Guild Wars 2

I like this last one, the idea of making entirely different boss encounters. That’s a good idea.

No, not entirely different, just “easy/hard.” So maybe instead of Escort there would be a hard boss fight, which raiders would find comparable to a Gorseval or Slothazor, but there would be an easy version of it too, whcih would be doable by less focused parties. Or, they could leave Escort in, but also have a harder version of it that again even serious raiders would find challenging, to complement the easy mode versions being added for other encounters. The idea would be that all the hard mode encounters would be hard, and all the easy mode ones would be easy.

First raid wing was released in November, second in March and third in June. How many of those that bought quit BEFORE November, or before any of the rest of the Raid releases?

Impossible to say, but of those, how many would be relevant to anything? Zero, because if you buy an expansion in October and quit before November, then it’s unlikely you’ll stick with raids for any length of time.

Crystal said that they ship easy raids as well as hard ones to get newer players interested. Would you rather have escort and xera or two versions of xera? Because that is the choice you face.

Two versions of Xera, obviously. And of course there would be a third scenario, either a “hard mode” escort that most raiders would not consider “too easy,” or some other boss encounter entirely, which I think would satisfy both hardcore and easy mode players.

Looks like you have a guild. Why don’t they host training runs? Why don’t they allow off-meta builds? This seems to be a guild problem, not a raid problem.

Training runs and off-meta builds for less than expert teams are just “failure runs,” and most players want no part of “failure runs,” they do not want to waste their time on attempts that will not result in a victory. This is why easy mode has a role, it allows people to put together training runs where they will learn while succeeding at the task for that day. You build up your skills by repeatedly winning and doing so more efficiently each time, rather than by failing less spectacularly each attempt.

LIs alone are a terrible estimation of a raid’s popularity too. They don’t show how much of the player base is still active, and for obvious reasons those with more playtime will tend to get into Raiding more than those with little playtime, the higher the playtime, the higher the likelihood of being properly geared and ready for “end game”. LIs alone don’t take into account playtime, nor the actual active population of the game so anyone who says “only X% has LIs, so Raids aren’t popular at all” is completely wrong.

You’re right in that LIs are a poor minimum, someone who has, say, 40 LI, is at least someone who has raided quite a bit at one point, but as you note, they may have quit completely months ago. But LIs are a decent maximum, since if you have zero LIs right now, then you’ve never beaten a single boss. It’s also comparable to the rate of people with zero Magnetite, and if you even attempt raiding, you’re almost certain to walk away with at least a few Magnetite. So the ceiling on raid participation is around 20% of the GW2E players, the floor of active raiders may be lower than that, and we don’t know how accurate GW2E’s rates are to the general population, but chances are they skew more in favor of raiders than away from them.

They aren’t bad…I just don’t like them. Others love them, so what gives me the right o demand that that part gets removed?

Nothing, just as I would have no right, or reason to say that the base version of raids should be nerfed to a level I’m comfortable with, but if you would enjoy an alternative more, I don’t see why there couldn’t be space for that too. That’s why I’m in favor of an easier version, rather than a nerf to the default raids. For example, in the lowest tier difficulties of Fractals, I don’t see why they couldn’t have a “golden tanuki suit” sort of option for the platforming segments where if you fail at them enough you’re given a shortcut past them.

Serious Fractal players wouldn’t need that, and it wouldn’t allow any real cheating of the content since it wouldn’t be available in the more advanced tiers, but it would at least allow players like yourself to get all the way through the other parts of the Fractal without difficulty. They already even have much of this, in that every Fractal I can think of with a jumping portion, either players that get past it can disable the traps that would make it challenging, or they unlock a checkpoint so that if you die, you respawn at the top with them.

Seriously, if you need accommodations, there’s no reason to not request them.

At the start of an expansion, Blizzard has been staggering the release of their content. Here’s an example of the release schedule for the launch of Legion: (Link) (Some terminology: “Mythic” is hard mode; “Raid Finder” is the fail-proof easy mode; “Heroic” is normal mode; “Mythic Keystones” are basically Fractal Difficulty Scales)

Ok, but like when they release the final raid of that expansion set, whatever that may be, there are places you can go to gear up that would allow you to reasonably tackle that raid, having skipped all the previous raids of that expansion? Like there would be quests or farming locations that would drop gear comparable to what you’d get by clearing the second-to-last raid?

@Ohoni, there is a post on reddit about easy mode raid. What is interesting is the OP is asking for story mode, but understand that no reward should be available through it…

Yes, different people CAN want different things. Amazing, I know.

As an aside….@Ohoni, I don’t do fractals. Why? I hate jumping puzzles. If I wanted to play a platform game I would play Castlevania.

I don’t recall Fractals having particularly bad jumping puzzles, and if you aren’t very good at them, you can typically skip up them after the rest of your party. Anyone who can do raid content should have zero trouble getting through fractal platforming. But as to your actual point. . .

. But Fracts have some really nice loots, of which I have been told I cant get unless I do them, along with achievements I would like to get and masteries but I wont ever get them because I cant stand to do the fracts that have the jumping in them.

Yeah, that is a bummer, and it shouldn’t surprise you that I’m on your side here. I don’t think you should have to run Fractals to get anything you’d want. Items that have a Fractal theme should be easiest to get via Fractals, and anyone who both wants those items AND enjoys Fractals should have no question in his mind that grinding Fractals is the best way for him to get them, but players who just never want to Frac, they should have alternatives, paths where if they work hard enough at some other types of content they can earn those same items.

Now, does that mean I get to demand that ANET remove that part of the fractal because I don’t like it and suck at it? If so, then I am behind you all the way…but I doubt it.

Thanks!

They intend raids to remain the most difficult content, so self-nerfing mechanisms like gear progression will not happen. Raids will always be at the mercy of any balance changes though.

I truly don’t expect balance changes in future that will auto-nerf the existing raids to any significant degree though. The vanilla game was balanced around exotics and no elite specs, and got auto-nerfed by adding a new tier of gearing and a stronger bonus skillset, but I doubt they’ll ever add a tier above Ascended, and I believe that the XPac 2 Elites will be designed to be balanced against the existing ones, just offering new gameplay styles and roles for each class, so I basically don’t see the existing raids ever getting any easier by incident. That means that if players want an easier version, an easier version will need to be made for them deliberately.

I’m also really puzzled by your WoW comments… There have been so many ways to obtain gear and catch up, even at the start of expansions… I’m guessing you’re going off of very outdated information though.

Perhaps I am. So you’re telling me that when a new WoW expansion comes out, you can go somewhere to get geared up well enough to jump right into the most challenging raid of that expansion, without having to do any of the other raids from that expansion first? That’s interesting.

You can enter any new raid tier without having done the previous ones, because WoW has tons of catch-up mechanics.

But if you do them as they release, there are no catch-ups, since those get added later. If a given content drops with three raids, you need to grind 1 to get the gear for 2, then 2 to get the gear for 3, and then 3 just for bragging rights because when the next big patch comes out anyone can get raid-3 quality gear off trash mobs, which they’ll need for the new raid 1, but which newbs can use to go back and stomp the previous raids 1 and 2.

So yes, as Astra pointed out, WoW does add elements over time that trivializes older raids. That is their “easy mode.” If GW2 was following WoW’s model, then if you were to take a team of scrubs that would wipe constantly to Gorseval today, then after XPac 2 releases and they did a little trash mob farming, they would be able to take him out in a five-man team with no more training. ANet have promised that this, at least, is not in their design, and that makes sense, but they do need to provide some way for players who don’t enjoy hardcore challenge to experience the content of the raids, if stat progression is not on the table.

“Raid-grinding”? What does that even mean?

Once you reach endgame in WoW, it becomes all about grinding one raid so that you can grind the next, and so on until you run out and they put out a new expansion. That is not GW2, Gw2 is escape from that treadmill, and it always should be. If GW2 is to incorporate raids, they should be TRULY optional, not just “you don’t have to do them, but you’ll miss out on things,” but true “you don’t have to do them at all, because anything you can see in the raid, you can find elsewhere.”

The only people who should EVER be running raids are people who can enjoy raiding.

As an example only….WOW has Heroic raids and Heroic gear you get from doing them. They also have Mythic raids and you get the better Mythic gear from doing those. You DO NOT get Mythic gear from doing a heroic/normal raid, period.

But WoW is a raid-grinding game. GW2 neither needs nor wants to be a raid-grinding game.

And as I keep telling you, there is no logical reason except beeing greedy and selfish to want both, especially normal raid rewards in a easier way.

What sort of reason would you expect there to be for a player to want to enjoy the game he’s playing? You’re basically saying “you have fun the wrong way and you can’t prove otherwise!” There’s really no argument that could possibly be made, so I’m not sure why you seem surprised that there isn’t one.

ok, now you don’t have any smarts. They ARE NOT independent as a “raid reward” is what you, the player, gets from ….wait for it……..“RAIDING!”

/sigh no. There is nothing “raiding” about raid rewards, except that ANet have arbitrarily decided to put them behind raiding, for now. If raiding had never existed, we would still be getting Envoy armor from someplace. When the game came out, you could only earn Dungeon armor through Dungeons, now you can earn them through PvP tracks. Legendary Precursors were only random drops, now they also have Achievement quests. They open up new ways to earn things all the time.

If they choose to do so, they can make Envoy armor available anywhere in the game that they like. So, I want to see:

1. There should be easy mode raids to provide players a way to experience the raids without having to take on the significant challenges involved in the existing versions.

2. There should be alternate methods of earning Envoy/Experimental armor skins that do not requiring the existing raid difficulty.

They can do both of these as a single package, allowing players to progress towards the Envoy armor using the easy mode raids, or they can deliver each separately, providing a non-raid path to earning envoy armor elsewhere in the open world or something. Delivering only one of the two would be nice, an improvement over the current state, but I would still want them to address the other point as well.

People need to abandon the idea of having raid rewards without raiding. This is not a thing. People who trully want these rewards are raiding, point. Stop asking for “easy mode raid” when you only want “easy raid rewards”. You’re just hypocrit. Everyone know what you trully want.

As I keep telling you, I want both, independently of each other, and securing one would not cause me to stop wanting the other. I’ll ask you to please stop lying about me.

This way new/insecure players can slowly try to get better and learn and work their way up without just getting an easy way for the rewards

People need to abandon the idea of “people working their way up to the current raids.” That is not a thing. People who want to raid, raid. The alternatives need to exist for people who want to do the alternative and then STOP, and will never “advance” to the current raids. The alternatives need to be designed so that those players are satisfied, not left wanting more, because hardcore raids are not for everyone, and never will be.

So Ohoni, from your 400 posts what I can gather is that the solution would be this. I pay money like you and everyone else so why don’t I just get a legendary of my choice, Envoy Armor and god knows what other cool goodies just for logging on?

Nope. Missed it by a fairly considerable distance. Maybe try reading through them again.

Then you are the latter one. You refused to let me have what I wanted to ask for, even if u had it. You more or less told me "I don’t want u to have what u want (bc its mine, u can’t have it!). So whos the more selfish one here, me bc I wanted something, or u telling me I couldn’t have it?

I’m sorry, what have I ever tried to prevent you from having?

Reason: you refuse to give me what I want. I don’t care that it’s yours, u never specified what were the limitations to what u could wish for. I want what I want, the only person denying me this is you, Ohoni. gimme my precursor, and ill side with u on this

Oh, are you talking about you asking me for a precursor? That’s an entirely nonsense analogy. In that case, you are asking me to give up something of mine so that you can have it. I’m not asking that anyone give up anything. Basically, let’s say I have an apple. you ask that I give you my apple, so that now I would have none. Maybe I say yes, maybe no, but I’d be justified in refusing, because you have no right to deprive me of my apple. But let’s say I had the magical ability to infinitely duplicate my apple, I could give you an apple, and keep my own apple, losing nothing in the process. In that case, I could not be justified in not giving you the apple, because I would lose nothing in doing so.

That’s the situation here, allowing more players to access raids in a way that they would enjoy, more people being able to acquire Legendary armor in a manner they would enjoy, it takes nothing away from anyone. The only “cost” to anyone in the process is the added effort ANet would have to spend in producing it, and it would be fair for them to refuse on those grounds, but I believe it would also be in their business interests to invest that time and effort on a product that would be good for their customers.

I don’t need, or request your permission in this.

And you insisting on ur mythical easy mode raid solution doesn’t make u any less hypocritical than the first time you said it.

True, but since I wasn’t at all hypocritical at any phase in the process, I’m content with that.

You’re over thinking this.. I want what I want, so I should have it. Isn’t that ur whole argument word for word?

I’m talking about what the developers can provide. If I had infinite Precursors, I’d give you one, sure. But I don’t, so the burden of providing you one would be less than reasonable from my perspective.

Now I think what you’re getting at is that the developers need to provide goals, and that if they just hand players everything then there would be nothing to strive for. And I agree with this principle. I’m not asking to be handed anything. I’m asking for alternative methods to earning something, because the existing methods are not reasonable paths for me.

Think of it this way, say there is a prize that is available on top of a thirty foot high platform. The method of scaling to that platform is a double-steep staircase. You’re a reasonably fit person, you can climb this staircase easily enough, and it’s literally no sweat to you, so you see this as a reasonable cost. But say another person has really bad knees, and lifting them high enough to climb those steps is significantly painful to him. He might be able to crawl his way up to the top of those steps, but each step would be agonizing for him, far less tolerable than it was for you.

This person asks if perhaps they could put in a ramp at a shallower angle. It would have to be longer to reach the same height, but he wouldn’t have to lift his knees as high and it would be far less painful to him. You’re saying “No, never! I climbed those stairs, you should too!” I just don’t see that as a reasonable position.

Player A wants item C, it is irrelevant whether or not player B has dibs on it. Player B has to cough it up regardless and mail it to player A, since he has proclaimed that he wants it

Nope, because player B doesn’t have dibs on anything. Player A is asking for something that Player B has no right to decide who gets it or not.

The game really needs something in between raids and normal content. Something like what dungeons still are. instead of demanding that raids change, adding content to bridge to raids would be a much better solution.

Are you presuming that this new content would cause more players to eventually start raiding, having passed through the intermediate content? Give up on that, raids are not for everyone, that is not the goal here. The goal is to provide options for players who NEVER want to do the current variety of raids, but that don’t want to miss out on the lore and rewards currently associated with them.

What did you not understand with the dev post saying “no easy mode raid”?

“Before clearing content, you have to Master it. Do you think people beat VG in one night ? (OK some guilds did it). My guildies and I we beat it, I think, after our 3rd night on it. Now, we beat it everytime, first time. So ofc wiping and learning are part of raiding. Then after, you can clear raids. "

not at all, the selfish one is the greedy one ready do destroy an entire game mode for his only interest.

True, but that’s not what I’m doing, so it’s a moot point.

YOU’re only working for yourself, you don’t care about what other people defending easy mode want (because many of them understand that’s it’s foolish to ask same rewards as normal raids)

No, I’m working for what I think would be best for the game as a whole.

sorry to inform you again (but it’s normal, you don’t know how are raids in gw2), that story in raid ARE cutscenes and journals…because between that, you just fight some boss. That’s all.

And that fight is PART of the story. Take any action movie you’ve seen. Cut out every action scene, so that all that’s left are the ones where people are standing around talking. Would you still say that the movie is the same?

I don’t want to horde for myself, i’m more than happy to bring more people, even new people, in raid.

You’re only willing to allow people access if they play by the same rules that make you happy. You’re unwilling to give people access if they play by the rules that make them happy. Why do you insist that other players have to play the way you enjoy.

The problem is that you have decided that you dislike raid, and you prefer to fight in forum instead of doing some raid.

I didn’t decide that I dislike raiding, I understand that I dislike raiding. I cannot choose to enjoy raiding in its current form, it is just an unalterable part of who I am that I am incapable of enjoying the sort of “wipe and reset” experience that you enjoy.

But i can understand that some people are not finding fun in that. But too bad, they can’t have the rewards associated. If they want the reward so bad, they can do the content. People like you have a choice to make, between raiding or not having rewards. That’s the game, deal with it. If you’re not happy with that, too bad. They are many people different from you that will choose to raid, and other that will understand that they won’t have raid rewards.

But what benefit is there to anyone to force players to make that choice? If you enjoy raiding, and want the reward, then that’s great for you, win/win, but why should other players be forced to choose between missing out on the reward or wasting their time on content they can’t enjoy? Why should the best they can hope for be “win/lose?” Why is it unreasonable to ask for a win/win scenario for those players as well, if you’re allowed to have one?

Replace the term ‘raids’ as u put it with any other content each and every person doesn’t like doing, like WvW, PvP, and even open world PvE (tho ill never understand why). Congrats, u are the winner of this is my most opinionated and steadfast desire. Jump on the bandwagon and join the thousand other ppl who are dissatisfied with content they don’t enjoy pls

Agreed. I want all of those players to have satisfying conclusions. This is just the issue I personally believe is most important, so it’s where I’m spending my time and effort. That doesn’t erase their discussions.

So there is no way that you as an individual are going to find such a challenge fun or engaging, you might ragequit after few attempts and never comes back. That’s just ur personality, and there’s nothing wrong with that. There are tons of other players who would feel the same way as u, and it’s neither their fault or the content’s fault. For instance, u don’t blame the olympics for being tough to get into, or requiring countless hours and hours of training and practice to get to that lvl.. u accept u are just not good enough and move on. This is the way the real world works as well, unfortunate as it may be in some cases

Except that we’re talking about a game, not the real world, and it works however the developers choose to make it work, and they can change those rules at any time, and they should do that if it leads to greater overall player happiness.

Without practice, where is success? Like learning a language by urself, no one is forcing u to do it but u are only doing it to better yourself. There is no ‘reward’ except feeling of self-fulfillment, and the excitement and fun that u are expecting comes later, when u figure out how to beat the boss mechanics without downing and realise u have help and rly contributed to ur group.

And that’s great, if it works that way for you, but if that’s all true, then why would you need exclusive rewards? Your reward is that you managed to achieve it, to beat that boss, so why would you also, on top of that, require a shiny exclusive item that nobody else can have? Also, why would having an easier mode take anything away from you? Someone beating the boss on easy doesn’t in any way reduce the accomplishment of you beating him on hard, you’re still a special snowflake for having managed that, because everyone understands that it’s a more difficult challenge.

Before clearing content, you have to Master it. Do you think people beat VG in one night ? (OK some guilds did it). My guildies and I we beat it, I think, after our 3rd night on it. Now, we beat it everytime, first time. So ofc wiping and learning are part of raiding. Then after, you can clear raids. And btw, all of this was fun.

I highlighted the most important part there. “all of this was fun.” For you. You had fun doing it, which was great, but can you understand that someone else could have had exactly the same experience you did, and none of it would be fun for them? Why do you believe that this player should have to do the same things you did, if you had fun doing them, and they wouldn’t? Why do you believe that if they don’t do this, that they should be punished by not being able to get the things that they want?

Good news: you can do things you do enjoy instead, which is how I play.

I do that, but the way things are currently structured, that means I’ll never be able to get Envoy armor, which is also not fun. I should not have to choose between the lesser of two evils, I should be able to play areas that I enjoy, and ALSO progress towards the goals that I choose for myself.

Instead of arguing that ANet should design raids to make you happy, how about if you offer suggestions for what sort of rewards you would like for the parts of the game you do enjoy.

I have, Envoy armor.

and you’re wrong, sorry to inform you that raids are mean to be challenging. if any combinaison of classes (with actual balance) could beat it, then it would not be challenging.

And this is the entire point of having an alternative, easier version.

You have not providing any facts that your way will require as much effort as normal raid. Your only argument is : it will take longuer, but you won’t convince anybody with that…

I’m not really sure what you’re looking for here.

Because that’s just a selfish reason without any logic behind ?

But “I don’t want you to have what I want because I only want people who do things my way to have it” is an even more selfish position. I don’t think self-interest should be a disqualifying factor. If there are two people, and one person says “I want what I want,” and the other says “I don’t want you to have what you want,” then the latter is the more selfish of the two.

if everyone can have what they want, what’s the point of playing the game anymore.

Well that already applies to the game. Everyone can already have whatever they want, and it seems to work out. Nobody is asking for handouts here, it would still require time and effort to achieve, it would still give the player reason to log in and spend many hours working towards his goal, it would just provide a reasonable path to that goal for players who are not served by the current raiding system.

You don’t care about what other players want, as long as you have what you want.

You insisting on this repeatedly doesn’t make it any more accurate than the first time you said it.

You look like a small boy in a candy shop, wanting everything and not understanding that you have to pay to have something and throwing a tantrum because he can’t have what he wants…

And you are the same way, the only difference being that you were already handed the candy you wanted.

i did, and i don’t know what’s more in raid…a cinematic yes, but everyone can have access to it in a cleared instance.

In a game, story is more than just cutscenes and journals, the story is also everything that happens in between. If you just want to watch story then why even play? Just watch let’s plays.

but the element you dislike ARE part of the raid. remove them, and you just have a 10 men dungeon…But if you want a 10 men dungeon, fine, you’ll have the same dungeon reward then (exotic and no better).

That’s a nonsensical arbitrary rule that you insist upon because you want to horde the rewards for yourself (and for people exactly like you). There’s absolutely no reason for that restriction. At least we are making progress though, in that you now agree that their can be easy mode raids, just so long as they don’t provide raid loot. That’s a step forward, at least.

Ohoni, ill give counter to this, pls I don’t want to world completion just for craft legendary, it takes hours and hours and I’m sick of it. Provide alternate way or let me ‘buy’ world completion with tokens or w/e

Sure. If it were within my power to grant you that, I would, and I have always encouraged the developers to provide those options.

Also pls stop forcing us to do other content. I dun wanna spend 12 hrs realistically doing wvw for their stupid gift, it’s waste of time and I have no fun

Exactly.

But if u hand me 6 diff precursors, ill accept ur argument and take ur side. I do really want them so I can sell thm to make profit, u should send it to me for this reason alone.

You’re making an argument that I should hand you something of mine because you want it. That doesn’t have anything to do with the argument I’m making, because I’m not suggesting taking anything away from anyone. If your argument is that the game should provide more and better methods for you to earn your own precursors, then I fully agree with you, there should be. The current methods are either too RNG or too filled with expensive mats. The current Precursor achievement paths would be good if not for the massive “dump thousands of logs into the furnace” phases.

of course you disagree, you want free legendary armor after all.

You want no less free Legendary armor than I do. You want to earn yours in hard mode raiding, I want to earn mine somewhere else because I don’t enjoy hard mode raiding, but I obviously intend to work hard to get it.

But since you cannot provide any objective argument, your positions are really weak and can be resumed as : i want it, so i have to have it.

And what would be the counter position to that? In an entertainment product, why shouldn’t I have what I want? That’s my confusion about some of your arguments, you seem to be placing some sort of objective value on these items, that they are objectively “worth” X, and that any other method of earning them makes them worth less than X, which you view as an objective wrong. But they aren’t. They are worth whatever they are worth, and that value can change any number of ways, none of which are “wrong,” they are just subjective disagreements about what each of us wants out of it.

For having participing in a number of teaching run in raid here, i can tell you that your solution would not help training.

No, you couldn’t, because those training runs were not done in an easy mode. You believe that it would not work, which is not the same as it actually not working.

Btw, because you don’t want to train, your opinion on this matter is not relevant. You don’t know how to train too…

I know how I train, I know what works for me. Maybe it doesn’t work for you, but it would be of benefit to those not served by the existing training run methods.

Yes story is a part SO important in raid that after more than 300 LI i still dont know it.

That’s your choice to not pay attention and engage with it. They don’t hit you in the face with it so I can understand how you could remain. . . unknowledgeable about the attached lore. It is there though. Enough that they felt it necessary to place a recap NPC in Bloodstone Fen, just as they did with LWs1. Maybe you should visit him.

Again, you’re just looking for any piece or argument in order to make easy mode available, so that you can have your free rewards.

Not really. I consider them to be two completely distinct lines of argument. Even if they never ever ever provide an easy mode raid, or if they did provide one without access to Envoy armor, I would still want a non-hard-raid path to Envoy armor, and even if they gave out free Envoy armor in the mail, or promised that they would never ever ever include envoy armor in any easy mode raid, I would still want that easy mode raid to exist. It is two things, neither excludes the other.

of course it is, you’re the one saying that you can’t raid. I’m telling you that no one except yourself is preventing you from raiding.

I could raid, what I could never do is enjoy raiding (in their current form). This is a game, I do not want to spend significant amounts of time doing things that I do not enjoy. Since I could never enjoy raids in their current form, and that is not something I could ever change, I will never want to do raids in their current form. If, however, the elements about the raids that are anathema to me were removed, then there are certainly parts there that I would definitely enjoy, and would spend time doing, so that is what I am trying to achieve here.

I’ll let the OP defend his own positions, I was only defending my own.

What if the easy mode needed to kill each boss 5-10 times to get the same reward?
Its not like we dont have tiered achievment already so its hard to implement.

Right, that’s my assumption going into this, their exact method would be whatever is easiest and most effective from their point of view, but I would fully expect to have to beat each raid boss many times over in easy mode to accomplish what could be done on one kill in the current version, presumably collecting fragments rather than finished pieces.

It is a problem with your proposed easier raids. Rewards have some form of balance between different game modes and those other modes have some RNG if you haven’t noticed.

And my point is, the existing methods aren’t nearly so balanced as you insist, they just have various arbitrary rules and you pick the one that works for you. Keep this in mind as well, you seem to be bothered by the idea that players would be able to earn Magnetite from easy mode, and spend it to buy Ascended gear. Well currently, in the game right now, if you complete even one raid event, even if you paid to be dragged across the finish line, you can do the same, and you can get several shards per attempt merely for failing at the current raids, so you could theoretically earn plenty of shards to buy whatever you like without ever having to beat any boss other than that one time.

What does hard mode have to do with anything? It’s completely irrelevant, the easy mode reward system would compete with other content of similar difficulty, for the same rewards, not hard mode raids. That’s what you seem to not understand, or ignore.

It’s not a competition.

So wait, instead of fixing the problem, expensive or behind too much RNG, you want to add a NEW way of getting Ascended gear without those problems?

You keep assigning motivations to me that I do not claim. This is not something I’m pushing for, I said what I was pushing for in the part you did not quote. This is something you addressed as a potential side effect of my goals. My response is that I don’t mind that it’s a side effect because it’s a step i the right direction, and if they want to make other steps elsewhere, that would be great too.

Push for an overall change of rewards away of RNG, grind or gold-dependency, that’s fine, why does it have to be in easy mode raids?

It doesn’t.

It really doesn’t.

I have been pushing for two things relative to this discussion:

1. There should be easy mode raids to provide players a way to experience the raids without having to take on the significant challenges involved in the existing versions.

2. There should be alternate methods of earning Envoy/Experimental armor skins that do not requiring the existing raid difficulty.

That’s it, that is my ONLY motivation relative to this discussion. Anything else is addressing positions that you have taken. So if they implement easy mode raids in a way that accomplish the two goals above, without giving players any easier access to Ascended armor in any fashion, that would be perfectly fine by me, it would just also be equally fine by me if they were used as an easier avenue for players to acquire Ascended armor. I have no strong feelings on the matter one way or the other, just so long as they are not used as an excuse to not accomplish the two objectives listed above.

Exactly why I don’t have a legendary. I would like to get Hope, but I don’t WvW or PvP and really don’t want to do the HoT masteries to get the items to make one, so I do without.
And I sure as hell don’t expect to be able to get one by doing something easier than was intended to receive such item!

Exactly! So they should have alternatives, methods that are equivalent to the other ones, but in various modes, some shorter but harder, some easier but longer, as wide a variety as possible so that as many people as possible can find a method that they’ll actually enjoy pursuing.

If it makes it much easier and more effortless to get the same reward fractals give then it’s a problem.

If so, perhaps that is a problem with Fractals, not a problem with my proposed easier raids. There are already plenty of methods of earning Ascended armor, many of them easier than Fractals. Again, Fractals are irrelevant to this discussion. If you enjoy Fractals, and you don’t think the Fractal rewards are good enough, make that case, but make it elsewhere.

It’s like asking for T1 fractals to give Ascended gear faster and more effortlessly than T2/T3/T4 Fractals,

But that’s the thing, you would not earn the gear faster through easy mode raid than you would through hard mode, it would take longer. Longer is the opposite of faster.

They give them through a hard to get collection, in hard to do content.

They also give out Ascended armor from story chapters, from certain achievements, from PvP loot crates that are pretty much effortless to acquire. You really are putting an unreasonable expectation on the amount of effort it should take to earn Ascended armor pieces.

From getting the Legendary armor skins now your crusade turned into easier Ascended armor/weapons.

Honestly, it’s not a primary goal for me, and I could take or leave it, but I don’t think it’s unreasonable or unfair either. I’ve said that as far as rewards go, the ONLY portion of raid rewards that I absolutely insist upon is the Envoy and Experimental armor skins. Everything else associated with the process is completely incidental to me so far as loot goes. If they decide on some alternate path towards earning those skins that bypasses the rest of the existing Legendary Armor achievement line entirely, I would be fine with that, I just think it would be more work on their end for basically no good reason.

“Everything is too expensive or behind too much RNG, no reason for easy raids not to have them all cheap and not behind RNG” nice logic here.

Thank you, we can at least finally agree on something.

Make up your mind and see your real problem.

What? I stand behind that. Everything is too expensive or behind too much RNG, and there is no reason for easy mode raids to not have them cheap or not behind RNG, although ideally that would be part of an overall move towards making the other sources cheaper and less random. I think overall the players would very much approve if ANet took serious efforts to de-escalating the gold value divide in the economy.

From ANET’s perspective, why would they add Envoy armor elsewhere?

Because they put a lot of time and effort into making it, and that time and effort is wasted if only a small number of players get to enjoy it. The more players that get to enjoy what they make, the more players that are made happy by it, the better for ANet.

Envoy armor was one of the many incentives to have players play their new content. It wouldn’t surprise me if WvW eventually gets a specific reward that takes a large investment. And you know what? We’d probably see increased game time and player population in WvW. Rewards aren’t the only reason to play the content, but they are part of it.

ANet doesn’t benefit from more players doing Raids.

ANet doesn’t benefit from more players doing WvW.

ANet benefits from more players HAVING FUN in their game.

If players are raiding, or WvWing, but are not enjoying themselves, then ANet does not benefit from that. Raiders may benefit from having more people to join their parties, and WvWers might benefit from more people to beat on, but neither of those groups is owed those other player’s participation. Players that do not want to raid should not feel compelled to do it anyway just so that those other players have an easier time.

ANet benefits by letting players play the content they enjoy, not by bribing them into doing content that they don’t enjoy. The rewards should be used as seasoning for content that the player already wants to do, not payment for a chore that the player wouldn’t do otherwise.

As I said, there is a valid purpose to rewards to getting players to try new or improved content, but rewards of this type should be short and sweet, give it a try, see if you like it, and if you do, you can continue playing for the better rewards, but if you aren’t having fun, you can move to a different activity and continue your path to the better rewards there.

Now people have said “well, they could just have different Legendary Armor in different content.” How would that be of any benefit to ANet? That means that if they want to support five different playstyles, they’d need to spend the time building five different armor sets, and it’s taken them a year just to make most of ONE. Also, since armor is not fungible, players who only want to PvP, but don’t like the PvP-only armor, would STILL be upset that they couldn’t get the Fractal-only armor that they prefer. There is NO benefit to this strategy.

Instead, they should make “home” sources for such rewards, places where it is easier to advance that goal, and where you might have to dabble in them for a few hours to start advancing that reward, but you should still be able to work towards the eventual reward via other methods. That is how ANet benefits, by nudging players in a certain direction, but also respecting their choice to not go that way, and not punishing them for it by withholding desired rewards.

Can I just buy legendary weapons with LI instead of parking characters at material farms?

Ideally, in some manner.

The issue with Legendary items is that it permanently pulls demand out of that economy. You no longer need to craft ascended items of that class, because you will get them automatically. In controlled circumstances, this can be alright, but once too high a proportion of the market is crowded out by legendaries, it will cause stagnation.

This is a silly argument. The same is true of Ascended gear, once you have a set, you don’t need any more. If you want to put it on another character, you can, and if you need to swap the stats, you can, the only difference is that Legendary is slightly more convenient if you’re going to be doing this on a regular basis. Besides which, most of the game doesn’t even require Ascended, so it’s not like the demand is super high, it’s just that the supply is super low. It would be healthier for the game overall if they just massively reduced the costs involved.

Hypothetically, let’s say everyone received a set of legendary armor tomorrow, for free: What would be the impact on the market? The price for commonly farmable materials across the board would plummet overnight. Who suffers? New players who have no means to accumulate capital.

Lol, no. New players earn capital from running events and getting gold drops, not from farming mats. This is an action adventure game, not a mining sim. If new players feel forced into mining ore all day then that is a toxic gameplay mechanic.

The gold economy in this game is already a fiasco, and there’s pretty much no way to fix it at this point. Too many people have way too much gold to balance it. This is why future development should ignore the gold economy entirely, and build development entirely on fresh currencies. They’re already doing this to some degree, if you want an ascended backpack, all you need to do is farm Bloodstone Fen or Ember Bay for a few days, earning a backpack equivalent to what would take over a hundred gold in crafting mats to build yourself.

Let’s imagine we’re in a world where you cannot farm money on a consistent basis with items like Iron Ore. The only way to get the money you need to buy a cool skin is either by getting lucky and getting another cool skin to sell, and then buy the cool skin you want, or by forking out real world money to get gems to convert to gold with which to buy the cool skin.
We all want cool skins but for cool skins to actually be an approachable model for the average player there needs to be the stepping stone of consistently farmable items, and that means materials.

I almost never sell off resources, and I have done ok for money. I would have done better if I were actively flipping the markets, but I find such behavior repugnant. There are plenty of ways to earn money in this game, farming resources isn’t the only method, and it definitely shouldn’t be the best method. This isn’t Farmville.

Ah, but you forget something important here. I’m totally fine with the actual situation, you’re the one wanting the situaution to change, so you should try to convince dev that you’re right. I don’t have to work for you, for once, you should try to put some effort in something.
But it’s ok, with you providing no argument or valid point, the situation won’t change.

You were the one that insisted there was a valid reason to prevent easy mode raids from having access to the rewards of hard mode raids, but you cannot back up your position. I can’t refute a position that doesn’t actually exist. If it’s just your general opinion that easy mode raids should never get access to hard mode rewards then. . . I disagree.

you cannot have both : a fight where skill doesn’t matter (what you want) and also a training mode.

Yes, you can, and this has been true of almost every form of training in human history.

See, without reading you seem to know better than me the lore. So, raiding to “experience” the story is plain wrong. you’ll find piece of paper somewhere, see some mobs, kill them, and enjoy a cinematic that everyone can show to you just opening the lfg. I think you and many other are overestimating the raid story.

Not yours to judge. Maybe you don’t pay attention to the raid, but that’s not my problem.

Oh you can fight as you want, just don’t expect many people to agree with you because that’s how the game is from the begenning. And no one is preventing you to raid. If you want to raid, you’re free to raid. Of course, you’ll have to make some efforts, but not more than actual raiders.

None of that relates in any way to what I said.

The economy being dependent on these two fundamentals is a very good thing as it ensures that every player can participate meaningfully in the economy if they want to; anybody can farm seaweed, anybody can farm iron ore, and because of those two permanent furnaces of demand, players always have a consistent means of expanding their wallet.

Farming materials to sell to wealthy players is not “meaningfully contributing,” and should not be encouraged as a behavior. If people genuinely enjoy harvesting resources, that’s fine, they can do that, but it should not be a “recommended activity” for players trying to catch up economically.

Of course there is a need for a reason, you should know it. there are plenty of reason to prevent access to them (because we’re talking about raid rewards here, another legendary armor outside of raid is needed i think).

If that were true, then you could provide them.

Your opinion, we just disagree. I trust dev to better know than you what is better for the game.

I thought it was obvious that we had differing opinions.

Nah, if a mecanic deals so few damage no wipe would happen, people will never learn.

Again, people will learn what they want to learn. If their only goal is to “play easy mode for easy mode” then they will just play through it, and the skills they pick up will be minimal (although still more than they would pick up from any unrelated boss fight). But if they go in with the intent to train for the harder mode, then they would go in knowing what skills they need to master, and will be able to use the easy mode to deliberately train those skills, to avoid things that they don’t absolutely have to avoid, because they know that they will have to avoid them if they play in the harder mode.

I’ve been over this time and again, you really need to stop pretending you don’t understand.

ANd what story does i contain exactly, story relevant to 95% of player?

It bridges the gap between the end of HoT and the beginning of Season 3, how the White Mantle was working behind the scenes to study the Bloodstone and expand their power, and how a team of adventurers broke into their base and shut down their operation there. And yes, players can be told these things from outside the raid, but this is a game, and it’s about experiencing the content, not receiving it second hand. Why even have a story mode to the game at all when they could have just given us a novel that tells the story? The entire point is to BE there.

loot…If only reward remains, sorry to inform you raids are not the first and probably not the last part of the game having specific rewards…

And again, two wrongs don’t make a right. If there is loot in the game that can only be found in one place, and that bothers you, then fight for that to change, I will not get in your way on that. But the existence of that loot does not in any way justify it in any way. So long as Envoy armor is restricted behind raids, you can never make the argument “well raids just aren’t for you, play the rest of the game,” because the rest of the game does not include Envoy armor.

there are pretty clear reasons not to provide blanket coverage for legendary gear ranging from economic to aesthetic reasons. you do actually need to make a case against those arguments if you want anyone to agree with you

Those arguments would need to be made before I could point out why they are wrong.

TL/DR; if Anet’s not going to open raid accessibility significantly, then i’d like them to make it so that i have no reason (besides liking that mode, of course) to ever visit them, and can easily pretend they do not exist.

Truth.

but why people like you deserve same rewards as me, whereas we’re not playing the salme game mode?

. . .

There’s no need for a reason. Why wouldn’t they deserve the same rewards? If players want those things, why should they not have access to them?

raiders don’t deserve better rewards as other, obviously, they just deserve raid rewards (anet choice btw).

Right, and that’s the problem, for the time being, ANet has chosen to tie Envoy armor behind raids. They could, and should, choose to do otherwise.

different outcomes means different mechanisms, you should stop claming ignorance.

Nope. Say you have a paintball gun, firing typical paintballs. Then you have another paintball gun that fires balls filled with acid. The latter one would cause a lot more harm if the shots landed, but the flight profiles between the two would be identical. If you goal was “never get hit,” then the way you would respond to both versions would be identical, you would try as best you could to never ever be hit, and if you were successful in that, the results would be identical, not a mark on you. Only if you failed would the results be any different, either you’d have some paint on you can could continue to practice, or you’d have some acid burns and would have to stop to get that taken care of. Same mechanism, different outcomes. Again, the paint method would serve as good training for the acid method, because as you get better at avoiding getting hit, those skills would translate 1:1 to avoiding the acid balls.

On the contrary, raids are here to satisfy certain customers. You’re not the target audience, deal with it. you can have fun with 95% of the game.

Again, that argument is invalid when the raids contain story and rewards that are relevant to players of that other 95% of the content. When there are alternative methods for those other 95% to acquire both, THEN your argument will become a perfectly valid one, but not a moment before.

That’s extremely objective, and it should be questioned with inquiries into evidence.

If you have evidence, then sure, but if you don’t have evidence, then there’s nothing you can do. : (

So, let’s imagine. easy mode raids are here, without rewards because that’s just normal, but anet email you the envoy armor because some reason. What would be the purpose of this kind of raid? once you see the story, no reason to see it again. You would experience the boss, fine. then you would leave, because you have the shinies you want, and no more reason to “raid”. But you would have waste anet dev times, gg.

If they implemented easy mode raids, AND they provided me personally with envoy armor without having to run it? I would still advocate that they need to make the armor accessible to everyone else, because it’s not just about me.

But ok, to expand your point slightly, and they implemented easy mode raids and sent Envoy armor to everyone else so that it’s no longer a goal, well then it comes down to what the other rewards would be. I’m assuming that it would offer a packet of exotic armor, sellable items, etc. that would be equivalent to the time and effort needed to complete it, so that anyone who currently plays Fractals or Dungeons today could say “that would be an equivalently productive use of my time,” and would do so, because it would be fresh new content for them to explore.

If you’re trying to argue that there’s no reason to play raids beyond the loot chase, then maybe raids aren’t worth the time to develop, and they should just put those rewards behind content that more people would actually enjoy playing.

I still want to bring up the point that these raids were originally not supposed to be puggable according to the devs. They saw a need from us saying that we should be able to form pug groups to do so, and they delivered in LFG. It’s very natural that there will be ‘Failure’ stories from raiding when the groups Raiding was intended for are the groups that have been working with each other for a long time.

You say that as if it excuses poor design goals. This is GW2. Designing content hat is not intended for pugs is a bad idea from conception.

Easy raids are called, “fractals.”

No, Fractals are Fractals, and they are missing almost every feature that easy raids would need to have. It’s like you’re saying “you already have a cheeseburger without cheese on it, it’s called ‘a salad.’”

Now blame the economist. Go do this experiment, go to T3/4 Fractals and count the hours needed to get a complete set of armor. Let’s say the stats don’t matter because you can stat swap. I’ll be waiting for the results.

Obviously that wouldn’t be a productive use of my time, but the result do not matter here. Fractals are irrelevant to easy mode raids, and I don’t know why you continue to insist on bringing them up. If anyone is currently running Fractals because they want to acquire Ascended armor that way, easy mode raids might end up changing their play patterns. I don’t know, and nor would it bother me if it did. So long as they’re having fun, that’s great.

“Everything is too expensive or behind too much RNG, no reason for easy raids not to have them all cheap and not behind RNG” nice logic here.

Thank you, we can at least finally agree on something.

You want to invalidate other sources of rewards, not just hurting raids but your objective now is to hurt ALL content in the game. You must really hate instanced content, or is grouping up the issue, I can’t tell.

I’m not invalidating anything.

Make it easy to get one set but don’t worry you’ll have to get it on more characters so it’s ok. Nice one! Maybe with the second collection you’ll choose another set, and then with the third one, the third weight that you missed!

We don’t know what the second collection gives out because it hasn’t done so yet, but if the hard mode raid hands out Ascended armor sets, then why would it be an issue if the easy mode does it too? They’ve established that they think it’s ok to have out Ascended armor sets, so why are you trying to make that my problem?

But seriously, if your problem with the game is how expensive crafting Ascended is, or how hard it is to get Ascended through RNG then you can always go and make a post complaining about it.

It’s not my problem. You’re the one that raised it, I was just responding to you. I’ve been very clear on what my issue is, and that’s easy mode raids and access to Envoy armor for players who will never enjoy the current raid system.

As I said, personally I could care less about access to Ascended armor. I actually have a handful of Ascended armor/weapon chests sitting in my inventory because I haven’t bothered to figure out which piece to get for which character.

If they want, like yourself, easy raid for normal raid rewards, then i disagree. It’s fairly injust to actual raiders, and just so selfish to want rewards in an easier way…

Why? Raiders enjoy raiding. It is no burden on them to say “hey, go have fun playing the part of the game you love most!” So why would players who enjoy raiding deserve to also get special rewards for playing how they most enjoy? It’s like a child saying “I refuse to eat desert unless you give me a second desert too!”

Raiders do not deserve anything special for playing the game how they most enjoy playing it, so allowing easy mode to provide access to those rewards is not taking away anything owed to raiders, it is just leveling the playing field for those players who do not enjoy raiding.

so tell me, how about spamming 1 for some time with whatever build / gear is more effort than learning raid, gearing for it, etc etc. Do you have a magical formul that transform time into effort? a formula fair for everyone of course, not just for you…

I’ll never satisfy you on this point, just as you’ll never satisfy me in arguing that nobody deserves raid loot than raiders. Just rest assured that I understand that low challenge over long time can balance out with high challenge over short time, and that you don’t need to agree for it to be true. Nobody needs your permission.

funny, that’s precisely what you’re asking for… different mecanisms so that no wipe.

Same mechanisms, different outcomes. I’ve been clear enough on this that you should really stop claiming ignorance.

so maybe you should go back to these games? because gw2 is not what you’re asking for, without multiple difficulty raids.

It’s raids that have disrupted the game that I’d been playing the three years before them. If “go back to where you came from” is your argument, then that would apply to the raiders, not to people upset about the raids. You are the invasive species.

If we started believing everything people said in their subjective opinions were true, we would be having far more bigger issues than just GW2.

I think you miss the point. You don’t have to agree with him that “too many guilds” are being harmed by this, but neither can you dispute his claim because it’s purely subjective. The statement is automatically accurate because it stakes out no objective position in the first place.

Crafting is much more expensive that 30g. If I had to choose between running some content 10 times to get a fixed non-RNG reward over running some other content an unspecified amount of times to get through some bad RNG, then I’d pick the fixed always.

It would probably take more like twenty times, and also, everyone agrees that the current crafting prices for Ascended is too high, but that’s the economy guy’s fault, and shouldn’t be a reason to not have them available to easy mode raiders.

Check the collection achievement for the legendary armor precursor it’s very standard.
Here it is: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Envoy_Armor_I:_Experimental_Armor

Yes, but that’s for the hard mode raid. The easy mode would likely award fractional progress on each of those per attempt.

Read it again then, I described the problem not a situation. Giving higher quality rewards in lower difficulty content is a dumb move.

Again, why? You are stating a fact as if it explains an issue. It’s like you’re pointing at a guy and saying “he has a hat on his head!!!!!” Ok, but so what? “What? Are you crazy? That man, has a hat on his _head!!!”_ You are pointing out that players would be getting desirable rewards by running easy content, and implying that this would be a bad thing for some reason, but not making clear why that would be the case.

20 minutes for a full Ascended armor set with stats of your choice. For every player in the game. Why run anything else in the game? Especially anything that is higher difficulty than T1 fractals, like maybe T3/4 Fractals?

Because you want sets for the 2/3 of your characters that can’t wear whichever one armor you pick? Because you don’t want to have to stat swap the armor every time you trade it between characters? Hell, I keep The Ascension in my shared inventory just in case one of my other characters need it, and I haven’t even bothered taking it out yet. It’s not a big deal. Besides, do people actually run Fractals just in the hope that random Ascended armor will drop there?

you are not the allowed target of raid, so what are you doing here?

I’m not the target for hard raids, and I make no opinion about those. I am the target audience for easy raids though, which is what I talk about.

I’ve never said wantig non raiders unhappy, actually, i’m more than happy to bring more people into raid so that more people can have legendary armor.

You understand that this is not the same thing? That you’re basically saying “I have no problem with people who don’t like to drink, I’ve offered to buy them a beer whenever they like.” I mean it’s nice and all if you’re willing to help people learn to raid, if that’s what they want, but if people express that learning to raid is not what they’re asking for, you should respect that and help them to get what they are actually asking for.

I just don’t want people like you having raid rewards without putting the same effort as raiders.

Neither do I. I fully intend to put in every bit of effort you have, if not more, just in running easy mode raids rather than hard mode ones.

And don’t talk about “but in easy mode i would be longer”… longer doesn’t mean same effort.

Uhhgh, I hate to tell you, but it kinda does. . . : (

Sure, that’s why dev will put an easier boss as first wing boss. As a soft barrier to raid, and who can serve as a training purpose probably.

Again, as I said, an easier boss that have completely different mechanics than later bosses is worthless as a training tool for those later bosses. The boss needs to have identical mechanics, just with reduced penalties for failing them.

But since you want to tune down the boss, it will not be the same story, it will just be a poor sumary. Full mecanics and fear of wipe are part of the ‘story’. Your fights will just be a joke, because you want T1 or T2 level fractal, not more.

That’s your take on it, but again, you aren’t the target audience of easy mode. for the past forty decades or so, games have had multiple difficulty modes, and players have enjoyed being able to select the difficulty level that suited their tastes.

We’ve already told you, you don’t learn with mecanics just tuned down to a level where no death can happen.

And you’re completely wrong on that.

And you’ll never stop arguing until anet email you the envoy armor.

As I said, that would not even slow me down. I want the easy mode raid, even if they did mail me the armor.

No, not the point I am trying to make. It just seems he wants to have what everyone else gets from doing raids “normal” by doing them in an easy mode. Bit unfair don’t ya think? You want easy mode or training, no problem, but don’t expect to reap the same rewards as those that do it the other way.

But remember, I’ve never asked for the same quantity of reward. I fully expect to receive less reward per time spent in easy mode, it would just eventually add up to the same goal. It’s basically like you’re saying “I went to four years of law school, and here this plumber is saying that he should be making US dollars just the same as me! Th nerve of him!” Well of course he makes dollars, he’d just make less dollars per hour, and if both of you wanted to get the same fancy car, you could, it would just take him longer to save up than it would you.

“and I’m told that means you aren’t allowed to hold an opinion on it.”

and

“And finally, I don’t much care whether you disagree with me getting Legendary armor through easy mode, because that has nothing to do with you. You get it how you want to get it, you have no say in how others get it, and if your happiness can only come at their expense, then their happiness comes first.”

WTF??!! Really, what is he (Ohoni) on about? I’m lost now, just silly “I want candy but I don’t have to pay for it” kind of mentality. Can we shut this down now?

I wasn’t the one saying that if content is not intended for me then I shouldn’t have a voice in how it works, I was just passing that message on. As for the loot part, Other people’s loot is none of your business. What they have or don’t have shouldn’t matter to you. What matters is what You have, and how you feel about that.

Cute. The chances of getting a precursor from a moa are so low you can ignore them. Magnetite Shards offer access to Ascended armor and weapons without any kind of RNG, get into perspective here.

Sure, but you can also craft them yourself with no RNG, and the RNG odds of getting them from higher tier Fractals is likely to make it take much less time to get a drop that you can at least stat-swap for what you want than it is to earn one using Mangetite shards form an easy mode Raid. Besides, it’s not like Fractals are the only place to get Ascended drops. I’ve gotten several from PvP chests before, and those are effortless to accumulate. I have enough reward potions right now I bet I could spit out an Ascended weapon just sitting around near the bank. I think I’ve even found one through a monthly log-in chest before. You are way too focused on raid verses Fractal, they are not in competition. Each should offer good rewards, and if you find the rewards in either lacking, then make that case, but whatever the rewards are right now in Fractals should make no difference to what they should be from a hypothetical easy mode raid.

Not to mention, 10 minutes of playing the easy mode will allow you to complete the first step of the Legendary armor which awards a full set of ascended armor with stats of your choice.

That’s certainly not my version of it, but if that’s a version you’re happy with then I’d consider it a generous concession. I was thinking more along the lines of taking 10-20 hours of repeating the easy mode raid, over a period of weeks, to get that far along in the process. Possibly even more than that.

Even so that is a one-time reward of a single set of armor, you’d need at least three even if you were willing to swap the sets around on different characters, not to mention that you’d need to stat-swap them for different characters. It’s a nice reward, but they’ve given out nice one-time rewards in the past. We’ve gotten free character slots and shared inventory slots before, for doing nothing! And those are of far more value than a set of ascended armor. You’re making it out like players getting ascended armor to be this cataclysmic event.

I think I explained it clearly why. You want to make higher quality items available from lower difficulty content, I don’t have to explain further why that is dumb and not an option.

I really think that you do, you’ve described a situation, but not why this would be a problem.

Ascended ARMOR chests start dropping in Fractals at T3, it’s completely random with low chances and you can’t pick your stats or the slot you want, you might always get boots or gloves. And yet, you want to get LEGENDARY armor running something of T1 difficulty or even lower. A complete LEGENDARY armor set, without RNG and the ability to change to any stat set you want, by running T1 fractals. How does that make any kind of sense?

I’d settle for just the skin. The stats and stat swapping are meaningless to me, but they seem to be a package deal. A key difference though is that it wouldn’t be a random drop, it would be a process. A random drop you can get on the first attempt, this would be guaranteed to take a certain minimum amount of time and repetitions. Also, the process of actually making the armor would still cost a considerable amount of resources, so there’s no way you’d get a functional set of Legendary armor for less cost than just crafting yourself some Ascended armor.

You can get a Legendary Precursor on the first moa you kill in Queensdale, yet people still do Precursor quests for them or spend hundreds of gold on the TP. The existence of Legendary weapons that can be sold on the TP does not invalidate all Ascended weapons. It’ll be ok, just relax.

Not to mention Magnetite Shards. Ascended Weapons start dropping at T2, with abysmal low chances, and you get a random weapon with random stats. On the other hand, you want to be able to buy Ascended armor/weapons with shards, without RNG and with the stats you want, just by running some T1-difficulty content.

If you’re arguing that the Fractal rewards aren’t good enough, then make that case, but whatever they are has nothing to do with this. Besides, you can stat-swap Ascended gear, so if you don’t get the exact one you want, you can change it. Buying them with Magnetite costs 250 shards and 15-30 gold, that’s not exactly “free,” so even if you’d be able to get some shards through easy mode, it would likely take dozens of repetitions to earn enough for a single weapon, not even counting that gold cost.

I hope those who are asking for access to the complete raid rewards using something of dungeon difficulty can re-think what they are talking about. It’s beyond ridiculous to ask for a new Raid difficulty that is equal to dungeon AND have access to the Raid rewards.

Why?

No, i still disagree with you, because adding easier mode is not needed (i prefer an easier boss at the begenning at the raid), it would delay adding new wings, and your purpose is to have legendary armor through easy mode, which i strongly disagree with.

You aren’t the target audience for the easy mode, and I’m told that means you aren’t allowed to hold an opinion on it.

It wouldn’t necessarily delay new wings, we don’t know how much time it would take or who would be working on it. They managed to build the Super Adventure Box on their own time between other projects, I’m sure they could find the time to juggle a few databases without gumming up the works too noticeably. It’s not like they would release the raid wing the instant it’s done anyway, there would be a period of run-up before that data, so that it fit into whatever marketing and other events were going on. For example if they finished it in the middle of Wintersday, they wouldn’t likely just dump it out then, because there’s other things happening at the time. They’d probably wait until mid-January.

And finally, I don’t much care whether you disagree with me getting Legendary armor through easy mode, because that has nothing to do with you. You get it how you want to get it, you have no say in how others get it, and if your happiness can only come at their expense, then their happiness comes first.

But why now are you talking about training? in numerous post, you told us you didn’t want an easy mode for train, you don’t want raid mecanism because that’s too stressfull for you. For you, easy mode is for story purpose (but no story in fight, you read notes that’s all), and a meaning to gain raid rewards without effort.

You haven’t been paying attention. It’s about both. Training would not be my personal primary purpose in it, sure, but it would be some people’s purpose, and it should be functional for that purpose. There is a market for an easier raid as a training experience.

You’re also confusing “things you read” with “story.” The story includes the things you read, but it also includes the things you experience. The boss fights are a part of the story, because they are things that you experience along the way. That’s the difference between a game and a novel, the novel is just words on a page, a game is something you are a part of.

I don’t understand why so suddenlly you’re talking about training… And an easy encounter, if true can’t train you to other boss mecanisms if they are totally different, can train you to your rotation and your class. So that after, for more difficult boss, you can concentrate totally on the boss mecanisms (since you master better your class).

But an easy mode version of the same boss would allow you to focus on the boss’s mechanics without fear of party collapse, which is much more valuable. you can practice your basic DPS rotation on a training golem. The value in having an easy mode version of the boss is in learning “when the boss does this, I should do this. . .” and banking that reaction into muscle memory.

But again, if you go in knowing that the first chapter is as far as you’re likely to be able to read because the rest of it is in Sanskrit, then that just makes it all the more frustrating that someone won’t just release a translated version that you can read.

But how could you know that without trying?

Decades of experience. If the encounters are challenging enough that hardcore raiders aren’t throwing a fit on the forums, then they are more challenging than I could possibly enjoy.

You can pug raids.

Oh! You’ve solved this entire problem then! Apparently raids are easily puggable, and everyone who says otherwise is wrong somehow.

Yes they have the right to ask, but will Anet listen to them and let them get the Ascension outside of ranked pvp? Nope.

They should though, and they might. There’s no reason to give up on them, even if they’ve said that they won’t. They can always do better, they can always be better than they were yesterday.

Would I like there it be a path to ONLY play pvp and never have to play pve and wvw to get all those armors and legnedarys and ect ect? You betcha. But that’s not the game Anet is making nor wants to make.

But again, if the players want that, then that’s the game the developers should make. There’s no benefit to them saying “this would make the players happier, but. . . nah.”

So have to be content with what we have, and we can ask for a change, but if they say no either play with what we have or find something else. (And yes I have done both :P)

Or, get back up and keep fighting for what you believe is right.

Course……there is a reason for that. Not everyone likes the fast paced nature of pvp, nor the open zerging or roaming of wvw, but they like the legendarys. But now are FORCED to do content they dislike to get what they like.

And I believe that’s toxic to the long term life of the game. When you’re doing content you don’t enjoy, that leads to burnout. When you know there are goals that you have, but the only path through them is over a bed of thorns, that burns you out. You might not ragequit over it, but it makes you a little less likely to log in each day, rather than playing that free Overwatch weekend, or finally finishing Rise of the Tomb Raider, or God forbid getting more of your work done.

I think Anet has some value in getting players to try different content on a regular basis, and it’s fine for them to bury cool rewards behind specific content, but it should be buried shallowly, so that you only have to spend a little bit of time on the content to unlock that exclusive reward. That isn’t to say that the overall reward can’t take a lot of effort, just that the exclusive portion of that reward shouldn’t, and then maybe you can earn the rest of it elsewhere. That means that you’ll at least try out the content, see if you enjoy it, and if you do, continuing in that content will be the fastest way to complete the overall reward, but if it turns out you really hate that content, nobody benefits from you staying there, and you can move on to other things.

But if we get a official stance on when they release content if they are going for a niche group or overall people. I

It doesn’t matter who they intend the target to be. If they release content into the game, then it’s content for any player who sees any reason to play it. And if any player sees some reasons they want to play it, and other reasons why they don’t want to play it, then they have every right to push for changes that they believe would improve the content.

On that we can agree. As for your other bit, that’s called progression and yea, while wipe after wipe is not fun, the goal is to eventually get a bit further each time and that’s why you should really look for progression with a guild.

I fully understand how progression works, I just want to play no part in it, for the reasons I explained. I do not in any way, shape, or form enjoy the core principles of “progression.” I prefer to stumble my way through a task within the first few attempts, and then gradually over time get better, and better at it until I can practically do it blindfolded. that is the kind of progression that I enjoy, not the “failing many times until eventually I can stumble my way through it.”

Far to much focus and expectations are put on the pugs in this game, with raids.

Which is why raids were always conceptually a horrible idea for this game. “Guild” may be in the title, but GW2 has always been a game about pugs, whether the developers grasped that or not. Guilds were almost completely pointless at first, and largely ignorable for most of the game’s lifespan. I only ended up in guilds when I was playing with someone and they randomly invited me, and now I’ve ended up a guild leader, but ultimately they work better as ways to coordinate friends, rather than a necessary means to an end.

I fully believe that EVERY element of GW2 needs to be designed fully around the concept of “can I pug it?” and if it fails that test, it should be reworked. Other games might thrive on tightly wound guild structures, but Guild Wars 2 is not other games, and a lot of us seem to like it that way.

The game is not a total package, it is a collection of dozens of bits and pieces, and each has a target audience.

It’s still a total package. I don’t wear the Ascension on my PvP character that did 90% of the earning of it. The only character that wears it as a backpiece is one that’s never set foot in PvP, and most of the characters I’ve set it as wings for haven’t been in there either. If a player does not want to PvP at all, he’s still a paying customer of the whole game, and he has a right to ask for some method of earning the Ascension that doesn’t require any PvP at all.

If you have two completely different games, say, Overwatch and WoW, then it’s fair to say “what’s in Overwatch is for Overwatch players and what’s in WoW is for WoW players,” But if it’s all one game, all one global lore, and players can freely transfer their achievements from one mode to the other, then it IS all a single system, and players of ANY part of that system can place a stake on other parts of that system in which they are mostly uninvolved.

You can say “this part of the game is not for you,” but only IF players can experience whichever parts of that element they DO want without having to take on the parts that bother them.

It really doesn’t matter how many non-raiders aren’t getting their expectations met by raids; they aren’t the target audience. It does matter how many non-raiders aren’t having their expectations met outside of raids — and I think that would be a better place to direct your suggestions.

Pretend that ANet is never going to add tiers to raids (even if they did, it would take a year or so to implement probably). What would you like to see ANet do in the rest of the game?

So what you’re saying is, instead of asking for an easy mode raid, I should be asking for, say, a dungeon, that contains the Forsaken Thicket map, lore elements, encounters, and reward tables, and if played using ten player teams, all tuned to dungeon-tier difficulty, but that is absolutely definitely NOT a raid? I could live with that, I supposed.

Oh I would LOVE it if there wasn’t “wasted time” anymore but….the only way to do that, is make everything soloable. Because as long as there is content that requires more then 2-3 people, it will ALWAYS be “wasted time” if 6 hours later your still in AC p1.

I’ve rarely if ever had a dungeon experience that ended in total failure, and if that is what’s happening, it’s fairly easy to figure out quickly, bail, and find a better group. With raids, multiple failures are par for the course, so it can take a while to figure out that the group’s a dud. I’m not expecting it to be completely impossible to fail, just highly unlikely, so that the expected outcome of a random pug run is that it’ll go smoothly and be completed in 1-3 attempts. Occasionally it could fall short of that, but that would be the exception, not the rule. Balanced out right, even a few players outright trolling the group could be ignored and the group could succeed in spite of them if they’re reasonably competent.

Heck I LOVED the Mordy fight at the end of HoT storyline, my lil brother (yeah I know he beat me to it) said it was really hard and it took him 2 1/2 hours to solo it but he liked it, so I got there and saw TONS of people just sitting there in front of the instance doing nothing but asking for groups and help for it. And I said NO I AM SOLOING THIS. So a 1 1/2 hours later, BOOM I beat it and LOVED IT. And I solo it each time on each character I take through, and love it each time. And guess what? there are still people sitting there in front of the boss instance looking for groups because they cant solo it. Heck I had to help some guildys with it, and even the Tiami’s holo fight in LS3 Ep2.

Yeah, I soloed it too, I didn’t find it that hard, but didn’t hit any bugs either. But it’s a good thing that players who can’t solo it are able to team up and shore up each others’ weaknesses. I know that when I was doing a lot of the S2 optional objectives, I couldn’t solo those, but was able to clear them in groups, in some cases practically being carried, in other cases carrying others, depending on my relative skill.

Ok…..Ohoni.6057, what is it about raids that you cant do? You have mentioned over and over and over and over how you want them dumbed down, for you, so YOU can get easy rewards.

As near as I can tell, I do pretty fine whenever I attempt raids, but something seems to always wipe the rest of the party eventually. I’d like to be able to just load up the LFG, click on a group, join them in the raid, fight the boss, take 1-3 attempts, and beat it. The current raids too often lead to wipes. Basically, I’d prefer that most of the attacks that tend to OHKO characters, would no longer do that, they would be recoverable rather than auto-wipes. And I would prefer less of a DPS check, so that less refined builds, gearing, and rotations could be used and still phase bosses quickly enough to get the job done.

I guess when it comes down to it, the biggest barrier that prevents me from EVER enjoying raids in their current form, is that I loathe repetition due to failure. I absolutely hate wipe, repeat, wipe, repeat, wipe, repeat until you make it. I will never enjoy any gameplay element that is based on that premise. I prefer barely succeed > do even better the next time > better still the next time > sailing through it. Even if I eventually succeed, if that only comes after dozens of failures, it will be a net-negative experience for me, the joy of success will be far weaker than the annoyance of the failures. I’m aware that other people feel the exact opposite, and that’s great, hard mode if clearly for them, but it’s just as clearly not for me, and I’d like an alternative.

Basically I just want odds of success that are comparable with other “somewhat difficult” content in the game, rather than several tiers above that.

Ok, accepted, but remember, the point “too many guilds” needs no evidentiary backing because it’s a purely subjective claim. If he believes it’s too many, that makes it a true statement.

And like many people on here have said (even the devs), trying to make a “easy mode” would require removing or changing mechanics. ie: can’t be done.

There’s nothing that makes it impossible. It’s all just changing the effect that procs when an attack lands. Everything before and after that remain the same. Somewhere in Vale Guardian’s database, there is a value labeled the equivalent of “green circle” This is summoned at a certain interval. When it activates, it deals damage equivalent to a number listed in a slot. if you remove a zero from that number, it deals 10x less damage. All the actual mechanics of the fight can be retained, all they need to do is tweak the outcomes of 5-10 different effects over the course of each boss fight to be slightly weaker than they currently are.

But forget my rambling, point is the people who want “easy mode” your not going to get it…..AT ALL….the devs said so. So you have a choice to make, either be happy in what you can do ingame atm and be content with not getting the shinys.

Nope, I’m going to keep trying, thanks though.

But forget my rambling, point is the people who want “easy mode” your not going to get it…..AT ALL….the devs said so. So you have a choice to make, either be happy in what you can do ingame atm and be content with not getting the shinys.

I will never be of the mindset that could view the “wasted time” outcome as anything at all positive, or even the “win” outcome as positive if it required multiple “wasted time” outcomes to get there. I know that about myself going in, which is why I’m pushing for a version where “wasted time” is not an option, and ALL player time is considered precious.

For every guild that raids were the ‘last straw to break apart’ for, another guild returned or was formed to dedicate to the new content.

I went 1 for 1 intentionally. I had no reason to try to ‘outnumber’ his anecdote.

Ok, fair point, but what I said in my last post would still apply. to make the claim that your number had ANY objective relative value when compared to his, more, less, equal, or even not equal, you would need access to both sides of the figures for your statement to be accurate. That is a different burden of evidence than making a subjective value judgement like “enough,” or “plenty.”

But it’s going off the number that he’s implying.

But again, saying “whatever numbers you have, I have more on my side,” is making a number judgement. If someone says they have “plenty of grapes,” that could mean 3, 5, 20, anything, and would be valid, because it’s “plenty” to him. If you then say “I have more grapes than you,” then that is a provably true or false statement. For your statement to be valid, you need to both have a number of grapes yourself, and have yours be more than his. If you only have ten grapes, and he has five, you’re correct. If he has twenty, you’re incorrect. If neither of you has any accurate numbers either way, his statement is valid, yours cannot be.

Except I enjoy absolutely having to clear a difficult challenge to obtain cool rewards.

And you will be able to continue doing that, so no harm done. If you meant to say “I enjoy getting better rewards than players who I view as my lessers,” then I’m sorry, that would be going away, but to be fair, that’s a pretty jerky position to take in the first place.

And guess what ? I am the target audience for raids and you are not.

And who cares? GW2 is a total package, ten GW2 players who are not in the target audience for raids are worth more than nine GW2 players who are the target of raids. If more GW2 players are upset about raids not meeting their expectations, then even if they are not part of the “target audience” of the raid, their stance has value.

Pls, stop that, i never said i was into easier raid, i said encounter, which is not the same. For your information, a raid is formed by several encounters.

Ok, fair enough, if you did not mean what you said, that’s ok, but can we at least agree that the premise remains the same, that it would be good to have an easier raid for those that have no interest in the harder one, or for players in the middle to train off of?

Wrong. Even if some mechanics are different, you can train your dps rotation, your quickness rotation, how to dodge, how to fight as a 10 man team

No, that really doesn’t work. You need to train the actual mechanics of the encounter. Training against Vale Guardian does nothing to train you for Gorseval. Even less would the Wing 3 escort train you for Vale Guardian.

As you’ve said, if you read chapter 1 and you like it, you want to read other chapters… If you don’t like what you read, or are not interested, you can stop. But at least, you have something, which is better than nothing.

But again, if you go in knowing that the first chapter is as far as you’re likely to be able to read because the rest of it is in Sanskrit, then that just makes it all the more frustrating that someone won’t just release a translated version that you can read.

He said there was too many which is an arbitrary number despite what you think.

“Too many” is purely arbitrary. It could be ten thousand, it could just be one, and either is a fine opinion to hold. You said that “more” went to the positive, which is a quantity, that if ten went bad, at least ten, maybe eleven or more went good. Yours can be evaluated factually if you provide the numbers you used to arrive at that figure, his has no such burden.

Your right, sorry if I have said about “easy mode” raids, the devs said its not going to happen. Which makes sense. Adding easier bosses to the beginning I think is a better idea.

Why? If the early bosses are easier and the later harder, then for players who only enjoy the easier stuff, they are still forever excluded from the harder bosses. Meanwhile, the hardcore players have fewer bosses they would be engaged by, since the easier bosses would likely be “too easy” to entertain them. Why wouldn’t it be better for all involved if there were a version of EVERY boss that the easy players could enjoy, AND a version of EVERY boss that would satisfy the hardcores?

Also…..its not “core” storyline, but it is a storyline none the less, which is where I think ALOT of people are miffed about it.

And having only easy bosses at the beginning of a raid wing would still not allow the easy players to complete the story of the raid. It would be like only getting the first chapter of a book, and then the following chapters are all in some entirely different language.

Oh nice, so you agree with devs then? because i’m talking about their solution, first easy encounter, then 2 encounters challenging. No need to make an easy mode raid with that, which is fine. i’m not talking at all about easier version of the entire raid ^^ just a boss easier among the 3 boss of the wing.

No, that would be pointless, but what you were saying, have an easier version of the raid for those that prefer that, and the, for those that want something harder, a harder version. As you said, “At least, having an easy encounter will induce more people to try, train, and maybe succeed. So after, they can decide either to train for the next bosses, or just stay with the easy boss and have some raid rewards, with is fine as well.”

Ok….just to be clear and to clarify for communications sake……..are you wanting a easier mode of ALL bosses (current and future) or the easier bosses at the beginning of the raid, and harder ones later, so you can train on the easier ones and then make the choice to go on to harder ones, or just do the easier ones week after week?

Having easier bosses at the beginning of the encounter does not “train” you for later encounters, because the later encounters would have entirely different mechanics. It’d be like taking a math class to get better for your history test. The encounters need to be the same, only easier.

The problem with my suggestion would actually be two fold – the first and biggest being exactly what you said – the potential impact on the economy. The second would be the inevitable backlash from people who have already invested heavily in raiding gear – which I can definitely relate to (I’m one of the ones that spent hundreds of gold on the sigil of concentration for my chronotank months ago when prices were much higher).

The thing is, you can’t hold the future hostage to economic mistakes made earlier. I mean, I lost a few thousands by holding onto my Chain Greatsaw skin until after they started increasing their availability a bit, which caused the TP price to plummet, but that doesn’t mean that I thought they should never have made the skin more available to people. If people spent a fortune on gearing up months ago, then they got months of good use out of that gear, and that’s their compensation. They have no expectation that the prices on that gear would never come down. Whenever they get around to fixing the Leather prices, things will get much cheaper, but that doesn’t mean people making armor right now have justification in being upset that the prices got fixed.