Guild Wars 2

Amineo.8951:

Why would people invest over 1000g for something that only increases 2-3% in the stats? Juste because people don’t have it doesn’t mean they suck and shouldn’t raid, I cleared the 1st wing with ascended trinkets only and there was no timer issue at all, so please stop saying it’s required or anything even for a dumb Vale Guardian, maybe for tank or healer but certainly not for DPS and condis…

https://m.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/31wbip/ascended_vs_exotic_gear_comparison_spreedsheet

Buy Some Apples.6390:

Anet simply cannot handle negative feedback. These beta tests are kindda pointless, doesnt matter what we say they will just release as is like they did with the Deserted BLs.

Do you really think after the beta tests if we give negative feedback that they’ll say “Oh players dont like this, let’s change it”? No as per the last 4 years, Anet has given WvW the most minimum amount of resources and time as possible! They refuse to spend more improving things we say are bad because it means higher costs!

WvW is not worth it in Anet’s eyes.

I’m pretty skeptical too.

Blaeys.3102:

The problem is that Anet took an inclusive stance with every other element of the game. They didn’t care what the other AAA MMOs were doing – they cared about all of their players.

With raids, all they have done is copy/paste the same old tired model used by other MMOs. Anet is better than this and should have tapped into that same spirit of innovation and anti-status quo to make raids unique to the GW2 model. While the fight mechanics are interesting, the implementation of raids in GW2 is a disappointment and (YES) enough to say that ANET has lost its focus. That may seem dramatic and alarmist, but the fact is that many of the players who enjoyed the game in the months following the launch are now shaking their heads wondering what the hell is going on with this game.

Very well said.

Chaos.5072:

You’re hung up on a dead game. It’s time to take off the rose-tinted glasses.

I swear gamers are getting more and more entitled these days. Everyone wants to have access to everything without putting in any effort.

Expecting to achieve something without putting in the work required to do so is an entitled and selfish mindset, not just in GW2 but in all areas of life.

Want a car? Save money and buy it.

Want a smoking hot girlfriend? Put yourself out there.

Want to experience raid lore in a video game? Play the bloody raid.

Sure, some people will have a more difficult time achieving certain goals than other people. Welcome to life.

Devs learn from other games…

Players are entitled to have fun.

Being inclusive and making content more accessible doesn’t mean you don’t have to “work” for it.

Yes, welcome to a video game designed for fun, that didn’t do so well converting “play for free” players to paid players… and a very divide community of HoT owners. The reality is that the less enticing and less inclusive endgame this game has, the less money anet earns. And that’s “life” too.

Have it crawl out of the ground and do that back hand slap followed be a couple of tail bashes.

Thanks!

Buy em up people! Don’t let this sale go to waste!

skarpak.8594:

its kinda funny. when the game rolled out and legendarys got discovered, after a while when more and more gamers got one, everyone had the same thing in tough.
there is nothing legendary behind legendarys. you can just simply buy them off the tp. you have nothing to do for them if you don’t want to. that was like everyone thought off them and most people still do.

now, with hot, you actually have to do something and now people complain again.
guess there will be always somebody who complains. its either that people think stuff is to easy to get and they should get more fame for owning something or the other people who have this entiteld feeling they are the chosen ones and don’t have to do anything to get something.

Ok, fair enough. Players have to do something for legendaries…

PvE for legendary weapons.

Raids for legendary armors.

Fractals and spvp leagues for legendary back piece.

WvW and EotM for legendary runes and sigils and infusions and trinkets.

gennyt.3428:

The general idea behind bringing Alpine back is to slow the bleeding until they can roll out the updates. It’s insane to think it would be some kind of cure all. Like it or not the maps are a major part of what went wrong with HoT “expansion” and the longer Anet sits on the issue, the chances increase that they’ll have a solution that isn’t adequate for what’s left of the playerbase.

Correct.

They can work on all sorts of nice maps while wvw becomes a bit more stabilized.

And we can see here and on Reddit just how well received raids have been for the community.

Players never had issues like these in city of heroes raiding, so I wonder what gw2 could learn from that…

Nothing short of having a competitive gvg mode with all the bells and whistles and rewards and ladders and tournaments… will do anything to inspire guilds.

You can’t do wvw here without a point system.

Kastiel.1947:

Pretty much the title, after seeing the recent post by Mike. I mean the map is so gorgeous, and if people actually learned it – I think potentially you can have much more fun fights than in Alpine. But then again I think utilising environment like higher ground and all that makes for fun strategic play rather than just zergs bashing into each other . The map really does look like it was designed with gliding in mind , so I guess if that’s not happening than reducing the size would help. Please just address the issue with lowest tier servers, as well those are really a dessert population wise. Also I’m not saying ppl are vein, but rewards wise adding say, a WvW legendary backpack as a long term reward would do miracles for attracting more players .

We learned the map. It is not good.

They can remake it into a multi jumping puzzle and maze zone with a portal to SAB for pve.

Sirendor.1394:

Hey girls and guys.

Problem
There seem to be a lot of people interested in small scale for WvW but currently it is not really supported in any way and zergs have a huge advantage. Small scale groups have many disadvantages due to buff sharing, stability nerfs, aoe caps.

Suggestion
So what about a couple world vs. world instances where you do away with the server alliance like we have it now and instead create small squads. Each squad can get up to X (something between 5 and 10) players to join them, they will no longer be red, green, blue sides, but will fight under their own guild banner. (for example “Dark Knights [DARK] has captured Stonemist Castle”)

Player pool
Instead of making who you can play with server-bound like it is now, and which makes no sense at all in the light of megaservers, allow any guild from ANY SERVER who can get 5-10 people together to join up.

Goal
A (slightly) more balanced and more competitive version of WvW without zergs, but with a higher player number than SPvP (8 players really seems the ideal number to me), and no focus on point capping.

TLDR: small scale paradise.

Other ideas to add:

• Temporary alliances between small scale groups, but where they still have friendly fire, and max. 2 groups allied?
• Disable guild gimmicks in this wvw instance
• As many as 10-20 different roaming groups per battlefield.

I just want to ask –
- What is your opinion?
- Would you play it?
- Suggestions to improve?
- Please don’t post off-topic.

The only way gvg would work is if it was a supported mode in heart of the mists with rewards offered.

That’s what spvp should have been from the get go.

I understand. RS is short range and a predetermined destination on use.

My suggestion doesn’t tie you to a particular legend.

Well, let’s look at this…

You are in wvw and need to make some breathing room from players and red circles eating you up…

Maybe you are pewpewing with your hammer and need to get to a better spot to pewpew.

You won’t need evade frames, it moves you and becomes an evade.

There are multiple effects tied to most skills, it’s no biggie, you aren’t really wasting anything if you can position yourself better and not die.

Phase Traversal takes you to the target, not away. Weapon skills take you to the target, not away.

Unyielding Anguish is too short of a range and very energy expensive.

Go wvw and think about it…

maddoctor.2738:

Swagger.1459:

maddoctor.2738:

Swagger.1459:

It’s going to be ok people. Everybody will happy when difficulty settings are introduced. Plus, the raid community will grow 10 fold and the devs will throw even more money and person power at raids.

Do you really want this?

All game modes should be supported and do well.

I meant mostly the

devs will throw even more money and person power at raids

part. Do you/we want to make Raids more important in the game at the expense of everything else?

Let’s not embellish things.

maddoctor.2738:

Swagger.1459:

It’s going to be ok people. Everybody will happy when difficulty settings are introduced. Plus, the raid community will grow 10 fold and the devs will throw even more money and person power at raids.

Do you really want this?

All game modes should be supported and do well.

It’s going to be ok people. Everybody will be happy when difficulty settings are introduced. Plus, the raid community will grow 10 fold and the devs will throw even more money and person power at raids.

It’s going to be awesome!

Thundar.3910:

I spend 80% of engaged time in fights trying to just control my character. I am pushed, pulled, rooted, slowed, chilled, blinded, knocked back and knocked down. I need to spec just to keep myself mobile. I do nothing for my team any longer. I provide some damage, IF I can move. Having total loss of control of my character is not a fun experience.

I do not know how you can address it or if you’re going to do anything about it. This is not fun.

Yup 1000%

If you go into my post history you can find my post here that mentions immunity timers added to condition and control effects. Check it out.

Revenant needs a better battlefield positioning tool, so make Phase Smash an actual leap.

Thanks!

If legendary armors are not created yet, could we at least get some concept drawing designs?

Everything is going to be ok for everybody. Gaile will surely deliver some good news for us soon because we know the devs really do care about all their players.

Chaos.5072:

“Easy mode” might make some non-raiders happy but it would ruin raiding for a majority of the raiding community, whether you agree with it or not.

Now, who do you think ArenaNet wants their raid content to appeal to more: raiders or non-raiders?

Did you even read the op?

bloodletting wolf.2837:

Swagger.1459:

psizone.8437:

Remove EotM.

There are more players playing EoTM (especially on the green side) 24/7 than there are on a few servers entirely.

We need those players integrated back into the normal maps before whatever you have planned for a population balance fix.

Removing eotm won’t improve wvw unfortunately or force players back into wvw.

WvW needs to stand on its own merits. You don’t kill a popular pvp game mode in hopes to get a handful back into wvw on your server.

WvW doesn’t appeal to everyone, just like eotm doesn’t appeal to everyone, so we don’t need to create more negative feelings toward the pvp side of the game by removing one for another.

Instead of thinking this way, we should look at the reasons why eotm has done so well and apply some of those elements to wvw.

Why has EotM done so well? They nerfed a lot of champ trains about the time EotM came out so those players migrated to where they can run in a circle getting champ bags. True story.

Let EotM stay. I honestly don’t want players with that style of play in WvW.

Because players are still there playing.

I know you don’t like eotm, but let’s not carry elitist attitudes and insult players who enjoy a game mode. We want to build the pvp community, not divide it.

psizone.8437:

Remove EotM.

There are more players playing EoTM (especially on the green side) 24/7 than there are on a few servers entirely.

We need those players integrated back into the normal maps before whatever you have planned for a population balance fix.

Removing eotm won’t improve wvw unfortunately or force players back into wvw.

WvW needs to stand on its own merits. You don’t kill a popular pvp game mode in hopes to get a handful back into wvw on your server.

WvW doesn’t appeal to everyone, just like eotm doesn’t appeal to everyone, so we don’t need to create more negative feelings toward the pvp side of the game by removing one for another.

Instead of thinking this way, we should look at the reasons why eotm has done so well and apply some of those elements to wvw.

Absurdo.8309:

Swagger.1459:

Don’t worry people, we will all be happy with difficulty settings someday.

If you need easier content, you have the rest of the game to enjoy. You can dungeon or fractals. I’d rather have developer resources go to that content. I don’t want raid resources tied up in easy modes.

I see the same echo chamber calling for easy mode raids. Please don’t assume everyone would be happy with it, especially given the responses here.

It’s ok to have content you don’t enjoy. Let raiders have content that they like. You have the rest of the game. Focus on the content you enjoy playing.

Don’t worry, with difficulty setting we can have ultra hard modes too!

Don’t worry people, we will all be happy with difficulty settings someday.

Kylden Ar.3724:

EST.5014:

My idea:
lets have
1 Eternal
2 Alpine
1 Desert Borderland

I really like this idea. DBL top center, EBG bottom center, Alpine to each side.

Fix up the DBL and that is the map that the ‘loser’ of the prior week gets, as defense is a little easier there with small groups than on the old Alpine maps. Make DBL a little smaller, cut down the ‘fall to your death’ spots a bit (except on Air keep, as that is part of the strategic point), and have the waypoints work for the server that owns a keep, period. Maybe have tunnels between the far points and the oasis that only work if you ‘own’ both ends?

EB, AB, DB and an Arctic map would be better.

Can’t force losers on a particular map, should just be rotation.

Coulter.2315:

Swagger.1459:

The devs do not want to create rifts intentionally in their community, but that’s exactly what is happening and should be resolved.

Actually you are trying to create a rift by tell us that people need to be seperated. Raids with 1 difficulty and an achievement extra is a good system – I bring up again Ulduar, one of WoW’s most beloved raids, which used this system.

You are trying to tell people they have nothing to aspire to and need the content dragged down to them, its not a good outlook or something I would ever support.

How is getting more people doing raids creating a rift?

How are having progression settings, that can also be scaled even harder than the current difficulty, not giving players something to aspire to?

Absurdo.8309:

Swagger.1459:

Absurdo.8309:

Raids are opt in content. I agree with the comments above — there’s plenty to do if you’re looking for easier gameplay.

Swagger.1459:

Also, raids were very obviously rushed out the door so I guarantee the devs would have done things much differently given more time. Unfortunately, though, they are playing catchup now and we will just have to see how this content takes shape.

I would disagree with this. To the contrary, the bosses seem very polished. What do you find rushed?

A raid consists of more than just bosses, but ok, bosses that are pieced into the game are polished.

We only had 1 wing at launch, not an entire raid.

Promises of legendary armors without even a preview. Still no preview either.

Lfg channel should have been created at launch, but still nonexistent.

Minor thing, but not even a full compliment of white mantle weapons.

So let’s put the above into perspective…

Imagine if the devs only had Verdant Brink available to play at HoT launch. Then 5 months later they release Auric Basin. Then a few months after that Tangled Depths is released… Then finally Dragon’s Stand. Now take each zone release tied to legendary weapon progress steps without even a preview of said legendary weapons.

WvW received a single map unnecessarily, not a full wvw update because the rest is not ready…

Certain ascended stats to complete full sets are still not available.

The devs piece “things” together more than any mmo I have experienced, and raids are not handled any different. They devs play catchup a lot here and should work on dropping in fully created and feature/qol rich content instead.

Most/all of your complaints aren’t with the actual encounter. I would agree that things like the LFG tool would be a quality of life improvement.

But you seem to take issue with staggered release content. I don’t think your suggestions are aimed at the raid team. Seems to be more of a skin and armor thing. I’d rather have three polished bosses now, than have to wait for all the wings to be done.

Raids were rushed out the door, and staggered release means “we don’t have it ready yet so you get things in stages”.

@Mike O’Brien and Karl McClain

I threw this together and will have some edits, but I wanted to drop it in sooner than later.

Mike O Brien.4613:

Hi all,

This is a great thread. It’s constructive. We’re all reading it and referring to it in team discussions.

As we said in the AMA, our top internal priorities have been population balance and rewards. From this thread, your top five priorities are, in order:
1. Stability & skill balance
2. Fix or revert DBL
3. Rewards
4. Population balance
5. Scoring

Yes, we will take the feedback and make stability, general skill balance, and fixing/reverting DBL our top priorities. We’re not currently working on scoring and that has to be a longer-term project.

Karl is working specifically on WvW-focused skill balance. He’s looking for the wins for WvW that don’t screw the rest of the game.

We’re investigating whether to fix or revert DBL. They’re both a lot of work. These next couple days will be your last chance to give feedback before we make a decision, so speak now or forever hold your peace.

I want to reiterate that everything we work on either ships in April or starts beta-testing on Live servers in April. We’re locking down dev work for the April release soon — next up is localization, QA, integration and regression testing — but we’ll extend the deadline for WvW skill balance.

There is one thing that doesn’t need to get wrapped up into the April release: Friday night resets. That doesn’t require a Live build. We’ll do it.

Mo

Map Stuff

I vote for the alpine map being brought back.

In the future I would like to see 4 unique active maps to play on for wvw… Give EB and Alpine a visual makeover. Rework DBL to be more open, less vertical and less maze-like. Create an Arctic map. Again, with all four in play. Also, I would like to see tunnel systems in WvW like the ones implemented in EotM.

Rewards

I know rewards are being worked on, but I would like to see ascended gear offered in wvw. Also, please finally unlock those Mistforged Hero weapons to be purchased with badges of honor and gold. They have been completely unobtainable for 2 years now. Paths to Legendary gear as well, see below.

Since the PvE side of the game offers both ascended and legendary gear, I would like to see ascended gear offered as purchasable rewards.

Create ascended runes, sigils and infusions. Offer these as rewards in WvW and EotM. Add them to crafting professions as well. Also, don’t forget about ascended trinket crafting.

Paths to Legendary runes and sigils and infusions and trinkets!

Combat “Stuff”

Base Health

Elementalist, Guardian and Thief- 15k

Engineer, Mesmer, Ranger, Revenant- 17K

Necromancer and Warrior- 19K

Nameplates in PvP

Player nameplates- Please finally use acronyms for server names and a small icon for rank. Please? The unnecessarily long red nameplate is very visually distracting from opponent animations and skill effects, and very often the screen is just flooded with red names and red circles… Players want to see and react to what the other player is doing, not to have a screen full of red clutter to sort through.

“Pet” nameplates- Pets, minions and yes, illusions and clones, should just have an icon, no nameplate. There has to be a quick visual differentiation between players and their “pets” among the mobs of players.

NPC nameplates- Use a different color font.

*Doing these will also help these who suffer from color blindness.

Player Movement

For the love of freedom of movement that the game was built on, please loosen the reigns on combat travel suppression big time. Please increase strafe and reverse speed. I don’t care if you have to increase the radius on aoe circles of death, just do it please.

25% base movement at level 80. This will open up build diversity more with regard to traits, runes and utility skills. Change all movement enhancers to 33% movement. Super speed enhancers remain unchanged.

I’ll mention this again in the conditions part of my post, but you are killing one of the top features for combat with such strict combat movement suppression rules. This is also made much worse by the constant movement imparing conditions players are hit with.

Pets

Pets need a lot of work, but I won’t go into a ton of stuff now.

I have a post pending that talks about trait line revamps and included I will bring up making Ranger pets optional. This would be done by unlocking them via the Beastmaster trait line. Until such a thing happens, let’s get a couple things about Ranger pets in order. Pets need to be more of a threat by putting pressure on moving targets. Simply speed them up to stick like glue to their targets and cut out the long animation attacks. There are only a few decent pet choices in pvp and this needs to change.

Necro minions are in the same boat too against moving targets so speed them up as well.

Skills and Balance

I’m not really sure what I can provide as input considering April is weeks away, and balancing skills will not be separated between pvp and pve currently (I will make a case for making the separation soon), but I’ll toss some thoughts out there.

I was just working on a post about profession and combat stuff, so I’ll take a few things from it that I feel could work for both sides of the game.

Support Roles and Mechanics

I’m going to provide a link to posts I’ve made on this subject for Druid healing, but the “spirit” of it could be applied to support and healing skills in general when you break it down.

Target reticle support and healing in movement heavy combat encounters are not a good design. Gating healing skills behind resource management is not a good design because the job of a healer is to heal when needed. Not having healing skills that can target players directly is not a good design.

This game needs to work on support roles and skill delivery mechanics. Please refer to how City of Heroes had deigned these for their movement heavy game. Support and heal roles there had some great toggle skills and pboa skills and ranged aoe skills and ranged ground target skills and player targetable skills… so please look into it.

If any of you at Anet have played a Empathy Defender or Force Field Controller or Sonic Resonance Corruptor or Pain Domination Mastermind… in City of Heroes, you will know that these power sets provided area heals and buffs, and player targetable heals and buffs.

In general, this game need a healthy dose of more defined roles per profession, and I believe there are good elements that could be taken from City of Heroes to make this happen. As you release Elite Specializations you could create some very nice Tank, Heal, Buff, Debuff and Disruption roles and builds within professions going forward. *More on this stuff in a future post.

Back to Druid healing…

We were told at Twitchcon that Druids would be able to support zergs in pvp, but so far all we see are self healing bunker and dps builds in pvp. The Druid was clearly designed for stationary boss encounters in PvE and this needs to change.

The example of changes I would like to see…

Considering Celestial Avatar does very little in terms of damage, just make it an on-demand form that is removed on downed state or when manually exited. Remove the Astral Force gating mechanics and just put it on a cooldown timer to enter the form again.

As mentioned above about the types of skills that are possible, let’s look at what we can do with Druid skills.

Take Cosmic Ray and Seeds of life and make them player targetable skills not reticle skills.

Change Lunar Impact to an enemy target skill, not a reticle skill.

Leave Rejuvenating Tides as is.

Allow a player to move and cast Natural Convergence.

Honestly, I would love to see Druid and Celestial Avatar two different Elite Specializations because I think you could do a lot of really cool things to define both better. I will never hold my breath over it, though.

More thoughts on Druid stuff…

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/Druid-CA-Overhaul-Needed/first#post6039723

Condition and Control Effects

I would like to see immunity timers implemented on Condition and Control effects.

Condition and Control effects are manageable in core Tyria PvE. The higher difficulty mobs in HoT zones bring a lot more Condition use, and while manageable, still at times we are affected by Conditions a bit too much. In PvP (WvW and SPvP), though, players are continuously hit with these CC effects over and over and over… There are individual profession builds that can put out way too much CC on their own, now multiply that “way too much” by multiple players… The way the CC attacks and effects were designed were heavy handed, and it is overdone when you combine some big direct and burst damage numbers, along with unending Condition DoT and status effects. In addition to continuous movement impairing effects from CC, we are also forced into combat movement suppression as well… All of these put together really kill the fun of combat.

What I’m proposing below is to NOT give immunity to the direct/immediate damage component from weapons and skills that produce CC, I’m saying that the status effects need to be more manageable for players in this CC heavy game.

The below quote is about the immunity timers that City of Heroes implemented in pvp…

“Every time a character recovers from a Hold, Immobilize, Disorient, Sleep, or Fear status, that character becomes immune to all five of those effects from other players for 15 seconds. Every time a character suffers a Knockdown, Knockback, or Knockup effect, that character becomes immune to all three of those effects from other players for 10 seconds. These two timers are independent. It should be noted that Confuse effects, while technically mezzes, are on a separate 15-second timer than the other mezzes listed above.”

So let’s tailor the above quote for GW2… the basic gist is that a character goes on an immunity timer to all “hard” Control effects after the effect ends or the player uses a Stun Breaker. Moa must finally go into this “hard” Control category as well.

For “soft” Conditions there are two ways to do it…

First is an immunity timer on a 1 cleanse-1 condition basis.

Or

Immunity timers to groups of “soft” Conditions. Some grouping examples below…

Group 1… Blind, confusion, vulnerability and weakness.

Group 2… Chilled, crippled, immobilize and slow.

Group 3… Bleeding, burning, poison and torment.

And again, the direct/immediate damage components from weapons and skills that produce these Control and Condition effects remain unchanged.

Doing it these ways allows for multiple CC skills to still be used, but allows for some much needed breathing room. All “hard” CC is either put on a timer naturally when ended or when manually broken. Individual or group “soft” CC are put on a timer once actively cleansed by the player or another player, or when the effect ends. Visual indicators can be assigned to the UI so both player(s) and attacker(s) know what immunity timers are in effect.

There are other factors that we can look at too, but I believe this would be a good start.

Stealth

Layering stealth over and over and over… needs to go period. Not only for combat reasons, but to also help develop and take certain professions in a better direction.

Mid combat stealth needs to be toned down period. Individual players should not be able to go into stealth continuously. Thief stealth builds and PU Mesmers are the biggest offenders. Sneaky Gyro stealth duration is a bit long. Trapper runes exacerbate stealth issues as well, and would like to see the stealth component removed from them.

There is zero need or reason for an individual be able to stealth over and over in PvE. For PvP, Thief “super stealth” builds are universally needed to survive, but it also gives those builds a complete advantage to control combat. PU Mesmers are next in line for this issue. In high survivability Scrapper builds the Sneaky Gyro increases their survivability three fold, and now we see packs of them roaming in WvW…

These stealth heavy builds are one on one nightmares in combat situations and outcomes are extremely predictable. I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve seen these ultimate stealth builds whack around multiple attackers or just simply escape. I’ve seen skilled players completely controlling fights against multiple opponents and killing them individually as well.

The current stealth mechanics are just not healthy for PvP and just not needed in PvE. And again, If combat stealth is fixed up, it would open the door to make some better profession improvements. I understand some changes to professions would need to be made to accommodate stealth changes, but I believe it should be looked at seriously.

Also, common counters to stealth are anemic in PvP. Players are basically limited to tossing a random ground aoe (if available in the build) or swinging a melee weapon randomly if one is equipped. The stealth removal traps are not a realistic counter at all.

The hardest hit by stealth changes would be Thief, so here are some suggestions. Make Thief a “heartier” combatant via better HP and better condition resistance and removal (the condition proposal will help too). I would like to see stealth and blindness removed from weapon skills and removed from traits. Add stealth to a couple more heal skills and limit stealth and blindness skills to utilities and elites with long cool downs.

Follow this utility bar format to gain access to stealth and blindness for all professions.

I also had another idea to change stealth skills to a translucent form or shroud that reduces damage from all sources when active. This would allow all current stealth mechanics to remain in place while still providing advantages during combat.

Thanks for reading!

@Ohoni

Please add a posters name when you quote them. Thanks!

Ayrilana.1396:

Swagger.1459:

Ayrilana.1396:

Swagger.1459:

Ayrilana.1396:

Heibi.4251:

Gaile Gray.6029:

Ohoni.6057:

Here’s one reason: The developers have limited time and resources.

Yeah, we’ve covered this one. The time and resources it would take to implement something like this would be negligible, not remotely enough to counterbalance the benefits it would bring.

At this point, I need to interject. I am familiar with the process of changing to a multi-modality system of game presentation, having written about it long ago, when I was a journalist writing about another company and another game. For that game, too, players said “No big deal.” And they were absolutely wrong. They said, “Just tweak a few stats, lower a few spawns, and voila, you’ve got it!” No, that’s not how it worked. And that’s not how I think it would work for Guild Wars 2.

I will ask about this, and if we’re prepared to say something official, one of us will do so. But it’s counterproductive to have a discussion head down the path of misinformation and what seems to be a growing error in assumption. With all due respect, unless you’re a developer for GW2 you are not qualified to make a statement about the time needed, difficulty involved, or feasibility of such a feature.

You’re welcome to discuss the situation, and we appreciate that you want to do that. We welcome the conversation! But please participate by sharing what you’d like to see, and why, and don’t be misled by individual, external assumptions about the feasibility or practicality of such a request.

I actually do understand the difficulties this would create. But the issue at hand here is ANeT created something for a small percentage of the GW2 players. They ignored the rest and pandered to the few, who, as we see here and other posts about this, respond with pure venom to anyone suggesting anything that intrudes on their world.

I have played GW since GW1 beta and have never seen such elitism play out so blatantly. ANeT’s silence on the issue and refusal to address the 90% speaks in a much louder volume than anything else. All we see is us suggesting something and the players who have succeeded telling us to go learn to play better. It saddens me to see a two tier system created. The elites who have been successful even demanding payment to allow lesser skilled players success at the raids. Almost as bad as gold sellers. Not to mention locking new legendary armor behind the the raid. The question is “Why?”.

There’s nothing wrong with Anet releasing content gear toward a specific segment of the player population. Over 95% (guesstimate) of PvE in GW2 is relatively easy. There’s nothing inherently wrong about have some things in game for those that actually want a challenge.

There is also nothing inherently wrong with being more inclusive and flexible.

Which the vast majority of the game is.

And nothing of what I suggested takes away challenging raid content, it just makes it more approachable and offers players the ability to challenge themselves even more.

Listen, anet wants to make more money and that is done by being inclusive. The more a particular section of the game does well, the more development dollars will be spent on it.

Wouldn’t raiders like it if anet had 20 people working on raids instead of a handful? Of course they would, so offering better paths to approaching content for all skill levels to participate and enjoy is just good business.

Also, raids were very obviously rushed out the door so I guarantee the devs would have done things much differently given more time. Unfortunately, though, they are playing catchup now and we will just have to see how this content takes shape.

Sure they can give players an easy modes except there should be significantly reduced rewards and no achievement progression. It was clearly stated that raids were designed for those wanting challenging content. It seems that there are those players who want everything gear to their existing skill level and don’t want to be challenged.

I mentioned reward scaling to match difficulty.

There are some players who would take the path of least resistance, but difficulty settings also make this content more approachable and manageable for others, while offering a great skill challenge progression system for all as well.

The devs do not want to create rifts intentionally in their community, but that’s exactly what is happening and should be resolved.

Absurdo.8309:

Raids are opt in content. I agree with the comments above — there’s plenty to do if you’re looking for easier gameplay.

Swagger.1459:

Also, raids were very obviously rushed out the door so I guarantee the devs would have done things much differently given more time. Unfortunately, though, they are playing catchup now and we will just have to see how this content takes shape.

I would disagree with this. To the contrary, the bosses seem very polished. What do you find rushed?

A raid consists of more than just bosses, but ok, bosses that are pieced into the game are polished.

We only had 1 wing at launch, not an entire raid.

Promises of legendary armors without even a preview. Still no preview either.

Lfg channel should have been created at launch, but still nonexistent.

Minor thing, but not even a full compliment of white mantle weapons.

So let’s put the above into perspective…

Imagine if the devs only had Verdant Brink available to play at HoT launch. Then 5 months later they release Auric Basin. Then a few months after that Tangled Depths is released… Then finally Dragon’s Stand. Now take each zone release tied to legendary weapon progress steps without even a preview of said legendary weapons.

WvW received a single map unnecessarily, not a full wvw update because the rest is not ready…

Certain ascended stats to complete full sets are still not available.

The devs piece “things” together more than any mmo I have experienced, and raids are not handled any different. They devs play catchup a lot here and should work on dropping in fully created and feature/qol rich content instead.

Ayrilana.1396:

Swagger.1459:

Ayrilana.1396:

Heibi.4251:

Gaile Gray.6029:

Ohoni.6057:

Here’s one reason: The developers have limited time and resources.

Yeah, we’ve covered this one. The time and resources it would take to implement something like this would be negligible, not remotely enough to counterbalance the benefits it would bring.

At this point, I need to interject. I am familiar with the process of changing to a multi-modality system of game presentation, having written about it long ago, when I was a journalist writing about another company and another game. For that game, too, players said “No big deal.” And they were absolutely wrong. They said, “Just tweak a few stats, lower a few spawns, and voila, you’ve got it!” No, that’s not how it worked. And that’s not how I think it would work for Guild Wars 2.

I will ask about this, and if we’re prepared to say something official, one of us will do so. But it’s counterproductive to have a discussion head down the path of misinformation and what seems to be a growing error in assumption. With all due respect, unless you’re a developer for GW2 you are not qualified to make a statement about the time needed, difficulty involved, or feasibility of such a feature.

You’re welcome to discuss the situation, and we appreciate that you want to do that. We welcome the conversation! But please participate by sharing what you’d like to see, and why, and don’t be misled by individual, external assumptions about the feasibility or practicality of such a request.

I actually do understand the difficulties this would create. But the issue at hand here is ANeT created something for a small percentage of the GW2 players. They ignored the rest and pandered to the few, who, as we see here and other posts about this, respond with pure venom to anyone suggesting anything that intrudes on their world.

I have played GW since GW1 beta and have never seen such elitism play out so blatantly. ANeT’s silence on the issue and refusal to address the 90% speaks in a much louder volume than anything else. All we see is us suggesting something and the players who have succeeded telling us to go learn to play better. It saddens me to see a two tier system created. The elites who have been successful even demanding payment to allow lesser skilled players success at the raids. Almost as bad as gold sellers. Not to mention locking new legendary armor behind the the raid. The question is “Why?”.

There’s nothing wrong with Anet releasing content gear toward a specific segment of the player population. Over 95% (guesstimate) of PvE in GW2 is relatively easy. There’s nothing inherently wrong about have some things in game for those that actually want a challenge.

There is also nothing inherently wrong with being more inclusive and flexible.

Which the vast majority of the game is.

And nothing of what I suggested takes away challenging raid content, it just makes it more approachable and offers players the ability to challenge themselves even more.

Listen, anet wants to make more money and that is done by being inclusive. The more a particular section of the game does well, the more development dollars will be spent on it.

Wouldn’t raiders like it if anet had 20 people working on raids instead of a handful? Of course they would, so offering better paths to approaching content for all skill levels to participate and enjoy is just good business.

Also, raids were very obviously rushed out the door so I guarantee the devs would have done things much differently given more time. Unfortunately, though, they are playing catchup now and we will just have to see how this content takes shape.

Ayrilana.1396:

Heibi.4251:

Gaile Gray.6029:

Ohoni.6057:

Here’s one reason: The developers have limited time and resources.

Yeah, we’ve covered this one. The time and resources it would take to implement something like this would be negligible, not remotely enough to counterbalance the benefits it would bring.

At this point, I need to interject. I am familiar with the process of changing to a multi-modality system of game presentation, having written about it long ago, when I was a journalist writing about another company and another game. For that game, too, players said “No big deal.” And they were absolutely wrong. They said, “Just tweak a few stats, lower a few spawns, and voila, you’ve got it!” No, that’s not how it worked. And that’s not how I think it would work for Guild Wars 2.

I will ask about this, and if we’re prepared to say something official, one of us will do so. But it’s counterproductive to have a discussion head down the path of misinformation and what seems to be a growing error in assumption. With all due respect, unless you’re a developer for GW2 you are not qualified to make a statement about the time needed, difficulty involved, or feasibility of such a feature.

You’re welcome to discuss the situation, and we appreciate that you want to do that. We welcome the conversation! But please participate by sharing what you’d like to see, and why, and don’t be misled by individual, external assumptions about the feasibility or practicality of such a request.

I actually do understand the difficulties this would create. But the issue at hand here is ANeT created something for a small percentage of the GW2 players. They ignored the rest and pandered to the few, who, as we see here and other posts about this, respond with pure venom to anyone suggesting anything that intrudes on their world.

I have played GW since GW1 beta and have never seen such elitism play out so blatantly. ANeT’s silence on the issue and refusal to address the 90% speaks in a much louder volume than anything else. All we see is us suggesting something and the players who have succeeded telling us to go learn to play better. It saddens me to see a two tier system created. The elites who have been successful even demanding payment to allow lesser skilled players success at the raids. Almost as bad as gold sellers. Not to mention locking new legendary armor behind the the raid. The question is “Why?”.

There’s nothing wrong with Anet releasing content gear toward a specific segment of the player population. Over 95% (guesstimate) of PvE in GW2 is relatively easy. There’s nothing inherently wrong about have some things in game for those that actually want a challenge.

There is also nothing inherently wrong with being more inclusive and flexible.

Players never had issues with difficulty scaling or forming teams or wait times or players dropping out of pug raids… in City of Heroes. Not sure why other mmos haven’t figured things out yet.

Gaile Gray.6029:

Ohoni.6057:

Here’s one reason: The developers have limited time and resources.

Yeah, we’ve covered this one. The time and resources it would take to implement something like this would be negligible, not remotely enough to counterbalance the benefits it would bring.

At this point, I need to interject. I am familiar with the process of changing to a multi-modality system of game presentation, having written about it long ago, when I was a journalist writing about another company and another game. For that game, too, players said “No big deal.” And they were absolutely wrong. They said, “Just tweak a few stats, lower a few spawns, and voila, you’ve got it!” No, that’s not how it worked. And that’s not how I think it would work for Guild Wars 2.

I will ask about this, and if we’re prepared to say something official, one of us will do so. But it’s counterproductive to have a discussion head down the path of misinformation and what seems to be a growing error in assumption. With all due respect, unless you’re a developer for GW2 you are not qualified to make a statement about the time needed, difficulty involved, or feasibility of such a feature.

You’re welcome to discuss the situation, and we appreciate that you want to do that. We welcome the conversation! But please participate by sharing what you’d like to see, and why, and don’t be misled by individual, external assumptions about the feasibility or practicality of such a request.

Thanks for the response Gaile!

Blaeys.3102:

Regardless of which side of this argument you fall on, I think we can all agree – based on what we see in both the forums and in game – this topic has split the community and created a bit of a “rock and hard place” situation for ANET.

It will be interesting to see how long it takes them to actually respond and what they actual do.

I agree.

I’m assuming they will do next to nothing considering the recent guild chat.

Was just thinking Chak pets would be awesome.

One of each plus a juvenile Gerent!

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Chak

Of course we would also need Chak armor and backpieces too…

maddoctor.2738:

Ohoni.6057:

Go through the list of things I said. I said lower some HP (#s), lower the damage on certain attacks (#s).

How much lower? It still needs to be balanced, it still needs to be tested, and there still needs to be a lot of development time on it. It sounds simple “let’s lower a value” but in reality it’s not.

Getting caught by the big attacks would not be an unrecoverable wipe, but they would be something players would want to avoid.

And that’s where the whole “balance” issue comes into play. You make it sound easy, it’s not.

you can continue to fail at arguing this all you like, but the fact remains that players would learn at least some skills that would apply to the hard raid.

Not really that’s not a “fact”. Have you ever done a single dungeon path with a “meta zerker” person? You know those kind of people who expect to get certain buffs and expect bosses to die before they do? If you haven’t, good for you. If you have you’d know that this “learning” you are talking about doesn’t even work with the same content.

But your example only works when you assume that everyone involved is a complete idiot, and if that’s the case then they’re going to wipe no matter what.

So what’s the point of the “Easy mode” as training if you need someone to tell you to break it in the first place? Look you can do this easy mode but in hard mode you will do different things… yay for training.

No. It would require way more work than anything I’ve suggested, and players would still feel that they were missing out.

Why take a half-attempted at piece of content and not get a complete package? It would require more work yes, but it would also lead to a much better experience for everyone. IF the Raids succeed enough and their dev team grows well, then why not, they can do 5 different difficulty settings. 5-man, 10-man, 20-man whatever-man versions, hard mode, easy mode, normal mode, insane mode, whatever mode. What people are missing here is that this is our first ever Raid, for all we know it might flop and by the time Wing 3 is released they scrap the whole idea of Raids completely.

It’s NEW and while it’s NEW it needs to be fresh.

I WANT to experience all the same mechanics of the hard mode fight, I just don’t want to experience the frustration of missing one, or even worse having a team mate missing one, and causing several minutes of precise gameplay to go right out the window. I enjoy facing the mechanics, I absolutely hate the high stakes of failure, and ALWAYS will.

No you don’t want to experience the SAME mechanics, if you change said mechanics to be easier they stop being the SAME. It’s the difference between a mechanics heavy fight and a fight that deals with damage/hp mostly.

I’ve updated my op, y’all should take a look.

Can you explain how options to increase difficulty, as well as decrease difficulty, takes away opportunities?

At what point did inclusive content start removing the ability to form bonds and friendships?

It doesn matter “how low the bar goes”, the topic wasn’t to figure out exactly how difficult or easy you could scale it.

Great, because there are many players who have expressed wanting to do raids, so I’m glad you are in favor for this content being designed for all of them too.

@texzero

The answer is that raid leaders can choose to have different difficulty settings for their team…. Easier mode, normal mode and extreme mode… All with matching rewards… So a guild leader could run raid introductions for inexperience members to “wean” them into raiding. Once comfortable, and enjoying the content, they could run the “normal” modes with them, and eventually get to the point where guilds are running extreme mode for the ultimate challenge.

This is all very similar to how spvp is setup… Hot-join is a perfect place for inexperienced players to start. Then players can go to unranked… Then ranked… Then do leagues… Then try to make it on tournament teams…

The different arena modes were designed to cater to all different competitive players and interest levels… The devs didn’t just make 1 arena mode did they? No, and that was intentionally designed with the varying skill levels and interest levels in mind.

This is a video game for enjoyment, and what I speak of are options for all players who paid their $50-$100 for the exact same product… Being accommodating is just smart business, and anet will get to that point with raids just like they are reevaluating the grind and time commitments required in parts of the game.

TexZero.7910:

Swagger.1459:

TexZero.7910:

Jahroots.6791:

This isn’t even a personal crusade for me, I can manage normal raids. But there are a lot of people who simply do not have the time or ability to ‘get good’. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to ask for the a difficulty setting that could accommodate everyone.

Everyone has the time and ability to “get good”. They as a person just choose not too, for whatever reason.

I’ve had people within my own guild go from fresh outta queensdale level of raiding (eating every seeker) to being one of the most reliable members for the raid.

So sorry, don’t buy this one bit.

A difficulty setting will not solve the personal issue of a player being unwilling to learn.

Can you explain to me what my suggestion does and offers to all players?

What is the purpose of having unranked arena and ranked arena and leagues and tournaments?

Unranked, PvP is always on.
Ranked PvP is not

Leagues is a skill measurement relative to the community playing at the time, in it’s current implementation it’s also a measurement of time invested.

Care to tell me why you want to equate two distinctly different gameplay modes that have no bearing on the topic at hand ?

And what about my first question?

There is a purpose.

I should have added hot-join in there as well…

Why would the developers even offer these different arena modes in spvp to players?

TexZero.7910:

Jahroots.6791:

This isn’t even a personal crusade for me, I can manage normal raids. But there are a lot of people who simply do not have the time or ability to ‘get good’. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to ask for the a difficulty setting that could accommodate everyone.

Everyone has the time and ability to “get good”. They as a person just choose not too, for whatever reason.

I’ve had people within my own guild go from fresh outta queensdale level of raiding (eating every seeker) to being one of the most reliable members for the raid.

So sorry, don’t buy this one bit.

A difficulty setting will not solve the personal issue of a player being unwilling to learn.

Can you explain to me what my suggestion does and offers to all players?

What is the purpose of having unranked arena and ranked arena and leagues and tournaments?

Jahroots.6791:

randomguy.1283:

Jahroots.6791:

So many raiders seem to get a kind of satisfaction out of the ability to beat content that others cannot. Such a horribly selfish view.

’ I’m comfortable with this so it’s fine for everyone.’

It really isn’t. Lower level fractals never took anything away from 50s under the old system, they just let people have a go without as much hassle. Same principle here. You will still have your prestige rewards, and be able to enjoy beating raids the proper way.

Oh and demanding that content be brought down to your difficulty level isn’t the selfish thing? Please continue to tell me how I am selfish. I’m starting to think YOU guys are the toxic people.

Do you understand the proposal being made here? Adding difficulty scaling doesn’t take anything away from the existing raid. It would create an additional, separate mode for other people.

This isn’t even a personal crusade for me, I can manage normal raids. But there are a lot of people who simply do not have the time or ability to ‘get good’. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to ask for the a difficulty setting that could accommodate everyone.

I think a lot of people are missing what the proposal is and how it would benefit all players.

Also, people are forgetting something called “skill progression”. If a system is created that encourages more players to play, then they will get better and contribute to creating a stronger and healthier raiding community overall. This will translate to more effort by the developer to invest in raids, unlike what happened with dungeons.

randomguy.1283:

Swagger.1459:

randomguy.1283:

Swagger.1459:

TexZero.7910:

Swagger.1459:

TexZero.7910:

Swagger.1459:

TexZero.7910:

Swagger.1459:

Coulter.2315:

Please do not add extra difficulties, the Raids are fine as they are. Do not bend to a few complainers who refuse to put any effort into the Raid.

It’s called adding options.

“Complainers” are also customers that have brought up some valid concerns and ideas to improve raids.

Not all complaints are valid, some are just pure entitlement.

Understand that, yes you are a customer but that doesn’t mean everything being sold in the shop will appeal to you, and even if something does appeal to you it just might be out of your price range at the current time.

I didn’t say “all”.

You’re analogy doesn’t fit this topic.

Options won’t hurt the mode or other players.

Edit- Raid content across all mmos is low for many reasons, the devs should have handled things different and not made the same silly mistakes.

My analogy fits perfectly here.

You cannot currently do raids, because (reason)
You the customer, cannot buy goods because (reason)

Raids are fine in this game, the tools to move players into them are lack luster. The average player can complete a raid if they desire too.

It’s doesn’t fit, sorry.

Unfortunately you are not understanding the bigger picture.

If there was actually a big picture to get here. Unfortunately there isn’t.
This is just another complaint made out of entitlement and raw emotions.

You think just because you cannot complete the raid that it requires; no demands immediate attention and an easy mode. It doesn’t. Try, and actually put in some effort to complete the raid and you’ll actually notice that there’s a huge difference between your complaint and the actual issue.

There is a bigger theme to this direct suggestion.

“Complaint made out of entitlement and raw emotions” and the last paragraph… You are really embellishing and assuming things in this thread.

Except he’s not assuming anything, your own statements make it clear that the only reason you are complaining about raids is because you feel entitled to enjoy every possible PvE content even at the expense of other players.

Tex makes all sorts of assumptions and adds random things into the counter argument.

I merely provided a suggestion for difficulty scaling options and wrote a final comment in general community terms, reread the op.

Interesting, where do you come up with the “because you feel entitled to enjoy every possible pve content even at the expense of other players” part? Seriously, what “expense of other players” are you talking about with regard to difficulty scaling?

Maybe not you in particular, but there are definitely people who think that because they do not like raids, they NEED to change. If you are merely suggesting a change and not demanding it, fine.

As should be obvious, adding a difficulty scaling to raids takes time from the devs that could be used to continue making the amazing content they are right now.

I provided some suggestions and reasons why. It would be helpful for all of us if you looked at my op and subsequent comments so there is a better understanding of this discussion.

Are you suggesting that the devs are incapable of working on both?

randomguy.1283:

Swagger.1459:

TexZero.7910:

Swagger.1459:

TexZero.7910:

Swagger.1459:

TexZero.7910:

Swagger.1459:

Coulter.2315:

Please do not add extra difficulties, the Raids are fine as they are. Do not bend to a few complainers who refuse to put any effort into the Raid.

It’s called adding options.

“Complainers” are also customers that have brought up some valid concerns and ideas to improve raids.

Not all complaints are valid, some are just pure entitlement.

Understand that, yes you are a customer but that doesn’t mean everything being sold in the shop will appeal to you, and even if something does appeal to you it just might be out of your price range at the current time.

I didn’t say “all”.

You’re analogy doesn’t fit this topic.

Options won’t hurt the mode or other players.

Edit- Raid content across all mmos is low for many reasons, the devs should have handled things different and not made the same silly mistakes.

My analogy fits perfectly here.

You cannot currently do raids, because (reason)
You the customer, cannot buy goods because (reason)

Raids are fine in this game, the tools to move players into them are lack luster. The average player can complete a raid if they desire too.

It’s doesn’t fit, sorry.

Unfortunately you are not understanding the bigger picture.

If there was actually a big picture to get here. Unfortunately there isn’t.
This is just another complaint made out of entitlement and raw emotions.

You think just because you cannot complete the raid that it requires; no demands immediate attention and an easy mode. It doesn’t. Try, and actually put in some effort to complete the raid and you’ll actually notice that there’s a huge difference between your complaint and the actual issue.

There is a bigger theme to this direct suggestion.

“Complaint made out of entitlement and raw emotions” and the last paragraph… You are really embellishing and assuming things in this thread.

Except he’s not assuming anything, your own statements make it clear that the only reason you are complaining about raids is because you feel entitled to enjoy every possible PvE content even at the expense of other players.

Tex makes all sorts of assumptions and adds random things into the counter argument.

I merely provided a suggestion for difficulty scaling options and wrote a final comment in general community terms, reread the op.

Interesting, where do you come up with the “because you feel entitled to enjoy every possible pve content even at the expense of other players” part? Seriously, what “expense of other players” are you talking about with regard to difficulty scaling?

None of my posts are baseless, you are choosing not to correlate your thoughts and feeling about one portion of the game to another.

Can you provide a quote where I say that there are individual professions not viable for raids?

I suggest you reread my comments and put things into better perspective. Also, reflecting on your economy concerns with the similar concerns players have for raid content.

Enjoy!

There is not any need to spin doctor. I know exactly what you are saying by that quote.

“Drags the fun out of even playing the game” is what you said, and that’s exactly how some players feel about all things raid.

Your arguments are weakened by your complaint about John, the economy and the “resolutions” to the broader issues.