Guild Wars 2

Vinceman.4572:

The discussions aren’t even toxic so the argument that’s brought into here from time to time that players are afraid of posting here is nonsense.

First, the idea that this is just a small group of players is provably false. There is a reason raid posts on Reddit do not stay on the front page longer than a day – and looking through posts like these -

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/4rogz6/raids_are_friggin_fantastic/
https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/4rlzc1/so_whats_up_with_the_raid_hate_its_like_i_blinked/

shows that there are a lot of people out there unhappy with the current model, even more so if you focus on the higher rated responses. While the number of responders is lower on these forums, I argue that is primarily a result of Anet moving all of these threads to the raiding subforum and people just not having the energy to deal with the constant barrage of negativity.

Secondly, as Ive stated before, it is really hard to criticize raiding on these (and other forums). Just the past few days, weve seen a few instances related to situations in which elitism has shown itself very clearly -

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/Is-this-normal-in-pugging-raids/first#post6237770
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/An-incredible-experience-in-raid-today
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/Raids-Now-impossible-for-newcomers/first

Additionally – and I debated hard about sharing this – there is the attached image, which is a private message I received after daring to criticize raiding in its current form on reddit. I struck out the sender and the first line, because that line was beyond obscene and would have been inappropriate for these forums.

There was another instance of this that I had to deal with in game (albeit not an actual threat to track me down and kill me like the attached), but I didn’t think to screencap it.

The point I’m trying to make is two fold -

• One of the biggest issues with the current model of raiding is that it brings these kinds of attitudes to GW2. Anyone that has played a raiding centric game has seen it there and knows that, until now, it has remained fairly calm in GW2. Things are changing, imo, because – when you start to build different parts of the PVE game for different communities based on skill/commitment time/willingness to conform to a meta, you end up with animosity between those communities (with scorn/disdain on one side and jealousy on the other).

• Second, while people have started to speak up and be heard a little more (as evidenced on Reddit), there is a concentrated effort on the part of the nastier people out there to shut the conversation down – through getting threads closed, browbeating people to the point of not wanting to care – and, yes, through direct threats (like the one in the attached image).

I don’t think raids would be bad for the game – but creating an entire PVE game mode dedicated to hard modes builds walls that do not need to be built. Build a game for everyone – then incorporate varied difficulties (ranging from very easy to face melting) throughout multiple areas of the game. That way, everyone has realistic access to the content/experience and you retain the challenge (probably even expand on it).

Rednik nailed it.

I want tiered difficulty raids because I think it would be fun to do them with my friends and guildees who aren’t hardcore, who might be in exotics or who enjoy playing a rifle engineer (or whatever).

I don’t care if they nerf the rewards to almost nothing- maybe weekly rewards on par with a world boss like Claw of Jormag. That would be fine by me. I just want a deeper experience for a wider group of friends.

Dominik.5162:

Stop destroying it for us!

Again, no one is trying to take anything away from anyone or destroy the idea of raids in GW2.

We are looking for additive solutions that will bring more players into raids. It is about extending the experience to a wider pool of people through tiered difficulties. That doesn’t trivialize anything because it doesn’t change the higher difficulty raids in the slightest (raiders aren’t that insecure).

And none of us should be happy (or even ambivalent) about people possibly leaving the game.

People can rail against the idea of making raids more accessible, come up with a 1000 reasons why it shouldn’t be done and even believe that it isn’t really an issue at all, but the reality is that when people begin to feel disenfranchised or left out, they begin to lose interest in a game – and that is exactly what is happening.

You can argue that is just a small percentage of game population, but when it is compounded by the content drought, you end up with a lot of people not entertained by the game right now. When they see that the only content released is designed specifically for a subset of the population – that does not include them – what happens next is pretty obvious.

And, I don’t want that obvious thing to happen. I love this game. I love the communities I am a part of in this game.

Multiple tiered difficulty raids would have given the PVE populations something new to do together. Going the way they did with raid development created issues in the game that I never thought we would have in this game – and that I never want to see again in this game.

I don’t think anyone can say, with a straight face, that raids haven’t split the GW2 community considerably.

I do not think raids are a bad idea, but I do not like that fracturing of the community. Extending the raid experience to include a more casual experience (which is more than just a tour of a cleared instance) is the best way to mend that rift.

The only other option I see is to abandon raiding altogether, and I don’t think many people really want that.

Again, this is my opinion – but it is coming from someone who sees this first hand. I have been playing since the first beta weekend, I am the guild leader for a guild numbering more than 100 active players (roster is closer to 400, but I see about 100-150 logging in weekly). We have several ally guilds, ranging in size from 10 up to 400+. Despite the size of this community, we remain a tight knit group. We do have multiple groups that raid every week – and enjoy them (I lead one group and fill in as leader for another myself). But we also have a large number of players getting disheartened and feeling left out of both guild and game activities – and that is the heart of the problem with raids, imo.

Raiding is the biggest divisive factor ever introduced into this game – but it is because of the exclusive nature of raiding and reliance on the meta. They need to fix that – and I believe (based on my experience leading a large GW2 community) that a tiered difficulty model is the only way to do that short of abandoning the idea of raiding altogether.

There is actually a pretty decent thread on Reddit that includes a variety of viewpoints from both sides of this issue. Definitely worth reading/considering as part of this ongoing discussion.

Link: https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/4rlzc1/so_whats_up_with_the_raid_hate_its_like_i_blinked/

Absurdo.8309:

To your credit, you seem to be one of the more thoughtful posters on your side of this debate.

I would say the same of many of your posts – even though you and I obviously disagree strongly about this.

There is a lot of emotion, negativity and ill will from both sides of this argument – but, in between those less rational posts, there is actually a pretty decent and worthwhile discussion taking place.

Regardless of where they go with raids, I think that discussion is worth having and of value to both the community and the developers.

Vinceman.4572:

The discussions aren’t even toxic so the argument that’s brought into here from time to time that players are afraid of posting here is nonsense.

I would disagree with this statement. There are a lot of derisive statements in these threads, including people calling people lazy, bad players, etc. Not long ago, someone told another player his social guild was “bad” because they didn’t raid. Your own statement insinuates that people asking for this are in the extreme minority, and therefore wrong – when both sides (at least on the forums) seem to be about the same size in terms of numbers (a point that really doesn’t mean anything anyway).

To Anet’s credit, many of the worst examples of this have been deleted (including one posted just this morning in this very thread) – and rightfully so.

Additionally, I have both been attacked in game because I have dared to express my opinion here – and I have been thanked by people who told me directly they didn’t want to post for fear of blowback or negativity. Last time I brought that up on these forums, I was basically told it was my own fault.

It isn’t easy to post about this topic. You have to be ready for some pretty hateful comments.

To compound that, Anet insists on moving all of these threads to the raiding subforum, where – for obvious reasons – there are more raiders than casual players.

But, none of that should matter. The point of the forums is to provide a place were all voices can be heard.

So, let’s agree to stop the argument about which group is the biggest or who is or isn’t represented on the forums (a topic that has been beaten to death) and just continue the dialogue about the topic at hand in a mature and civil manner.

As far as I’m concerned, this next update is a make or break point for GW2. If they want to retain the core population keeping the game popular, we need to see a real commitment and shift in priorities.

Specifically, they have to prove there is a place in the GW2 PVE end game for more than just raiding – and it needs to blow us away. They need to prove that they are committed to the game we bought 3 years ago and that they aren’t just moving to the same tired model used by other MMOs (where raids provide the primary end user experience between expansions).

I’m okay with the lack of communication as long as they actually deliver on the quality – and quantity – promised when they explained the delay.

We’ve danced around this point in a lot of threads, but the reality is pretty straightforward – without the mass appeal something like a casual experience would create, I would rather see them abandon raiding altogether at this point.

If they allow raiding to take over the GW2 end game experience, then this isn’t the GW2 that millions of people bought into any longer. They need to focus on the larger PVE community or they will see the game population start to dwindle.

Even if they get back to regular open world PVE updates, this will happen. As long as people feel like they are being left out of the end game experience(for whatever reason – even if you believe it isn’t true), then they will feel SIGNIFICANTLY less enthusiastic about the rest of the game. I know my play time and gem store purchases (neither of which were insignificant) have both dropped way down since the introduction of raiding in the game.

You can argue the need to keep raids hardcore all you want, but that doesn’t change any of what I just said.

ArenaNet needs to get back to the basics that made this game so popular in the first three years. And they need to remember why things like scaling, dynamic events, etc brought so many players from other games (and players new to MMOs) to GW2. Everyone was on equal footing – and everyone felt like they were respected and included in the entire story. That is something a lot of other MMOs failed to do – thus the migration to this game.

Without that, I don’t see GW2 retaining anywhere near the population they have had in the past.

I am glad this conversation is taking place in the general forums rather than the raiding subforum. That allows for greater input from both sides.

To add a few of my points (opinion, btw) from other threads related to this topic -

• Yes, the story in raids is minimal but it is still there and, as the introduction to the next story line (presumably), constitutes an important story step that players interested in story should be able to participate in.

• Simply entering a cleared instance, reading a few notes or watching a video isn’t the same as EXPERIENCING the story as the hero, which is sort of the point of story in GW2 in the first place.

• Almost no one is saying the reward from a lesser difficulty version of the raid should be on the same level as that received from the harder core version.

• The PVE player community is definitely torn over this issue – so many of us believe a compromise should be made.

• It isn’t – and has never been -about taking anything away from anyone. It is just passionate players (who may not have the skill or time to invest in hardcore raids) wanting to be a part of the ENTIRE story.

Again, really glad this is in the general subforum. If a dev sees this, please keep it here rather than moving it like the last thread on this topic. Both sides are more adequately represented here.

Crystal Reid.2481:

Jumping in here for a second to clarify things with you guys. At the time Gaile replied to you she had the most up to date information from the raid team. After reading through the thread more and discussing it as a team, it’s very clear that McLeod is considered to be an entry level boss by the community.

We’re going to fix the mastery unlock issue in an upcoming patch, as well as add the unlock to the Bandit Trio encounter. We apologize for any confusion that occurred, especially to Gaile to sending her the incorrect information!

I know I said I would stay off the forums in another thread, but it is worth coming back in for this.

It is good to see the team remain flexible and open to customer feedback. It is refreshing and greatly appreciated – and reinstills a little lost faith on my part.

I hope the team sees that there is a need/desire in the GW2 community for raids to be more multifaceted and appeal to more than just the “hardcore, hardcore, hardcore” players. I sincerely hope that influences future discussions regarding design and fundamental raid systems.

Again, thank you – this really does make me more hopefully for the future (and, as always, thanks for putting up with me – I probably should have been kicked off the forums months and months ago ).

I wont be posting any further in this thread – or likely any other on the forums – again.

I have remained very active and tried to keep this topic alive because it is something I feel very strongly about.

Since they first mentioned the word raid, through to the CDI with Chris Whiteside, on to this and similar posts, I have been dead set against the idea of single tier difficulty raids. That is because I’ve seen first hand what that can do to a(n amazing) guild and gaming community.

More than anything, it creates haves and have nots – a hierarchy of PVE players based on their time commitment, level of skill (which is often more a measure of age and lack of disability) and gear philosophy. And, once that hierarchy is put in place, it is used to divide the community – not through the fault of players, just as a natural next step. People begin to look down on non-raiders. They are somehow considered less important – or not real players anymore. Groups gradually pull away from each other into their own little pockets in the game.

This can even happen among the best of friends.

It’s hard not to read that and think its hyperbole or exaggeration, but I – and many others – have seen it happen. It is commonplace in MMOs – at least MMOs other than GW2 (until now).

So, going back before the CDI, I pushed for them to remember one thing – the one thing that brought me to GW2 – inclusion.

Tiered difficulties let hardcore players continue to face challenges, but, at the same time, give them a place to play alongside their less hardcore friends. It gives casual groups a place to feel like they are still a part of the game world – and not feel like they are somehow less important to other players – and just as importantly, to developers. It takes the sting and the stigma out of that divisive hierarchy (something GW2 did with every other divisive element common to MMOs when the game launched).

Ive made these – and other arguments – until I’m red in the face and, finally, until I’m just ready to give up. I don’t want to deal with the constant forum negativity anymore – and it is clearly evident from the lack of any kind of real dialogue, that the developers are dead set on the very path Ive been railing against for close to a year now.

And then today, I see them (anet) basically tell someone – a player obviously interested in raiding – that thier efforts just aren’t good enough to be considered raiding (not in those words, but that was the clear message). The developers themselves are making the same divisive assumptions and comments I was worried would become part of the player culture. That makes it clear where they stand on this.

Anet doesn’t want to do away with the ability to include terms like “player tears” and “hardcore content” in their marketing – even though tiered difficulties wouldn’t remove those things – it would just defang the inclusion issues I mention above.

I still hope that they do not continue down this path, but the fight has been squeezed out of me. I’m just gonna back to playing the game (at least for now) and see what happens next. Maybe I’ll be surprised, but this clear shift in their mindset makes me doubt it.

So I’m done – you don’t have to worry about me posting 4 times a day or trying to push this agenda any more.

I just hope they understand the toll this shift has taken on players like me and the guilds we lead/represent (a toll that I understand many other players cannot relate to) .

I still love this game, but it is taking a path I’m just not sure about.

Gaile Gray.6029:

Hey there,

I wanted to give you some info from the team in relation to this situation: The Forsaken Thicket Mastery Track unlocks when a boss encounter has been completed. “Siege the Stronghold” is not considered a boss encounter, and thus will not unlock the Forsaken Thicket Mastery Track.

I hope that helps address your question about this particular mastery track and best of luck with Xera and Keep Construct!

So this wasn’t a bug and they were right to feel disappointed – and Anet is okay with that?

This is part of the company’s attitude shift that I’ve been talking about. When did “player tears” and elite (what I call divisive) content become more important than game community and continuity?

I know that comes across a bit combative – and I apologize for that (not sure how to say it without it coming across that way) – but this really is a major mindset shift compared to the environment this game offered players 3 years ago. This is not a good direction for the game. It feels like it isn’t the same team that gave us GW2.

I would put Dragon Stand at the top of the list, followed by Silverwastes.

As far as old Tyria, I’ve always enjoyed Fireheart Rise. The event chains in the mid southern part of the map + Vexa’s Lab give the map flavor and options in terms of events.

Sarrs.4831:

Blaeys.3102:

The fact that the conversation even took place – that an obviously successful guild (from a social perspective) is immediately labeled as “bad” because they cannot (or chose not to) raid is indicative of the attitude shift in the game – away from a community focus where people are actively encouraged to get along – to one where insults and silo-ing are the norm.

Being unable to organize a raid of 10 in a guild of 1000 members is, frankly, utterly bizarre. How in the world are they ‘obviously successful from a social perspective’ if they can’t even get a group together which is 1% of the guild’s total size?

I don’t know the details. I was mainly commenting about the attitude shift and divisiveness that make that kind of insult suddenly acceptable. This isn’t the same game many of us bought into and supported for the first three years.

If I had to guess, I would say they could get a group, just not one that made real progress in the raid.

Absurdo.8309:

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

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

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

The fact that the conversation even took place – that an obviously successful guild (from a social perspective) is immediately labeled as “bad” because they cannot (or chose not to) raid is indicative of the attitude shift in the game – away from a community focus where people are actively encouraged to get along – to one where insults and silo-ing are the norm.

To the other point, my motivation most definitely is not to kill raiding in GW2. It is to remind the community and the developers of what is truly important in the game and hopefully push developmental efforts back toward the social and friendly philosophy that made the game great and fun in the first few years. And, I do believe raids (just not in their current form) can be a part of that.

Of course raids are a divisive force in the game.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Absurdo.8309:

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

Because in their current form, they are divisive. I don’t want to see them go away – but I also don’t want to see them continue down the path they are on now either.

Just look at the recent complaints about the content drought – in the forums, on reddit, on news sites. A lot of players don’t even consider or mention raids when they are making those comments, because raids do not fit with the general theme and feel of the PVE game we have grown used to.

It is like they are a side game developed for a new audience – which is what I actually believe Anet originally intended. IMO, raids were developed to fill a marketing niche – to try and entice a new category of player to the game.

The problem is, imo, they did that at the expense of the base game – both in terms of development resources (however small) and the walls they put in the community. Raids created divisions in the game that never existed before. Yes, there were a few elitists that tried to pretend that Arah was somehow exclusive, but that was never really the case. As long as they stayed away from enrage timers in that kind of content, it was always doable with pretty much any build/playstyle in the game (and that was a good thing).

They consciously tried to make raids something apart from the rest of the PVE experience – and, among a decent sized population (I believe), that has not been well received.

Absurdo.8309:

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

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

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

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

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

OriOri.8724:

@cptaylor – I haven’t started raiding yet so I did not know that but thanks for the information. It does do a lot to tie both themes together into the same plot.

Which is exactly why it shouldn’t have been revealed to us in a raid designed for a small subset of the game’s PVE population.

I know a guild with no more than 5 active members who have a level 50+ guild hall – that is probably decorated nicer than most large guild halls. It is just a matter of keeping on top of it- the same as it is for larger guilds (which have different challenges to overcome).

With the removal of influence, the only barrier to guild hall growth is currently missions – and they have done a pretty amazing job of making sure there are always missions that can be done by small groups.

Aesa.4819:

STIHL.2489:

Blaeys.3102:

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

The raid team has moved on to other things. Personally, I would rather Anet just go back to focusing on re-building a solid lateral end game then mess with raids any further.

Yes they moved on to making new raids, which is awesome considering the quality of the content and that so many people enjoy it

The issue has never been about quality. It is about accessibility.

When GW2 launched, it was a success in big part because it offered a fairly unique alternative to every other MMO out there. The biggest difference was, imo, the way the game offered the same experience to every player (at least in PVE). There was no hierarchy of player separated by terms like raider or hardcore.

This appealed to a lot of people – even some hardcore raiders like myself looking for something friendlier and community focused. GW2 was the perfect game in that aspect.

The raid team did an amazing job at making the fights engaging. But, at the same time, they forgot about (or, more accurately, chose to ignore) the issue of accessibility – the very thing that made this game different and appealing to so many at launch.

As odd as it sounds, the addition of single difficulty raids designed for a small subset of players has not been good for the game or the community, imo – because this game, for many of us, was supposed to be about something different. It was the game that didn’t build those walls and separate PVE players by their gear or how dedicated they were to the game.

I do hope they continue to make raids, but only if they get back to the basic premise that set this game apart from all of those others. They need to get creative and come up with a way to develop raids that fit with the overall feel and underlying philosophies of GW2 – which, to me, means accessibility.

I would love it if they brought the bash, gauntlet and pavilion events back while we wait for season 3.

Not only would it give us something to do, it would make sense, lorewise, and it would bring Jenna and the politics of Divinity’s Reach back into the spotlight, which would probably tie in with what we are doing next.

I still think the underlying issue is that raids, in the form they provided them, do not fit well in the GW2 structure. Moreso than any other content, they build barriers between players and encourage divisiveness, feelings of being left out and, to a varying degree, elitism/nasty behavior.

While there was a tiny bit of this associated with dungeons and fractals, it never really impacted how people play the game or their ability to enjoy content – partly because, in the case of fractals, there was a pretty good tiered difficulty model.

A reason this topic keeps coming up – and why a percentage of the community looks negatively on raids – relates back to those barriers and the inability to enjoy the game via varied playstyles (which has always been a staple of GW2, imo).

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

To me, the biggest argument against this idea is that it would take personnel resources – from management, quality control and grievance remediation perspectives. And, I’m not convinced it would bring in enough revenue to offset even those costs.

Like a few others have said, if you really want to support the game and don’t see anything you really want on the store, just buy a small number of gems each week/month and exchange them directly for gold. Its a less resource intensive solution that doesn’t bring the potential pitfalls of a sustained program.

Razor.9872:

All in all, how would you go about bringing these two
completely different groups of people together? What content can you conceive of that caters to both, and makes both want to play with the other?

This is a very fair and very good question – and is one of the reasons I think a tiered difficulty system – like that found in other raiding MMOs (or based loosely on them) would be good for the game.

They would provide a stepping stone to get more casual (or semi casual) players into the raiding experience – and offer the perfect place for the mentor class of players to teach mechanics, teamwork skills, etc, while still providing a minimal reward (to encourage repetition and participation).

STIHL.2489:

I think raids should be left alone at this point, let the people who enjoy that, enjoy that.

I’d rather Anet focus on putting out other content, and rebuilding the lateral end game they once had, then messing with raids further.

As far as the current raid, I would agree. Trying to retrofit the raid we have with tiered difficulty might not be the best use of resources.

When developing future raids, they should reconsider their approach to raiding. I firmly believe they can offer the challenge people are looking for while still offering a more accessible experience for those PVE players who enjoy the game in different ways.

Likewise, I hope that, as they are developing the next living story drops, they are taking the hardcore player into consideration.

PVE content in GW2 should be cohesive and offer an overall experience that every PVE player can enjoy. Part of that is accessibility – something this last raid didn’t offer in a meaningful way, imo. I hope that Anet saw this, learned a lesson from it, and will apply that lesson to future raid development.

The idea of making hardcore versions of every PVE element in the game is unrealistic – I realize that. That doesn’t mean that they cannot strive to better balance that kind of thing throughout the game more.

What I believe they should never do, however, is wall off an entire game mode and make it only for hardcore players. That creates barriers to entry that directly conflict with the idea of offering PVE players a big picture experience that spans multiple experiences.

I want hardcore content in the game. I want eyebleeding challenges. What I don’t want is content that encourages division (and, yes, even elitism) among the playerbase. That isn’t the game we played for the first 3 and a half years – which was (and still is and can continue to be) the best MMO ever made.

NikeEU.7690:

Blaeys.3102:

I think the question is oversimplified, so here is the oversimplified answer I would give -

Raids, in particular, need an easy mode to open the experience and fun to a wider group of players.

Again, this is an opinion statement offered as a fact.

It isn’t self-evident WHY raids MUST reach a wider audience? It isn’t an accepted fact. They dont HAVE to do anything. They only HAVE to do what Anet wants them to do. You assume that hitting the widest possible audience is the best possible outcome. This is not a given. It could easily be argued the opposite is true. Since the opposite could easily be true, when you make statements saying “X must happen or Y will be a failure” it isn’t possible to take them seriously.

Make your arguments against the points people are making instead of directly at those people. It makes for a better discussion.

A good tip is to go back after writing a post and look for any directed statements or the word “you.” Make sure those sentences are respectful, non-accusatory and further the conversation.

How many times do I have to state “this is my opinion” before what I write is recognized as my opinion? Having to respond to accusations directed at me personally is not a productive furtherance of the topic at hand – it leads to squabbling and infighting rather than actual friendly debate.

Go back and look at where I made the statement you quote above. I immediately state that the answer I gave will have a different weight based on the perspective of the player. It comes down to opinion on both sides, especially when we are talking about something as subjective as hard vs easy or casual vs hardcore.

Absurdo.8309:

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

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

To the first question, you and I differ on this core idea. That is why these forum conversations are so important – so we can each talk about the pros and cons of our thoughts on it.

The question about need, I and many have answered this – again solely from our perspective – many times.

I think the question is oversimplified, so here is the oversimplified answer I would give -

Raids, in particular, need an easy mode to open the experience and fun to a wider group of players.

Now, within your question – and within my answer – there are a lot of nuance, points and counterpoints. I think most of these have been covered, ad nauseum, through this and many other threads. The question has been answered and explained in detail.

However, the answer to that question goes back to perspective. Easy, hard, casual, hardcore – these are not finite terms. They depend on the perspective of the player. For that reason, the answer is a moving target. What convinces me will never convince you, because you and I have different perspectives going into it. Where that statement answers the question for me (and probably many others) it may not for you (and probably many others).

Because of that subjective nature, I feel a varied solution is needed – and a tiered solution seems like the simplest to implement (even though I could be wrong and there could be a better one out there).

Again, this is just my opinion.

Absurdo.8309:

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

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

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

There are three tiers of difficulty for guild missions.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

NikeEU.7690:

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

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

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

The big problem (in my opinion ) with these discussions is that we aren’t talking about absolutes. Things like hard and easy – or casual and hardcore – are perceptually based concepts. We define them solely through our perception. What one person sees as hard, another sees as very easy (as one example).

For that reason alone, I don’t think a single difficulty or game mode is going to meet the needs or desires of the GW2 PVE community. We need a scaling or tiered system to more adequately appeal to a broader group of players.

You even touch on this yourself in your response. You don’t seem to feel the current raid challenges you enough. Maybe what we need is look at the current raid as the midline and expand difficulties in both directions (with the current being the silver level reward, with gold being more demanding and bronze being less).

The point I try to make is that the raid in its current state doesn’t really fit well with the rest of the game – where they do try to do what I mention above (albeit with varied success – especially in terms of offering a challenge). The raid just doesn’t offer the experience the community needs it to offer.

And, once again for the record, this is my opinion.

Tentonhammr.7849:

You want easy raids? Alright. Here’s the reward structure:

2g per boss kill weekly, plus 1 rare and 1 exo
Zero ascended drops
Zero special raid drops
Zero legendary insights
Magnetite shards cap at 50 per week

In exchange you get to do raids, experience the story and lore “authentically”, and LEARN the mechanics and gain experience until you’re ready for the real thing.

That sounds perfect. Shard cap may even be a little high (argument could even be made for reserving shards for gold level difficulty).

It’s never been about wanting the same reward as the current structure – most realize that would be inappropriate.

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

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

Why raids need tiered difficulties

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

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

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

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

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

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

I don’t think the OP is trying to speak for anyone other than himself. I don’t think its fair to assume he is doing otherwise. He even states in the first paragraph (and title of the post) that this is his own personal opinion.

As I stated above, however, I do agree with pretty much everything he said -

especially the part about only good things ahead for GW2. I trust the team at Anet to make an open, inviting and fun game for everyone.

I agree. I think they did an amazing job on these fights and deserve to feel proud of that effort.

I hope they realize that any criticisms I have are out of a desire to make the experience – or at least a version of it – accessible to people with a wider range of playstyles, commitment levels and skill. And I do think they can do that without hurting the current experience.

Funny thing is, if the content had actually sucked, I wouldn’t have cared as much.

I just want more people to be able to enjoy what they’ve done.

I agree with everything the OP says.

I also think that Anet isn’t blind – and, like the OP states, the future is looking hopeful.

This game has changed in the last six months – and not in a positive way. Some people love raiding – and that is good. But they have let that passion overshadow some problems – from a big picture perspective – that raiding brought to the game.

Are those problems insurmountable? Of course not. Are they new or unique to GW2? Of course not. Anet will adapt. I personally believe that will come in the form of variable difficulty raids/rewards, but they may come up with some more creative solution.

What a lot of people need to realize is that, just because you don’t see this issue in game, doesn’t mean it isn’t there for many others. There are going to have to be some compromises – plain and simple. Accept that and help – through civil discourse and trying to be a part of the conversation rather than continually trying to shut the conversation down (the “this is the way it is. live with it” approach).

People can throw out all the insults about “l2P” or “its already easy” and try to gloss this over all they want, but there is a need for a more casual raiding experience.

Not everyone wants to play to the meta or conform to the demands placed on most groups. Now, I agree that means there should be a lesser reward, but that doesn’t mean that it isn’t needed.

And, once again, every other successful MMO with raids on the market has learned this lesson and has implemented tiered reward/difficulty raids.

I think Anet is starting to see that and I feel confident it is coming.

Also, this thread needs to be merged with the larger one on this topic. There has already been a lot of good dialogue (on both sides) about this.

Dinosaurs.8674:

Blaeys.3102:

Remember that, on Gorseval, we only do the burn phases every other curtain to stay ahead of the final enrage timer. We can always still kite to the next wall and jump again. Groups don’t use all 4 walls now, so while, yes, there would still be an hard wall of sorts, removing the final enrage would loosen the requirements on the fight somewhat. It would be easy enough to program the walls to come back as well – only using more than 4 would mean you no longer qualify for gold reward.

The same is true on other fights as well. These aren’t insurmountable issues that would require solutions that detract from the current challenge (and reward for meeting that challenge).

Yes removing the enrage would make the fight slightly easier, but it wouldn’t do much, because glass cannon builds are necessary to defeat gorseval anyway. The playstyle of that fight is completely dictated by the mechanics, not the timer. If you don’t have high DPS ranged characters to deal with the orbs you are just going to wipe. If you can’t kill the wall fast enough you are going to wipe. If you let him eat his adds you are going to wipe. Defensive gear/comp makes it harder to deal with all of those things. There just isn’t a different way to approach the fight. I wasn’t just making kitten up before, taking a glass cannon comp is simply the only good strategy for fights besides VG and Matthias – taking more defensive gear would only make them harder. You can say that’s bad design if you want, but it won’t change the fact that removing the timer would probably only help like 5-10% of people who are struggling to get boss kills, and those people are on the cusp of killing the boss reliably anyway.

Furthermore, I still don’t see why you want to get rid of the soft enrage timer but don’t have any problem with hard enrage (i.e. instant wipe) mechanics in the boss fights such as world eater and sabetha’s platform damage, and you don’t care about KC’s increasing damage which by itself is more damaging than most enrage timers after 10 minutes. Is there something inherently wrong about a timer that tells you when a mechanic begins?

I think the idea of tiered rewards is really cool in general, especially if it came with a leaderboard or something which would encourage groups to compete for speed kills (and maybe get rewarded for fastest kill of the week or something). But just slapping tiered rewards on and removing the timer isn’t making raids more accessible. That would require significant effort, time, and resources, and frankly I don’t think it’s worth it considering anet’s track record with modifying past content that wasn’t intended to ever be expanded. Saying “it would be easy to program X” is complete BS. You don’t know how raids or gw2 in general are programmed and have no idea what would be easy and what would not.

Youre right. I shouldn’t have used the word easy. No one other than the devs know what is easy and what is not.

My point is there are surely ways to incorporate a tiered reward systems in ways that can open the raids to more people – and, as you note, maybe even add more to the challenge for top end players.

My way may not be the best. In fact, I’m pretty sure it isn’t. My point is, it is worth Anet implementing something. I am asking them to get creative – expand the experience – and make raiding more inclusive (without detracting from the current experience).

Assic.2746:

Existance of the White Mantle was revealed even earlier in the human personal story. Why we don’t complain about it? Why it’s only for humans? Maybe my sylvari want to experience it as well? Maybe I don’t have enough character slots to create a human and experience it? It’s all sarcasm of course. But it’s none different than saying that only raiders can interract with the White Mantle.

Once again, not their existence, but their role in the next living story step. Storytelling in an active setting.

I know that the flame legion exist too, but that doesn’t mean were getting ready to go face them. I will know that when my character experiences a conflict situation with someone from the Flame Legion and realizes “oh crap, here they come” (hopefully not in a less inclusive setting like a raid).

Assic.2746:

Yep it’s as Walhalla says. If someone wants to experience the fight he can just go for the training run. Many of training raids are only to teach mechanic of the boss not to beat it and players don’t need ascended armor for it, exotic is enough. Everyone can experience the fight.

I do raids for the story and for the LI, fancy titles, exclusive skins, miniatures and everything else it offers. And I really read everything and interact with everything. I run with my Spirit Quest Tonic here and there looking for some hints. Glenna’s Journal has more informations about Spirit Vale and Salvation Pass than you can find by doing those wings. But you have to read it all. Why you can’t understand that reading books and interacting with objects is a way to experience story in raids.

I am a lore freak. I try to find out everything I can about events, characters etc. If I can’t do it in game I look for more on reddit on wiki. And there is nothing wrong with learining about the raid’s story from this sources of from cleared instances.

I bet majority of players that love story so much didn’t know that:

Silverwastes map revealed it 1,5 year ago – [Lost Badge] White Mantle was teased a long time ago as well as connections between bandits from Brisban Wildlands and White Mantle members from Silverwastes. Just read the notes in bandit camps (Brisban) and notes in Silverwastes they are talking about the same things: unsusual events & further observations.

But they keep saying that White Mantle was revealed in raids. And that is incorrect!

Not the White Mantle themselves, but their involvement in the next living story (which I realize I am assuming).

Its a video game. The experience is everything. Being at the center of the story is just as important (moreso) than the story itself.

That is what casual players are missing out on.

Again, I realize how trivial this seems. It is still something that should have been done in an inclusive setting. If raids aren’t going to be inclusive, then they are the wrong place for stuff like this.

Dinosaurs.8674:

Blaeys.3102:

Dinosaurs.8674:

The second argument is that the timers are good way to punish excessive small mistakes.

With a tiered reward based on kill time, that punishment would still be there. Making those small mistakes would have a potential impact on your reward from the fight.

The difference is that the option to not worry about those small mistakes quite so much would be there for those less skilled or less dedicated groups – with the knowledge that they would receive a lesser reward.

It would be a natural reward tiering that would retain a lot of the difficulty without completely punishing or locking out the groups that opted for more survivability. Essentially, wearing nomads or deviating from the meta would become the easy mode without an easy mode even having to be implemented by the devs (which actually fits well with the rest of the game).

This is true in principle, but it doesn’t change the fact that the whole “nomads is easy mode” thing would only work against VG and Matthias because all the other fights would just kill you with time scaled mechanics unless you had great execution…in which case why are you running defensive gear to begin with. If your goal is to allow for less skilled/dedicated groups to be more successful in raids, then I would say that removing the timer does not accomplish that goal unless you also make substantial changes to many of the fights. I mean yeah great your change allowed a team to kill VG in 12 minutes, but they’re never going to make it past the first phase of gorseval unless they do what they should have done against VG to begin with (deal with the mechanics with good play instead of defensive gear).

Remember that, on Gorseval, we only do the burn phases every other curtain to stay ahead of the final enrage timer. We can always still kite to the next wall and jump again. Groups don’t use all 4 walls now, so while, yes, there would still be an hard wall of sorts, removing the final enrage would loosen the requirements on the fight somewhat. It would be easy enough to program the walls to come back as well – only using more than 4 would mean you no longer qualify for gold reward.

The same is true on other fights as well. These aren’t insurmountable issues that would require solutions that detract from the current challenge (and reward for meeting that challenge).

Absurdo.8309:

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

Simply put, not everyone enjoys that level of challenge – or having to conform – even partially – to a meta composition or build.

And many in the game have tried – and were pretty quickly turned off by the experience because of the severity.

I know your argument against both of these points. My point is that if we can include a more inclusive raiding experience for players, then we should – especially if it doesn’t detract from the experience in any real way.

It doesn’t affect the way higher skilled players experience the game. It would bring more people into raiding (justifying dev time and potentially growing the pot of future skilled raiders). It gives more people a fun experience in the game.

The only legitimate argument I have heard to date is that it could put more strain on the developers time. The only people can adequately address that issue are developers, but I have to believe that a solution is out there that works around that (if not my time tiered reward solution, then something else).

Right now, I just want to discussion and dialogue to continue – with both sides fully heard and (hopefully) seen by developers.

Walhalla.5473:

I could say that in the Raid we are

Wrecking some Pylons
Meeting up with a Hentai Monster
Seducing a Hot Chick
Sleeping with a Mutant after eating too many Muschrooms
Giving 3 Bandits what they want ( Berg his Honey, Zane a bit Playtime with his Wargs and Narella the Funeral Pyre she always wanted )
Using a Backscratcher to scratch some Crystals off Matthias Back
Calling our Ten good Men
Trashing some Rubble
And finally having Glider Malfunctions high up in the Air.

And It would still be accurate for all the Boss Fights, since the Boss Fights reveal nothing. ( Still awesome the Bossfights )

That there would be White Mantle Stuff in the Story somewhere is known since LS2 with the Silverwastes. You have White Mantle Badges in SW and a few Pieces of Paper there, one talking about New Kryta and the Forts were abandoned because of Mordremoth.

Then, there is absolutely no reason for that story to have been first put into play through raids. Were back to my original premise – including this story experience in raids (in their current, less accessible form) was a misstep on the part of the developers. This should have been revealed through living story or other more accessible content.

Be honest – how many raiders raid for the story? Compare that to the number of people in the game interested in being the hero of the story. It may not be huge, but it was a mistake to have this story step revealed in a raid.

Absurdo.8309:

Blaeys.3102:

Absurdo.8309:

Timed rewards would be the worst of both worlds.

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

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

No thank you.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Have you tried forming raid squads in your guild?

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

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

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

Have you tried some of the easier raid bosses?

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

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

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

Let’s agree to stop making this personal.

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

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

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

Assic.2746:

Yep, because fighting a giant thing made out of energy – Vale Guardian points more at the White Mantle than actually finding a White Mantle badge.

By the way if you didn’t notice story telling from raids comes from: talking to NPCs, interacting with objects, examinating dead bodies in Spirit Vale, reading notes in Salvation Pass, reading journals in Stronghold of the Faithful (there are more books than just Glenna’s journal) and of course talking to Glenna. All those things can be done in a cleared instance.

Majority of story is contained in things listed above when bosses say only a few sentences if any at all (Slothosor, VG, Gorseval, McLeod). So yea interacting with objects like Lost Badges is a important way of story telling and has much moe value than a few boss dialogues.

Again, youre missing the key word – which is experiencing the story, not just reading about it.

Dinosaurs.8674:

The second argument is that the timers are good way to punish excessive small mistakes.

With a tiered reward based on kill time, that punishment would still be there. Making those small mistakes would have a potential impact on your reward from the fight.

The difference is that the option to not worry about those small mistakes quite so much would be there for those less skilled or less dedicated groups – with the knowledge that they would receive a lesser reward.

It would be a natural reward tiering that would retain a lot of the difficulty without completely punishing or locking out the groups that opted for more survivability. Essentially, wearing nomads or deviating from the meta would become the easy mode without an easy mode even having to be implemented by the devs (which actually fits well with the rest of the game).

Assic.2746:

Silverwastes map revealed it 1,5 year ago – [Lost Badge]

Youre saying that picking up a badge in the desert a year and a half ago was the reveal for the next living story – and that is somehow comparable to actually fighting through an instance in terms of story telling value?

I think that is reaching just a little bit.

Vinceman.4572:

Plus, your assumption is wrong from the start:
Timers aren’t an issue for 99% of the players doing raids. They fail horribly at mechanics. 100% of all my VG fails and I had a lot with learning people in training runs and with others. Gorseval timer is almost irrelevant due to updraft mechanic, Sabetha as well.

Once again, if timers aren’t an issue, why do you care if they are removed or not?

If the answer is so that people don’t bring full groups of Nomads or 8+ healers, then the gold/silver/bronze setup addresses that pretty directly. All it does is open the door for other – admittedly non optimal (but again, for lesser reward) strategies.

Absurdo.8309:

Timed rewards would be the worst of both worlds.

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

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

No thank you.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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