or at least with help from the core team).

All that was done at the cost of diminishing potential work on other projects. Which seems perfectly fine for you.

Vinceman.4572:

I still don’t know why people like you are either not able to read or not willing to. Again for you: I’m not against easy mode raids, I’m against easy modes with the current raid rewards + moving off raid developers from developing challenging content – I have no problem in taking LS developers and delay the next LS releases.

You had no problem however with assigning devs to raids, hadn’t you. You don’t think, i hope, that assigning a number of dev spots to raids didn’t deduce those spots from other types of content, right?

Vinceman.4572:

The difference is before HoT and raids the game was in an awful situation, awful than ever before. Content drought all the way.

That was when they still couldn’t do expac and everydays’ content at the same time, it had nothing to do with raids. Also, notice, it had nothing to do with what you were talking before. Would be raiders for the most part weren’t dissatisfied with the content being old. They were dissatisfied with the type of content offered. They didn’t ask for new content. They asked for a specific type of content, that didn’t exist in the game before.

Vinceman.4572:

Many people left because there was no endgame content at all, not even non-challenging.

many people left because there were no new content, that’s true. According to what you posted before however, those that specifically left because they were dissatisfied with game’s type of content wasn’t for them should have left. Because the game simply wasn’t for them.
If the devs should have done something to retain them then, then it should do something for the people you claim are not wise now.

Vinceman.4572:

Raids were and still are a revitalising part of content and have made the game overall better, not worse

That’s highly debatable.

Vinceman.4572:

The decision to finally bring in challenging content into the game after having none over years (dungeons were dead in terms of challenge long ago and only ran by players like me and many others due to gold farming) was one of the best they’ve ever made.

Yes, the change in the game’s direction definitely was good. For you, that is. Not for those that liked the old direction.

Vinceman.4572:

And I think you can’t deny that it’s actually better to have content that caters to a certain subset of players that asked for it than having none. It’s not that raids are preventing non-raiders from getting their own content.

Why are you against easy-mode then?

Miellyn.6847:

But this type of content was promised even before the initial release. Not necessarily raids, but content for organised groups.

Smaller groups. Devs were specifically asked then about 8 and 12-man dungeons (in the gw1 style) and responded by saying that they consider groups of that size to introduce too much organizational problems that are detriment to fun.
Notice, that most of the problems with raids do come from them being 10-man, not from the difficulty itself. So, no, claiming they are some fulfilment of an earlier anet promises is false. The raids as they are now are something they specifically didn’t want to see in this game originally.

gmxde.9360:

Astralporing.1957:

gmxde.9360:

Its the psychology behind it. Why should you do that at all?

Because, unlike in other MMOs, in this game the community is conditioned to be actually helpful.
Which i consider a good thing.

I also love to help. But help, if help is needed. I dont jump on every crap mob a level 1 would be able to sneeze down…jeez.

You were talking about the hp champion. People often do need help with that one. And most of the time that help is appreciated even when it’s not needed. You are pretty much an exception here. And nobody is going to shape their behaviour around rarer exceptions rather than a norm.

By the way, most of my precursor drops come from those trash mobs you ridicule. Just saying.

Besides

Egrimm Van Horstmann.7921:

I would much rather have this problem with people helping out vs not helping out being the issue.

This

Vinceman.4572:

Yeah, you are absolutely right. I was just expecting a “wise” person, boasting with it, to be down-home and overthinking the whole raid thing with the conclusion: “Maybe raids in GW2 are not for me, I will relinquish.”

Just as the raiders did before raids were introduced?
…oh wait.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Astralporing.1957:

One can only hope that one day they will change their policy on this

They already did, ages ago. Some people have since gotten the non-complete version added to their wardrobe.

Interesting, since i know for a fact some people still did receive the old response during the last Halloween. Might depend on the person in Support reading the mail then.

Vayne.8563:

I said this games are completely different genres.

Except it isn’t true. It’s not like you’re comparing fps with turn-based strategy or old style platform game. The differences are small enough that while GW1 is definitely not a mainstream MMORPG, it could easily be considered an edge case. While some of its features are those usually belonging to single-player CRPGs with multiplayer component, others are leaning more towards the MMO side of the dividing line (which, by the way, is not very precise in the first place).

Even the quote that is so often brought up here, explaining the dev reasons of calling it CORPG clearly shows that it was a decision based on preference. They could have called it MMORPG, they just preferred to underscore its other aspects.

gmxde.9360:

Its the psychology behind it. Why should you do that at all?

Because, unlike in other MMOs, in this game the community is conditioned to be actually helpful.
Which i consider a good thing.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Did you try contacting support? They might be able to give you the non burning if you have the burning backpack

That has been raised many times already, and supposedly support answered each time that since the second book was not an upgrade of the first, but a separate item, they see no reason to do anything.
One can only hope that one day they will change their policy on this (or make the quest chain available again in new halloween repeats) so that those less lucky can obtain this skin.

maddoctor.2738:

Astralporing.1957:

The problem is that what you describe in no way guarantees success. Putting that effort and looking around for options does not mean it’s going to bring results. Most people will not make it.

I don’t think guaranteed success is something any game needs.

What i meant is that two people doing exactly the same things, and putting exactly the same amount of effort can have wildly different results depending on their amount of luck and the people they happen to know. Vinceman’s opinion seems based only on observing the results of the most succesful of that group.

Vinceman.4572:

Yes, in the past ~3 months I have met dozens (lot more) of players that got into raids because they actually wanted to. From good old dungeon and experienced fractal runners to very new players with exotic gear only and just a power ps at start or anything related.
Those people had one thing in common: They put in effort and looked around what they could do to get some starter experience.

The problem is that what you describe in no way guarantees success. Putting that effort and looking around for options does not mean it’s going to bring results. Most people will not make it.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

And regarding Mystic Runestones – unlike Icy Runestones, Mystic Runestones have one purpose: generation 2 legendary weapons. Icy Runestones are used for four ascended backpieces, the Offerings of Koda, a guild upgrade, and a scribing recipe – things in which you may need to or want to save up on. Though truth be told… why did we even need Mystic Runestones? They’re fully identical except easier acquisition due to vendor(s) placement.

That’s actually a good point – why are Mystic Runestones a thing? Wouldn’t just be easier to reuse Icy ones?

Necros used it as well.

Vinceman.4572:

Fact is, there are plenty lfgs around sunday prime time, even before & after. Maybe, but that was explained to you, you are in the wrong subsection. People are not inviting you so you can wait until you are picked up, you have to look for groups actively.

Well, Roxanne is right here about one thing. Experience and just a few kills won’t make a player “able to join any group”. Most LFM groups won’t even talk with such a player. Unless, possibly, you are a chrono – those seem always in demand and groups are willing to accomodate them more often.
Yes, there will be exceptions – groups that are far more open about getting players – but they are not so common, and there’s always way more interested players than slots in such groups.

In general, if you are new to raiding, you either need a static group, or a lot of luck. Most new players won’t get either.

Djinn.9245:

Cyndercat.5120:

Djinn.9245:

Astralporing.1957:

Ashantara.8731:

None of you has made any argument that makes it more equitable to not have race matter (at least in the story!). On the contrary, it’s like you are defending having less variety, “because”.

If the race mattered, we would have less variety. All warriors would be Charr or Norn, all Rangers would be sylvari, all engis would be Asuras. That’s an example of course, we might have ended with a different race/class pairings, but we would end up with those. That is exactly why race doesn’t matter buildwise.

Still, more emphasis on player character race should be made in LS and personal story,

This is an assumption not based in fact.

Its an exaggeration but the basis is true that people will chose to play the race that is objectively stronger and synergies best with their class. Unless all racial skills are perfectly balanced (unlikely) then racial skills cant be worth using in combat at all because race stop being cosmetic.

What he actually said was:

Astralporing.1957:

If the race mattered, we would have less variety. All warriors would be Charr or Norn, all Rangers would be sylvari, all engis would be Asuras. That’s an example of course, we might have ended with a different race/class pairings, but we would end up with those.

And this is what I objected to. We don’t actually know that an improved Race would correspond with only one class. That is the assumption that I am objecting to.

I did not say that, if you actually read what i wrote. I said that most likely for every class there will be one-two races that would be best suited for it.
No, i did not say that a race would correspond with only one class. That’s impossible, because we have 9 classes, but only 5 races. It is possible, however, that a race might end up not being the best choice for any class

Linken.6345:

Astralporing.1957:

Linken.6345:

azureai.9764:

Linken.6345:

it would mate its 5 times nor time consuming then making it one story fits all.

Yeah, no. Tweaking the dialogue or characters in one scenario depending on race is not the same as making 5 separate scenarios. Even making the tasks/approaches different is not the same as “5 times” more work.

Would it be more work? Yeah. Would it make players feel more appreciated and their choices have more weight? Definitely. I’d welcome even small nods to who my character is and the choices he’d made. Heck, I’d love it if my character even behaved a little more in-character instead of like a human all the time.

So if you write 1 line on a piece of paper or 1 line on 5 pieces of paper, you dont make 5 times the work.

I would like to hire you mate.

Do you think that any scenario only consists of those class-specific parts? Or that creating a story requires only writing dialogue?

oh we want class specific now aswell thats 45 combiations then even more work.

Meant to say race instead of class. Obviously. Still, i’m surprised that you answered “yes” and apparently think that everything in a story encounter except from text and voice parts that are different for each race requires no work at all.

.

There is every reason to believe that one race would become optimal. If one race’s racial elite offered even one percent more of something than is available for another race it would be optimal.

That already happened with take root and condi rangers. And that’s why that elite got nerfed.
So, we don’t even need to believe in it. We already know it.

Jockum.1385:

But how many hours does it take to train a group full of “soldier staffguards” until they are able to kill a boss? 5 hours? 10 hours?

Two months, ~2 hours per training session, 2-3 training sessions per week, for people that already had working meta builds, and were doing fine in t4 fracs. Might have went faster (possibly significantly faster) if the group was 100% static and there was no shuffling some players in and out though (not everyone can take that much time of constant failing, it’s extremely discouraging).
Just to kill VG.
( after that, gorse took only a week)

Linken.6345:

azureai.9764:

Linken.6345:

it would mate its 5 times nor time consuming then making it one story fits all.

Yeah, no. Tweaking the dialogue or characters in one scenario depending on race is not the same as making 5 separate scenarios. Even making the tasks/approaches different is not the same as “5 times” more work.

Would it be more work? Yeah. Would it make players feel more appreciated and their choices have more weight? Definitely. I’d welcome even small nods to who my character is and the choices he’d made. Heck, I’d love it if my character even behaved a little more in-character instead of like a human all the time.

So if you write 1 line on a piece of paper or 1 line on 5 pieces of paper, you dont make 5 times the work.

I would like to hire you mate.

Do you think that any scenario only consists of those race-specific parts? Or that creating a story requires only writing dialogue?

Edit: corrected an obvious mistake.

maddoctor.2738:

They also upgraded veteran and champion risen spawning during events to have new abilities because the old versions had no skills worth talking about. They updated champion wraiths, champion spiders, most Orr bosses, veteran risen chicken and so on to give them powerful skills that they did not have at release at all. So basically this nerf you are talking about was actually a buff. They buffed the mob difficulty around Orr while reducing their annoyance factor.

You are talking about individual difficulty. Originally, there was no individual mobs in Orr. The mob density was through the roof, once you attacked a mob (or it attacked you), all nearby ones got involved within seconds, and by the time you got those covered, two new waves were already spawned. And all of them had cc skills, so they kept pushing and pulling. Risen nobles are a joke compared to this, because you can just kill them without involving their neighbors (and there’s at most 1-2 neighbors, not 20 like before).

maddoctor.2738:

Btw I always thought that the argument around here was that the Fractal system was good because it offered tiers of difficulty. But I guess it’s not very good after all.

It is, because it is instanced content, and doesn’t require preparations elsewhere. Try that in open world, or require a stairway of different content types, and you will get complains.

maddoctor.2738:

Because it wasn’t only on the forums. It was everywhere, even within the game itself. If a player learned there’s a new expac, they also learned that it is kitten.

Amazing. So the argument of casuals not reading online forums/websites and not researching their games, transforms based on how it suits you?

Nope. That’s the point, you didn’t have to research the game to hear those opinions. It was enough to just spend some time in LA (or any major world boss event) listening to the map chat. That stuff was everywhere.

maddoctor.2738:

And besides that. Suppose that someone says that HoT is bad. How would ANYONE else know that it is bad for them too? How would they know if the difficulty is good for them or not, based on what others say?

Most people do not buy games they hear are bad just to be sure. If the negative massively overwhelms the positive, most people assume it is true, at least to some degree. Unless they happen to actually like those things that are brought up as examples of how bad it is, of course.

Yes, the same as from any other amulets (so, really low).

maddoctor.2738:

Astralporing.1957:

HoT is actually somewhere around the pre-nerf difficulty level of those zones.

Not even close. The zones of Orr weren’t difficult even at release, they were annoying and frustrating to navigate due to loads of cc and crippling effects, it wasn’t because you died there, Orr was always a joke to fight in. If you actually fought the mobs they were the exact same as they are now, they just felt stronger.

They had more cc, and the mob density and respawn rates were much, much higher than now. Though i can understand how you don’t remember that, since it got nerfed really fast.

maddoctor.2738:

Now they are much weaker because players now have more experience in the game. Plus Ascended, plus better/optimized builds plus elite specializations. HoT and release Orr are nothing alike.

HoT is original Orr upgraded for players with ascended. Relative difficulty is about the same.

maddoctor.2738:

I seriously doubt that. More likely you’d simply run into problems earlier.

Doubt it all you want but if players were more experienced in harder content then entering Raids wouldn’t be as much of a problem as it is now.

Sure. What i question is whether players would like that harder content to get experienced in it in the first place. Observation so far tells me that no, they wouldn’t.

It doesn’t matter if you go up with one step or with ten, if people are complaining not about how hard it is to go up, but how high you go.

maddoctor.2738:

Yes. And then all the people that bought the game started posting everywhere how bad HoT is and how it’s aimed at hardcores only. And the negativity started even before, during beta events.

But the vast majority of the Guild Wars 2 population and most casual players do not read the forums. How can something they do not read affect their buying or not buying the game?

Because it wasn’t only on the forums. It was everywhere, even within the game itself. If a player learned there’s a new expac, they also learned that it is kitten.

maddoctor.2738:

Ever thought that’s because the difficulty spike was sudden?

More like because it has been applied wholesale to everything in new expac, and was unavoidable.
Remember, that originally there was a difficulty progress leading from early areas to oiginal difficulty Orr zones. In the end the latter were nerfed significantly because even with that progress majority of players considered those zones to be too difficult. HoT is actually somewhere around the pre-nerf difficulty level of those zones.

maddoctor.2738:

Which is the exact same issue with Raids. If there was a much better difficulty progression then HoT difficulty wouldn’t be a problem.

I seriously doubt that. More likely you’d simply run into problems earlier. The main reason why people stopped complaining about the difficulty of a certain earlier content was either because it got nerfed, or because they lost interest in that content. The complains about raids will end only when it will either get more accessible, or the people complaining will no longer be interested in anything about them.

maddoctor.2738:

And LS1 was harder than the core game yet there wasn’t much of an issue back then. Instead, there was praise.

You might just not remember the forums then. There was an outcry even against karkas, and aethers and twisted watchworks weren’t generally that loved either. They still aren’t, but it’s next to invisible because they are either in a zone almost noone goes to (karkas) or not in open world at all (aethers, twisted watchworks). Praise was coming from the same subset of community that loves raids and thought HoT was okay.

maddoctor.2738:

I’m not sure how the difficulty increase in HoT areas affected sales. In order to play in the HoT areas and experience the difficulty you have to buy the game.

Yes. And then all the people that bought the game started posting everywhere how bad HoT is and how it’s aimed at hardcores only. And the negativity started even before, during beta events.

Yes, it was not the only thing that added to general negative opinion of the expac, but it was definitely one of the major factors. Basically, the expac received bad press since the very beginning, and difficulty increase was one of the main things that contributed to that. If you think that didn’t affect sales…

Ashantara.8731:

None of you has made any argument that makes it more equitable to not have race matter (at least in the story!). On the contrary, it’s like you are defending having less variety, “because”.

If the race mattered, we would have less variety. All warriors would be Charr or Norn, all Rangers would be sylvari, all engis would be Asuras. That’s an example of course, we might have ended with a different race/class pairings, but we would end up with those. That is exactly why race doesn’t matter buildwise.

Still, more emphasis on player character race should be made in LS and personal story,

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

In case anyone is interested, here’s the official ArenaNet site page declaring Guild Wars is a Competitive Online Role-Playing Game, way back before it even launched.

“Rather than labeling Guild Wars an MMORPG, we prefer to call it a CORPG (Competitive Online Role-Playing Game).”

https://web.archive.org/web/20040602202532/http://www.guildwars.com:80/faq/default.html

That’s from the time where they still thought pve would be a mere introductory lobby for a pvp-centered endgame.
The main reason why they haven’t changed the description later on to MMORPG is because they’ve been using CORPG acronym already for some time, and it was easier for them to simply change the word behind the letter “C”.

Feanor.2358:

Nonsense. You can say dungeons are the abandoned middle ground (which they are), but fractals are getting updates recently.

Yeah, and every update shows that devs do not think of them as the middle ground either. Jockum has a point here. Anet, when designing group content, does not balance it around average players, but is thinking more in terms of the hardcore crowd. I’m pretty sure that any new fractals we’ll get will be around (or above) Nightmare level, not around, say, Ascalon , Harpies or Underwater ones. And any reworks they will do (if they’ll do any) will only increase the difficulty of reworked fractals.

Absurdo.8309:

Blaeys.3102:

I can attest first hand that it is EXTREMELY difficult to discuss this topic on the forums or reddit. You will be attacked. You will be mocked. You may even (as I did last year) get death threats.

And I agree with Onizuka on one point – the simple existence of these threads isn’t reason enough to make one argument stronger than the other. At the same time, there is no good reason to shut down the dialogue – especially as new people enter the conversation.

To the point about other game modes. you cannot really compare pvp and pve in terms of scaling difficulty. All a developer can do in PVP is try their best to match people with comparable skill together in either leagues or ladders (which is EXACTLY what Anet tries to do for both PvP and WvW).

In PvE, where the opponent is the AI, that kind of matchmaking comes from difficulty tiers – matching player skill, dedication, etc to the tier that best fits their playstyle and skill. True, you can use different game content to accomplish this, but when you do, you might as well be designing completely different games. When you do that, you introduce exclusion and ego into the mix in a way that segments and DAMAGES the game’s community.

Up until the introduction of raids, this is something Anet clearly understood very well – and something they could fix with tiered levels of difficulty inside raids.

Maybe that your idea isn’t well-received here, on the forums, or by anet is evidence that your idea isn’t very good?

It’s not well received by a small group of players that fight against it tooth and nail, yes. That’s not a proof that this idea is bad, merely that there are some people that find it inconvenient for them (but then, any idea, no matter how good or bad, has some people that dislike it).

FrostDraco.8306:

You see it now in dungeons, where people who are lazy just run all the story modes for tokens rather than doing the explorable.

Really? That’s hardly lazy, because doing 8 story modes is definitely more difficult and takes longer than doing 8 easiest explore paths. Not to mention it gives much, much less rewards.

FrostDraco.8306:

Astralporing.1957:

FrostDraco.8306:

Astralporing.1957:

thrag.9740:

One thing I want to contribute. If every fractal gets a challenge mote maybe they should just be called…. tier 5? Seriously what is the point of a scaling difficulty system if you don’t use it when trying to actually introduce more difficulty.

Using already existing scaling system for this would imply suffering other consequences of said system (namely – inflated mob stats, and, what’s worse, increased required AR). Thanks, i’ll pass.

Implying AR was ever an issue for anyone running t4.

Suuure, i’d so love to need to replace all the infusions in all my fractal characters. Again.

Yes, annoyiance for annoyance’s sake is an issue.

Implying thats a hard task? I have about 100+9s sitting in my bank from fractal dailies. If you are doing t4’s everyday this isnt an issue in the slightest.

Now calculate what that means in terms of getting another +50 AR or so on all your fractal characters. And how much gold that would require.
And how much gold converting has already cost you to get that stack, by the way (as 9s do not drop from fractals).

No, it’s not hard. Just costly and annoying.

maddoctor.2738:

There are trying to improve the challenge of the game but every time they add something difficult the idea to beat it is: “get more people”.

Perhaps it’s because:
1. it works
2. huge majority of the players do not want the challenge of the game to increase. (just remember how people disliked difficulty increase in HoT areas, and how much did that cost Anet in term of sales).

Ramoth.9064:

Oh back on topic. Easy mode raids, can we haz some?

Hopefully yes.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Mavis.1463:

jheryn.8390:

I would say Ayrilana did address one of your points. Please read your own post. You were the one that claimed GW1 was an MMO.

lol
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guild_Wars
“Guild Wars is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG)”

The term ANet used to describe the game was CORPG.
Competitive Online Role Playing Game

https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Talk:CORPG

A rose by any other name…

Faaris.8013:

In many cities in Europe, you don’t even get a regular sized coffee for 2,60€.

That’s a lot for just coffee.

Sorry, i’m tired at this hour and misread your post. Just ignore my earlier comment.

graytoni.2836:

Maybe I’m missing something but I tried to doing a hero challange I’m sure I have never done to increase my hero points but I see no change at all.
Am I missing something?

It’s possible, depending on the challenge. Very few challenges do not work outright, but give you an item in inventory that needs to be consumed.

Which challenge that was, and what did you do to finish it? Did the icon of the hero challenge change from unfinished to finished?

Alga.6498:

I’m sure that we’ll get another level 80-booster, just like we did get in HoT exp. Not because we did get a new profession, but as you wanted to play with a profession whom you haven’t leveled up or an alt yet to explore Magus Falls and Maguuma Wastes.

Tanner Blackfeather.6509:

I’d say it’s a lot less than a 50/50 chance.

The boost didn’t actually launch with HoT, remember. It was just as much a promo/teaser for the Shared Inventory Slot as an incentive to buy HoT, so one question is “do they need to market those more?”
Probably not to existing players…

Wait, what?

Didn’t all of the edtions, no matter which one you bought, you did received one level-80 booster at the launch?

No. It was not at launch (got introduced much later), and it was given only to accounts with HoT.

There was a bug that resulted in some non-HoT accounts obtaining it, but it lasted only for a short time before it got fixed.

DUNSTAN.8529:

A change like this would add some magic and excitement back into the game

Nah. Killing the boss for the nth time and still not getting the drop you want gets tiring really fast. The excitement of getting that rare drop is based on a low drop chance, which practically guarantees that most players will either never see it, or will need to grind for it for a long time. making those drops unobtainable in any other way is going to create a lot of frustration and anger.

Linken.6345:

Tornupto.2304:

If % of usage would be an indicator of strength… I can only imagine how the bearbow ranger would have to be nerfed into the ground :S
Srsly: Don’t balance by such numbers without context.

Thats so 2013 its smoke scale longbow now mate.

True. The point raised is still valid, though.

Incidentally, most (possibly all, but can’t remember at the moment) of my VG kills included at least one guardian. And the last balance patch didn’t change it in the slightest.

Find a better group (yes, i do realize that it sounds much easier than it actually is – finding a decent group is likely the hardest part of the raid difficulty after all).

maddoctor.2738:

Yes. Because someone posting (and I quote the opening post):

Can we haz some?

Well, no, that one was self-admitted troll that seemed to be anti-easymode in attitude and didn’t believe the topic would hold. Joke’s on him – if he didn’t want to see this topic returning, he shouldn’t have started it. And the best part is that the discussion wouldn’t have started if the other anti-easymode posters did not try to respond to him.

So, again, this wasn’t the bump you speak of. It was an attempt to ridicule the topic that backfired.

Ayrilana.1396:

Just because a subset of players are asking for something, doesn’t mean that it should be given to them.

True. At the same time however, just because some people speak against it, doesn’t mean it’s a bad idea.

Ayrilana.1396:

It wasn’t designed for those that want an easy mode.

Well, duh. If it was designed for them, they wouldn’t be asking for easy mode, would they.

ButterPeanut.9746:

We really don’t need to have the same conversation today as we did 1 year ago.

But we do – if only to send a message that everything in those past conversations is still as relevant as before, and the topic won’t go away on its own until something is done about it.