Guild Wars 2

On the topic of enrage timers -

Chris has multiple times mentioned the importance of “knowledge>skill>numbers” in raid design. Enrage mechanics and hard timers run counter to that mantra, imo. If they make the mechanics challenging enough, they don’t need artificial timers to gauge skill or bring the fight to a close.

More importantly, since scaling will probably not be considered for these raids, hard enrage timers would diminish the ability to bring smaller sized groups to encounter, something they have indicated is important (and that is important to me if there is only one raid group size).

That said, I think there is a compromise. Simply add in achievements for defeating an encounter in X minutes. That way, skilled heavy dps groups are rewarded for their efforts in a small way.

I think a better mechanical discussion to have is what constitutes a good “failure mechanic.” We already have several in the game that would translate well into raids, including:

• Keep the NPC alive . I really like this one because it adds a hard element/goal outside of simply killing the boss . There is something very gratifying about using my healing mantras and chaos fields to keep the miners alive in the cave in Dry Top on my mesmer.

• Raid Wipe . The simplest – doesnt really require explanation.

• Lose Real Estate . The blue/red capture circles. If you lose it, the encounter fails. Another one I like as it adds control to where the fight takes place a little.

• Dont Let the Boss get to the objective The chase fight. While this has an element of an enrage timer, the time you have to defeat the boss can be significantly extended through the use of strategic crowd control skills.

These are just a couple of examples. Im sure the community in this thread could come up with a bunch – all of which would prioritize skill in ways that enrage timers dont, imo.

More importantly, they avoid the artificial difficulty constraints that a hard timer creates. Knowledge and skill would win the day, no matter how many people were in the encounter.

And again, the reward for fast kills can be an achievement. In fact, I see the achievement system being extremely important for those groups looking for added challenges in raids.

Simple request for everyone – once you finish writing your posts, go back and read it as if it were being written to you. If it includes snarky comments, any kind of name calling at all, condescending statements or anything else hateful, cut those lines out before you hit post.

They get in the way of the actual conversation and they’re going to end up getting the thread closed and leaving a bad impression of a potential raiding community with the developers. Neither is something anyone should desire.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

And as some guidance. We can tune mobs to behave and require any strategy we want in raiding. This is why I asked that we take the core mechanics of GW2 and build on that and not look to other games or the current balance of our open world maps to dictate encounter strategy and player behavior.

Chris

Chris,

Maybe it would help if you give a little definition regarding what you mean by core mechanics. Are we on the right track with this kind of approach – https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Guilds-Raiding/page/25#post4535356 ?

If not, maybe a little direction and examples will spur the conversation.

NoTrigger.8396:

there is one thing i dont understand when people make suggestions here.

ill give you guys an example.
imagine the amber head was instanced for 15 players.
lets say the amber head has boons now that you have to remove.
2 people in your party will use weapons or traits to remove the boons. does that make the fight more interesting?
or lets say the amber head spawns adds that can only be killed with condition damage.
does that make the fight more interesting?
are these cool “mechanics” ?

ok ok, now imagine…
8 people will be eaten, 8 people have to pick up the harpoon gun, and exactly 8 people have to use them to shoot the wurm head in order to prevent the wurm from using his one hit ability which will wipe the entire raid regardless of what you are doing or how tanky you are.
when the wurm spews the 8 players out, they will be transformed into wurm eggs and the other players have to free the 8 players by destroying the eggs in a set amount of time so the 8 players can use the harpoon gun and shoot the wurm before the wurm will use his one hit attack, while dodging aoes and using reflects/projectile absorbance.

this fits the gw2 combat system much more, is more challenging and more interesting than stuff from 2005.
and thats why i said

so instead of “how can we design bosses that eliminate meta” it would be a better way to start with “how can we design bosses that require knowledge, skill, teamwork and coordination”
this is what raid content is for. not to make your unpopular build king.

the encounters should be designed without special builds in mind.

in wow that was required, because in wow you cannot really challenge your players except with spreadsheet fights or making the fights so you have to grind gear before you are strong enough to beat the encounter.

in gw2 however, you can challenge your players in a different, and much more fun way, because the combat system is action based and encounters should be build around this.

I think you add an interesting dimension to the discussion here, but I dont see a contradiction with the toolkit discussion.

Both styles should be implemented/included to a degree. Yes, stay away from forcing people into highly specialized builds, but fights should be technically challenging (your egg example) while requiring us to dip into our toolkit and reactively choose the best ones to deal with the situation.

I see a productive conversation progressing down two lanes:

1. What tools (capabilities) should raids be expected to have when entering an encounter, and

2. What tools/mechanics can developers use to challenge us in the raids.

The two topics are synergistic and should both be considered when looking at fight design.

So, yes, your first example would not be as excited as your second, but your second is going to be more interesting and challenging if it encourages players to dip into a wider set of abilities in order to defeat the challenge.

In your worm example – what if, instead of being encased in eggs, the players spewed forth were now under enemy control with five stacks of defiance and could only be returned to player control through an interrupt. Instead of breaking the eggs open with dps, the goal would be to use ccs to break defiance without damaging (and potentially killing) your teammate, while negating the damage they might do to the party – and geting out a final cc to bring them back to their senses (back to player control).

In other words, I think they can (should) design fights with both in mind, not one or the other.

So, lets do both – lets talk about the toolkits/soft roles players can fill, but – to your points – lets also talk about the toolkits/soft roles the enemies can fill as well.

NOTE: Spoj beat me to it – and in a more concise post.

The biggest issue with random boss abilities is that it would then become nearly impossible to design/develop an interesting encounter.

Boss abilities should synergize with one another to create a puzzle type feel to beating them. A simplistic example – if a boss cripples a players and then starts to attack that player with single target pistol shots, it really doesn’t mean anything – dodge counters it either way. However, if a boss cripples a player and then drops a fire field under the player, things are bit more dire and require more reactive thought from the player.

Again, a really simplistic example, but I think it illustrates how planned attacks fit into a bigger picture. the devs need to be able to piece the different attacks/mechanics together into more complex encounters. That simply isnt possible with random chaotic design.

Mizenhauer.6713:

Well I hope a trait build option is ready by then. Switching all the time is a pain. At least trait wise. Utilities are quick and easy. Also, any boss needing something a bit more specialized, profession wise, can have an environmental object in the area that will perform some attack/move similar to what the profession could do. Something that puts down reflect or puddles of cripple. That might reduce the “need” for a specific class in a particular encounter. I can’t see it being a huge problem, since our professions are a bit more alike than classes in other games, but it could arise.

Alternatively, if they find that groups are frequently lacking in a given need/mechanic, they could look at some of those less common mechanics and explore new traits that give additional professions access to that functionality (for example, a trait that turns a profession’s light fields into water fields instead). They have to be careful, however, to maintain diversity/value between professions.

Truth is, I think, given the list we compiled a few pages back, there are very few capabilities that wouldnt be present in groups of 8 or more players – so I think were in a pretty good place for this kind of approach/design.

The only truly unique mechanics I can think of are mesmer portal and thief basilisk venom. As long as they stay away from making those mandatory (or provide environmental items to accomodate) I think they’ll be fine.

To the topic of environmental weapons, I think they are fine (and even fun in alot of situations), but like you said, they have to be used sparingly or you risk devaluing certain professions. I remember when WoW added the mind control stations to the Instructor Razuvious (sic) fight in 10 man Naxxramas (but not in 25) because raid groups didnt have enough shadow priests. I always thought it would have been better to give mind control to other classes instead.

GazaKnight.8206:

Danikat.8537:

Adding new content: good idea.

Increasing the level cap and adding new tiers of gear: bad idea.

Fortunately it’s entirely possible for them to add new content, either in new maps or in existing maps, without increasing the level cap. Just like they have been with the living story they can just add new stuff at level 80. If they want it to be harder they can do that by making the mechanics more complicated, rather than by simply piling in bigger numbers that we have to grind to match.

With the down-scalling system they could even add new content for maps and players below level 80 and anyone above that level can play it too.

I admit raising the level cap would be a bad idea (Im not a hardcore MMORPG player, and never know what is the Gear grind is).

but as you said adding new maps, and adding new tasks to the old maps event if they are not 80, and these quests should be following the living world, such as adding a new faction to the Norn that Worship the Jungle elder dragon.

what do you think ?

This is something they did in a big way in Kessex Hills following the Tower of Nightmares. I agree they need to do more of this.

And, like others said – I would vote no on new levels (EVER) in this game.

Always horizontal, never vertical.

That mantra should be plastered in huge letters in the ANet offices, imo.

hybrid.5027:

You realize that you can change gear and traits and skills at any point out of combat? Each boss, each difficult trash pull etc will have its own meta. If you need condition damage for a particular encounter, the warriors or engineers will throw on their Rabid gear with giver’s weapons and retrait, and then go back to whatever is good for other encounters.

The meta will be determined boss by boss and encounter by encounter. That’s how it should be, by the way.

Very well said.

This is why I think this thread needs to take the toolbox approach several of us advocated several pages back (https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Guilds-Raiding/page/25#post4535356).

Let’s put our energy into identifying the tools a raid should be expected to bring (interrupts), those they are likely to have (boon stripping), and those that are very niche (mesmer portal) – and then look at them as a laundry list of soft “roles” players can fill while in raids. That will provide a solid base on which initial raid design can be built.

NoTrigger.8396:

Roybe.5896:

So you want raids that can be memorized that leads to training so you can finish them faster and faster.

that will happen no matter what you do. you want to learn, become better, kill the boss, and become even better and better and play more perfectly.
analyzing, memorizig, learning, adapting and becoming better is what leads to kills in a raid.
you cant do that vs bosses that are clowns.

Roybe.5896:

How about a final boss that has a random mix of 15 different AI options and 15 different skill sets that randomly change at 3 different points in the fight. You could learn to recognize the various sets, but planning a build related to this boss would be near impossible. I believe this could make the fight very difficult and people would have to play the game rather than faceplant their keyboard. Anything that can add randomness to the overall raid itself would do the same. As I have seen so often this isn’t about fair or easy. This is about difficulty and pain. Randomness is perfect for this type of content. The more random the better.

the randomness you describe here is actually bad game design.
the randomness that could be good is faceing a boss encounter that consists of 3 different bosses in one single room and one of the 3 bosses will be swapped each week with another boss from a pool of 10 different bosses.

and the “special snowflakes melt quite quickly in difficult raids” is aimed towards people who “play how they want” and want to be carried through the content instead of pulling their weight.

using optimal builds and rotations is part of every raid and leads to success.
you cannot change that no matter how much the “play how you want” crowd wants their suboptimal 2-2-2-2-2 builds to become meta.

so instead of “how can we design bosses that eliminate meta” it would be a better way to start with “how can we design bosses that require knowledge, skill, teamwork and coordination”
this is what raid content is for. not to make your unpopular build king.

I agree with NoTrigger on this.

And, even if they did try something like this, there would still be “meta” builds – they would just be generic catchall builds designed to deal with as many diverse scenarios as possible. There will always be so called ideal builds – the fun is tweaking that ideal build to fit a balance of your group’s needs, your personal playstyle and the mechanics of the boss youre getting ready to fight (strategic awareness).

I think the original idea here was to add some variation between runs. ArenaNet definitely has the tools in place to do that without going full chaos on boss mechanics – through the use random encounters and events (think graveling mounds or troll in AC). I would fully expect that in raids.

Now, adaptive AI is another issue entirely and something I would love to see – as long as the reactionary abilities the boss exhibited followed some kind of logic and allowed for strategic group planning. However, that would require systems and mechanics that, I believe, arent currently in place in GW2 (also, that topic would transcend raids – it would affect the entire game).

Link to first post (to avoid a super long post): https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Guilds-Raiding/page/25#post4535254

guardian.6489:

To expand on this even further here’s the classes that are strongest and can perform each of those roles.

I’ll ignore most of the 5 star ones since that’s pretty much everyone (might edit this post later).

Condition damage
Nercomancer Engineer Mesmer Thief Ranger Warrior Elementalist

Interupts
Thieves have a spammable one, most professions have a number of interupts on one weapon set.

Group Condition Removal
Guardian Warrior Nercomancer Engineer Ranger Thief

Core Boon Sharing
Elementalist Guardian All other professions

Damage Reducing Conditions (blind, weakness, Moa morph)
Thief Nercomancer Engineer All other professions

Reflects and Projectile Protection
Guardian Elementalist Mesmer Engineer Thief Ranger

Combo Fields and Blast Finishers
Pretty much everyone to various degrees

Boon Stripping
Mesmer Nercomancer Thief Engineer Guardian,

Group Stability (honestly I think this is a 2 star, Guardian has a monopoly pratically)
Guardian Mesmer Engineer

Stealth/Invisibility
Thief Engineer Mesmer Ranger*(has only individual stealth)

Group Quickness
Mesmer Guardian

Group Aegis
Guardian Mesmer?

Group Stun Breaks
Guardian…. and there’s like one trait that does it

Instant Resurrection (from downed state)(should be moved a tier look)
Warrior Ranger Elementalist Nercomancer Guardian Engineer

Mesmer Portal
…… Take a guess

One thing we can learn from this is some roles we rarely use like Boon striping are actually avaiable on most of the professions while a couple others we take for granted are very narrow (group stability is essentially Guardian only).

I’m also noticing a lot of the roles Nerco is king of, tend to be underplayed in most PvE areas of the game.

This looks good.

I would add Mesmers to the stun break – Mantra of Concentration/Power Break is a solid AOE stun break since it hits 5 targets now – and you are right that enhanced resurrection should be moved up a bit.

I think this shows the tools a party can potentially bring to a raid, and the prevalence of each. I wouldnt mind seeing us, as a community, fleshing this out and adding to/revising it to be more accurate. If people can add to and revise this to be more accurate (based on their personal knowledge of the professions they play), I would be willing to clean it up and generate a list and/or chart in a couple of days.

That can serve as a soft set of “rules of engagement.” Once we (as theorycraft collaborators) understand the toolkit, we can talk about what Anet can throw at us (at the encounter level) to significantly challenge our abilities to use these tools (and common personal abilities, such as dodge and the #6 heal) cooperatively in larger scale fights.

Just a thought on one possible direction for the conversation. If a dev (or anyone else) thinks this would be a waste of time or counterproductive to the conversation, please say so.

NOTE: I agree about the Necromancer (if boonstripping and AOE persistent blinds were needed more in PVE encounters, this might change though). However, I think that is definitely a separate discussion for another thread. The goal here is at a more macro level – identifying the total toolkit (and prevalence of those tools) so we have an idea of the capabilities a typical raid groups should be expected to bring to the content.

Conski Deshan.2057:

VodCom.6924:

Conski Deshan.2057:

@ Chris/ Crystal

Several people have mentioned the Marionette and Battle for LA and they are two pieces of content I really enjoyed (Anything that involves being on coms coordinating several strike teams, getting status reports and an overall ebb and flow of the battlefield type thing is super fun).

I don’t see them being spectacularly suitable for raid content due to part of that fun being the large scale (100+ players) and chaos, but would love that type of thing as a different concept “Battlefields” or “Area Assaults”.

I think it would be a concept worth getting a look over as its own separate CDI.
It could act as an area event ramped up to 11 like scarlet invasions or LA. Perhaps semi instanced as in you choose “Black Citadel” or “Black Citadel under assault” when you attempt to enter a map under attack (Just so a new player doesn’t go “Yay just created my new character, Oh my god a giant death laser has just blasted me and half the map what is going on”.)

PS: Those Airship lasers that fired on you during LA really added to the tension and were awesome.

On the contrary, I think this is the right place to discuss it. Since Anet (hopefully) won’t copy-paste the traditionnal Raid WoW formula, we have to redefine the genre.

Let’s be honest about it, this CDI is not about raids, it’s about designing larger scale endgame content to keep GW2 hardcore crowd busy for the next months. One can see that after reading the first four pages. Look at the TTS proposal. It certainly does not look like a raid, but it has the potential to bring a similar challenge.

The title “CDI Guild Raiding” is kind of a misnomer in this regard.

However you’re right when you say that part of the fun of the marionette was the organised chaos happening there. Though I believe, that in a controlled environment (i.e instanced Marionette) the fight could be very organised and neat picky. If the fight becomes unforgiving and meat picky, I don’t see how this can not be a called a “raid”.

I mean more, I like 15 man highly organised instanced raids , while i also like the idea 100 man massive “Semi-instanced” battlefields, trying to force both into the same activity designation will negatively impact both. So I suggested that a the larger encounter size be considered as a separate activity. Functionally it could effectively be a raid, just not called that and using different systems. Say off the top of my head no set appearances, Zone conversion and scarring , which are systems I would not like to see/ would not fit with what I see the smaller scale content doing. It could also use more suitable individual reward systems due to the large number of players.

Every time I’ve see one of these posts the last two days, Ive had to bite my fingers off to keep them away from the keyboard (and Im running out of ducttape to put them back on).

I really (REALLY) want to have the raid size/scaling discussion, but agreed, for the sake of focus, that now is not the time.

Now, we need to be focused on mechanics and fundamentals. We can (will ) have a focused conversation regarding scaling, potential raid sizes and the pros and cons of every option later in the process – after we discuss what content we would like to see in terms of GW2 fight designs and mechanics.

If we look at the roles players can fill (and Im stealing liberally from this post among others) -

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Guilds-Raiding/page/22#post4533104

- we can identify tiers of player mechanics based on how many professions can bring that capability.

In the following list, I tried to break the different roles apart by how prevalent that role is in the game. In other words, the more "X"s a role has next to it, the easier it is for parties to bring that capability.

Group Roles/Mechanics

xxxxx Melee Damage
xxxxx Range Damage
xxxxx Condition Damage
xxxxx Crowd Control
xxxxx Interrupts
xxxxx Runners

xxxx Group Condition Removal/Support Heals
xxxx Core Boon Sharing (might, regeneration, vigor, etc)
xxxx Damage Reducing Conditions (blind, weakness, Moa morph)
xxxx Reflects and Projectile Protection
xxxx Combo Fields and Blast Finishers

xxx Boon Stripping
xxx Group Stability
xxx Stealth/Invisibility

xx Group Quickness
xx Group Aegis
xx Group Stun Breaks
xx Instant Resurrection (from downed state)

x Mesmer Portal

And there are many I cant think of (steal from other posts ) this morning before my coffee. Of course, it is also possible for developers to artificially add any role into an encounter via transforms and environmental items (aggro through pheromones, for example). Personally, I love that kind of stuff, but I know some dont, so I would only do it sparingly.

Two Questions
The point of this is to set the stage for a few questions -

• How much effort should groups be expected to put into raid composition (which professions/builds they bring), as dictated by fight design?

• Where do we draw the line regarding mandatory roles? Given the above, can developers design a fight where reflects are mandatory? What about mesmer portals or stealth? Should anything outside of the core (4 and 5 "x"s) ever be mandatory in an encounter?

My Opinion
I wanted to separate this out so people could provide their own opinions regarding the questions above (and add in other roles and mechanics in a similar fashion, if they wish) – without having to pay attention to my biases.

In my opinion, the primary advantage of raids compared to other content comes from greater access to niche roles. Raids differ from other content primarily because of that access to diversity. Larger groups mean you can assume most roles will/can be filled by someone in the group.

With that said, this is the developers’ opportunity to design fights that do require pretty much every role any player can fill. With players able to switch traits on the fly, there are very few capabilities that most groups with more than 8 players will not have (as seen above).

KngGilgamesh.3481:

3 It opens up underwater quite a bit. It removes the problems of underwater class balance, gear requirements, utility selection etc. If everyone turns into the same thing (krait/shark/jellyfish etc) they will be equal in their effectiveness. Alternatively they can turn into different beings each of which serve a different role (CC kraits, Krait Shamans, etc).

YES. I want to do this.

A raid of players turned into sharks just sounds a little too awesome to me.

Or Largos, maybe.

I want to do this.

Crystal Reid.2481:

Ideally, raiding should be about challenge, not time.

I had a thought on this (with something unique that GW2 offers in mind).

What if, instead of long single raids, raids were pieced together similar to the chapters in the living story?

So once you unlocked one “episode” you were eligible for the next, etc etc. Each chapter would be fairly short and would lead into the next.

That way, raid groups progressing through could stop after each one and decide if they have the time to start the next episode or if they wanted to save it for another night.

And forget about resetting them – just implement a weekly lock out on the final rewards from each episode.

Once people have progressed through them all, groups could replay any episodes, in any order they see fit – basically letting them play the episodes they enjoy most.

From a development stand point, this would allow you to gradually introduce raids and get episodes out faster – rather than having to wait until the entire raid was done to give us access to the awesome.

Just a thought that felt a little different, but would add a unique flavor to GW2 raiding.

I think we all need to get away from the difficult vs easy discussions.

If raiding ever makes it into the game, that doesn’t mean every fight has to be melt-your-face torture or walk-you-through-a-story easy. I would expect their goal would be to eventually have a range of raid instances interspersed between those two extremes, much like dungeons can be (are). There is a big difference between the first time you ran Twilight Arbor Up/Up and the first time you ran Twilight Arbor – Twilight Assault Path, for example – yet both are still in game.

I think there is only one group of people they should be considering when developing raids for GW2 and that is “people who play GW2 and want to raid” (which is probably a pretty big group ).

If we stay on track and focus on core mechanics and systems, those tools can be used to create a wide spectrum of raid experiences. There is no reason to (and Im sure Anet wouldnt) limit that potential to one extreme or the other.

To that end, I really like NoTrigger’s feedback regarding trash mob complexity/mechanics (https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Guilds-Raiding/page/21#post4532328).

I may take some time later today to brainstorm how it could apply to the theorycraft raid concept Im fleshing out to provide my core mechanics feedback (https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Guilds-Raiding/page/18#post4530789 ; https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Guilds-Raiding/page/20#post4531758)

NoTrigger.8396:

when people dont understand why, they are probably very uncreative and dont understand the big picture.

Comments like this are insulting and counterproductive to a balanced discussion.

Just because someone disagrees with you doesn’t mean they are un-creative or lack a level of understanding you have reached. It just means they disagree.

We really need to get away from this kind of mudslinging and get back into actual productive discussion.

I dont want to sidetrack the theorycrafting and design discussion, but there was something that occurred to me today and I wanted to bring it up.

As you implement more complex fights that require greater reaction from players, particle effects are going to have a greater impact on encounters. We will need to be able to see the boss in order to react to telegraphed attacks. With larger groups (especially if their are alot of certain professions present) this could be an issue.

I think a particle effect slider or the option to turn off everyone else’s particle effects on your own screen may end up being a much needed change before raiding is implemented.

Again, just something that occurred to me that I wanted to get into mill before it slipped my mind. Don’t want to get in the way of the other discussions.

In this post – https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Guilds-Raiding/page/18#post4530789 – I outlined a raid concept.

Following the direction from Chris, Im going to take a boss from that concept and outline potential fight mechanics that fit current combat and movement models in GW2, but that would still challenge a raid party.

The Centaur Shaman

The Centaur Shaman would be positioned just outside of Stonebore Vaults, where it has erected a giant stone door to bar progress into the centaur encampment (where the final boss waits). The party must defeat the Shaman and destroy the door.

The Shaman is a stationary boss with the fight revolving around player positioning and adds management. It would be broken into three phases, as follows:

Phase One – Earth (100% down to 60 percent health)

In this phase, the Shaman doesnt see us as a threat, so it is more about avoiding damage and burning him to 60%. Abilities used would be:

• Summon Earth Elementals: The boss begins summoning veteran earth elementals every few seconds. If they are not kept under control, they will overwhelm the party. The earth elementals also leave trails of mud behind them, crippling any player who walks through them. An elementals trail dissipates when that elemental dies.

• Earthquake: The ground quakes near the shaman at periodic intervals, doing damage and knockdowns – forcing melee temporarily out of range.

Phase Two – Earth and Air (entered when the boss reaches 60% health)

The abilities from phase one continue, with the following added:

• Summon Air Elementals: In addition to the earth elementals (which continue to spawn), the boss begins to summon veteran air elementals as well. The air elementals leave temporary spark lines behind them as they travel that stun and damage anyone walking through (again, the lines dissipate when the elemental dies).

• Reflecting Winds: In addition to earthquake, the boss begins periodically casting swirling winds that reflect projectiles back at ranged attackers. From this point on, the boss is always casting either earthquake or swirling winds.

Phase Three – Earth, Air and Fire (when the shaman reaches 30%)

When the shaman reaches 30% health, he draws any remaining earth and air elementals to himself and absorbs their strength. For every elemental still alive going into this phase, his damage increases exponentially.

At this point, he transforms himself into a massive earth elemental that is 100% immune to all party damage.

He stops summoning air and earth elementals, but instead casts the following abilities:

• Enhanced Earthquake. The earthquake now extends 2000 feet in all directions and is cast 100% of the time (persistent damage). There is no longer a knockdown and the base damage is much less than it was in the first wo phases, but it scales based on the number of elementals he absorbed (meaning it could be raid wiping). This mechanic has two purposes – to force the raid to coordinate and not let the boss hit 30 % while elementals are still alive – and to force the raid to get through the last phase as fast as possible – before they all die to the damage.

• Chain Lightning: The swirling winds are gone. Instead he will periodically cast chain lightning. This will only be used against ranged targets.

• Summon Fire Elementals: During the last phase, he will begin summoning fire elementals that leave lines of burning flame behind them as they travel (again, lines dissipate on elemental death). More importantly, these elementals explode when they die. They are cc-able (which will be important for the final mechanic).

• Superheated: If a fire elemental explodes within range of the boss (which is why they are cc-able), the boss gains a stack of superheated. When the shaman gets five stacks of superheated, it becomes vulnerable to damage from the party. If it gets 10 stacks, it takes double damage (and so on). However, the stacks do fall off (forcing the raid to decide – do we let 5 get out just to get him to the threshhold or do we wait until 10 or 15 are out to obtain the damage multiplier and spike him down faster). This is how you defeat the boss.

When the shaman (now a massive superheated rock elemental) dies, it explodes in fireball large enough to destroy the giant rock barring entrance into Stonebore Vaults, allowing the players access to the area where they will fight the Centaur Chieftain, the final boss in the raid.

You asked us to theory craft around the current movement and combat mechanics in the game, so there you go (keeping in mind I am not a game developer). This is just a rough example of the kind of raid fights I would like to see.

I was going to theorycraft the second boss in the raid concept later this weekend or next week if I have time.

If this is not helpful, please let me know.

I will probably be posting multiple scenarios like the following in the next week:

Raid Concept

Ulgoth’s Revenge, a siege style raid against centaurs intent on avenging Ulgoth’s defeat.

Setting

An instanced version of the western third of Gendarren Fields, specifically the area between Stonebore Vaults and Nebo Terrace.

Rules of Engagement

• The player’s base is in Nebo Terrace while the centaurs are in Stonebore Vaults.

Win/Loss Conditions

• Win: defeat two legendary centaur champions with raid style mechanics within the vaults – while simultaneously defending Nebo Terrace from progressively stronger centaur assault waves.

• Loss: Lose Nebo Terrace (the typical blue/red circle capture mechanic we are all familiar with)

Mechanics/Functionality

There are two ways to approach the raid:

• In the first, you split the raid in two, with one group defending NT and the other assaulting the Vaults.

• The second method (which would work better for smaller groups, but would take longer to complete) would be to have the entire party defend Nebo Terrace while you build upgrades (Walls, guard patrols, cannons, etc). Once the Terrace is fully upgraded and can stand on its own against the centaur assault, the entire party can assault the Vaults together.

Bosses/Other Encounters

• Centaur Siegemaster – The siegemaster would be an optional boss and would be virtually impossible to defeat even with a maximum sized raid. His job is to take Nebo Terrace (even though he doesnt attack the Terrace himself). He would be located just north of the Terrace. (NOTE: defeating this boss would not stop the assault waves – he is there solely as an optional hardcore challenge)

• Assault Waves – The centaur assault waves are more complex and troublesome than those found in open world DEs. They even use siege weapons such as arrow carts, ballista and even catapults to harass and attempt to “herd” your party into deadly chokepoints and traps.

• Centaur Shaman – The first legendary encounter within the Vaults, he would be a master of the elements, similar to Ulgoth (only with much more complex and deadly mechanics).

• Centaur Chieftain (final boss) – Defeating the chieftain will demoralize the centaurs and end the assault. The chieftain is lightning fast on his feet and uses a lot of cc style mechanics, such as nets and, if a players wanders to near to a ledge, a cave in under them. He switches between a bow and melee style spear as his primary weapons. He shifts between melee and ranged attacks liberally. In range, he never stands still, but does while using the spear (giving melee heavy parties burn phases in which to stack and get out lots of damage)

Achievements and Rewards (achievements should be a big part of raiding)

• Achievement: Faster than Lightening – defeat the final bosses in x time (this should be tuned to only be possible if groups split up and handle the defense and assault simultaneously)

• Achievement: Stop with the Knocking – defeat the optional (hardcore) Centaur Siegemaster

• Reward (one time): Cheiftain’s Head, which can be turned in at a new raid vendor in Lion’s Arch for credit toward a collection achievement and for a one time gold/unique skin reward.

• Reward (ongoing): 60 Golden Hooves (work identically to dungeon tokens, only with weekly diminishing returns) (Im not married to this option – just believe their should be unique rewards for raiding – but that they should be in line with rewards from other game modes)

Philosophy/Gameplay goal
The goal in this proposal is to show how GW2 style combat and encounters can be used to create a “flexible” encounter that rewards teamwork and player skill without a heavy reliance on numbers (skill trumps numbers). While smaller groups would make a sacrifice (the raid would take longer), they really wouldn’t be at a disadvantage when it comes to completing the raid.

I didnt go into too much detail regarding boss mechanics, but it should go without saying that the fights should be at a difficulty/complexity level higher than dungeons.

Again, this is just one idea. I may (probably will) come up with more as the week goes on and I brainstorm a little regarding how raiding in GW2 can be unique and fun.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Blaeys.3102:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Blaeys.3102:

Arewn.2368:

Blaeys.3102:

Im very aware, which is why I advocate the two raid sizes of 8 and 12 as a viable model. As long as you have eight people, you would only ever need to find, at most, 3 people to make multiple raid groups possible during a raiding session.

There is big difference between having to find 3 additional people and having to find 14 additional people (even without the trinity) to make raiding viable during a session.

And we really shouldnt care what the pinnacle of normalcy is in raiding. The point is to get away from those preconceptions and look at what GW2 offers. Traditionally, in large groups, GW2 uses scaling. Im past advocating for scaling, but I still think the issue deserves a solution. That is why I want to have the discussion.

My point about normalcy is that people are both accustomed to and fully capable of dealing with it.
5 friends, only 4 can play L4D. 11 friends, only 10 can play League of Legends. 3 friends, only 2 can play Portal2.
You’re making a mountain out of a molehill on something we can discuss LATER, and it’s derailing the thread.

Again, it doesnt matter what people are used to from those games.

By the same logic, We’ve been doing guild missions and living story for close to two years in GW2 without any restrictions on who gets to participate in guild events.

And, I would have no problem tabling the discussion if I thought it would actually be part of the conversation at a later phase – and not dismissed with single set raid sizes established as given from the beginning. Again, all Im asking is it eventually be part of the planned conversation. Unfortunately, that isnt the case. I dont want raiding to end up making into the game and me raising my voice then just to be told “you should have said something during the CDI.”

Again, asking for raid size and flexibility/accessibility to be part of the planned conversation – that is all. Without it, it doesnt really matter to some us what the actual content of the raids looks like.

Hi Blaeys,

I really appreciate and respect you collaboration and discussion and for that reason I am going to make this statement as I think it is the fairest thing to do.

For the purposes of this discussion we will only be talking about fixed Raid sizes or less than the set number with no scaling.

I hope you understand the reason for me making this statement as I don’t want to waste your time.

Chris

Are you planning to address the issue at a later time – hopefully in this thread?

Again, I dont even care about scaling – I just dont want to be put in the position of having to find 14 additional raiders to ensure no one is left out.

That could just as easily be done by balancing around 2 raid sizes (such as the 8 and 12 person models I postulated earlier). The point is, there are ways to address the issue without harming the difficulty of the raid. Its possible someone out there has an idea that is better than the ones I propose. Its worth the discussion at least (even if it is at a later point in the thread)

I apologize if my posts have harmed the flow of the discussion in any way. I just feel this is important enough to warrant some discussion – whether it is now or later in the process.

It’s ok Blaeys, you haven’t been disruptive and I understand your points. The answer is yes. Let’s allow for more foundational discussion and then we can discuss two raid group sizes in terms of pros and cons.

Does that sound ok?

Chris

That is all I needed to hear.

As long as the topic is intended to be part of the discussion and we arent simply assuming a single raid of 15 people (without the discourse), Im happy to participate in the foundational conversation (probably not tonight though – getting close to orange beer time).

Of course, know that I will be holding you to it before this CDI is complete ( ).

And Happy Halloween. As always, we respect the efforts you put into these CDIs – and in putting up with blowhards like me.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Blaeys.3102:

Arewn.2368:

Blaeys.3102:

Im very aware, which is why I advocate the two raid sizes of 8 and 12 as a viable model. As long as you have eight people, you would only ever need to find, at most, 3 people to make multiple raid groups possible during a raiding session.

There is big difference between having to find 3 additional people and having to find 14 additional people (even without the trinity) to make raiding viable during a session.

And we really shouldnt care what the pinnacle of normalcy is in raiding. The point is to get away from those preconceptions and look at what GW2 offers. Traditionally, in large groups, GW2 uses scaling. Im past advocating for scaling, but I still think the issue deserves a solution. That is why I want to have the discussion.

My point about normalcy is that people are both accustomed to and fully capable of dealing with it.
5 friends, only 4 can play L4D. 11 friends, only 10 can play League of Legends. 3 friends, only 2 can play Portal2.
You’re making a mountain out of a molehill on something we can discuss LATER, and it’s derailing the thread.

Again, it doesnt matter what people are used to from those games.

By the same logic, We’ve been doing guild missions and living story for close to two years in GW2 without any restrictions on who gets to participate in guild events.

And, I would have no problem tabling the discussion if I thought it would actually be part of the conversation at a later phase – and not dismissed with single set raid sizes established as given from the beginning. Again, all Im asking is it eventually be part of the planned conversation. Unfortunately, that isnt the case. I dont want raiding to end up making into the game and me raising my voice then just to be told “you should have said something during the CDI.”

Again, asking for raid size and flexibility/accessibility to be part of the planned conversation – that is all. Without it, it doesnt really matter to some us what the actual content of the raids looks like.

Hi Blaeys,

I really appreciate and respect you collaboration and discussion and for that reason I am going to make this statement as I think it is the fairest thing to do.

For the purposes of this discussion we will only be talking about fixed Raid sizes or less than the set number with no scaling.

I hope you understand the reason for me making this statement as I don’t want to waste your time.

Chris

Are you planning to address the issue at a later time – hopefully in this thread?

Again, I dont even care about scaling – I just dont want to be put in the position of having to find 14 additional raiders to ensure no one is left out.

That could just as easily be done by balancing around 2 raid sizes (such as the 8 and 12 person models I postulated earlier). The point is, there are ways to address the issue without harming the difficulty of the raid. Its possible someone out there has an idea that is better than the ones I propose. Its worth the discussion at least (even if it is at a later point in the thread)

I apologize if my posts have harmed the flow of the discussion in any way. I just feel this is important enough to warrant some discussion – whether it is now or later in the process. Im really not trying to be difficult. I just want to be part of the discussion – with the related topics I find important enough to dedicate my free time to posting about.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

KngGilgamesh.3481:

Blaeys.3102:

Its not an optimal solution, but the only way I could see 15 or fewer player raids working is if the difficulty was designed around having 10 players.

Groups wanting the challenge could limit their size to 10 or fewer players and guilds like mine would still have some flexibility in the size of the teams they could field. Win-win.

Im not going to let this topic drop. If this is going to be a collaborative development initiative, then we need to collaborate and not ignore significant concerns from anyone.

You don’t really seem to understand what Chris has been trying to say.
They want to create a raid in which knowledge and mechanics are more important than number of players. He has stated this multiple times now.
To reiterate again, difficulty is designed based on knowledge of the fight and the skill of the players rather than the amount of people participating.

This is why he suggested 15 size limits, since the size isn’t as important. They want us to move on to how we would like the raids to be specifically (what kind of encounters, mechanics, how to employ the mechanics in fun ways etc.) The limit can be be subject to change based on how the raid is designed.
In other words the raid influences the size of player. The size of players don’t influence the mechanics of the raid. Much less constraints this way and we don’t have to be stuck on a single point to the detriment of all other points.

Correct. Thanks Gilgamesh.

Chris

So if I have a raid night where i have two groups – one of 15 and the other with the remaining 8 (as an example), they are going to have the same chances to beat the encounters if the players involved are at roughly the same skill level?

If that is true, then Im happy. That would be putting skill at a more important level than numbers.

Arewn.2368:

Blaeys.3102:

Im very aware, which is why I advocate the two raid sizes of 8 and 12 as a viable model. As long as you have eight people, you would only ever need to find, at most, 3 people to make multiple raid groups possible during a raiding session.

There is big difference between having to find 3 additional people and having to find 14 additional people (even without the trinity) to make raiding viable during a session.

And we really shouldnt care what the pinnacle of normalcy is in raiding. The point is to get away from those preconceptions and look at what GW2 offers. Traditionally, in large groups, GW2 uses scaling. Im past advocating for scaling, but I still think the issue deserves a solution. That is why I want to have the discussion.

My point about normalcy is that people are both accustomed to and fully capable of dealing with it.
5 friends, only 4 can play L4D. 11 friends, only 10 can play League of Legends. 3 friends, only 2 can play Portal2.
You’re making a mountain out of a molehill on something we can discuss LATER, and it’s derailing the thread.

Again, it doesnt matter what people are used to from those games.

By the same logic, We’ve been doing guild missions and living story for close to two years in GW2 without any restrictions on who gets to participate in guild events.

And, I would have no problem tabling the discussion if I thought it would actually be part of the conversation at a later phase – and not dismissed with single set raid sizes established as given from the beginning. Again, all Im asking is it eventually be part of the planned conversation. Unfortunately, that isnt the case. I dont want raiding to end up making into the game and me raising my voice then just to be told “you should have said something during the CDI.”

Again, asking for raid size and flexibility/accessibility to be part of the planned conversation – that is all. Without it, it doesnt really matter to some us what the actual content of the raids looks like.

Arewn.2368:

Blaeys.3102:

They were upset (reasonably so) because they logged on during a raid night expecting to get to raid with friends and werent able to because of logistics. They suspended their real lives thinking they would be part of the group and, because of numbers, were not.

And this wasnt an uncommon occurrence. It got to the point where we would have to roll to see who got to go and who did not.

Is that something we really want to see happening in GW2?

I don’t mean to drag out this off-topic discussion, but do remember that GW2 is not WoW. You won’t have to sit in chat for 2 hours looking for a healer in GW2.
The problem you bring up is no where near as big of an issue as you make it out to be. Split your group, pug the empty slots. Rigid group size is the pinnacle of normalcy in the genre, it’s something people have been able to easily deal with for well over a decade.

Im very aware, which is why I advocate the two raid sizes of 8 and 12 as a viable model. As long as you have eight people, you would only ever need to find, at most, 3 people to make multiple raid groups possible during a raiding session.

There is big difference between having to find 3 additional people and having to find 14 additional people (even without the trinity) to make raiding viable during a session.

And we really shouldnt care what the pinnacle of normalcy is in raiding. The point is to get away from those preconceptions and look at what GW2 offers. Traditionally, in large groups, GW2 uses scaling. Im past advocating for scaling, but I still think the issue deserves a solution. That is why I want to have the discussion.

KngGilgamesh.3481:

Blaeys.3102:

Roybe.5896:

Blaeys.3102:

KngGilgamesh.3481:

Blaeys.3102:

Its not an optimal solution, but the only way I could see 15 or fewer player raids working is if the difficulty was designed around having 10 players.

Groups wanting the challenge could limit their size to 10 or fewer players and guilds like mine would still have some flexibility in the size of the teams they could field. Win-win.

Im not going to let this topic drop. If this is going to be a collaborative development initiative, then we need to collaborate and not ignore significant concerns from anyone.

You don’t really seem to understand what Chris has been trying to say.
They want to create a raid in which knowledge and mechanics are more important than number of players. He has stated this multiple times now.
To reiterate again, difficulty is designed based on knowledge of the fight and the skill of the players rather than the amount of people participating.

This is why he suggested 15 size limits, since the size isn’t as important. They want us to move on to how we would like the raids to be specifically (what kind of encounters, mechanics, how to employ the mechanics in fun ways etc.) The limit can be be subject to change based on how the raid is designed.
In other words the raid influences the size of player. The size of players don’t influence the mechanics of the raid. Much less constraints this way and we don’t have to be stuck on a single point to the detriment of all other points.

If raids are designed to be completed by 15 or fewer people, you’re going to end up with the same concerns you would have with dynamic scaling. You risk making the raids either too easy with 15 or too hard with fewer than 15. Either would be problematic

If the intent is to allow completion with fewer than 15 to begin with, then you might as well be scaling the raid.

Regardless, all Im asking for is dialogue – a real discussion of the impact that a single set raid size would have on guilds and groups of friends – and the merits of multiple raid sizes (or other potential solutions). As its worded now, that option is either off the table – or at least being heavily discouraged.

Ive seen firsthand what having to play this number game can do to a guild of even the closest friends. Ive been on the other side – the guy who had to take the heat when X number of people had to be left out every week. Its not fun – in fact, it’s the single biggest issue with raiding, imo.

Something that important (even if its just important to a small number of us) deserves a place in the discussion. I would much rather be discussing the raid itself, but Im not going to let something this important fall to the wayside so early.

I would suggest that the problem that you were facing was that those left behind weren’t as upset about not being able to play with the group. I’d wager they were more upset about being left behind from the vertical progression. THAT I can see as a huge problem. Remember we have no vertical progression.

They were upset (reasonably so) because they logged on during a raid night expecting to get to raid with friends and werent able to because of logistics. They suspended their real lives thinking they would be part of the group and, because of numbers, were not.

And this wasnt an uncommon occurrence. It got to the point where we would have to roll to see who got to go and who did not.

Is that something we really want to see happening in GW2?

This might be alleviated by making raids activate multiple times (at your discretion) and making them much more rewarding for the first completion rather than the subsequent completions which benefit the guild more than individuals (the benefit to the guild becomes less and less as more of them are done so it can’t be farmed ad nauseaum and still be rewarding ). This makes missing raids painless (great for casuals) and gives incentives to do them again (great for guilds, especially big ones who may need to do raids multiple times to get people through them).

Something like this would help, even though I still believe the 8 and 12 person model would address the issue more eloquently and effectively (again, you would only ever need to find at most 3 people to fill in for any group larger than 8 to make multiple viable raids).

That said, in the model you propose, raids would have to be short – probably as short as a single boss or encounter (averaging around 30 minutes with a weekly lockout). People arent going to want to do multi hour long raids more than once a week with a diminished reward (and the diminished reward would be critical to making the system work). Im not sure people would like that.

And thank you for being willing to have the conversation and discuss potential solutions.

NoTrigger.8396:

Blaeys.3102:

Roybe.5896:

Blaeys.3102:

KngGilgamesh.3481:

Blaeys.3102:

Its not an optimal solution, but the only way I could see 15 or fewer player raids working is if the difficulty was designed around having 10 players.

Groups wanting the challenge could limit their size to 10 or fewer players and guilds like mine would still have some flexibility in the size of the teams they could field. Win-win.

Im not going to let this topic drop. If this is going to be a collaborative development initiative, then we need to collaborate and not ignore significant concerns from anyone.

You don’t really seem to understand what Chris has been trying to say.
They want to create a raid in which knowledge and mechanics are more important than number of players. He has stated this multiple times now.
To reiterate again, difficulty is designed based on knowledge of the fight and the skill of the players rather than the amount of people participating.

This is why he suggested 15 size limits, since the size isn’t as important. They want us to move on to how we would like the raids to be specifically (what kind of encounters, mechanics, how to employ the mechanics in fun ways etc.) The limit can be be subject to change based on how the raid is designed.
In other words the raid influences the size of player. The size of players don’t influence the mechanics of the raid. Much less constraints this way and we don’t have to be stuck on a single point to the detriment of all other points.

If raids are designed to be completed by 15 or fewer people, you’re going to end up with the same concerns you would have with dynamic scaling. You risk making the raids either too easy with 15 or too hard with fewer than 15. Either would be problematic

If the intent is to allow completion with fewer than 15 to begin with, then you might as well be scaling the raid.

Regardless, all Im asking for is dialogue – a real discussion of the impact that a single set raid size would have on guilds and groups of friends – and the merits of multiple raid sizes (or other potential solutions). As its worded now, that option is either off the table – or at least being heavily discouraged.

Ive seen firsthand what having to play this number game can do to a guild of even the closest friends. Ive been on the other side – the guy who had to take the heat when X number of people had to be left out every week. Its not fun – in fact, it’s the single biggest issue with raiding, imo.

Something that important (even if its just important to a small number of us) deserves a place in the discussion. I would much rather be discussing the raid itself, but Im not going to let something this important fall to the wayside so early.

I would suggest that the problem that you were facing was that those left behind weren’t as upset about not being able to play with the group. I’d wager they were more upset about being left behind from the vertical progression. THAT I can see as a huge problem. Remember we have no vertical progression.

They were upset (reasonably so) because they logged on during a raid night expecting to get to raid with friends and werent able to because of logistics.

Is that something we really want to see happening in GW2?

do we want to see more easy mode content because of scaling and all the issues that come with scaling?
no.
there are actually more points that speak against scaling or different raid sizes than points that speak for it.

now please, do us all a favor and accept what has been said and lets focus on the important stuff.

What is important to one group is not the same as what is important to another.

And Im past advocating for pure scaling. I think different raid sizes are crucial to the success of the initiative, however, and deserves to be part of the conversation.

Im good with taking the conversation one piece at a time to encourage focus, but I want to know that we are not going to ignore the topic or consider it a foregone conclusion, which is what seems to be happening.

I hate coming across as stalling the conversation, but this is something that needs to be part of the discussion. That doesnt seem like too much to ask.

Roybe.5896:

Blaeys.3102:

KngGilgamesh.3481:

Blaeys.3102:

Its not an optimal solution, but the only way I could see 15 or fewer player raids working is if the difficulty was designed around having 10 players.

Groups wanting the challenge could limit their size to 10 or fewer players and guilds like mine would still have some flexibility in the size of the teams they could field. Win-win.

Im not going to let this topic drop. If this is going to be a collaborative development initiative, then we need to collaborate and not ignore significant concerns from anyone.

You don’t really seem to understand what Chris has been trying to say.
They want to create a raid in which knowledge and mechanics are more important than number of players. He has stated this multiple times now.
To reiterate again, difficulty is designed based on knowledge of the fight and the skill of the players rather than the amount of people participating.

This is why he suggested 15 size limits, since the size isn’t as important. They want us to move on to how we would like the raids to be specifically (what kind of encounters, mechanics, how to employ the mechanics in fun ways etc.) The limit can be be subject to change based on how the raid is designed.
In other words the raid influences the size of player. The size of players don’t influence the mechanics of the raid. Much less constraints this way and we don’t have to be stuck on a single point to the detriment of all other points.

If raids are designed to be completed by 15 or fewer people, you’re going to end up with the same concerns you would have with dynamic scaling. You risk making the raids either too easy with 15 or too hard with fewer than 15. Either would be problematic

If the intent is to allow completion with fewer than 15 to begin with, then you might as well be scaling the raid.

Regardless, all Im asking for is dialogue – a real discussion of the impact that a single set raid size would have on guilds and groups of friends – and the merits of multiple raid sizes (or other potential solutions). As its worded now, that option is either off the table – or at least being heavily discouraged.

Ive seen firsthand what having to play this number game can do to a guild of even the closest friends. Ive been on the other side – the guy who had to take the heat when X number of people had to be left out every week. Its not fun – in fact, it’s the single biggest issue with raiding, imo.

Something that important (even if its just important to a small number of us) deserves a place in the discussion. I would much rather be discussing the raid itself, but Im not going to let something this important fall to the wayside so early.

I would suggest that the problem that you were facing was that those left behind weren’t as upset about not being able to play with the group. I’d wager they were more upset about being left behind from the vertical progression. THAT I can see as a huge problem. Remember we have no vertical progression.

They were upset (reasonably so) because they logged on during a raid night expecting to get to raid with friends and werent able to because of logistics. They suspended their real lives thinking they would be part of the group and, because of numbers, were not.

And this wasnt an uncommon occurrence. It got to the point where we would have to roll to see who got to go and who did not.

Is that something we really want to see happening in GW2?

KngGilgamesh.3481:

Blaeys.3102:

Its not an optimal solution, but the only way I could see 15 or fewer player raids working is if the difficulty was designed around having 10 players.

Groups wanting the challenge could limit their size to 10 or fewer players and guilds like mine would still have some flexibility in the size of the teams they could field. Win-win.

Im not going to let this topic drop. If this is going to be a collaborative development initiative, then we need to collaborate and not ignore significant concerns from anyone.

You don’t really seem to understand what Chris has been trying to say.
They want to create a raid in which knowledge and mechanics are more important than number of players. He has stated this multiple times now.
To reiterate again, difficulty is designed based on knowledge of the fight and the skill of the players rather than the amount of people participating.

This is why he suggested 15 size limits, since the size isn’t as important. They want us to move on to how we would like the raids to be specifically (what kind of encounters, mechanics, how to employ the mechanics in fun ways etc.) The limit can be be subject to change based on how the raid is designed.
In other words the raid influences the size of player. The size of players don’t influence the mechanics of the raid. Much less constraints this way and we don’t have to be stuck on a single point to the detriment of all other points.

If raids are designed to be completed by 15 or fewer people, you’re going to end up with the same concerns you would have with dynamic scaling. You risk making the raids either too easy with 15 or too hard with fewer than 15. Either would be problematic

If the intent is to allow completion with fewer than 15 to begin with, then you might as well be scaling the raid.

Regardless, all Im asking for is dialogue – a real discussion of the impact that a single set raid size would have on guilds and groups of friends – and the merits of multiple raid sizes (or other potential solutions). As its worded now, that option is either off the table – or at least being heavily discouraged.

Ive seen firsthand what having to play this number game can do to a guild of even the closest friends. Ive been on the other side – the guy who had to take the heat when X number of people had to be left out every week. Its not fun – in fact, it’s the single biggest issue with raiding, imo.

Something that important (even if its just important to a small number of us) deserves a place in the discussion. I would much rather be discussing the raid itself, but Im not going to let something this important fall to the wayside so early.

spoj.9672:

Blaeys.3102:

Its not an optimal solution, but the only way I could see 15 or fewer player raids working is if the difficulty was designed around having 10 players.

Groups wanting the challenge could limit their size to 10 or fewer players and guilds like mine would still have some flexibility in the size of the teams they could field. Win-win.

Im not going to let this topic drop. If this is going to be a collaborative development initiative, then we need to collaborate and not ignore significant concerns from anyone.

It seems that its only a significant concern for you. Most guilds should have no problem organising into smaller groups. Even if their numbers dont divide up perfectly. I think its time we move away from it. You’ve made your point on the issue. Thats all there is to it.

I dont believe I am the only one with this concern. Many throughout the thread have advocated more flexibility in raid size, for the same reasons I list. The difference is Im more vocal and less inclined to let the issue fall to the wayside (call it a character flaw).

This is an important issue to me and one I will continue to advocate for – or at least advocate to keep it part of the conversation. I dont think that is an unfair request.

Its not an optimal solution, but the only way I could see 15 or fewer player raids working is if the difficulty was designed around having 10 players.

Groups wanting the challenge could limit their size to 10 or fewer players and guilds like mine would still have some flexibility in the size of the teams they could field. Win-win.

Im not going to let this topic drop. If this is going to be a collaborative development initiative, then we need to collaborate and not ignore significant concerns from anyone.

Arewn.2368:

I think Chris has clearly indicated that he’s open to downscaling the raid for less numbers at this point.

He didnt propose down scaling, simply letting players try the content – at the set difficulty – with smaller groups (similar to soloing 5 player dungeons). There is a difference.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Blaeys.3102:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Yes can we please move away from the traditional tropes of raiding and discuss how to utilize the core mechanics of GW2 to create a new type of challenging co-operative instanced content.

We also don’t need to talk about levels or scaling for the time being.

And those that want to continue to chat with Crystal about progression then please do so.

Chris

In fairness, you brought the scaling issue to the forefront when you told us to assume a set raid size as part of our feedback. If we can abandon that assumption (with the understanding that the topic will be part of a later discussion), then it would open the conversation to other topics.

The logistics of how raids are formed – especially among guilds of diverse numbers – is a very important topic that will affect how players – and definitely guilds – experience raiding should it ever become a thing. That topic cannot be pushed aside. It goes to the heart of how we play the game.

I put forward set raid size to try to steer discussion away from scaling.

And just to note I also said ‘Set raid size with the ability for a smaller number than the set to enter in and try the encounter’

Knowledge>skill>numbers.

Chris

Which raises the issue of accessibility (an area where GW2 has always set itself apart) and essentially limiting people out of raiding for pure math and logistical reason – which I’ve explained in detail in this thread.

The solution doesn’t have to be scaling, but the alternative of a single set number causes logistics issues that plague raiding in other games, especially for guilds (its the reason WoW implemented flex raiding).

Again, the discussion around that point – and finding an alternative (or the insistence that there isn’t one) – is a necessary part of the raid conversation.

If scaling limits development, what can we do to solve both issues – making challenging raids accessible to everyone (logistically) without tearing guilds and communities apart or limiting your development capabilities.

Ive tried to compromise on this perspective, even offering a potential solution (the 8-12-16 or just 8-12 sized raids). Im just asking that something people care about not be dismissed out of hand – that it be part of the actual discussion.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Yes can we please move away from the traditional tropes of raiding and discuss how to utilize the core mechanics of GW2 to create a new type of challenging co-operative instanced content.

We also don’t need to talk about levels or scaling for the time being.

And those that want to continue to chat with Crystal about progression then please do so.

Chris

In fairness, you brought the scaling issue to the forefront when you told us to assume a set raid size as part of our feedback. If we can abandon that assumption (with the understanding that the topic will be part of a later discussion), then it would open the conversation to other topics.

The logistics of how raids are formed – especially among guilds of diverse numbers – is a very important topic that will affect how players – and definitely guilds – experience raiding should it ever become a thing. That topic cannot be pushed aside. It goes to the heart of how we play the game.

Symph.8407:

Blaeys.3102:

..
I could get behind multiple raid tiers, even though, as Ive noted before, I think their should be three tiers – 8, 12 and 16 person raids. These numbers mean, regardless of how many people you have (as long as you have at least eight), you are never more than 3 people away from viable raid groups.
..

A question for you Blaeys:
How would you feel about it, if Anet started out by making the raid(s) for 12 man only, but then later introduced the two other sizes?
(Hereby giving them time to perfect the balance of each size)
Side question:
Would you have faith in them to follow through on delivering the (3) sizes over time?

Its a fair question -

I think they have to come out of the gate with the philosophy of inclusions (again, not talking about difficulty, just logistics).

My biggest issue would be choosing who in my guild gets to be part of those 12 party groups and who doesnt. If 26 qualified raiders showed up, I would have to leave 2 people out or find 10 additional raiders (which would be very difficult).

That first raid would be the most important (same as it was when WoW introduced new raiding tiers in that game). Leaving people out – not because of skill level, but because of math – is the thing that I cannot get past. I dont want to tell people they cannot come because of a mathmatics problem. If someone is ready to raid, I want to ensure they get to raid alongside friends. That is extremely important to me.

So, short answer, I would find this problematic. I think the effort needs to be made from day one to alleviate these logistics concerns (because logistics are what cause 80-90% of the hate in other raiding games, imo – moreso than elitism even).

Solve the logistics problem and content can be as hard as they can make it (and I think the 8-12-16 model would solve it). I’d be giddy with excitement over the prospects of those kinds of raids.

Its worth noting that they could do two tiers – 8 and 12 – and the math would work just as well, so if 3 adds too much development time, that would be an option.

spoj.9672:

Just bare in mind my MMO raid experience is pretty much non existant. So i dont have a preconceived notion of what raiding should be. I use logic when deciding on what i think it should be.

So i would suggest re-reading my posts and think about why i have those opinions from a logical standpoint. Its certainly not because of other games. Its what i think the game needs and whats realistic from a game design perspective.

That is a fair request, so I did go back and look at your past posts. Most of them I agree with completely.

Raiding should be for lvl 80s only. Encounters should be designed with the expectation that all participants have access to every possible tool (traits and stats).

While we do differ in opinion on scaling, you posted about making 10 and 15 man raids I could get behind multiple raid tiers, even though, as Ive noted before, I think their should be three tiers – 8, 12 and 16 person raids. These numbers mean, regardless of how many people you have (as long as you have at least eight), you are never more than 3 people away from viable raid groups. This is the compromise I think they should make. Again, the exclusion should come in the difficulty of the fight, not in the difficulty of finding enough people to fill out organized groups.

Most of your other posts involve rewards. I dont feel strongly about this (I dont really play for the pixelated rewards). My first thought would be that skins unique to raids would be fine, but that is true of every aspect of the game. If you do dungeons, you get dungeon skins, if you do LS, you get living story skins, if you do pvp, you get PvP skins, etc. It isnt about prestige – its about the fun of unique skins.

Hope this helps clarify. Seems like there is only one area we really differ in opinion on – and I think that compromise is still possible there.

spoj.9672:

Firstly i didnt call you entitled. I was referring to the large group of people that want raids to be available to all people. I think thats just narrowminded. Im also shocked that you think I was attacking you. I was merely expressing my opinion in a very polite manner.

Nor did i say you wanted open world bosses in instances. I merely mentioned that it is implied with they way you want scaling and large group encounters in instances. That sounds very much like world bosses in instances.

Also as a final note. Its not as if adding hardcore raids to the game will suddenly make the rest of the game change and disappear. I think you are overexaggerating with this comment:

I would love to see epic difficult raids, but not at the expense of the game many of us have come to really love.

Because frankly you cant create epic difficult raids without causing exclusion. Its impossible from a logical standpoint. And with exclusion comes elitism. So I will repeat they are non avoidable issues.

Sorry for the confusion. Thanks for clarifying the “entitled” comment and I apologize if I came across harsh to you with my reply.

If they are truly non-avoidable issues, then I repeat that raiding would cause more damage than good to the game.

I still believe, however, that if people would just be willing to think outside the box a little more (most importantly, forget what raiding looks like in other games), they could create large scale instanced challenges that don’t bring the exclusion (at least on the front end) and elitism those other games do.

In my opinion, exclusion via difficulty is fine. Exclusion due to poor processes (hard to form/find groups, unnecessary attunements, etc) is definitely not. Elitism in any form should be stamped out and killed, but that is really another discussion entirely.

The biggest issue is, the second anyone starts talking potential solutions, such as alternative scaling methods, they are flooded with negativity and brick walls from a very small group of people who have a preconceived notion of what raiding should be (based usually on what they have seen in other games).

If raiding is meant to be a carbon copy of what we see in Wildstar or the glory days of WoW (my raiding days), then there really is no need for further conversation.

Imo, though, this is GW2 and they can do better.

spoj.9672:

@Blaeys

It seems to me that you want open world bosses in instances. Whereas the rest of us want actual raids. Open world bosses in instances is kind of just allowing exclusion to content we already have. Having proper raids will obviously create exclusion and it wont be for everyone. But its something the game sorely needs.

I think the game is at the point where anet just needs to ignore the excessive entitlement people feel they deserve and just create something epic in terms of challenge and reward. And to do this they need to forget about problems such as exclusion and elitism. Obviously dont completely forsake them or encourage them but they should be a very minor factor when designing a raid. Those are problems you cant really solve no matter what you do. And if you hold back on development because of those issues you will get nowhere. You cant create something amazing if you are afraid to displease people. Its not possible. If you try to please everyone it will be half baked and wont really satisfy either side of the spectrum.

I never said move open world bosses into instances. I said keep the living story encounters after they leave the Living Story through instanced raiding.

You talk about excessive entitlement on the part of others and then freely admit exclusion and elitism should be part of the raid model. Im sorry, but that is a little narrowminded. Furthermore, its something GW2 has always strived very hard to avoid – a perspective that has created the amazing community they have in the game today.

I would love to see epic difficult raids, but not at the expense of the game many of us have come to really love. There are specific elements of raiding that, imo, cannot come over from other games without turning GW2 into something many of us left those game to get away from. I think if we cannot come to a compromise on some of those points, raiding would do more harm to the game than good. If they can come up with a way to create challenging raids that avoid those pitfalls, then yes, do it. If not, I would rather they didnt.

But, even if that compromise cannot be reached through more accessible raid type instanced content, I still believe it could be something amazing. It wouldnt be what you would consider a true hardcore raid, but it would be something alot of people would really enjoy.

Finally, just because my opinion differs from yours doesnt make me entitled, any more than your opinion differing from mine makes you so. People need to stop attacking others so much and stay on task.

I woke up this morning and read through these posts and came to a simple revelation that alot of us (including myself to a degree) arent going to be tremendously happy with, and that I will probably get attacked over (hopefully not, though) -

The kind of hardcore ultra structured raids people are advocating will not be possible in Guild Wars 2 without changing the goals and spirit of the game.

Introducing raids in the form they take in other games will also bring the hate and elitism we see in those other games. Unless we can address that core problem by moving away from rigid preconceptions about what a raid should be, as much as I want ultra challenging raids, I think they aren’t feasible.

Most do not want the atmosphere that exclusionary “look at me, im better than the gods” raid content would create in the game. I know that will draw the ire of people in this thread, but it needs to be said and addressed.

In my first post – which was echoed by others throughout the thread – I advocated using raiding to bring back – in scalable instances – past living story steps. Basically, instead of raids being elite content, they are used to keep some of the most fun living story content from season one (and future seasons) alive.

ArenaNet has proven they can design these fights in ways that require a slightly higher level of coordination and teamwork than we usually see in the game (Marionette, Breachmaker, etc). While it isnt the challenge some are advocating for, it is something we dont have now that MANY people would thoroughly enjoy.

I thought I had changed my mind and tried to join the discussion regarding hardcore raiding, but at this point in the conversation, Ive come to the realization that the kind of raiding advocated by the hardcore few would change this game I love in too many negative ways. I have some very fond memories of hardcore progression raiding in other games, but those memories are eclipsed by the negative atmosphere this kind of content would bring to the game.

I know this will cause some reactionary posts and criticisms and that’s fine (as long as it’s done in a civil and adult manner), but I think its time to come to the realization that you can either have ultra structured hardcore raiding for a small percentage to enjoy or large scale semi organized instances (think Marionette or Breachmaker) that everyone can access.

NOTE: I do believe the game would benefit from ultra hard content. However, I think that content belongs in dungeons. Five player content (or single player for that matter) doesnt have as great an impact on the atmosphere/community in the game.

I think the one thing that is obvious from the past 13 pages is that the community is extremely polarized over how raids should be presented and packaged in GW2.

If ArenaNet ever decides to integrate instanced raiding into the game, I don’t envy them the task. Regardless of how they choose to approach it, there will be large groups of people disappointed on one side or the other.

Instead of fighting back and forth, Im going to back up and, as simply as possible, state what I personally want – at the most basic level – out of a GW2 raid. I would encourage others to do the same – focus on your goals/thoughts and worry a little less about criticizing others.

There are three things I would like to see developers keep in mind if/when they ever start work on GW2 raids:

Challenging Content – specifically group challenges that require more coordination and teamwork than what is currently required in dungeons and guild missions. I think this is the one thing that pretty much everyone in the thread can agree on, even if there is some contention about how far that challenge extends.

Friendly Community Focus - I don’t want the process of forming and starting raids to become a point of contention or drive wedges into guilds or groups of friends. My original thoughts on this (scaling) definitely caused some waves. I still feel strongly about this, but would be open to solutions other than scaling if any exist (im not convinced they do, but would love to be surprised). Raiding cannot become the cesspool of hate and egos that it has in other games. Raiding should be about bringing groups of friends together to experience fun challenging content.

Maintaining the Core Principles of GW2 - Raiding cannot take over end game or be seen as more important from a development perspective when compared to other areas. There are a lot of elements to lvl 80 gameplay in GW2 – WvW, spvp, dungeons/fractals, open world DEs/maps (temples, dry top, world bosses), guild missions, etc. Raiding shouldn’t pull development efforts away from advancing those areas of the game – nor should it be seen as special or somehow above that content.

People should raid because they find raiding fun – not because they think it is what is expected of them or because raiding in GW2 is somehow seen as more prestigious than other content in the game.

I know some of that sounds simplistic, but it is what I want from raiding should it ever make its way into GW2.

phys.7689:

you cant have it both ways though, either you are trying to create almost mandatory support roles, or you are not.
I believe making support via healing mandatory isnt a good rule of thumb, there can be advantages to healing through some dmg, but it shouldnt be mandatory.

I would suggest, design it so that damage can be avoided, or absorbed. Give some advantage for absorbing the dmg. Such as superior positioning for longer (lets say avoiding it requires everyone to move out of range) Or the enemy takes extra dmg while you soak dmg, however this is not mandatory, there will be a playstyle where you can absorb it (for a short time) and benefit, and a playstyle where you avoid, and get back in there and go to town.

Regardless, i think its a bad idea to make any one role semi mandatory with the current system. Yes it will require more complex designs, but overall i think it will make a stronger system.
Also remember healing is only one type of support.

I think they should focus gameplay/roles on support dps and control. Support would be buffs at key times, heals weakness/blind. Control would i agree need a rework of defiance. other games control is generally more powerful when it lands, and more limited. i dont think control can really be a prime tenant and role in battle if the system negates 9/10 control effects off the bat

This is fair criticism and a good extension of the discussion.

You are absolutely right that it shouldnt just be about heals – and semi-mandatory may have been the wrong word. Blocks, Aegis, deathshroud, life drains, etc should be just as viable – the point is dodges shouldnt be for avoiding small damage – but rather our go to for the big stuff.

Like yourself, I still believe control could be integrated into the game better than it is now. The Three Toed Tootsie method, while not perfect, seems like a step in that direction. It takes that 9 of 10 negations out of the equation and gives them another tool for this.

Another direction I think they could take, that would probably require a technical rework, would be to swap how defiance works and make it individual to the player rather than stacked on the boss. Instead of burning five stacks off as a group, each player would be responsible for burning personal stacks off and then holding the next interrupt ability. This would add another possible aspect to the fight – where a boss could deliver 3-5 fast devastating attacks in a row that would require yet more group coordination (rotating interrupts during that attack phase). Again, that might be something their system cannot do, but it is a thought. Just as importantly, it would allow the players greater control over how/when interrupts are applied without breaking fight design.

Anyway, thanks for adding to the discussion. This is how ideas can come out of a CDI.

hybrid.5027:

Blaeys.3102:

• It should be impossible to avoid all damage and bosses should liberally apply conditions such as immobilize, weakness, vulnerability, blind, chill and cripple. Players should have to feel like they need to save dodges for the big crushing attacks. Regen, healing, aegis, etc. (as well as condi removal) should be required to stay alive between dodges.

This isn’t self-evidentally good, you have to explain why this is something we should want, not just declare you want it. I’m not against the concept of bosses that do condition overload, but you should be a bit more honest that what you’re trying to do is encourage use of tanky gear for survival.

You are right. This could use more description.

The point wouldnt be to encourage the use of tanky gear (or any gear really), but rather to encourage cooperative and coordinated gameplay through group healing (blasting water fields, new healing traits, etc) and condition removal – adding a deeper level of necessary support to the game. I realize groups do this now to a point, but that isnt the point. The point is to make it borderline mandatory in order to move away from simple churn and burn raid boss strategies.

I dont believe in forcing gear choices on any player. The goal is to reward groups that are good at (and punish groups that arent good at) keeping each other alive (working together).

I realize groups do many of the other things I list in my post. The point of the post was to list my opinion (of course, that should be implied) regarding the elements core to a raid encounter in GW2. The question was asked regarding which current game elements lend themselves to raid design. I was partially following that lead.

I respect that you disagree with my opinions regarding how raiding should manifest in GW2. That’s fine (its even healthy). Obviously, I dont agree with everything you’ve proposed either (although some sounds really good to me). All I ask is that we express mutual respect (even when being disagreeable) so that we can have a real discussion and, hopefully, end up with something we all enjoy if/when raiding makes its way into the game.

Your baseball analogy is a little off the mark. Of course many of those things are already important in dungeons. It isnt about adding something new, but rather about emphasizing certain elements to the point they are closer to being mandatory. The advantage of raiding over dungeons is that you have more people and you should have access to more support and control tools. The encounter should designed around that assumption, in my opinion.

And of course I understand the importance of CC in organized groups. I only run in organized groups (not a fan of pugging). Again, be careful making those assumptions and try to avoid talking down to people a little. Just because I like the way the three toed tootsie mechanic works doesnt mean I had huge issues with the standard defiance system.

Mutual respect is important if were going to have an actual conversation.

Dalanor.5387:

Blaeys.3102:

You may not have intended it, but your post comes across a little insulting.

Especially stuff like this:

“We do all these things in organized dungeon groups already. You should try it.”

You need to tone it down and respect other people’s right to their opinions a little more.

This needs to be a balanced discussion where we have civil conversations about topics. Insults and talking down to people works counter to that idea.

How about to defend your points instead of being offensive towards him? He actually pointed out issues in your proposal.

I have no problem defending my points and will happily do so, but I will defend myself when I feel attacked.

All I meant to do was point out that he needs to tone down his offensive tone. Im not sure how I could have done that other than the way I did – and didnt mean to be offensive myself. I apologize if that is the case.

There are a lot of opinions in this thread. They are all valid. Talking down to and insulting people isnt going to further the thread in any way. We need to respect one another and realize we all bring different perspectives to this issue. None of them are wrong. Its about having a discussion.

hybrid.5027:

Blaeys.3102:

• It should be mathematically impossible for any group to burn down a boss before it uses all of it abilities several times.

I think that’s a given. As I said before, if you don’t think they can design raid bosses properly you’re mistaken. They are well aware that a good 5 man team makes 50-75k dps per second and they will certainly take that into account.

• It should be impossible to avoid all damage and bosses should liberally apply conditions such as immobilize, weakness, vulnerability, blind, chill and cripple. Players should have to feel like they need to save dodges for the big crushing attacks. Regen, healing, aegis, etc. (as well as condi removal) should be required to stay alive between dodges.

This isn’t self-evidentally good, you have to explain why this is something we should want, not just declare you want it. I’m not against the concept of bosses that do condition overload, but you should be a bit more honest that what you’re trying to do is encourage use of tanky gear for survival.

• Big, fight altering attacks should be interrupt-able via a short window (the Three Toed Tootsie method).

We have a Defiant system that will work well in a raid environment. Also, most modern design raid bosses take mandatory interrupts into their design, don’t worry.

• Bosses should react to player positioning. If a large group of players lumps into a big pile, then the boss should be able to focus more damage on that single spot, requiring even greater healing and support in the party (dodges should never be enough to stay alive in a stack) – or, alternatively, run away from that spot. Likewise, if everyone is widely spread out, the boss should take a “pick them off” strategy, focusing huge attacks at a one player at at time (while still not ignoring others).

This isn’t really how raid bosses are designed in modern games, and reactive AI is asking a bit much. Generally speaking boss attacks in today’s raids are fairly rapid and usually AOE based, with single target attacks in between and require constant repositioning of the team, sometimes in a stack sometimes apart but always moving. I’m pretty sure any raid boss they design will have this in the design.

• Niche abilities, such as boon stripping, reflects/projectile defense, fear, walls of warding etc should be a requirement in many fights. The advantage raiding brings over dungeon runs is you will have greater diversity in the party and access to more tools with which to fight.

We do all these things in organized dungeon groups already. You should try it.

• Where possible, fights should involve secondary objectives (dont let the blood get to the Test Subject)

• The boss should try to control where the group fights. Electrify areas of the floor, use the cutters/walls from the Aetherblade fractal, use the hotfoot mechanic, etc.

Like I said, these things are already done in every raid boss in every game designed in the last few years. I highly doubt anet is going to go backwards mechanically.

• A new condition damage model needs to be implemented prior to introducing raids in GW2. It is a broken mechanic that devalues common builds that players want to use.

In fights as long as raid boss fights condition damage is as good as direct. The system doesn’t have to change to enable that. I would also expect to see mechanics like the triple wurm husks to be much more common.

Again (and MOST IMPORTANTLY) , I believe this can all be done in a scalable (or at least multi-tiered including 8,12,16 player versions) raiding models without sacrificing difficulty or complexity. In fact, I think that is crucial (see my other posts in this thread to see how adamant I am about that ).

This isn’t crucial at all. It’s crucial that they get the encounters tuned for one raid size. having one properly tuned raid size and no alternatives is better than one properly tuned raid size and two jokes.

Besides, as I said in my other posts, the more people you add the easier it gets and the less prestige it has. You can say “without sacrificing difficulty” but that is literally impossible. In an 8 man raid if someone dies the team loses 1/8th of its efficiency, in a 16 man they lose 1/16th. there is literally no way for that not to be true.

You may not have intended it, but your post comes across a little insulting.

Especially stuff like this:

“We do all these things in organized dungeon groups already. You should try it.”

You need to tone it down and respect other people’s right to their opinions a little more.

This needs to be a balanced discussion where we have civil conversations about topics. Insults and talking down to people works counter to that idea.

Crystal Reid.2481:

cesmode.4257:

Hi, I mentioned this in my first post a few moments ago. I could be out of date as well as this mind set that we were given early on…but isn’t the entire game ‘endgame’ ? Hop in, do whatever you want to do. No pressure, nada. Take your time, the whole thing is your oyster. When you start creating level 80 content only, ala raids, you segregate the playerbase much like other games where its then a rush to max level to do the raids. All of the gorgeous 1-80 content you have in this game becomes completely trivial and a stepping stone to the real game. You might as well just allow people to boost to 80 via potions or something and skip leveling all together because it becomes absolutely meaningless. A meaningless time sink. I didnt need 80 levels to learn my class. Maybe less than two dozen and I had it down. The rest was just enjoyment because the 1-80 content was nice. I leveled through it without any pressure. Put max level content in the game, and we will feel rushed to get to the real stuff. Its human nature.

For this reason, I do not think raids belong in GW2. But if they are to be implemented, I do have suggestions which I have shared

I bolded a section of this that I wanted to inquire about. Do you think the fact the game has been live for over 2 years now change your thoughts on this? This is definitely a common occurrence with new MMO’s that launch with raiding, but what about a game that didn’t launch with raiding? Is there still an issue of players “rushing to 80” when a large percentage of the player base already has at least one 80? Thoughts?

Is it an issue for the majority of the population? Definitely not.

Could it have a potentially negative effect on the new player experience? Definitely, but those negative effects would be easy to avoid by making sure Raids are complimentary to other lvl 80 content and not the end all be all to the game.

I think a more important question would be, what effect would raiding have on the other aspects of level 80 game play?

If you implement shambling complex raids that take hours to complete, will that diminish the number of players doing other content? Yes, it most likely would.

Would that be detrimental to the game? Only if players felt like they had to raid to obtain the best rewards in the game.

Should this stop you from putting raids (that scale on a limited basis ) into the game? definitely not. You just need to take the game as a whole into account and design raids to be complementary to other level 80 content rather than seen as the preferred or elite status content (imo, primarily in terms of rewards and the weekly time commitment required in the raids)

In other words, it will be up to you to ensure raiding doesnt take over the game and become the end all be all of GW2’s end game.

When the game first came out, they touted a soft trinity of control/support/dps. I would like to see fights that require all of these elements in raids.

Some thoughts:

• It should be mathematically impossible for any group to burn down a boss before it uses all of it abilities several times.

• It should be impossible to avoid all damage and bosses should liberally apply conditions such as immobilize, weakness, vulnerability, blind, chill and cripple. Players should have to feel like they need to save dodges for the big crushing attacks. Regen, healing, aegis, etc. (as well as condi removal) should be required to stay alive between dodges.

• Big, fight altering attacks should be interrupt-able via a short window (the Three Toed Tootsie method).

• Bosses should react to player positioning. If a large group of players lumps into a big pile, then the boss should be able to focus more damage on that single spot, requiring even greater healing and support in the party (dodges should never be enough to stay alive in a stack) – or, alternatively, run away from that spot. Likewise, if everyone is widely spread out, the boss should take a “pick them off” strategy, focusing huge attacks at a one player at at time (while still not ignoring others).

• Niche abilities, such as boon stripping, reflects/projectile defense, fear, walls of warding etc should be a requirement in many fights. The advantage raiding brings over dungeon runs is you will have greater diversity in the party and access to more tools with which to fight.

• Where possible, fights should involve secondary objectives (dont let the blood get to the Test Subject)

• The boss should try to control where the group fights. Electrify areas of the floor, use the cutters/walls from the Aetherblade fractal, use the hotfoot mechanic, etc.

• A new condition damage model needs to be implemented prior to introducing raids in GW2. It is a broken mechanic that devalues common builds that players want to use.

• Coordination should be the focus of fight design. Look at fights like Sparki & Slick, Mai Trin, the final boss of the Dredge Fractal, The Clockwork Boss in AP, etc as good examples. Coordination comes in multiple forms, including player positioning, controlled DPS on multiple targets, the need for healing/boons/condi removal/using environmental weapons (such as the oil pots in the dredge fractal)/many more.

• Safe spots and other semi-exploits should be identified and dealt with immediately, even if it means shutting down access to the raid temporarily.

Again (and MOST IMPORTANTLY) , I believe this can all be done in a scalable (or at least multi-tiered including 8,12,16 player versions) raiding models without sacrificing difficulty or complexity. In fact, I think that is crucial (see my other posts in this thread to see how adamant I am about that ).

Astralporing.1957:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

To be clear Crystal is simply engaging in brain storming. The foundation of GW2 as we know it is the core foundation that we should be building our proposal from. This said broadening our field of view outside of this is a good way of finding good ideas and then working to apply them to new areas.

Chris

What some people see as broadening of perspective, for others may seem like shifting it in another direction. Raids as are mostly presented in this thread seems like the second kind to me. This happened once already, when the ascended gear got introduced, and personally i am very much afraid that raid introduction may be just another step on the road away from the original core foundations. Or at least from what i perceived those foundations to be.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Personally I would also want to see raids as end game content and by that I mean level 80 only.

Chris

If that’s all what it means, it’s not that big of a problem (depending on how strict the level requirement is – fractals for example are level 80 content as well, but you can still run early ones with level 70-s and hope to succeed). If raids were to be designed around level 80s with perfect BiS (ascended) gear however…
Also, there’s a question whether they are meant to be one of many endgame activities, or the endgame. Again, lot of the voices in this thread seems to show desire for the latter (which would be a massive change to the game principles). That’s especially visible where rewards are mentioned.

Erichermit.6018:

Ensure that rewards properly drive players to engage in challenging and difficult content instead of choosing the easier content because it is more profitable (not simply because it is easier.)

I disagree. The game should not drive players towards “challenging and difficult” or “rewarding” system. If it even has to drive players anywhere, it is towards fun content. Something they would like to play. And since no two people like the same things, the game should not attempt to drive them anywhere, but rather open up multiple options.

Basically, if someone decides to play the game for rewards, no single content should leap immediately to their mind, Of course, consequently, no content should also be visibly last in that category.

If people are going to play raids primarily for rewards, then they have failed as a design, and the game would be better without them being introduced at all. If GW2 is going to have Raids as only one important PvE endgame option, then again, it would be better without them being introduced at all.

I think this post brings up some very important points and I agree with every one. The content should be enough to draw players to a particular aspect of the game.

Rewards (in GW2) shouldnt drive gameplay decisions. Let us play the content we find the most fun without having to worry about missing out on the special shinies. That is what can lead to a single mode or aspect taking over the game, which would not be good for this game.

Raiding should be about the experience more than it is about the reward (which should be true of every aspect of the game, imo).

Jaken.6801:

So a Raid is basically a multi group (or bigger group) dungeon/instance if I am right, which has rewards and designs that do need the amount of people.
It is either damage or mechanics that are in play here.

As my Guild has died due to not enough greater group activities (Guild Missions were not enough) I suggested something like that a while back.

Ironicly with me not having any idea on how raids work (as I never played WoW and I did not experience Alliance Battles in FFXI and do not count Capital City Siege in Warhammer Online as such), this came to mind:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/Suggestion-Multi-Party-Dungeon/first#post3557782

TD;LR
A dungeon which is not entirely depending on an organized party, but benefits from having more people.
More people raise the chances of more loot, but also the chance of harder encounter.
(This is an idea for a different approach to raid-dungeons, which could supplement the ones to come and offer something like an introduction from dungeon to raiding)
Basic Idea
- There are three paths leading to a central chamber.
- Each of the Paths will feature the same amount of events, which allows all of them to get the same amount of rewards.
- It is not required to have all three parties in the dungeon to get to the boss and the final chest
- While each party will not directly interact with each other, their presence influences the other parties process.
- Parties do not have to cooperate till the endboss, making it a little race to the finish if they decide to do so.
- Main goal is the end-chest.
- reward and dificulty at the end is based on the number of participants. Max loot and danger for full paths.
- The chances for single or multiple parties at the end (special loot) are the same

Graphic
(rough sketch)
- Each orange field represents an event zone, with the numbers indicating who is at the event (1.1 = Path 1, Event 1)
- Two numbers represent an event in which both parties can help/hinder the other party by finishing their event first.
- The Boss strenght and the acompanied loot is based on how many parties are in the map. There can be one scaling Boss, or one that changes depending on how many paths are cleared.

Example dungeon run
(szenarios depicted here are just an example. They are no fleshed out design)
- All groups start at the same time
- Group 1 reaches event 1.1 first and engages in a fight with a fire element.
- Group 2 reaches event 2.1 as well, is in a waterfilled glas-tunnel above them.
- Group 2 finishes the the fight first, causing it`s enemy to explode. This causes instabilities in the glass-tunnel and some water leaks down on event 1.1.
- Group 1 has now waterfields to draw the enemy in, cleanse the burning efect it aplies and debuff him. (help szenario)

- Group 3 in the meantime cleared their events 3.1 quickly and entered event 3.2. To proceed they have to choose one of two cages to fall down to create a bridge. Each cage holds an different enemy. They fight their choice and proceed.
- Group 1 just finishes event 1.2 but right as they are able to proceed the cage of 3.2 comes down, forcing them into a bonus event. (hindering event)

- Group 3 reaches event 3.3 first and defeats it. On the sides are cannons which fire on event 2.3. Since they can take the event with 4 people, they decide to give some coverfire to Group 2 who just arrives at event 2.3

- Even though they got held up by the cage, Group 1 reaches event 1.4 first and cleares it before the other two reach their 4th.
- They reach the final chamber and are faced with a decision: deactivating all remaining events so the others can proceed smoothly (loosing maybe a champ bag) or they wait for a bit. (Race insentive)
- Group 1 decides to ask on Mapchat which group wants to skip. Group 2 is allready in fight declines, while group 3 is willing to skip.

- All three groups are now at the final chamber.
- As all paths have been cleared they are faced with the final boss, who is balanced to take on 15 people.
- if only two (or one) groups would have been there, the boss would have been weaker or a completly different.
- After their win, all groups can open the chest and get an extra-reward, based on which version of the final Boss they defeated. Think amount of chains destroyed in the recent twistet marionette LS update

I could get behind this idea. It would alleviate my scaling concerns nicely and still offer serious large group challenges.

It would also allow some flexibility. It wouldnt necessarily have to be paths. It could also be something similar to Assault Knights opening portals to the Breachmaker or multiple map areas with mini-bosses/events to clear (ala Dry Top).

Im going to make this point again in the hopes that the devs will actually have a conversation about the topic and not just ignore what many of us find to be a very important issue.

I agree that indefinite scaling (10-150 players) would be a very bad idea. Instead raid sizes should scale between 8 and 16 players. That would ensure that, during a guild raid night, everyone would have a spot if they wanted it (assuming you had the minimum number of players).

Anyone who has led raids in more structured raid MMOs knows how painful and demoralizing it can be to form a 10 player raid where 12 people show up and want to go. It can break guilds apart and hurt real friendships in ways that hurt the game.

GW2 has always, before everything else, been a friendlier MMO. Adding in hard cap number raid sizes will change that completely in a single move – by adding the biggest point of contention and hate from other MMOs into this game.

The biggest issue people see with scaling is the impact it would have on raid difficulty. I agree this is a problem to solve, but unlike many, I don’t see it as an insurmountable barrier (and isnt coming up with issues to problems part of what the CDI is about?).

In fact, it is where GW2 can really set itself apart from other raid MMOs. I believe high end difficult content (just as difficult as people are wanting in the 15 player raid ideas they are coming up with) could be added alongside a modified scaling model that allows groups to avoid leaving qualified raiders out of raid nights.

The simplest way to do this would be a tiered system. In the 8-16 model, raids would scale at the three following sizes – 8 person, 12 person and 16 person raids. In that situation, if 17 people showed up, I would only have to find 3 extra people (for one 8 and one 12 person raid) instead of having to find 15 extra people for two 16 player raids. Alternatively, the 9 person group could include the more seasoned raiders and attempt the 12 person raid.

It would alleviate developer concerns because they could focus on the differences between the three instead of worrying about scaling per person.

Yes it would add some to raid development time and may mean a slightly longer development cycle, but wouldn’t it be worth it to have high quality raids with very difficult content without having to worry about the hate and hard feelings that are inherent in other raiding MMOs?

I want to have the mechanics conversation, but I think it is premature – unless the developers are hard set on 15 player raids (or any other set number), which, again, I would find very demoralizing.

Arewn.2368:

Blaeys.3102:

I cant get past the 15 player set group restriction you’re trying to set, which basically shuts down the scaling option. Some of us have real issue with that and its potential effect on the community – that we have communicated very clearly – and making that assumption going in (after I and many others have clearly made valid points on this topic) means that I, unfortunately, dont feel welcome in this conversation.

Im sorry this comes across caustic, but this is a very disheartening issue for me. Ive been playing alongside groups averaging between 30-45 players (every one of which is qualified to raid, imo) for almost 2 years that I refuse to leave behind in set number raids because we cant divide them up by 15 reliably every time.

I was forced to do that for years in other games – Guild Wars 2 was supposed to be different. The devs were supposed to care about things like this and keep that exclusionary stuff out of the game.

I would love to join the conversation about mechanics, but not if the end result is something that will potentially fracture the group of players I care so much about in this game.

You’re perfectly welcome in the conversation even if you disagree, that’s been the case in all of the CDI threads, you just have to be flexible enough to discuss under the given parameters. I don’t claim to know what the devs think, but as someone in stark opposition to your thoughts on scaling (despite apparently having similar gaming background) here’s what I have to say to your post:
Constraints are necessary for cohesiveness. While it’s true that every one gets to play the world bosses regardless of group size, it’s equally true that the world bosses are very lackluster from the perspective of player gameplay. World bosses have their place: they keeps the open world alive, they’re exciting and visually stunning, they foster community interaction. But they have limits and are lackluster in other areas, such as gameplay, as a result of what they are.
If the goal of raids is to be cooperative challenging group content, certain constraints will have to be put in place to meet that goal. The devs are asking us to be mindful of those constraints as we discuss.
15 players sounds like a good amount. Too big, and the role of the individual gets watered down. Too small, and it just becomes a glorified dungeon party.
Chris has told us to work with 15, but there was flexibility in what he said, and that flexibility makes this discussion very inclusive to your desires. He said “with the ability to do encounters with less.”.
Making 15 players the dev’s point of balance, but allowing the instance to roughly downscale for smaller group sizes, would allow you to comfortably fit in your varying group of 30 to 45 people. Split 30 into 3 groups of 10 or 2 groups of 15, split 45 into 3 groups of 15, and everything in-between works as well.
Once again, you must work within constraints if you want good content though. In this case, up to 45 player varying sized raids doesn’t work, it’s not what this content is aiming to be. It’s not an instanced world boss. So they’ve constrained it to a smaller number for the sake of cohesiveness and good encounter design.

What’s more, even if they do go with rigid group sizes, it’s not the end of the line for you in this discussion. Think of ways, tools, features, that can aid you in managing your group so that everyone gets to play. Pugging is a powerful tool. In WoW, it’s how I managed to keep my small guild going, and it’s how the GM of a larger guild I was in managed to get everyone raiding when he split us into groups.

I respect and appreciate what you are saying here, but it is obvious that the “fewer than 15” part of that statement goes back to what was proposed earlier in the thread – in that groups fewer than 15 will be about creating artificial challenge (similar to soloing dungeons). That is unrealistic when groups first start to raid content – the time when members will most want to be involved and included.

If that is what they end up doing, I will be disappointed, but I will understand why (though still probably disagree). What I have issue with is placing that constraint on the conversation as a given this early in the CDI.

If were going to have a CDI thread about raiding, then it should include discussions, feedback and even compromises (hopefully) about the topics we care about – not dismiss them out of hand with no real back and forth.

It is a disappointing turn in a discussion I had hoped would be more open and productive.

Again, I appreciate the productive and even helpful tone of your post. I just still feel this issue warrants actual discussion and feedback.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Conski Deshan.2057:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

While I am on the subject let’s also frame the discussion around 15 player’s with the ability to do encounters with less.

I don’t want to constrain us to much but I think this will be helpful.
Chris

With that as a basis I would expect it to be composed of three parties of 5 players, preformed outside of the instance.
The three parties progress through the raid as a group for the most part with split points where each party is separated temporarily and has to survive some combat/puzzle/mini-boss , wiping of one group leads to failure of the condition for the other two groups.
I think this sort of splitting up is important in ensuring the content is difficult and that each player is competent. Additionally it allows for some interesting encounter mechanics, say pulling a leaver in your area has a effect on one of the other fights.

I see the focal points for rewards and progression to be around bosses, The three parties fight them together, no hard seperation but their should likely be some form of “events” that encourage splitting up during the encounter. Bosses act as a gate to further into the area, one or two people had concerns over bosses being the focal point being too similar to other MMO’s but I think its still a good way to do it.
To progress each individual player must kill the boss , to get to the next, this means that a player who has only ever killed the first boss cannot join a party at the 3rd boss, they must kill the second, this is a big part of what will help make Raids challenging, with no way to bypass their block they either have to improve or stop for the moment.

Very cool, good start.

How about we focus on progression later and start brainstorming the core activities and encounters.

i feel like I am already overly constraining so if this much guidance is to much then let me know.

Chris

I cant get past the 15 player set group restriction you’re trying to set, which basically shuts down the scaling option. Some of us have real issue with that and its potential effect on the community – that we have communicated very clearly – and making that assumption going in (after I and many others have clearly made valid points on this topic) means that I, unfortunately, dont feel welcome in this conversation.

Im sorry this comes across caustic, but this is a very disheartening issue for me. Ive been playing alongside groups averaging between 30-45 players (every one of which is qualified to raid, imo) for almost 2 years that I refuse to leave behind in set number raids because we cant divide them up by 15 reliably every time.

I was forced to do that for years in other games – Guild Wars 2 was supposed to be different. The devs were supposed to care about things like this and keep that exclusionary stuff out of the game.

I would love to join the conversation about mechanics, but not if the end result is something that will potentially fracture the group of players I care so much about in this game.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Astralporing.1957:

Crystal Reid.2481:

Let’s assume that because raiding would be a very new type of content for the game that it’s possible for us to re-write the principles of the game that we have seen so far.

That’s a worrying statement. Basically, those principles you are saying might be re-written are the main reason lot of people came to this game in a first place. It’s the reason why lot of those people are still staying even if they are dissatisfied with some late design decisions. It’s also one of the very few things that make GW2 different from other MMORPGs.
GW2 has always been proud of inclusivity and general accessibility of its content to the whole player population. Do not change that.

To be clear Crystal is simply engaging in brain storming. The foundation of GW2 as we know it is the core foundation that we should be building our proposal from. This said broadening our field of view outside of this is a good way of finding good ideas and then working to apply them to new areas.

Chris

Broadening the focus of the game is great, but at a practical level, there are certain steps and changes you cannot make without damaging (or at least changing) longstanding ideals and principles. The nature of end game and your approach to cooperative inclusive gameplay are near the top of that list for many of us.

I think what the responses to her post are trying to point out is that those principles are important to us and how we play the game. Yes, grow (broaden) the game – give us many many fun new things to do – but do so without compromising (ie changing) those core principles.

Introducing raiding doesnt mean changing the principles of the game. You have the tools and youve proven you know how to make fun large scale encounters. Fall back on those strengths to accomplish this goal.