Guild Wars 2

Crystal Reid.2481:

Malthurius.6870:

Also, small suggestion; is there a way you could make the timer circle inside of the marker grow out instead of shrink in. It’s just easier to see when it goes off that way.

We won’t change the animation simply because we’re already using a version of the telegraph that grows outwards later in the release, and that telegraph is definitely something you don’t want to stand in and need to get away from.

In other words… If the telegraph grows inwards, you should stack on it in some form (or maybe it’ll pull you in /plots). If the telegraph grows outwards then you need to get out.

As a colorblind player, I thank you for taking this approach. It is a much better system.

I don’t see this as an issue.

Based on what I saw in the raid fight, theorycrafting online and my own experiences with gear in game, I believe that a 10 player group with just ascended weapons, rings, trinkets and amulets will have more than enough stats to comfortably deal with base requirements – putting the emphasis on mechanics, where it should be.

To that point, ascended weapons are much easier to acquire than armor since no Damask is needed. As someone stated above, a max level crafter can make one weapon for about 50 gold.

Trinkets are even easier to get. Guild missions, laurels from daily logins (+WvW tokens to reduce the cost), fractals (of all levels) all provide them in some form.

So, for a minimal cost (which raid groups could easily help each other with if needed) and a little group effort, raid parties should be ready for raiding. It doesnt seem like a major hurdle to me.

Now, ascended armor is another story entirely. The prohibitive cost of damask and time gating on crafting means that a full set of ascended armor is a major investment for most players.

I dont see this as an issue because most of the needed stats for raiding come from the weapon and trinkets (the weapon, mainly). These will prepare players for the initial raids – where they can (hopefully) acquire the ascended armor needed for the later encounters.

This is all assuming that they wont make ascended armor easier to get in other areas of the game – which I believe they will with HOT.

JediYoda.1275:

PopeUrban.2578:

We do know exactly how that works because they explained it in the guild week streams.

You can taxi anyone you want in to the instanced missions. The non-instanced ones work like they currently do. If your guild has a bounty and another guild has the same bounty, you will both get credit if you are both there at the event killing it.

They just cover some of the basics as they never go into full detail how stuff fully works as they want players to discover for themselves.

Linken.6345:

Well since you have to be 3 people to earn favor and there are so many guilds out there of 1-2 people find another rep each others guild and earn that favor for each guild.
I just solved your problem

Scenario: You help another small guild do their mission etc and they promise help you with yours. When its time for them to help you they log off or just refuse to help you. So NO you didn’t solve anything but create another problem!

Then you just identified a small guild you know to never work with again. Once you find one that will (and, unrealistic hypothetical anecdotes aside, if you are a friendly guild yourself, you will pretty fast) – problem solved.

They have outlined how small guilds can succeed in HOT.

Small guilds cannot expect to unlock and upgrade with the same efficiency as larger guilds – that is just common sense and designing any other way invalidates the entire system.

Also, keep in mind that it may take a smaller guild more effort to get to the same level as a larger guild, but the act of building and maintaining a larger guild – where members have a real reason to rep consistently – is, in most cases, a HUGE undertaking. Both small and large guilds should be viable, but each has unique challenges to overcome (doing more with less people and keeping larger groups organized, respectively).

To me, the system they are implementing walks that fine line of being fair to both, while respecting the effort each has to make.

Nimarrodd.7823:

dlonie.6547:

And it looks like keeper’s ascended gear is not yet in the game.

Yeah, what I was afraid of. :/

Thanks for the link, though!

Unfortunately, the Keeper’s Ascended Recipes only dropped from the Marionette fight, so they are mostly gone.

However, you can still make a full set of Keeper’s gear by making any other ascended gear, crafting some Zealot’s Inscriptions or Insignias and then using the mystic forge to change the stats. It’s not optimal, but at least it’s an option.

First, I think the Vale Champion is an extremely well designed fight and I have no issues with it whatsoever. This is about how many forum pundits approach the game.

I also have no issue with enrage timers. They are needed to make sure that damage is important to the fight. I do, however, think they need to be (and seem to be) designed to allow for support builds to have a role as well. Basically, the enrage timer shouldnt be a primary factor in defining the difficulty of the fight – that should come from the fight mechanics – with the timer simply serving to discourage cheesing the fight.

To the point that anything not zerker or sinister is “training wheel” gear. While that is true to a degree now in the live game, it shouldnt be- and it does feel like we are moving away from that.

It shouldn’t be about “I die alot so I need that gear.” Gear should be another strategic decision the game asks you to make. Nomads/Soldiers/Ect gear should be there to supplement and optimize a legitimate playstyle with a real place in raids.

It should be there for the player that cannot dodge because they need to take the hit so others dont have to (the orbs in the Vale fight are a great example). The active part of their playstyle comes from contributing some to damage and blocking/distorting/etc – supplemented by the vitality or toughness to take a hit or two every now and then. Similar examples could be developed for healing power builds.

Just as all Nomad should be frowned upon, all zerker (sinister) should not always (or even most often) be the preferred team comp because that isnt strategic and it limits how people can play.

Personally, I think enrage timers should be balanced around 5-6 primary damage dealers and 4-5 support classes. This sets the boundary and discourages all nomad groups. The true fight difficulty should then come from how well the group learns, plans around and deals with the actual fight mechanics.

I like the direction this game and raids are going – now we just need the playerbase to catch up.

A lot of people are preaching that the purpose of tight enrage timers are to keep all bunker teams from cheesing the content.

What we are actually seeing in the community however – including by several in this thread – is a general shunning of ANYONE not wanting to play zerker or sinister.

There needs to be a place in raids for those players who want to play a little tankier – who want to focus on soaking up damage so the rest of the team doesn’t have to.

So, yes – all bunker teams shouldnt be viable, but people playing bunker builds should still have a place in the typical raid. In fact, I saw this very clearly in the beta boss fight – one or two bunkers absorbing the orbs actually increases the damage the group can do on the boss.

Designing fights or balancing enrage timers around everyone playing the same way would be bad design. That is true of all bunker groups, but it should be just as true of all zerker (or all pure damage) groups.

So, to the few perpetuating the hate for non-meta builds or people wanting to play bunker, stop and think about what youre really saying.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

The encounter highlighted the lack of DPS meter, and I think one will be required in the future for later encounters. It is hard to tell where your dps is lacking, and thus hard to tell who needs to improve. If an official one is not implemented then people will simply adapt the use of “illegal” ones that are already available.

It most definitely did not highlight the need for dps meters – and hopefully the use of the illegal ones will result in some bans. That garbage doesn’t belong in our game.

As far as who needs to improve, one thing I learned from years of having meters in raids – the people who care the most about everyone else’s performance and the very ones that need to pay closer attention to their own.

Only had the chance to pug, so didnt actually beat the boss, but I have to say, this boss feels really well designed – and I do see the viability of multiple play styles and even armor sets in the encounter. Ive never been a fan of super tight enrage timers – they add artificial difficulty to a fight that isnt really skill based. The Vale Guardian enrage timer feels like it is close to where it should be (given that this was the first time many saw it).

I fully expect to see this encounter beaten by groups that deviate from the zerker/sinister meta, which means they did a good job on design.

I would like to see some encounters that have less emphasis on huge damage in the future (not all, but a few), but this is definitely a great first step forward. Great job Anet.

Raids are not THE end game – only a very small piece of it.

The primary developer emphasis needs to stay on the activities large groups of people can participate in – including upping the challenge/offering new things there. Raids, fractals and anything else that limits the number of players that can enter are still important – they just cannot be what GW2 focuses on – or the game just becomes another clone (and brings all the hate, elitism, etc that those games are notorious for).

Thank you to all of the hard working Arenanet employees who have been dealing with this situation.

Here is the way I – and many who were in teamspeak with me last night – think about it. This is a beta test. The point of a beta test is to identify issues to fix. In that regard, even if we do not see raiding today or tomorrow, this weekend has already been a success. It may seem frustrating (Im sure to Anet as much as it is to players), but it is now an issue they are aware of and can address in a real game situation. What happened last night will help them make the game coming later this year that much better.

What we have been able to test feels polished and there are definite improvements since the last BWE.

Thanks again. Keep up the hard work.

The reason this is a bad approach to raiding in GW2 is simply because gear and the time youve spent grinding crafting are not indicators of skill nor do they have anything at all to do with difficulty. It is an artificial way to make raiding LOOK more difficult than it actually is.

Stat-based System Creates Illusion of Difficulty
In WoW, there is the infamous gear treadmill. As bad as that would be in this game, it serves an important purpose in WoW raiding – it allows fights to be difficult day one and become less so as time goes on.

In GW2, instead of a gear treadmill, we have historically relied on a(n awesome) learning curve system instead. Tequatl/Triple Trouble/Aetherpath/Liadri were difficult at first but as the community and players learned the fights, they became less so.

By introducing enrage timers tightly tuned around ascended stats, they are moving toward the WoW gear dependent model without the necessary treadmill – and actually DIMINISHING the importance of skill and learning.

Encourages Lazy Fight Design
Gear stats should not be that important in this game. They even told us that when they introduced ascended gear, insisting that the increase would be very minimal – which is no longer the case.

Even worse, it encourages bad raid design. It allows the developers to be lazier in designing future boss fights because they know the illusion of difficulty will still be there for the majority of the player base because of the stat gap.

The difficulty should come from fight mechanics, not stat disparities.

Possible Solutions
There are actually a couple of solutions that would address this. One would be to make ascended gear MUCH easier to get. A better solution – imo – would be to narrow the stat gap between ascended/legendary and exotic gear to a miniscule amount (2-5 percent total difference). This would take the emphasis off of the gear grind and put it back onto the fight mechanics where it belongs.

TLDR –
relying on stats to provide the illusion of difficulty is just that – an illusion – it sets up unnecessary barriers for friends wanting to raid together and it encourages lazy fight design.

Important note – I write this having multiple (6+) full sets of ascended gear in my bags. This has little impact on my personal ability to raid. However, I know many highly skilled players who, for whatever reason, do not (most common is that they do not enjoy crafting). They may have, at best, one set – but what happens when we need to theory craft and we need someone with tankier or more support based stats?

I will need those people (those FRIENDS) to fill out raid groups when the content drops. An arbitrary gear grind shouldnt diminish our ability to raid.

Will there be new PVE guild missions coming with the launch of Heart of Thorns?

Raids need to be treated as one small piece of the picture moving forward.

I put them in the same category as fractals, story instances and sPvP – stuff for smaller groups to do together.

The thing that attracted me – and many I know -to GW2 was the ability to play together in large groups with everyone that wanted to tag along. There really isn’t another MMO out there that does that in a fun way, that Ive found. That content includes WvW, engaging open world zones (that scale dynamically), world bosses and guild missions. That is where Anet needs to focus the most effort – to set GW2 apart from all of the raiding focused games already out there. Those things make GW2 the best MASSIVELY (important word) Multiplayer Online game Ive ever played. If they suddenly shifted gears to focus endgame on raids, that would be a tragedy.

So, yes, raids should be considered important, but no more so than fractals/spvp, and considerably less so (IMO – important note), than guild missions, open world zones, WvW and world bosses.

The easy solution to this is for them to make it easier to acquire ascended gear in the game – maybe even something as simple as doing away with the time gate on ascended mats and upping drop rates in fractals/pvp/wvw – or possibly by allowing people to earn a full set of ascended armor and 1 or 2 weapons (one time stat selectable) through personal story achievements (much like the trinkets associated with season 2 of the living story).

As long as Mordremoth isn’t locked behind a raid/dungeon/etc, I think most people will be fine with it.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

As far as having small Guilds ban together to complete Guild activities, won’t said small Guilds have to work twice, three times, x number of times harder to complete said activities? I mean, if Missions, whatever, are instanced (or even not), won’t the said activity have to be completed once for each Guild involved? So, if three small Guilds wish to complete an activity, they will have to do it 3 times, so each Guild can get credit for it?

Or does every Guild involved in an activity get completion credit? I know that can not work in WvW when capping an objective….

Multiple guilds tackling the same mission now can all get credit for it with no issue, so we know the technology exists. It shouldnt be a problem.

Changing how we enter fractals or start guild missions are nice QOL improvements, but it is beginning to look more and more like no new fractals or pve guild missions will be coming with HOT – and that is very disappointing.

That means the OP is technically correct – it has been 2+ years without any real additions to those parts of the game – and now we will see an expansion with none as well.

The one thing I don’t want to see is end game become laser focused on raids, which by Anet’s own admission are only for a tiny percentage of the population.

We need some insight into what the development timeline for new guild missions and fractals looks like. That isn’t a lot to ask.

Please.

A better question, imo, is are the raid encounters (specifically enrage timers) balanced around purely offensive builds (eg Zojja’s armor and weapon sets + fully offensive traits). If so, then I do see an issue.

And, to the bigger point – while I agree in theory and understand the concept of balancing enrage timers around top end gear, a side effect is that this hinders stat diversity and experimentation in raids by most groups. Most players will not have multiple viable sets of ascended gear to use in raids.

This leads to a potentially deeper issue – GW2s equivilant of lf healer will be lf ascended healer stats – horrible step in the wrong direction. Will we have to sit around hoping that person with the right ascended stat gear logs on (basically the issue Colin continues to say that GW2 moves past with raids).

Regardless, we definitely want this game to stay away from the “gear = ability to raid” issue we see in other games. The focus should be on player skill – not how long they’ve spent grinding mats to build multiple ascended gear sets.

With all respect, please think about what you’re asking. What is the difference between a one person guild and a single player? I am all for small guilds having a place in the game, but there has to be a point at which common sense says “this is not really a guild.”

Based on what we saw yesterday, there are ways for guilds as small as three people to earn favor. Going lower than that diminishes the value of being in a guild and negates a lot of the hard work some of us have put into building guilds of logical size (and it can be VERY hard work, even in the friendliest of guilds).

Being in a guild needs to mean something different than just playing solo, otherwise what is the point of having guilds.

As it stands, Continuum Shift is very awkward and clunky to use – and will most likely be next to useless in major raid encounters, WvW, fractals and any other situation where clones die too quickly.

I would like to see them remove the illusion requirement from Continuum Shift and just have F5 give us 5 to 7 seconds of CS. It would allow for greater strategic use of the new profession mechanic, make us feel like actual Chronomancers rather than just mesmers with wells and remove the clunkiness from the ability.

The Chronomancer was fun during the betas, but the awkward mechanics behind CS should be addressed, imo.

I would still be interested in knowing if any new PVE guild missions will come with the expansion. The ones we have now are more than 2 years old.

Based on what we’ve seen so far, you guys have done an amazing job. My guild was talking in teamspeak and we are very happy.

In fact, in terms of the guild interface, there is only one thing I still want that I haven’t seen – an in game event calendar with invite/sign up capabilities.

Even without it, however – amazing job.

Gaaroth.2567:

Undeadkemea.4865:

I’d say a lot of classes can be healers but won’t be able to do it alone.

Venomshare thief, Shout warriors, Blood necros/reapers, Revenants with ventari, Druids, Bomb engis

I don’t know all the healing stuff of all the classes but I imagine every class can sort of heal a raid for a bit. Druid and Revenant probably best.

FYI healing bomb engis do not exist since 23rd june patch.
Which is truly sad.

Yea. Healing/support engineers are in a bit of a strange spot. I think they could alleviate that if they buffed the med kit a little (and for the love of all, give the 1 ability a tiny attack damage component so people using it get credit for the fight). Beyond that, engineers have access to some pretty cool healing/support options – we just need the kit to be useful.

I would add engineers. They can be decent healers/support if set up properly.

This seems like a really good idea to me. Mondays make a lot of sense for reset. It gives guilds the weekends to put in that last ditch effort if it’s needed in a raid.

I do think Anet should have given guilds at least a full week’s notice though. It doesnt affect me (our missions are on Monday nights already), but those that did missions this past weekend will be a little behind.

Also, just because it will gnaw at me if I don’t say it – to Anet, remember that raids are not guild content. They are 10 person content. Do not let raid development hinder – in any way – development of new guild missions. This game is about the community and large group activities – raiding, as fun as I hope it is, needs to take a back seat to that – at the same level as the other small group stuff like story, fractals, dungeons and spvp. I know that is probably already the case, but it needs saying.

Just because they make one specialization line healing focused does not mean that a trinity is coming to the game – and, no, most would not welcome it (EVER).

I think the druid looks fun and will have a place in the game without becoming a must have. What I would like to see, however, if for Anet to look at some of the other professions that can bring strong heals – such as ele, guardian, engineer (with med kit or turrets) – and balance those heal-focused builds those professions offer around the druid. It would add something to the game – and, no it would not mean every group has to have dedicated healers (why on earth would we want that – directly opposes everything this game has come to be for many of us).

I have been making the argument in my guild that the druid is simply the medium armor equivalent of the elementalist and the guardian.

That said, if group healing becomes a thing required, i think they will need to extend the capability – in earnest – to at least 3/4 of the professions we have now in order to maintain the bring the player/not the profession mentality we (many of us) have now.

For me, there is still a point of clarification missing that I would really love to see a developer address.

A lot of energy seems to have gone into revamping the guild mission system, and it looks amazing. However, they have yet to confirm if there will be NEW guild missions coming with Heart of Thorns. A new system with the same guild missions weve been doing for 2 years seems unlikely, but a single word of assurance/comfirmation would go a long way.

It may seem like a really small thing, but it is one of the things I am most interested in knowing at this point.

(have the same question about fractals, but to a lesser level of interest)

I love it.

When we get the “Forge” elite spec at a later date (with the mace), it needs to be based around fire and steam.

Scrapper just fits what we are getting now (which I am very excited about) much better.

My Feedback:

ISSUES:

Waypoint Race Became Frustrating
The biggest challenge with this event has been getting to the events before they end – searching the map for the barely visible markers, finding the nearest uncontested waypoint and then running at top speed hoping the event will still be there when I arrive.

Boring Encounters
The enemies we encounter in this event are the exact same as those we encounter in Silverwastes. I found myself wondering – why not just go to Silverwastes instead.

Repetitive Encounters
Even if you spiced up the enemy diversity, the same three encounters over and over with no variation whatsoever is just boring.

Bugs with scaling and loot
Self explanatory

Timing with Blog Post Felt Like a Bait and Switch
The same day you start this event, you make a blog post about the Mordrem Guard and how cool they are in game. Needless to say, many of us expected them to make an appearance.

POSSIBLE FIXES (for next time)

Fixed Locations
All three maps used for this event incorporate some fixed structures and areas that would seem like logical targets for Mordrem invasions – Fort Salma, the Inquest Lab, Fort Vandal, Nagling, Butcher’s Block, Incendio Templum, North Nolan Hatchery. Give the invasion some consistency and encourage players to spread out between fixed locations – continual 30 minute long attacks at 4-5 locations instead of 2 minute long attacks at 15-20 random spawn spots.

Use new enemies
Why are the Mordrem sending their B team when they have access to Mordrem Snipers, Hive Fiends, Overseers, etc. This would have been the perfect time to drum up some excitement about your new enemies among new players and those on the fence about the expansion. Instead, you sent the mobs many of us have seen a hundred times already.

Break the Monotony with a Big Finish at each Location
Weve faced X number of waves attacking the Five points in Diessa in the past 20 minutes, so in the last 10, Mordremoth is sending a Wyvern (or some other cool newer boss) to attack the northern entrance to the Black Citadel. Again – drum up some excitement for the enemies and make the event a little more interesting.

Bug Fixes
Not sure what to say here. After three years, you still put out events that are buggy and feel untested (even though Im sure they were tested). It’s time for your QA team to come up with a different plan of attack before releases.

FINAL NOTE
I realize that most of your resources are working on the expansion right now and that this event was just a little “gift” to tide us over, but the recommendations I’ve made above could be done with little new creative thought – using existing models (albeit from HOT in some cases) and the model you used to use with Season One.

I love the game and the development team, but what you delivered was not worthy of the Arenanet or Guild Wars 2 name. With all respect, it was substandard, boring and should have been so much more.

There are multiple problems with this event outside of the rewards. My big four are:

SCALING
in Kessex if you fight an incursion to the north of the map, you are scaled to lvl 16; to the south, you are lvl 26. In both cases, the enemy is lvl 24, meaning they take forever to kill in the north and die so fast in the south that you cant get to them before they die.

OVERLAP WITH BROKEN SCARLETT EVENTS
At least once, we had to abandon an incursion because the catapult we needed to build was under one of the old scarlett toxic spore events – and the scarlett event was broken and unable to complete.

IT HAS BECOME A WAYPOINT RACE INSTEAD OF A FIGHT
The events go way to fast. It is just a race from event to event in the hopes that you get there with enough time to get in one shot so you get credit. That isnt fun.

NOT ENGAGING OR INTERESTING
This event does not include any new or interesting enemies or fights that challenge people in ANY way (other than the race cited above).

This is just a poor showing on Anet’s part. I love this game and this development team – this event should not be considered up to the standards of either.

Sarie.1630:

Blaeys.3102:

For me, a prioritized list – from most exciting down – would look like this:

• Guild Halls

Really? Ok, takes all sorts! :p

For me it’s the new areas ripe for exploration. You can only see something for the first time once. An obvious statement, but it’s an easy thing to not take full advantage of. I’m really looking forward to seeing new places, and new interpretation of old GW1 maps.

As great as the actual development of the game content is, the best part of GW2 for me is, and always will be, playing alongside my guildees. Anything that gives us more to do together (all of us at the same time) in the game will always top my list. It is why Im excited for things like raids, pvp maps and new fractals, but they will always rank lower than open world, missions, wvw, etc for me. They will be fun, but they aren’t really guild focused.

I see guild halls as the center of the guild experience and serving as a jumping off point for all kinds of new things to do in actual guild groups. Hard not to get excited about that.

And yes, the new zones are high on my list as well – can’t wait to see what they have in store.

I agree with your list for the most part. I – and most of my guild based on recent chat – are already very excited for HOT.

For me, a prioritized list – from most exciting down – would look like this:

• Guild Halls
• Revamped Guild Mission System (and hopefully a WHOLE WHOLE WHOLE WHOLE BUNCH of new ones)
• The Mastery Progression System
• New Open World Maps/Events
• New Personal Story
• New WvW Maps/Mechanics
• Fractal Overhaul (and hopefully some new ones)
• Raids
• New Specializations
• PvP Changes

The thing that excites me most is the obvious core design change behind all of these elements. A lot of basic mechanics are changing in ways that seem like they should be easier to add to through living story updates (but, of course, only time will tell on that one).

I think we’ve seen pretty much everything – I do wish, however, that they would clarify whether or not new guild missions and fractals will be shipping with HOT. Those two things seem like the biggest holes in the HOT picture right now.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Astralporing.1957:

Heh, enrage timers. One more reason to go all zerker, i guess, as if what we had up to now wasn’t enough. Encouraging diversity, lol… what a joke.

Good luck with that… full zerker will not be viable for raids. You will almost certainly need a number of gear types to succeed.

Boss isn’t going down if everyone is on the floor.

Agreed.

And it highlights the biggest difference between raids in Anet and raids in games like WoW. In WoW, fights can be designed with the absolute highest dps gear available at the time in mind because players will slowly advance beyond that gear level, opening up more flexibility in raids. Enrage timers could be pretty extreme for that reason.

While I can see masteries filling that role a little in GW2, I doubt it will be as prominent. Enrage timers in GW2 will need to a little more forgiving to accommodate gear variety in group. At the same time, they should punish groups that try to cheese the fights or invalidate mechanics through extreme 100% defense oriented groups.

I think its also important that they not require ascended gear in order to meet these numbers. Grinding out multiple sets of ascended gear on every toon for every person in multiple 10 party raids to ensure everyone can meet arbitrary numbers is unrealistic and not fun in any way.

Ideally, I dont see enrage timers defining the content – just setting loose parameters to further ensure that fights are strategic and cannot be cheesed through.

No way. No how. Never.

Maybe (big maybe) if there was some way to ensure people would use them only in a productive fashion, but other games prove that wouldn’t be the case and that they would just be a source of endless drama and hate.

I would rather see an ingame meter of how often a player has kicked other players or complained about their gear, the profession they play, how they play their character, etc in chat (in a video game) – so that I could actively avoid those players. That would be 100 times more useful than a group dps meter.

Name: Contemporary Heroes (CH)

Preferred gameplay: PVX – mostly casual, but players looking for the more serious challenges will find groups to play with in the guild as well. We try to find unique ways to play and have fun in every game mode.

Home server: Henge of Denravi, but we accept members from any server

Times Active: We are most active during North American prime time hours, but usually have members on at any time of day.

Weekly Event Schedule:

• Mondays @ 8:45 pm eastern: Guild Missions. We do all guild missions. They usually take about 30 minutes to 1 hour. Attendance has been holding steady at between 30 and 55 participants each mission. We do not take ourselves very seriously during these missions, so be prepared for singing in teamspeak, stories about exploding armadillos, etc.

• Tuesdays @ 8:15 pm eastern: Guild PVP: Format is open, but we usually do a 3-5 team 3v3 deathmatch mini tournament on our custom pvp map – followed by something just for fun. We dont take this event very seriously either – its mainly about hunting down and killing each other mercilessly over and over.

• Wednesdays @ 8:15 pm eastern: Guild WvW

• Sundays @8:15 pm eastern: Guild Open World PVE

More Info:

• We have members from all walks of life, all ages (from high schoolers to grandmothers) and all skill levels (experienced to new players). Everyone wanting a friendly place to play is welcome.

• We use multiple voice communication options, primarily teamspeak, with a shared ventrilo as backup. Both are capable of hosting hundreds of players at once.

• Our mantra is NO DRAMA. We are here to play and have fun with friends. We don’t care if you are the best of the best, if you never play XYZ aspect of the game, or how often you log on (or even rep). If you want a place to have fun and cut up a little – and make some really good friends in the process – you will like it in CH.

• The guild is based around the members – not specific game activities. As members express interest in different aspects of Guild Wars 2, we try to adapt and make sure they get the experience they desire. Guild leadership is not based around a single player – but rather around a “leadership council” that tries to cover several different playstyles.

• Our only goal is to have fun. We enjoy hosting Asuraball matches, racing through jumping puzzles, cutting up in guild chat, etc. Every year, we host an in game costume on Halloween and a parade march for Wintersday. Most importantly, we offer players, every chance we get, a way to play together and enjoy themselves.

Contact Information:

• Guild Leaders: Blaeys.3102 or Gubbo Supreme.6498
• Website Address: http://contemporaryheroes.shivtr.com/
• Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/groups/contemporaryheroes

I think they could have done a much better job differentiating raiding from what we see in other games, especially when it comes to making it easier to actually form raids in guilds. As it stands, I see more drama and hurt feelings among friends than fun coming from this model.

That said, I do plan to work within the system they are building to offer raiding in my guild. That will mean running multiple groups a night to ensure – consecutively if we have anything other a multiple of 10 people. I am hoping that each individual raid is fairly short yet very difficult. That way we can cycle people in between wipes to ensure we all get to play together.

That is my only concern with the way they are doing raiding. Notice I said nothing about the difficulty of the raid – it is just the logistics that concern me. I led hardcore progression 10 and 25 player raids for 6 years before growing tired of them (because of the drama that comes from logistics) before coming to GW2.

And note that I am not talking about flexible raid numbers in this post (even though I still believe that would be possible – Im just ready to concede that ANET feels differently). And I am not advocating for a lesser difficulty in any way.

Short and manageable. That is my only hope. I have no problem leading groups for weeks before downing a boss. I just don’t want to have to leave friends out when we form groups. GW2 is about playing with my guild. I want to be able to play large scale difficult content without having to worry about any of them getting left out.

And, I respect that people feel differently about that. It is every bit as important to me as what you are looking for is to you. Please respect that opinions differ and that is what forums are for before making a knee jerk response yelling about how people want to nerf or water down your content. Most do not.

Raiding should get the same level of support as fractals. No more and no less. And it should definitely take a back seat to areas where guilds and large groups play together (eg WvW, guild missions and open world).

It is an added feature of GW2 – one among many. If it is somehow placed above the other end game activities, such as guild missions, activities, open world, fractals, wvw, living story, etc, then it changes the nature/direction of the game from what many of us have come to love in the past 3 years (and that made this game’s friendly environment) – something that would be a huge mistake for ANET.

That said, I don’t think that will happen. I expect raids to look alot like fractals in terms of dev support moving forward. Essentially it will be another fun thing for players to do, but not the major end game focus for devs.

I lead a guild of several hundred active and semi-active players. One thing we talk about quite often – we all love this game.

And, we are extremely excited to play Heart of Thorns. You will see us in every facet of the game.

With all of the new elements however, I think it is important to remember what made this game so successful – why it has developed into such a friendly and fun place to play.

While fractals, raids, living story and other instanced activities are fun and important to the health of the game, the heart of gameplay in GW2 (for many of us) has always been in those areas where entire guilds can play together – most notably, open world maps, WvW, etc.

It is crucial, imo, to make sure Anet hears this from the players and understands how important it is to many of us. Yes, they should dedicate resources to instanced content like the new raids and fractals, but they should always be secondary to things like open world, WvW and guild focused activities (guild missions, PLEASE). The worst thing they can do with HOT (again, imo) is neglect adding a new open world content in order to put out a new raid or fractal (not saying that will happen).

For me, the difference between a game like GW2 and MMOs like WoW (where I led progression level raiding for 6+ years), SWTOR or Wildstar is that, in GW2, I am playing with my entire guild most of the time rather than just small groups.

That critical difference is what has made GW2 the friendliest MMO on the market. My plea here, if anyone sees this, is to keep that trend going. Yes, develop instanced content, but keep most of the effort and focus on those areas of the game where guilds and the community can actually play together as a whole.

As with everything, this is solely my opinion, but one I feel very strongly about.

Navi.9308:

Blaeys.3102:

8-12 would have been a perfect compromise.

I also HATE HATE HATE the idea of set number raids.

What if you have 7 people or 13 people? What if you have 35 people? What if you have 60 people?

Here is the thinking behind 8-12 people. Currently, with 10 player raids, if you have 13 people show up, you have to find 7 people to create two groups. With the 8-12 model, you would only have to find 3. With the 7 person example, you would only have to find 1. Finding 1-3 people is a hell of a lot easier than having to find up to nine.

With the 8-12 model, as long as you had at least 7 people, you would never have to find more than 3 people to fill out raid groups for your guild on any night.

I understand why people are against scaling, but I think it would solve a lot of the issues.

As far as keeping raids challenging, there is a simple answer – don’t scale the difficulty, just the number allowed in. They could tune the raids for 10 people and offer slightly greater rewards (in the form of achievements, etc) for groups of 8 or 9 and slightly lesser rewards for groups of 11 or 12.

This would have the added effect of creating a player run difficulty scaling for the raid itself with virtually no effort on the developers’ part – allowing larger numbers of players to see the content and giving the truly hard core raiders an even more intense challenge – win-win.

I want raid wings to be fairly short and focus on the epic boss encounters and events rather than long hallways of trash pulls.

Once mastered, a typical raid should take 15-30 minutes tops, imo (basically, the same as a single fractal map). That way, guilds with odd numbers of players (12, 23, etc) wanting to raid can run multiple raid groups in a night to accommodate all players.

SkiTz.4590:

Windsagio.1340:

mrstealth.6701:

Malediktus.9250:

Since legendary armor is cosmetic only and offers no stat advantage over ascended, there is no issue if non raiders cannot get it.

This is pretty much how I feel about it. The only difference between this and existing legendaries is that it might require something needing a party. And that’s assuming these items won’t be made available in pve, like the current dungeon tokens are.

I would certainly prefer that they give the reward track option. It does open up another (likely less efficient) option for those with no interest/time for larger-party gameplay. But the fact that’s a primarily cosmetic thing doesn’t make that an important thing to add.

Legendaries aren’t just skin swapping, you also usually get infinite stat swaps on them, it’s a nice QOL bonus

It sure is, which is why it deserves to be locked behind something thats challenging and takes time and dedication. Not “spam 1 in silverwastes and go buy it”

While some of us will enjoy raids, not everyone will. Some like PvP. Some like WvW. Some like open world.

GW2 has always been about playing the game modes you most enjoy without having to worry about the reward. It’s about the journey, not the destination. That doesnt need to change.

And, please, remember, that everyone is entitled to their opinion. Don’t belittle other people just because they enjoy a different aspect of the game than you do.

8-12 would have been a perfect compromise.

I also HATE HATE HATE the idea of set number raids.

Substance E.4852:

Killing x players in WvW might be a bit of an issue for those on dead servers since the point of EotM is to avoid fights entirely.

Maybe a change like this would help change that playstyle in EoTM

In all seriousness, definitely understand that concern – but it is one that I hope they would address by improving the wvw experience on all servers rather than leaving that element out.

xarallei.4279:

I highly doubt the piece that drops in raids will drop anywhere else. I wouldn’t be surprised if forging the legendary will require you to do different things in each of the game modes.

A direction I think would be cool -

once you obtain a precursor item, you are required to charge it up by defeating X number of player in WvW, X number of players in PvP, X number of dynamic events in every open world map, every world boss event, every jumping puzzle, every dungeon boss, every fractal boss and every raid boss. Then you follow the unique steps associated with that item (eg, the dances they talked about with the Moot precursor) and combine with the other items in the forge (the same as you have to now) to create the legendary item.

phys.7689:

Keep in mind the raids are not dropping legendary items. They are dropping items used to make precursors. Its highly likely the other parts will also be targeted at many different forms of play.

Basically legendary armors will probably need a bunch of different content types. So its kinda useless to complain. They dont want you to do one part of the game and get the legendary.

Thanks for the clarification.

This I would be okay with. If legendary armor (and the new legendary weapons) required players to master every part of the game (ideally including WvW and PvP), then legendary items would actually feel legendary – and it would really mean something if you saw someone in full legendary gear.

I main a mesmer, but my favorite specialization so far is, by far, the Reaper. It really feels fun to play.

dominik.9721:

Aetherpath 2.0 with 10 people ,I promise you :>

I actually hope this is the case.

The reason most people dont do Aetherpath isn’t because it isn’t fun or it’s too hard – it’s because it takes too long compared to the other dungeons.

To me, Aetherpath takes the right approach when it comes to difficulty. It isn’t about how much damage you can put out, but rather about how well your group coordinates. If raid bosses/encounters are designed in that same fashion (which they seem to be based on what was said), I think we will enjoy them.

NoTrigger.8396:

Blaeys.3102:

At the same time, there should be ultra challenging content for people like you (and for me as well – I want that challenge).

the ultra challenging content is exactly what the raids are going to be and why they are made. i dont get why you have such a hard time to understand this.

and if you dont want that ultra challenge, like all of gw2 core game is easy, alot of content in HoT will be easy, there is so much easy stuff to do already and there will be much more. so where exactly is the problem now?

Once again, I want ultra challenging content – a lot. But, I also think that raiding, as a new game mode, should be something all can enjoy. Add tiers or other mechanics (hard modes, achievements, etc) to give us those challenges.

The only reason people equate ultra challenging to raiding is because other games have conditioned them to. Give us raids and give us major challenges, but don’t dedicate a single game mode exclusively to a small percentage of players.

I know it may just be the translation into print causing it, but let’s please have a discussion without the condescending tones. You have an opinion, but it is no more important than anyone else’s. The point of a forum is to give all players a voice.

NoTrigger.8396:

Blaeys.3102:

NoTrigger.8396:

Blaeys.3102:

Rococo.8347:

I actually feel quite positive about Raids in GW2 if ive understood how they will play out correctly – at the moment there doesn’t seem to be any places in pve where someone into being support/utility with some damage thrown in fits in.

I had a Shadow Priest in WoW and 10 man Raids just seemed to bring out the best in that type of character, it was great to switch between abit of healing cc and pew pew, but here I never felt I could build a character like that could be useful in a 5 man Dungeon, so ive just never done a dungeon ( I know you are expected to be an all rounder with no Trinity but Berserker is sill the Meta). Raid mechanics being more complex could allow for a greater selection of build types in groups.

That said Im not that great a player so my chances of getting into a Raid will probably be nil lol

Hopefully, the truly “difficult” part of raids should come in the form of achievements, hardmodes, etc. The raids themselves should be accessible by people of varying skill levels, with special acknowledgements (achievements primarily) for beating the boss faster, more efficiently, under special circumstances, etc.

Adding 10 player content into the game and then tuning it so that only a small percentage of the community can enjoy it goes against everything this game has come to represent for its many fans.

That isnt to say that the achievements/hardmodes/etc shouldn’t be BRUTALLY hard. They most definitely should be.

idk i think you fail to understand the intention behind the raids. they made them to make players who want challenge and difficulty happy. if you dont like difficulty and challenge there is and will be plenty of other stuff to do.

also they said the content will be the most difficult content in gw2 so i doubt they will split it into easy group content and challenging group content.

I love the idea of difficult content, but the addition of a new game mode (10 player instances) should be something everyone can enjoy. There is no reason that raids should only be there for a tiny percentage of the population.

There are a lot of ways to make something challenging without walling off an entire game mode from other players.

it is not only for a tiny percentage. it is for everyone who decides to raid, get better individually and with the team and put enough effort into it.
its a MMO. every player can become good enough at the game. its just a matter if you are willing to become a very good player or not.
so please dont make it seem like someone locks you out of the content.

I agree that “locks out” was probably the wrong phrasing. What I mean is that, in developing a new game mode, there should be a place for pretty much all players. As I mentioned, I play with a lot of people with varying levels of skill. They should all have a reasonable chance to see and experience well designed content. The idea of leaving any of them out makes me sick to my stomach.

At the same time, there should be ultra challenging content for people like you (and for me as well – I want that challenge).

My point is that they dont have to carbon copy the “raiding=only for the elite” mentality that other games have adopted – a reason many people left those other games for GW2 in the first place, btw.

There are ways to provide the content and offer challenges to people like us without walling it off (even through soft walls such as difficulty) from the majority of players.