Guild Wars 2

I am absolutely in agreement with the OP. Thanks for posting.

How long does it last now? OP said 4-5 seconds, but is that true or just an estimate? I’m trying to decide if it’s better to ignore now or break.

Bohantopa.5729:

There was some dev information that they would not add raids to the lfg as they intended raids to be done by established groups, not by pug’s (or should that be “purs” “pick-up raid squad”?)

They never said this.

Colin said they would not do a “raid finder”, which means they are never going to create a queuing system where you queue up for a raid and then join an entire group of randoms. People have been consistently misinterpreting this to mean that ANet said they will not have raids in the LFG and that is absolutely wrong.

The only reason raids don’t have a spot in the LFG is because raids are done by squads and not parties and there is no tech in the LFG to handle squads at this time. They are aware of the desire for it, and I am confident they’re working it, but it is not an easy solution that can be pushed in less than a month, especially considering so many developers are committed to addressing other things across the game.

This thread shocks me. There’s a lot of misinformation.

First of all, the timers are not hard enrage timers. You can still beat the boss after the timer has ended, it just gives the boss a buff and makes it substantially harder to sustain his attacks.

Secondly, I’ve consistently participated in raids in full exotic myself and have no inclination to create ascended gear for all of my characters. Ascended trinkets are cheap and worth it, and otherwise there are so many more things you could do to improve your success rate in raids without ever looking at your gear rarity. Optimizing DPS rotations, for instance, alongside really effective minimal-defense builds do much more for the time than gear rarity. I think there’s a lot of unfounded vitriol in this thread where the assumption is made that ascended is necessary when it simply is not.

Additionally, like with all content in this game (dungeons / fractals before raids), you’re free to make your own PUB group if that’s what you want to do. Otherwise, your guilds should ideally take you along regardless (and if not, maybe find a different guild). The biggest contributors to raid success are dedication and perseverance and optimization. You need to be willing to rethink your strategies on a dime after every failure to see where you can do better next time, and ultimately you need a certain threshold of mechanical skill or no measure of ascended gear can save you.

Lastly, any “power creep” classes are experiencing has come more from elite specializations and new gear stat combinations. None of it originated in ascended gear. Seriously, guys, the top guilds are clearing all of the bosses with minutes left before the timers run out. The ~2% gain from ascended armor and the ~8% gain from ascended weapons is nowhere near enough to lose you 1-2 minutes on the clock even if everyone is suffering that same loss. It’s 90% about the mechanical skill and awareness. You can train yourself and your friends to be better, and you can overcome the content.

Jon Olson.8439:

Priority is:

1. Party/Subgroup
2. Squad
3. Allied players
4. Your kennel
5. Allied players’ kennels
6. All other allies

This is good information, thanks!

For heals, is there any priority given to allies that actually need the heal? Say I have 10 people in my subgroup and 5 are at half life, will my AOE heal affect the 5 who are at half life or will it randomize and uselessly heal a few who are full on HP? If this is not the case, could you at least track the change to make it the case?

I don’t totally hate it, but it’s way more purple than it should be and could use a little more blue. It doesn’t match the previous fractal appeal, and that bothers me a lot. I was creating it based on the colors of the previous one, and now I’m a little miffed by the sudden color palette shift.

The raids are awesome, but the rewards are not proportional to the level of skill required to complete them regardless of how quickly some guilds can clear them. Additionally, the weekly lockout ensures that if rewards were improved like they should be, they’d still be fair and not on farm status. It’s self-regulating, it just needs the baseline values improved a bit.

Hey, Riku, if you plan to consolidate this into a report let me know what’s in it so we can coordinate.

UnbentMars.9126:

I would appreciate a response to the rest of that paragraph rather than just cherry-picking a quote.

Better a response to one part of it that particularly interested me than a reply to none of it because I don’t have enough time.

Suffice it to say that I believe that raids in their current form are incredibly accessible even to average skilled players. The first boss, for instance, introduces you to all of his mechanics in the form of trash mobs leading up to the boss. Furthermore, the most optimized groups are beating all of the bosses with 2+ minutes left on the timer, which gives you a whole extra 2 minutes of flexibility for less skilled groups to succeed. Random pub groups are succeeding right now in assorted boss kills and the content has been out for less than a month. I think their current difficulty level is perfect because they’re tough enough to encourage players to get better at the game and to care more about carefully tuned builds, but they’re not so tough or stringent that only a few groups will ever succeed.

UnbentMars.9126:

Anet itself is an issue here. They appear to be trying to push the game to be less and less casual friendly (because let’s be real, gw2 is an extremely casual friendly game).

They’re not trying to do this in the slightest, they just designed HoT specifically to give end-game players something to do and something to work towards. The theme of this expansion from the get-go was improving the end-game experience across the board.

I made sure ANet was aware of this suggestion in my most recent report to them. I wouldn’t expect this change soon, but I think they definitely will give it serious consideration down the road.

There will be no gear treadmill associated with raids, of that I can assure you. Additionally, there is nothing ANet can do to regulate the expectations of individual groups forming to complete the raid; people are free to advertise and require whatever they like. If you don’t like it, your best bet is to go with friends or form your own group. Lastly, I would expect future legendary armor sets to be available through alternative means. There might be a WvW legendary armor set, or maybe a PvP legendary armor set. It’s hard to say at this point, but nowhere has ANet decided that legendary armor will only ever be acquired through raids.

KaosNinja.4967:

you forget this is the company that announced an expansion pack a full 6 months before release date, when all they really had was a logo trademark and a spitball idea. i fully doubt they’d put this kind of thought into a simple bug fix.

First, I was referring in the quoted paragraph to the reward and difficulty tweaks they’re doing in December, not the fix for the Fractal collection. Second, say what you will about your perceptions of ANet, but I’ve interacted with them enough both personally and through the forum specialist program to know better. You’re welcome to not take my word on it at your discretion, but I can assure you that you would be wrong.

I’m with Nike. I’ve interacted with the developers a lot and in my experience they’re always willing to take into serious consideration core mechanics of encounters when fielding feedback. I imagine in the context of pre-beta raid testing that’s even more the case.

Pakkazull.6894:

Raid testing, on a CV? Really?

The context of the OP’s remarks is that of someone trying to become part of the game development industry. Considering that, one’s involvement in pre-beta tests of raids is absolutely an experience you should list on your résumé.

I brought this up to the Fractal team in my most recent report on the matter, so they’re aware of it and we’ll have to see what they do, if anything. I wouldn’t expect a developer response here, however.

The fix is to set yourself as “Offline” and then back to “Online”. It is a bug that came about because of the guild and login servers going down last night, and doing what I noted before will fix it.

Rising Dusk.2408:

Trigr.6481:

Solution: Diamond skin – Reduces the duration of all incoming conditions by 40%

I don’t think that’s a good solution because it doesn’t offer counterplay. It’s just a passive effect, which isn’t very interesting. It’s also a little too strong number-wise stacked with other condition duration reductions. I still think the best solution follows:

Diamond Skin: Gain Resistance for 4 seconds when attuning to Earth.

The counterplay here is to either strip the Resistance or to condition burst the Elementalist after the boon has run out while Earth Attunement is on cooldown. This also rewards effective play on the Elementalist’s part better, as they can counter an incoming condition burst by saving Earth and swapping to it when it hits.

Going to cross-post this since it is relevant here as well.

Trigr.6481:

Solution: Diamond skin – Reduces the duration of all incoming conditions by 40%

I don’t think that’s a good solution because it doesn’t offer counterplay. It’s just a passive effect, which isn’t very interesting. It’s also a little too strong number-wise stacked with other condition duration reductions. I still think the best solution follows:

Diamond Skin: Gain Resistance for 4 seconds when attuning to Earth.

The counterplay here is to either strip the Resistance or to condition burst the Elementalist after the boon has run out while Earth Attunement is on cooldown. This also rewards effective play on the Elementalist’s part better, as they can counter an incoming condition burst by saving Earth and swapping to it when it hits.

Elomite.2396:

this has been in the game for a month now, it took multiple posts on reddit and the official forums to even get a response that they were aware of how terrible fractals are at the moment and yet here we are, we don’t even have a date for the changes all we know is sometime in December, maybe.

This is content that has been in the game for over 2 years this stuff should not even happen to begin with. The fact that we need constant dev posts letting us know they haven’t forgotten fractals exist says a lot about the current state of the game.

Bugs happen and are standard fare in the realm of software development. This bug will get fixed, trust me. The fact that you’re getting developer updates at all is their being kind; they in no way are obligated to provide status updates as they work the issues, especially because it takes time away from them actually working the issues.

As for the fractal revamp and the fixes they plan for December, it makes perfect sense that they waited before responding. They had to iterate internally so they’d know what changes they would even make, and then they had to get it to a point internally where they felt like they could make their proposed timeline. Once they achieved those two feats, which are by no means trivial mind you, they could post publicly about it. That’s how development goes, and regardless of anyone’s entitlement I think ANet is handling it perfectly well.

Don’t get me wrong, I do think they made mistakes with regards to Fractals in HoT. I’ve made sure they’re well aware of those mistakes, and they’re working to rectify them as best they can.

I’ve played with [EG] a fair bit in association with other events, and a couple of the people from [FGS] for the first dungeon tournament were actually from [EG]. (We used the [EG] TS for the event!) I’d say they’re good people, and will hopefully provide the type of feedback that raids need, so I’m glad they were selected.

Good luck to all those involved, and do us proud!

Urosh Uchiha.9732:

Nullifies the challenge? You mean the fake difficulty introduced with the timer? I guess our points of view for the word challenge have different meaning.

It’s not fake difficulty because it actually forces people to focus on improving their rotations in order to make the time. As a DPS class against VG, for instance, if there were no timer you could realistically slack off on rotations and eventually beat him if you were familiar with the one-shot mechanics. Because there’s a timer, however, it forces all players to optimize rotations while also dealing with those one-shot mechanics. The combination of these behaviors results in an increase in actual skill-based difficulty.

florence.1674:

Don’t forget, if people can’t get past the first boss, you can make 100 bosses inside the raid dungeon but most won’t ever see it. That is truly an epic waste of development time.

That’s the nice thing about raid wings. People can play different wings with their friends and experience different bosses even if they haven’t beaten the previous wing. Your concern is exactly why ANet designed it this way.

I am experiencing this with my guild as well.

Xillllix.3485:

Somebody out there must have enough imagination to come up with something better than a timer.

If that’s all we’re concerned with, then the answer is sure. They could spend further development time and effort implementing new skills that the bosses get when the enrage timer expires and make the wipe mechanic work that way. The crux, though, is that it requires development effort, and I don’t think it’s a worthwhile use of development effort. I’d much rather they work on more new content.

Vavume.8065:

People were using it to level up, everytime I went there with my diff chars to get the HP I would see some low level guy repeating it over and over for the xp and levelling up, I would have reported it except there is no report option for exploiting in game, and if you try to report it via the website they tell you to report it in game, yeah anet logic at its finest, so yeah no wonder its taken them this long to notice the exploit.

You report these things by sending an email to exploits@arena.net.

Xillllix.3485:

And that is a problem because…?

Because it nullifies the challenge of the encounter and forces it to be balanced around maximum defense, which does nothing but force everyone to use defensive gear and slow down the fights considerably.

They’re aware of this bug and working on a fix which I presume will go out with the December fractal fix-up patch. Keep in mind that while this is an annoying bug, it isn’t blocking progress or breaking anything severely and so doesn’t make sense for them to hotfix or dedicate a lot of resources to it.

I wouldn’t expect this to be the only set of legendary armor in the game forever, just the first set to be released. There will be more.

If I’m online and you need a Druid or Berserker PS Warrior or Reaper (lol) for a raid, let me know. I’m happy to tag along.

I’m still working with my casual guild to get VG down, so whether some guilds get it to farm status or not doesn’t really affect me. For me, the fact that it always enforces a high competency and skill level and gear awareness is great. If in 2 years I’m still doing this raid wing, it will still be as challenging and personally rewarding as it is right now because the mechanics are there and it’s not just an HP sponge. That’s the difference between this and old dungeons.

UnbentMars.9126:

Because some other poster on the forum is a great source…

There are just references to some story elements, no actual story. You’re not missing anything, trust me.

Kantalope.5037:

It’s not uncommon to beat the vale guardian timer by a lot. It wouldn’t be hard to 9 man it.

To those for whom 9-manning the boss is easy enough to sell the last spot reliably, I salute you!

AESOkami.1072:

TL;DR: HoT’s story content + very difficult content = bad.

There is literally no story content in the raid. Read this:

The one to Rule.2593:

all it is is a group of pact soldiers gets captured by bandits and you set out to save them only to find out that it’s too late.

If you’re trying to pub a raid, it’s natural that pub groups are going to take the strongest people they can find. It’s not mandatory for success, but players are free to make it mandatory for joining their groups. There’s nothing wrong with that.

What you should do instead of complaining about it on the forums to people who can do nothing to help you is look for a guild and prove that you’re worth a spot. It’s easier than it sounds, really.

This is funny. Since they can’t hold the boss at 1% nor can people entering the raid after the event has started get credit, there are few options here. What do they do, sell the spot and then 9-man the raid boss after the 10th tags it? Honestly if they can pull that off then they deserve whatever the 10th is paying.

Blaeys.3102:

Now, their challenge is to make sure that, in giving that group something to do, they do not forget about the core elements that have made GW2 successful for the past three years (amazing open world, living story, wvw, etc content).

They quite clearly haven’t forgotten the core elements of their game given the new maps and story we got with HoT, and I seriously doubt they ever will down the road. As for the OP, I seriously expect that raids will be nothing but positive for the game. It’s just new content, so people who really aren’t suited for raids are trying them and worrying about them when they shouldn’t.

We had our first raid night last Friday and got wrecked, though we did exceptionally well all things considered. That said, we’ll be having another raid night tonight trying to hone in on a victory over the VG! We also have a host of other events every week as listed in the top post, and we just finished our guild arena in the guild hall which means we can do special events there as well! Very exciting stuff!

As always, if you like the kinds of things that we do as a guild let one of the officers know! We’re always looking for more friends to share in our journeys together!

Nokaru.7831:

thrag.9740:

A lot of players seem to like to claim that an enrage timer is ‘artificial difficulty’. I disagree. If the only thing I had to do was slap on some zerker gear but play exactly the same, then sure. But that’s not the case. The timer fundamentally changes how you fight in a good way.

This guy gets it.

This is my opinion as well.

I really think the timers are perfect right now. They enforce a certain level of DPS that gives players new to raids or casual players in general something to push for, forces build refinement, forces team coordination, but isn’t too strict that players don’t feel like they can ever win. It gives players hope, and that’s pretty great.

Aktium.9506:

When do we get the next raid wing?

Later in 2016.

You’re right, there are ways to make the content hard without timers and they’ve already done that. They’ve made the content hard without timers, and then added the timer to ensure that players couldn’t cheese it with super tanky builds and 30 minute encounters. This creates an all-around satisfying and consistently challenging experience.

Henry.5713:

Raids already require the highest build diversity we have had to bring so far.

Bingo. Besides this, DPS is and should remain important going into future raid wings because it, quite frankly, wouldn’t be hard otherwise. If you could get by in half the team in Nomad’s it would just not be a challenge, and the challenge is the most important part of the content.

Ah, I see. I feel like that is acceptable given that ANet wanted to incorporate that previous achievement (the glowy backpiece) into the new legendary. It is a little semantically strange that you have to create another backpiece tangential to the legendary backpiece you’re making, but in principle I think it’s good to validate those people who made the old one.

It makes sense to me that the precursor for a legendary back item is a back item, and it also is very convenient that you can salvage the back item along the way to recoop tons of dark matter that you then use for the next step. Seems reasonable to me.

This thread is incredible.

ANet said nothing about wanting to remove Berserker’s as a viable gear stat combination. What they wanted to inhibit was having your entire team be Berserker’s and outright ignore mechanics because content was too easy. They wanted to change the paradigm from “finishing content as fast as possible” to “struggle to finish content at all”. Thus, what they did was create content that was hard enough and damaging enough to force a couple players in a group to think about things from a different angle, and thus you get healers. Cleric’s Healers. The very fact that people are arguing about how necessary healers are indicates that ANet succeeded at doing exactly what they wanted to do: diversify the builds and roles that people are using. Ten days ago no one in their right mind brought Healing Power to instanced PvE content.

PopeUrban.2578:

They flat out told us that raids were npot designed to be PUG content, and that none of the design of the UI or LFG would be changed to help people PUG them.

This is actually outright wrong. They said that we were never getting a raid finder, which is just another way of saying that you won’t ever be able to queue up for a raid and join it with 9 other random people. They will eventually be adding LFG support for raids.

Raids should only have one mode, the hardest possible mode available. If you want easier content, dungeons and fractals are still available to play. Raids are not designed to be inclusive, they are designed to push players to get better. You say you’re a casual and a good player, so if you get with a good group you should be able to beat it. You may fail many times, but when you beat it that will be an incredibly satisfying moment—Those moments are what raids are all about; the catharsis from defeating a seemingly insurmountable foe is incredible. You, too, can enjoy these bosses if you’re willing to put forth the effort and join a group to overcome it.

Spirit Vale already offers the greatest build and gear diversity that instanced PvE content in GW2 has ever seen. The groups that are winning are bringing Clerics/Zealots/Celestial Druids/Tempests, and even Soldiers Warriors/Guardians. While it’s true that you need a certain threshold of DPS, which means that roughly 80% of your group should be focusing on DPS rotations, the flexibility for supporting and tanking through gear stats as well as build configuration is astounding. It’s nothing like the faceroll that is Dungeons/Fractals.

The enrage timer is incredibly generous; it’s only there to ensure that ten tanky players cannot take thirty minutes to beat the boss. That isn’t showcasing skill at any level, and isn’t what they wanted when they designed GW2 raids.

Truly, I think if you feel pigeonholed into certain “meta” builds you’re simply lacking creativity. The challenge here is not in “being the fastest” when you win, but winning at all; that’s a huge paradigm shift.

Palador.2170:

But it does mean that putting out a first expansion that turns away from casual players is a very questionable idea, at best.

Are you suggesting that the new maps and new story content are not casual? A marginal increase in general PvE difficulty doesn’t scare away the casual players; there’s tons of new content for them.

Halvorn.9831:

Now count 2 and 2 together, will you? The game is greatly intended for “casual” players and it is doing well. Could it be that it is doing well BECAUSE it is intended for “casual” players?

Sure, it’s doing well in major part because it caters to casual players. Does that mean it should never in its entire lifetime do anything for any other kind of player? Of course not.

MashMash.1645:

The only reason they put raids in is because they’ve botched up the existing game so much. Clearly LS isn’t cutting it financially, and they’ve turned to old school ideas – raiding, etc.

I suspect this won’t work either. As we saw in Wildstar, and any other number of games, this type of content doesn’t make you money. Its a resource sink that returns little profit.

And it alienates the people that actually generate cash. When they leave…. Oh well.

GW used to be unique. Now it’s just like every other mmo.

Casual players will continue playing casual content, and casual content is continually created by ANet for them. Nearly 90% of the game is designed for those players. GW2 is incredibly successful, has won numerous prestigious accolades, and has a very high concurrency for players three years after initial release; for all intents and purposes it’s faring splendidly.

Challenging content has been something that the hardcore player base has requested for years, and ANet really delivered on it here. This is meant to give PvE a breadth of difficulty scales that players can progress through as they get better at the game, with no compulsion to participate if they don’t want to. It’s exactly what GW2 needed.