Guild Wars 2

Hey all,

Can we stop with this 5% bogus nonsense? It’s definitely much higher than that. Indications from the frequent reddit polls that come up suggest that about 20% have tried and liked Raids, but there’s a large percent (around 45%) would like to at least get into them. I believe everyone knows the reddit poll I am referring to, and I think it’s a decent indicator of interest in raids in general.

Thanks!

insanemaniac.2456:

TexZero.7910:

insanemaniac.2456:

TexZero.7910:

eldrin.6471:

letting us buy insights with margonite shards at a rate of 100 shards for 1 insight and letting those with extra insights use them to buy margonite shards could help both sides in this.

This would only actively promote fail state farming till you’re shard capped for the week.

We don’t need the game to promote that.

how is that not already promoted. raids are the only way to obtain a bunch of stat combos that are strictly better than their core analogues. if i could have 20k shards right now this instant, i would easily be able to spend them all on new gear for 10+ different toons. there is no reason i shouldnt be fail state farming (unless im able to complete encounters for more shards/hour).

the fact that some people are saying they have nothing to buy with their shards currently is something i find entirely ridiculous.

and for the record, im not in favor of adding a shard<->LI conversion.

You answered your own question you can caps shards just by completing the events and boss fights.

As is you’re not rewarded for fail state farming.

sure you are. you can get exclusive ascended gear.

This will hopefully be addressed with the next Living Story.

I do hope for future development where stat combos are entirely restricted to raids. That’s a lesson I presume they will agree with.

afrocrusade.4253:

Why is Matthias the hardest on any of your lists? He’s easier than Trio. He’s literally “Autoattack: The Boss”. Beyond reflection and doing wells, there is no mechanic to his fight. Don’t get hit.

I believe there are a few caveats with his fight that might not make him immediately appear as threatening as Sabetha or Xera.

First, the raid positioning is never quite the same throughout the entire fight. There’s a certain stack order for instance when you are doing Sabetha, however Matthias is flexible, people will try to kite him somewhat where the next tank spot should be, but because of his aggro mechanic he won’t quite be that nice. There’s plenty of RNG involved, getting downed can happen often even if everyone perfects the Hadoken mechanic as between conditions and other mechanics the damage from Matthias is more sustained than any other boss. For instance, if you were to play a Necro in the encounter the fire phase could be your bane, getting rapid stacks of Burning on top of the ill-timed debuff can put you downed way outside the rest of the group.

It’s terribly easy to have a raid collapse in Matthias, especially during his very long final phase which might as well be a fight all its own. The ‘flip’ to the abomination phase and how the entire group functions is far different than any other raid boss in Forsaken Thicket.

I have had smooth kills with Matthias with players that are completely aware, but I have had groups that I know that are really experienced with any other boss, continue to wipe to Matthias because something like a spirit went ahead and finished off 3 people during the last 25%. Matthias is one of the hardest bosses of this raid for those reasons I stated.

Sirbeaumerdier.3740:

Sykper.6583:

eldrin.6471:

Its not the number of insights that bothers some its more the time gate they cause.
il repeat what has been said now for 13 pages.for those with static groups we are talking 4 months,this could be as long as 6 months to a year for players with no static group using lfg every week.for raids to survive and continue being developed they must attract players.haveing the rewards locked behind massive time gates will only shorten there life span.that dont bother the i got mine kitten crowd.

Time-gates actually facilitate length of content being played.

If the LI investment was something radically reduced, there would be no incentive for those interested in the Legendary Armor to repeat the raid content.

As has been pointed out so many times before, 25 LI per Legendary piece is not a terribly high threshold, because that’s it. Nothing is better than Ascended/Legendary. There could even be an argument that getting Legendary Armor in Forsaken Thicket, might deter future content where Legendary Armor is able to be acquired. It’s a finale of sorts for your character.

4-6 months of killing raid bosses is not an unreasonable goal, especially in light that you can start crafting certain aesthetically pleasing parts first. No other Legendary in the game has this luxury, more or less every other legendary is a solo gig but requires a similar investment as what the Legendary Armor set as a whole seems to indicate.

But therein lies the problem… several players are motivated by a legendary armor not the raid. The problem is they have to ingest absurd amount of putrid content to them to get to that armor. Of course 4-6 months (heck, even a year) of what you like or at least do not hate is no problem. But they locked that content behind raid only…

If we could have other legendary armor skins from other part of the game you could augment the LI to 25 stacks for all I care. Have fun and good riddance. However, it is not the case at all. The way to legendary armor is the raid way or go home. Some will farm with real life money and I can’t blame them one bit for it (not something Anet will find bad I imagine but it that might end up costing them in the long run if they are careless about the topic).

I have been around the forums for quite a while, posting here and there, reading threads and so forth. It is true that if you do not raid you cannot get a Legendary Set of Armor. I firmly believe though from throughout my experience reading what has been posted thus far, that a majority of the raiders would not mind a Legendary Armor set available outside of raids, a separate set of Legendary Armor that can be earned without going into content that a set of PvE players will not enjoy.

I have personally campaigned for this non-stop, just so those interested in earning Legendary Armor, do not tie it to getting Forsaken Thicket nerfed. If even one source of Legendary Armor were able to be crafted outside of raids, I believe the majority of complaints about it were to cease from the most vocal persons.

However…I will not at any time commit to a solution where any sort of reward can be earned anywhere (Getting Bladed Armor with CoF tokens if you really like CoF for instance). That diminishes playing content, that diminishes the community, and that diminishes the game. If there were a PvE Open-world based Legendary Armor, I do believe it should be different from Envoy (look different obviously), and there should maybe be a balance between the two. At this point, I would not care if the Envoy costed more as long as the requirements remained the same as they are now.

I do not think I am the only raider who thinks like this.

During the entire encounter with Xera she repetitively summons Bloodstone Shards as both a source of power and a measure to attack the heroes with.

If I had to consider the difference between how Matthias wielded Bloodstones compared to Xera, I would say that Matthias probably did not intend to live beyond the point where he radically transformed into an abomination once he went into his last stand. His animations where he literally rips apart his body to attack the heroes with his bloodstone-infused organs, not to mention his inflated unnatural form make me believe he gave up being human at all costs to kill the group.

Xera, however, I believe was the last true guardian protecting Lazarus as he recovered. Unlike Matthias she, besides being a higher ranking White Mantle and likely more powerful than Matthias, probably understood the benefits and downsides of Bloodstone shards the most. It’s very plausible that she could have gone all in on DR and destroyed the place, but I believe her fixation on bringing back Lazarus was her highest priority.

Would it be wrong to suggest that her main mission was to allow Lazarus to recover completely, as his rebirth would stir even more trouble than her own presence going out to DR?

Would it also be wrong to suggest that because of her knowledge of the bloodstone shards and their potential, that she used them in a more effective manner as to become an empowered version of herself (the Massive Xera) until they were disturbed or destroyed thus revealing her true human self? I doubt a guardian would want to perish so readily, she likely sought to outlast the group without going as far as Matthias went to infuse herself with Bloodstone Power.

Unfortunately my lore-expertise is not quite adequate, I cannot say whether or not Matthias turning into his Abomination form would reduce his lifespan, but I do like to presume that taking too much from the Bloodstones given what they actually are likely isn’t healthy for self-preservation.

eldrin.6471:

Its not the number of insights that bothers some its more the time gate they cause.
il repeat what has been said now for 13 pages.for those with static groups we are talking 4 months,this could be as long as 6 months to a year for players with no static group using lfg every week.for raids to survive and continue being developed they must attract players.haveing the rewards locked behind massive time gates will only shorten there life span.that dont bother the i got mine kitten crowd.

Time-gates actually facilitate length of content being played.

If the LI investment was something radically reduced, there would be no incentive for those interested in the Legendary Armor to repeat the raid content.

As has been pointed out so many times before, 25 LI per Legendary piece is not a terribly high threshold, because that’s it. Nothing is better than Ascended/Legendary. There could even be an argument that getting Legendary Armor in Forsaken Thicket, might deter future content where Legendary Armor is able to be acquired. It’s a finale of sorts for your character.

4-6 months of killing raid bosses is not an unreasonable goal, especially in light that you can start crafting certain aesthetically pleasing parts first. No other Legendary in the game has this luxury, more or less every other legendary is a solo gig but requires a similar investment as what the Legendary Armor set as a whole seems to indicate.

Shovel Face.4512:

Lol where my haters at? Keep posting. I genuinely find this hilarious. This thread is pure gold. You guys all seemed to of had their feelings hurt with my post. LMAO.

Can’t tell if troll. I feel like he’s trolling and everyone is eating up the bait pretty well.

Given that this post was made in the middle of the controversy over raiding this past week…going with troll.

Ohoni.6057:

ANet would get ZERO benefit in any player continuing to play a mode that he knows he does not enjoy. To deliberately offer players incentive to repeatedly do content that this player knows he does not enjoy, they would have to be sadists, and I don’t believe that’s the case at all, I believe that they just made some mistakes because “everyone else was doing it,” and haven’t yet realized their error. It works entirely against their business interests as well.

Everyone is different, with different interests, likes and dislikes. We have a rare instance of a game where the devs are trying to incorporate just about every kind of activity or gameplay imaginable into a single MMO. PvP, PvE, Fashion Hunting, Exploration, Puzzles, Mini-games, etc. Arenanet has approached GW2 with a very broad stroke of a brush. This hasn’t changed.

Having such a variance in content is not working against their interests, as what they are more interested in keeping their entire mismatched playerbase, of which quite a few groups with such vastly different interests likely don’t play the same kinds of games as each other, in GW2. However, GW2 is a Jack-of-all-trades with this method, they aren’t completely mastering any branch, as we see constantly with branches like PvP not being balanced, or the constant cries for new dungeons versus new open-world. So in order to address this, and get players who might not be interested in that particular content to play that content, they add incentives.

It is not sadistic to create an incentive to get a player to play something they very well might not enjoy, it adds icing to the cake for those who like it, and there’s always the possibility that it will create interest in those who originally thought they might dislike it, in fact turn around to like the content. This incentive is weighed against incentives of other content, and has been the driving force behind why we have seen rewards go from fluid to map specific.

Ohoni.6057:

So no, it is reasonable to set rewards up as long term goals, such that whichever path you take, it’ll be a while before you get there and they’ll have plenty of time to add new things to chase. This keeps people invested in the game, keeps them playing the content, assisting other players in a mutually beneficial way, and keeps them away from the filthy competition because they just won’t have the time.

It would also take a monumental overhaul of just about every single reward system in place. The precarious balancing of how some rewards would be rewarded faster in this method of gameplay, versus another would drive up overhead on content deployment. Every single new reward to come out from now on, would have to be gauged against every prior system. And what would come from this is that you would have players enjoying content to reap all the rewards, but players playing content that is the fastest method to acquiring the same rewards. These ‘Content-locusts’ I believe the term is called would grow at an alarming rate, demanding more content and more rewards, realizing they can get the same rewards from some other old method, and rinse and repeat.

…There would be damage beyond repair, I don’t believe the players that genuinely enjoy a kind of content, would like these ‘locusts’ abusing their gameplay, creating a toxic environment through harassment of ‘You aren’t killing Vinewrath fast enough! Everyone report her!’ kind of mentality. What was thought to be a novel concept would create a bad community, blending all the players who have their different interests, likes and dislikes, and forcing some of them together as the incentives are gone.

Ohoni.6057:

It’s also reasonable for them to add items to the game designed to entice you to attempt specific content, to increase the odds that every player will give every game mode a decent shot, and minimize the chance that any player will miss out on content he might actually enjoy.

This isn’t actually a bad idea, which they could incorporate into some sort of Achievements for doing certain activities during the release of this new content, and it is only temporarily. A kind of head-start achievement where you can get a fairly unique skin that would later start seeing rare drops come from monsters a month later or something along those lines as an example.

Ohoni.6057:

Therefore, it only stands to reason that you position these items at a location designed to “catch and release.” Lure players in, make sure they try the content and experience it, and then say “hey, if you enjoyed that, you can keep doing it as much as you like! And if you continue to do it, you’ll be able to earn ‘The Widget’ much faster than doing anything else! But hey, you weren’t having fun? Continuing to do this for the next six to eight weeks would be sheer torture? That’s cool, we get that not all content is for all players, so here are a few other ways you can shoot for that item that might take a bit longer, but hopefully you’ll enjoy one of those more.”

That’s best for player good will, that’s best for the developers consciences, and it’s best for their company’s bottom line. Win-win-win.

…But this achievement incentive could not be the main goal of the content. Something bigger and shinier or whatever would have to be the main goal. What that would do is at the very least, get everyone’s feet a little wet in the content rather than outright dislike it from the get-go without any experience. But as long as there are big shiny rewards involved, there will be a very large and noticeable amount of the population eating up these substantially easier rewards like nothing, and demanding more from the devs who are already trying to balance the new stuff coming in, around what is already here.

There would be an ever-growing new burden on the devs with reward balancing.
There would be a rapid growth in content-locusts that plow through all the reward content, that mainly seek the big shinies. They could even poison old content and reward methods with their presence.
There would be even more toxicity, rewards as incentives do in a way separate players into groups automatically, but when everything has the same rewards, the playerbase blends and some players don’t mix well (Imagine if for a time SPvP reward tracks were the fastest method, even by a single day, for a particular reward).

I guarantee you, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that setting up some sort of good-will reward system would be a catastrophic nightmare. It’s nice to paint it in such a flowery fashion until you get down to what the actual potential consequences could be.

For the real good of all, keep rewards as incentives for unique content only.

That’s disappointing to hear, and unfortunately I don’t know what the situation is like in the OCX side for raiding or the population level in general.

I do know that there are training LFGs for VG all the time during my NA Primetime and even hours beyond that. My honest take on your situation Singarti would be to keep trying, you might have had some bad days where the right groups weren’t advertising.

Furthermore, from my understanding your small guild all had this bad experience together trying to find groups, but if I may be so bold, could you all just group up together and go in? I don’t know how small your guild is, I am taking a wild gander it might be at least 10 and even if half of those 10 were to form a group, that’s half a raid that can be filled in with others. Make a LFG and try something like ‘LFM VG, new and training’ and see what comes from it.

But like I said, I can’t gauge the OCX interest, how many LFM and LFG entries would you say would be there during your primetime? like a few LFMs and about 8 LFGs?

This is a beautiful story, we need to set up a sticky thread with ‘Raid Success Stories’ and keep it in this sub-forum for all to read and share, IMHO.

I believe the title is misleading. Raiding is quite possible for newcomers who show a willingness to learn and realize when and where certain abilities and skills are optimal for any given encounter, and what doesn’t work.

It should have instead read: “Raids now impossible for Newcomers with an Ego”.

How arrogant do you have to be to think you know everything about any content without first experiencing it? That you think you would be more effective, that you would serve a more practical use than what is out there?

I can take any newbies into a VG kill any given day of the week provided they know what they have to bring with their given profession. Some might pick it up faster than others, while a few might take much longer to get into form. As long as they show initiative to adapt, learn the strategies, be in the right place at the right time and so forth I am always willing to take new potential raiders into raids.

I always thought those lovely collection items you get from first time boss kills are pretty legit proof.

Hell, all these Gorseval link 60+ LIs pale to someone linking a few Spirit threads.

…Unless you guys have been selling those.

I’ve managed to kill every boss, and I have gotten KC to under 33% and Xera to around 40%, I am still under 50 LI.

OH MAN I MUST BE A NOOB!

How about instead of constantly inflating LI, set a standard for your experienced groups:

10+ LI for VG and potentially Gorseval.
20+ LI for full SV clear, or Slothasor.
30+ LI for SV, SP, maybe even SotF.
40+ LI for everything.

Escort can be done by anyone, Trio is the same deal but that’s locked behind Sloth.

I can’t wait for someone to ask for 200+ LI for VG, going to join that group just to laugh at the raid lead. It’s about the same thing you did when someone asked for top-tier raid gear for a dungeon back in WoW, and rightfully so.

ryandeniszorro.6735:

Can we move topic from “we hate eldrin coz we think different” to actual reason for and against lowering li req?
Many of u relate amount of li to skills , that complete bollox.
Others relete to dedication , this may be but then again its a lot free time or constant team.
Achievement is surely not since no grind is actual acchievent.
So what is it ? What is the reason for anyone to support 150 li ?
To me its in same pocket with supporting rng on ecto (oh the pain ) .

Because it’s a number that shows adequate time dedicated to a particular task, no different than why players could dedicate a lot of time completing the Auric Weapons set or something of that kin.

It filters out based on:

- Whether or not you can kill raid bosses
- Whether or not you can consistently kill raid bosses to meet a pace

Legendaries have always taken a large time and gold sink. 150 LIs are required for not just one Legendary Piece but a full 6 set of armor! SIX Legendaries that will take up slots forevermore on a character.

There’s the argument for keeping LI at 150, what’s your argument for lowering it again?

BlaqueFyre.5678:

Again Raids were not made for Pugs, the legendary armor was not made for pugs as the Target audience, pugs don’t even make up the Majority of Raiders.

I…would say they make up a considerable amount, even guild run raids might have a few pugs in them.

william dj.6953:

One of the repeated arguments is, anyone can pug raids. So complaining about not being able to raid is ridiculous. So no LI shouldn’t be lowered.

Then some of the same group arguing to keep it at 150 for that very reason turns around and say….Raids are not meant to be pugged.

lol so which is it?

Either way this is just the tip of the iceberg on this topic.

I don’t know who might have said that raids weren’t puggable. The intent of Arenanet might be that they weren’t going to be puggable, but clearly they underestimated how good the playerbase was, and how easily they can form raid teams and go in there.

I think the better position is that Raids shouldn’t be puggable, to groups that just want to press 1 and afk. That’s probably the position we don’t want to come about.

insanemaniac.2456:

Sykper.6583:

insanemaniac.2456:

Sykper.6583:

insanemaniac.2456:

Lendruil.9061:

insanemaniac.2456:

Ayrilana.1396:

Harddrive.2738:

Wait…. so I ask for methods to speed up the process to great resistance, only for you to suggest the exact same thing but outside of raids….

OMG make up your mind, inside raids, outside raids, who cares, LI is LI. We I don’t want 4+ months of pointless grind.

Fixed it for you. You don’t speak for everyone.

well i dont want 4+ months of pointless grind either.

Pointless grind for me is farming sw over and over again or doing similar things. Raidbosses, however, are the most fun content in the game for me and are not a grind at all, and if it would be 300 inisghts it would still be ok for me because the time until i have the required amount of insights is fun.

gosh a lot of people dont think sw or similar things are pointless grind, just the easiest way to make some gold. perhaps you are not qualified to define pointless grind either.

I want you to look up what Grind means in MMO terms, and smack yourself for this comment. There’s only so much ignorance one can handle.

no. i will not smack myself over your unconstructive and rude comment. i will stand behind my comment, because obviously you missed the word “pointless”. idk how. i said it twice.

One of the biggest issues you can introduce into an MMO is creating a ‘grind’ that is efficient for something like currency. Silverwastes is a problem child, it gives way too much for so little effort, and people will mindlessly grind it without even touching other content. At least until they get bored of the game and leave as either they won’t put the effort into other content that doesn’t pay out at the same level. GW2 would be better off if Silverwastes were outright removed from the game as it promotes an unhealthy relationship between the player and the game in general.

It would be one thing if Silverwastes were brought down to a level where you can only get the most rewards from it daily much like how the HoT Metas work now, but you can literally spend hours everyday there. That’s why it’s a grind, and it’s also why it is pointless to have in this game. Asking for more content like Silverwastes is asking for a Korean MMO.

There’s an idea, let’s have Vinewrath kill rewards be a daily reward, a good start to stopping the endless train.

lets also gate a set of legendary trinkets behind getting 500 drops from the daily rewards for doing sw, dry top, and the HoT metas. dont worry, the drops are guaranteed and the trinkets will require 100 each, so you can work on them one at a time to break it up and get a trinket every 2.3 weeks. plus you have a choice in which map you do, so you dont have to do the ones you hate the most, but thats gonna make the process take a little longer.

Done! That is an easy timegate to pull off. I know you are trying to be snarky, but when most of the Ascended Trinkets are gated behind Laurels, have an trinket that can literally change its stats on the fly that I can get in under 3 weeks if I do different open-world content daily? Whereas I would have to wait about a Month per Accessory if I don’t get Guild Commendations? I can then spend my laurels on those really hard to get T6 materials, Powerful Bloods needed to drop in price anyways!

I can ignore getting the rings, those drop literally everywhere and Fractals give them out a dime a dozen, so honestly getting 2 Legendary Accessories and a Legendary Amulet would be about 300 tokens, or just 50 days. And it gets people going into all the zones if they want to max their tokens earned.

Good game buddy, you clearly have a grasp on what we need to balance Legendary Rewards out!

eldrin.6471:

Were are you getting most from? i would say its around 50/50 on this thread.whats fun to one player is not always fun to another.and as i have said some of those in favour of 150 on this thread have questionable motives .ie already got what they need or selling runs.
im sure there is a few truly like grinding raid bosses,but not anywhere close to what you claim.but maybe from the perspective of some one thinking of getting in to raids for this armour 150 LI is just a bit to much.and that might harm raids in the long run.

More like 70/30 in Raider’s favor, there has been far more individual voices that like the current raid system, and the same…4-5 people that have posted the same thing in every possible raid thread imaginable. I could name them right now if you wanted.

Of course, we can then suggest that forum posters have no relevant say on the population at large as we can’t be representative given the sample size of maybe 20 individual posters. So we can only do one thing, have a discussion. I think we have beaten the horse long enough though, fairly certain Arenanet has seen all the arguments imaginable posted.

I will say this though, even the Raid devs were going to be under the impression that Raiding would cause quite a bit of ‘salty tears’ from us. I would not be surprised if this entire discourse was exactly what they intended to happen.

GreyWolf.8670:

Sykper.6583:

GreyWolf.8670:

RoRo.8270:

Raids were advertised as challenging content. Not sure why players feel they need to be catered and have access to everything

Are you ok with the raids not being included in the price of the expansion and you can pay for them separately, then?

They came as part of the package. Don’t know why anyone would want less content for the same price, much like how you get a new TV and they give you extra video cables you don’t need, but might as well have. You can’t ask to get those cables to get taken out of the package. Although you could personally toss them out when you get home, but other customers who get that same TV might want or need them.

“Don’t know why anyone would want less content for the same price…”

This is exactly my point. Everyone paid for the raid and everyone has access to it.

Fixed that mistake there, you almost implied there was some literal barrier for entry. Anyone can create a raid and go in. Anyone can go into a cleared instance and map out everything, this isn’t a difficult concept.

GreyWolf.8670:

RoRo.8270:

Raids were advertised as challenging content. Not sure why players feel they need to be catered and have access to everything

Are you ok with the raids not being included in the price of the expansion and you can pay for them separately, then?

They came as part of the package. Don’t know why anyone would want less content for the same price, much like how you get a new TV and they give you extra video cables you don’t need, but might as well have. You can’t ask to get those cables to get taken out of the package. Although you could personally toss them out when you get home, but other customers who get that same TV might want or need them.

Astralporing.1957:

Sarrs.4831:

I was gonna say you can be a casual and a raider at the same time but I got beaten to the punch.

Do you want the raids? Then meet the challenge. A raid with no challenge is not a raid.

Then call it by a different name. That name is important only to raiders anyway.

Sure, calling it ‘Should never exist’.

Astralporing.1957:

Sarrs.4831:

It doesn’t create the social environment that raids are supposed to create.

Good. For the most part, those are damaging to the game.

More and more I am starting to question if there’s a new kind of toxicity in a MMO that is the complete opposite of an elitist, that demands as if everything should be on a platter all the rewards for all the content out there, removing what little drive there is to play the game for a long time. I suppose when you attract everyone, you manage to reel in the worst.

Raids have been nothing but a boon, I could go into a Pug VG today right now, ask some strangers about how much fun Raids have been for them, and they might for the most part say something along the lines of ‘Raids are the most fun I have had in GW2 in years’ or ‘Raids saved my guild, Guild Missions weren’t enough to play together but every week we go in and get fat loot together!’

Astralporing.1957:

Sarrs.4831:

Do you want the gear (stats)? You already have ways to get Ascended stat gear.

Not all of it, not at this moment anyway. And the LS that’s supposedly going to partially solve that problem is being pushed further and further away.

Then complain about the Living Story timetable, stop complaining about Raids.

Astralporing.1957:

Sarrs.4831:

Do you want the gear (stat swapping)? Stat swapping is a luxury.

Skin may be a luxury, but stat-changing is an utility. One more useful for non-raiders, at that.

I really want to know this, where do you think you as a non-raider would use this? Even in raids, the utility of this stat-swap is almost pointless thanks to runes, going through the dozens of raid meta builds I can only think of about a third of the professions overall that could make use of this utility, maybe.

That’s in an environment where builds and stats can literally matter for encounters (Wing 1 and Wing 3 toughness tanking), in Open-World where does Stat-Swapping serve you? Let me know about these players who are flipping their ascended equipment around just before they attack the next Verdant Brink Meta Boss.

Astralporing.1957:

Sarrs.4831:

Do you want the gear (appearance)? Do the content. Skins have prestige; earn that prestige.

I kind of disagree with you on that part (skins are skins, they may be vanity gear, but the vanity does not come from “prestige” but from how good they make you look). Still, i’d not be insisting on that part… as long as the remaining ones are fulfilled.

And this folks is an angle you will hear as well, that skins should never be about prestige but about how good you look with it. That skins have no value otherwise. When the entire premise of why Guild Wars 2 is about Horizontial Progression rather than Vertical Progression where stats go up and thus you earn exclusive skins that do the biggest numbers from you doing bigger numbers, the only thing of value is the skins you earn. Key there is Earn, you have to earn things in GW2, what a novel concept!

Astralporing.1957:

Sarrs.4831:

The only person preventing you from raiding is you.

Yes, yes, the only person preventing me from becoming a millionaire is also me, i get it.[/sarcasm]

We get it, you hate raids, you don’t see skins as anything more than cosmetic, that nothing in this game needs to be weighed against how it is earned. Cool, we can both get what we want as we know down the road Arenanet is likely going to release a lot more non-raid content before the next raid. I hope you get plenty of the content you enjoy, and Raiders will be waiting in anticipation for the follow-up to Forsaken Thicket.

Harddrive.2738:

Wait…. so I ask for methods to speed up the process to great resistance, only for you to suggest the exact same thing but outside of raids….

OMG make up your mind, inside raids, outside raids, who cares, LI is LI. We don’t want 4+ months of pointless grind.

When players had to grind as it were more than 4 months for getting their Legendary Weapons even now, there were little complaints as it were acknowledged that it was an extremely long-term goal for anyone.

From my standpoint, having to ‘grind’ 4+ months for multiple pieces of Legendary Armor, of which you can literally start building the pieces one at a time within a few weeks, is not a grind whatsoever, that’s a better progression imo.

150 LI for the Forsaken Thicket set is fine, even at the pace we get now. We will likely see LI acquisition elsewhere in a non-raid fashion (The one thing both Raiders and Non-Raiders agree with, just so there’s a Legendary Armor set that’s non-raid exclusive that those who really, really hate raids can earn), and if not I believe the next Raid will likely do another set of Legendary Armor of which, lo and behold, you can earn LIs from there as well.

It’s only logical.

Forum Bug is the hardest Raid Boss, no question.

Rashy.4165:

Harddrive.2738:

So your upset about raid legendary armor being to easy so you want a massive time gate, but are perfectly fine with non-raid legendary armor (which isn’t even a thing) being a PvE give away.

Let me know when the paradox ends.

That’s not what they’re saying.

If a non-Raid Legendary were to be released, it can be earned through means that aren’t tied to raids, through an analogous collection and a means to earn Legendary insights through non-raid means.

That hinges on Legendary Insights being an item that’s tied to Legendary armour in general, which would be the simplest and most logical thing to do. Increase the sources of LI, while also increasing the number of options for Legendary armour (one unique to Forsaken Thicket, another to the second raid, another to WvW, another to PvP, and general PvE, etc).

And we have a winner!

It’s great because what this would provide if a non-raid acquisition of LI were created, is another method which those who really dislike killing Matthias more than once could get those LIs elsewhere. With the Envoy Legendary already behind an initial ‘Kill all the Forsaken Thicket Bosses at least once’ collection, if one decided that the Envoy Armor was something they desired, but not wanting to grind the bosses in there on a weekly basis, they could acquire them in a non-raid format or even in future raids that they might enjoy doing!

Would it be so terrible to have something like at least 3 LIs able to earned weekly from an out of raid source? Naturally, this could be very expensive or timely to do so give the factors…

I too think that the experience feels a bit wasted.

What I would do is much like what the OP suggested, but make it daily.

Make it another tab much like how we have Core, Fractal and Heart of Thorns separated, there’s only one Mastery and it has no Mastery Points required to invest, but once it fills it does inform you with a message to collect your rewards.

Have it give one of the following of the player’s choosing Daily:

- 3 Obsidian Shards
- 2 Mystic Coins
- 1 Tome of Knowledge

That’s it. Hell, if you feel those rewards are too much, make it 1 Obsidian Shard and 1 Mystic Coin. As long as the player has something to put the experience towards, you should expect a bit more play-time.

As for the Experience required for this repeatable, daily mastery track?

….That’s up to Arenanet, they should know the logistics, and you know I have no clue what the average player might do in a day. I don’t know if it would be a good idea for this daily track to be worth something like 2 million exp, or as little as 256 thousand. What I do know is that if they provide a balance to involve players going into content just a bit more to grind out that mastery for the day, it might be beneficial for all of us.

Harddrive.2738:

I don’t even know why your talking about school and whatnot, its barely a compatible comparison, I just went along initially but its getting silly now.

I can’t tell if it’s ego or entitlement that drives that position. There’s a 150 LI requirement for all players, how you go about it is ultimately up to the raider in question. Asking for it to be lowered is obviously not for some ‘Good for all players’ ideal, it’s selfish and reeks of laziness.

For starter 150 is just some number Anet threw out there, because its not released its not binding in any shape or form.

But more to the point I’m not asking to lower its from 150 (others have), I’m saying to ease up on the weekly resets and/or a few other things so that we can complete it in a manner that doesn’t measure in years.

They just released the last wing, setting up the release of the armor. A new wave of players are now starting the collections and seeing how insane the LI requirement is. When they do release the legendary armor a flood gate of people will be complaining and make this 11 page thing a drop in the bucket.

I am actually thinking about it in a future context. It might be a bit of a ‘future’ meta, but I doubt Forsaken Thicket will be the only Raid that drops Legendary Insights as an item.

Aside from the obvious requirement that those wanting the Envoy Legendary Armor need to kill all the bosses at the very least once to get through the first set of achievements, as people pointed out simply getting 25 insights for a single legendary piece of armor isn’t the worst thing. I would personally have qualms about the entire set being put behind the 150 LI wall, but crafting a piece at a time seems awfully flexible and what I expect of Arenanet.

However, what’s so interesting about how they went about this design, is that with the intent of releasing new raids and Legendary Armor in general, there’s a rather large possibility in my opinion that Legendary Insights will become a currency uniquely earned from killing Raid bosses universally. I say this as the flavor text much like other Legendary Components is very general and non-specific to Forsaken Thicket. Down the line I predict another raid like Forsaken Thicket, allowing for new or veteran raiders to earn even more insights than the 9 locked for the week from Forsaken Thicket.

Furthermore, like myself and many others would attest to, there’s a plausibility where a Non-Raid specific set of Legendary Armor would be able to be earned. Holding true to what Legendary Insights are essentially used for, yet again another non-raid source could be earned here.

There might be a larger intention in mind for the LIs that everyone might neglect to consider, I will say that I do appreciate Arenanet putting the Experimental Collection Requirements for at the very least completing all the wings as a baseline for the Armor. Regardless of my personal feelings about the potential 9 LI per week even for new raiders to have Forsaken Thicket on Farm Status (You really have to measure this as a per piece basis imo), the possibility that they will make LI available elsewhere makes the most sense.

There’s a certain irony in taking a position that says a raiding regular who kills bosses on a weekly basis with a group, doesn’t understand all the requirements for going into a raid and killing bosses compared to a raiding pug who has to kill bosses on a weekly basis with a group.

I can’t tell if it’s ego or entitlement that drives that position. There’s a 150 LI requirement for all players, how you go about it is ultimately up to the raider in question. Asking for it to be lowered is obviously not for some ‘Good for all players’ ideal, it’s selfish and reeks of laziness.

Now that the first raid has been fully released, we can look back and reflect on the content and discuss a couple of things.

Right now Forsaken Thicket has a few short-term and long-term goals for players to attain. Aside from the obvious Legendary Armor which will take dedicated raiders a couple of months to fully complete (albeit, they can craft full pieces in the interim), we have currency or rare drops for truly unique horizontal progression.

But, as time moves on a year or two from now perhaps, maybe a few lucky raiders would have gotten all the skins and commodities from the First Raid. At that moment the remaining incentive to continue raiding Forsaken Thicket in question might just be for shards to get cheaper Ascended Equipment. Some raiding guilds will likely take new guild initiates to gear them up certainly, but I believe that there needs to be a slight nudge for raiders to continue going into Forsaken Thicket long after they have completed everything base-line that was there.

Here’s what I propose: Raid Weeklies built around Challenge Motes, in which only increase the difficulty of the familiar encounters for an additional, non-exclusive reward.

We see some of this from the Bandit Trio achievement for not using Environmental Weapons, or a very direct Challenge Mote outside of Keep Construct. Such subtle changes can make some encounters marginally more difficult, or outright insane to do. But if given something like weekly repeatable rewards for doing so, I do expect it will take off well with raiders who feel that Forsaken Thicket could have been more difficult.

As for the rewards? We have something like that already, Box of Raider’s Supplies. The Ascended Materials that come from the box are fairly expensive to create or buy from the TP, but if raiders go the extra mile to go back to Forsaken Thicket even after the next few Raids come out, that would be incentive enough.

Furthermore, none of what I request should ever be a requirement for exclusive rewards down the road. I believe that the current Forsaken Thicket is very fair for its rewards to those dedicated enough already, the difficulty was fairly spot on for the first Raid of GW2.

Bind these Weekly rewards to the more challenging encounters, and you have something raiders can look forward to. As for some examples of the kind of challenges that could be implemented, it would have to be a per-encounter basis. Strictly off the top of my head:

Vale Guardian Challenge Mote: Enrage Timer Reduced to 7 minutes from 8 minutes, Distributed Magic Damage will defeat if it downs players.

Gorseval Challenge Mote: Spectral Impact will stomp downed players, Spirited Fusion Stacks raise Gorseval’s damage by 25% instead of 10%, Ghastly Rampage patterns are very different than the normal encounter.

Sabetha Challenge Mote: Sabetha’s Firestorm will alternate directions after each phase change. Flak Shot leaves larger Flak fields. Sabetha’s Champions have 10% more health.

Naturally, these are just suggestions on a direction I would take challenging encounters, and some bosses might be too hard initially for raiders to take the challenge mote on, and they can still do the normal encounter during that same lockout.

eldrin.6471:

ryandeniszorro.6735:

Dropped in to see how discussion goes. Same old elitists and raid sellers zerg on eldrin. If you expect to make any valid conversation here its is not possible. literally if u go from start to end this is what u can read:
I have 150 li its fine.
Ill ask you question. If u imagine person who is sick and can play focused 1-2h per day max , should we disreggard that person to and say , who cares let him grind for year ? Is this “i have none else should” attitude we see here what community of players is ?
Why is there not single one post saying, hey i see u have hard time to do 9 bosses week , if you cant contact me to help im in skilled raid guild and we help players like u?

your very right,before raids players helped each other.raids brought a horrible attitude in to this game.maybe these are not the same people used to play guild wars 2 the game every one said had the best community in all mmos.

You’ve got a point, why aren’t the devs balancing the game around players with a crippling disability? I mean, we have to think about those who can’t press any more than 1 or 2 keys at a time.

We should just nerf all the content for these 1 or 2 hour per day sickly gamers. Just make every map…like Queensdale where you the vast majority of enemies are neutral. I mean, we can’t have anything just straight up attack unsuspecting players right?

And these egregious amounts of Veteran monsters? No, those are too difficult for anyone, we need to set a universal standard where any monster is just a normal enemy. Have to be careful though, the complicated AI where a monster might attempt to wind up and breath something like fire is just too devastating. Scaled Drakes are the worst offenders, just remove them from the game!

In fact, all monsters should be just normal Bandits, that autoattack only. They shouldn’t block as that might cause undue stress to the helplessly sick players, that’s just toxic for the game! Also if these mobs last through an entire auto-attack rotation where the player has shown their exceptional skill in pressing 1 three times in range of the enemy, that proves the monsters have too much health and should be fixed immediately!

As players and customers, we are entitled to such epic battles with standard bandits across the entirety of Tyria. I believe I speak for everyone who are the actual majority of this game, and anyone who disagrees must be an elitist who wants to ruin Guild Wars 2 forever!

Players are always looking for the path of least resistance to get their reward. That more or less translates to being the most effective with their playtime as you pointed out.

I think right now we have reached a point where it is up to the devs to figure out if they can balance it, if it’s even a distinct possibility and within their scope. Either an easy-mode is created that works, that doesn’t impact the current raid end-game too much. Or it is so inefficient that no one runs it after the first week since it is worthless. Or it is too effective and the normal difficulty of the raids is cut out, and that side is technically a waste of everyone’s time while everyone mindlessly farms easy-mode like Silverwastes and wonders why we don’t have difficult content anymore.

Rashy.4165:

There’s no reason why there’d be a time-gate for each piece of the armour, even if it’s made individually. You should be able to save up all the materials necessary and craft the armour in one session.

Agreed, which is why if I had to complain about anything, it would be that post which implies something blocks off crafting all the pieces at once.

…Or we are misreading it.

“Upgrading the precursor armor to legendary is done one piece at a time, so you can choose to only upgrade certain pieces if so desired.”

I believe this simply states that there’s flexibility in getting the pieces you want first, but if you have the mats for all of them, prepare to spend some time making 6 legendaries at once.

Actually I don’t see the simultaneous BLs dropping much more than now.

With more votes, the influence of a single vote is less and less.

Since about 8 hours ago the drop for Simultaneous was about 0.4%, I think if it does dip more it will be because of those who voted for Simultaneous already changing their votes.

38 insights here, Raiding’s been interesting with attempting to pug, assist my guild with it, and doing other things (SPvP backpiece, Astralaria).

Considering that the Precursor isn’t even out yet, I feel pretty confident that I will be able to earn LIs at a decent pace, at least 4 each week I hope from here, to get the rest of the Legendary Armor eventually.

I wasn’t aware though that the pieces get crafted one at a time, I wonder if there’s like a ‘weekly’ time-gate for each craft, pure speculation of course. If it were something like that, you would have to get 102 insights by the time you can craft the armor, and kill all the bosses for the following 5 weeks to make the full set.

…That sounds a little weird though for a time-gate. I wonder what they meant in that reddit post?

Edit: Did my math assuming 8 bosses, not 9, it would be 96 insights not 102.

Flipped my vote from Rotation to Simultaneous, mainly because we get another playing field to break up the monotony.

The reality is that Raids by their very nature have to be a bit exclusive, only to those who want to put in time, effort, and improve their skill-level. This is actually no different than PvP excluding players who don’t want to fight other players but just NPCs for the rewards, or Fractals excluding immediate high-end rewards for those who won’t put the time and gold into getting infusions.

If same tier rewards came out in other content that are currently exclusive in Raids, I am quite certain the majority of complaints would die down. The issue is that:

- There’s been a massive content drought (These current events don’t quite cut it)
- We still don’t know that Legendary Armor would be made available elsewhere in the future.

I want more Living Story, I want an alternative Legendary Armor set elsewhere outside of Raids. It’s been a real nice promotion to have the first Raid of GW2 have the first ever Legendary Armor set. It’ll wouldn’t hurt anyone if there was a non-raid exclusive Legendary Armor set. I doubt the majority of raiders would hate that prospect given all the other incentive to raid so far.

But as I pointed out before in my previous post, having ‘easier’ difficulty levels is entirely likely to be a waste of the devs time. They should keep focused on delivering single difficulty raiding, or for current raider’s best interests, provide harder challenges a step up from what we have now through use of achievements and additional weekly loot!

Bandit Trio had a nifty concept with an additional chest of loot behind not using environmental weapons to trivialize the encounter. We can use more ‘Ulduar’ style raids that have ‘now’ difficulty baseline, but provide more loot when you do a more difficult version of the encounter!

ekarat.1085:

My point is that the difficulty adjustment could be as simple as adjusting the numbers. I don’t want them to remove the mechanics. I want them to reduce the penalties for failure, so as to allow for more mistakes. I don’t want them to do more than adjust numbers.

I’ll, for the sake of this discourse here, will attest to something that specifically has numbers being adjusted. We can start from this standpoint.

ekarat.1085:

I enjoyed the raid at first. However, at some point, I knew the mechanics but still kept failing. I might have gotten satisfaction if the kill had come much, much sooner. At that point, I just felt dead. Burnout does that to people.

I can get that, and I hope it doesn’t discourage you from the long-term. VG in retrospect is a painful boss for newcomers to work with, due to its mechanics being either really easy to deal with, or really difficult due to all the RNG.

ekarat.1085:

To be fair, it is more work than just adjusting the difficulty. There’s the interface, and then there’s testing (which is honestly what I would expect most of the work to be). So, there would be work to be done — I’m not denying that. However, it isn’t necessarily prohibitively much work — probably on par with a fractal revamp. If Anet says it’s too much work, I’ll trust them on that, but until then, I’m not willing to just assume that it is.

That’s a position I can agree with as well. I was combative with my arguments mainly due to no one else on the side you are taking was actually considering the possibility that the work to make this ‘easy-mode’, in a Guild Wars 2 fashion, could potentially be very debilitating to develop. No one has said that Arenanet can consider the possibility of this Easy-mode, but that they MUST do it for the sake of some raiding future that current raiders already are seeing, and bringing their friends along with.

If I had to go with your interface idea, plus strictly numbers, I would take a sort of ‘fractal’ level approach where the default option is the normal difficulty, but you can set a tick for 80% of the difficulty, 60%, 40%, and 20%…numbers correspond of course. There would likely be a warning in red stating “Warning: Reducing the Difficulty disallows you from receiving the weekly lockout loot from the fierce foes within! This mode is for inexperienced groups/story groups only!”

Deny the legendary armor progression, deny any of the potential drops, and especially deny being able to purchase boss specific loot, just offer a really decreased amount of Magnetite Shards. There’s a lovely vendor outside the raid that allows you to trade in for normal Ascended gear. Perfect.

ekarat.1085:

You’re assuming that the only thing people want from raids is the rewards. That makes sense from a mindset that games are content set to challenge you and reward you for the hard work you put in. But other people are interested in the content for its own sake, and not just the rewards.

If I only cared about rewards, the most efficient thing would be to play the TP for money and buy everything. I want to be clear, I can and do sometimes play the TP for money, and I’m good enough at it to have that be the best value for my time. However, I don’t play this game for the TP. I want to play content. It’s just that the money I get from playing content is far less than I could get via the TP for that same amount of effort. So, yes, I do play content for reasons other than rewards.

(Just to head off the inevitable response, I do care about rewards. I am saying that I don’t care only about rewards.)

The original complaints against raids were actually due to the exclusive rewards. Then they twisted the legitimate complaints of ‘We are missing the lore!’ when in reality none of them have even posted in the Lore forum, or have ever posted about Lore prior on the forums.

Unfortunately, there are quite a few players who just want loot. And they feel threatened at the prospect of having to put forth the effort to do so. The lore folks who wanted to see things, Raiders in the first week the 3rd wing came out took their own time to post in LFG for hours with a cleared instance for the lorehounds, and I saw those groups fill. I think the lore folks have a good reason, but some of them have compromised and found their own way to getting what they want rather than demand things be done.

ekarat.1085:

Yes, it’s called burnout. If you assume that some people are not going to be as skilled, even with practice and hard work, then raids are gong to be that much harder for them. For me, the difficulty is past where it would be fun. My point is that I had to work much, much harder than most for my one VG kill. An easier version might result in me putting in the same amount of effort someone else did on the current version.

Again, I can understand that perspective. And as long as you understand what you said above about the work being potentially too much for Arenanet to pull off, we can agree things may or may not change. I simply don’t want them to delay raids for a investment into ‘easy-mode’ raiding that those wanting it, won’t play more than once.

ekarat.1085:

My expectation is that we won’t get another raid until the expansion, so I don’t see this costing the raiders much, if anything at all.

Just because there’s a lot of time for the next expansion, it doesn’t mean the 6-man raid team isn’t busy trying to one-up their first raid.

ekarat.1085:

I don’t play WoW, but I trust Anet more than I trust Blizzard. Plus, GW2 is not as focused on raids to the degree that Blizzard is, so it’s a different story altogether. Finally, I’ve seen people reasonably argue that Easy-Mode wasn’t a disaster in Wrath of the Lich King. So, I don’t buy that argument that Anet can’t do it — I will only believe it when Anet tells me that they can’t do it.

I can spend hours explaining every single major patch from Vanilla to WotLK, explaining the implications of major raiding changes, how it correlates to the chart and why subs may or may not have changed. I think however that avenue is dead, and your major point about trusting Arenanet more than Blizzard is something both of us agree with.

ekarat.1085:

Well, I’ve been arguing that it isn’t necessarily that much effort (but only Anet can tell me for sure). I’ve argued that it won’t notably delay the next raid (if it’s coming with the expansion). I don’t see how it would diminish the quality of raiding — other than time spent, and I’ve argued against that.

Finally, I do want to put effort in. Look at what it took to beat VG once. That doesn’t mean that I can now beat VG reliably. It means I had a good and lucky run after many, many tries more than it took most other people. At this rate, it will take about 6 more years for me to beat the rest of the raid — that’s not reasonable. ‘Not skilled’ is not the same as ‘lazy!’

Ultimately, I started speaking up about this on the forums, not because I demand this, but because people kept saying that nobody wants an easier difficulty and it would take an unreasonable amount of effort. I am here to say that people (and more than one or two) would want this.

I am certain people would want this, I am certain that this ‘easy-mode’ would definitely for a time get people playing raids. My biggest concern is that, they will go down the ‘Adventures’ route. You do them once for a decent silver or maybe gold if you need it, and never go back.

A really solid part of what makes Raids so good right now is that the reward structure is tightly tuned to the normal difficulty. Bosses can drop their personal loot, you get a cap on currency that will allow you to eventually buy your own rewards from bosses you have killed, and even on failures you still get currency!

Let’s think about a system you have suggested, an interface to change the difficulty of the raid. I imagined it would have different scales going downward, or maybe just one scale, it doesn’t matter. Firstly, you agreed that the loot needs to be at a much lesser scale. I believe we all assumed that a reduced shard rate would be perfect, but even if we scale the shards to the percentages I listed above, there’s an issue. What would the cap be?

If we have the cap match the full shard cap, we kill off normal raiding. This is because both easy-mode raiders and the hard-core raiders would have zero incentive to farm normal-mode for shards once they killed the bosses that week, or just once for the easy folks. Easy-mode raiding would be the Silverwastes of raids, someone else would open up a new easy instance and people would ferry in.

So the cap on shards in this easy mode would have to be pretty bad, like 30 that week. 30 of the 150 shards you can earn in Easy Mode. With 30 shards a week, that’s 5 weeks for a 1H Ascended Weapon of your choice. Would that be incentive enough for anyone to redo easy-raids over and over again? Content that even at 20% difficulty might still take too more coordination (Gorseval Updrafts too much apparently).

I don’t know, my gut tells me that people will just go farm gold and make their own weapons in a week rather than spend time in raids.

Rednik.3809:

I don’t care about suggestions and speculations, especially based on such tiny and niche examples as other so-called “raid” MMOs. I gave you numbers. Now either you will give me other numbers, like shrinking numbers of raiders in later WotLK raids, or big user polls, or stop trying to prove your pointless position by empty speculations based on insignificant examples.
Numbers, or we are finishing this discussion with admitting that WotLK raid model was an ultimate success. That’s all.

You didn’t give me anything I didn’t already know. You have yet to prove any of my points, or give me data that supports the notion that WotLK was an ultimate success. You drew a different conclusion from the same set of data than I have, yet you have yet to validate your point while I can point to any expansion of any game and show player interest spiked during the first week of launch. (Diablo 3 had 15 million accounts at RoS launch, in a week 2.7 RoS boxes sold, nearly a fifth of the D3 players trusted Blizzard enough to buy the expansion. That content revived Diablo 3.)

And at least be informed more about the games I speak of, FF14 about 1.5 years ago had 4 million confirmed accounts with 1/3rd of them actively subscribed. It isn’t a failed MMO lol. Don’t even play the game yet I at least know its been eating WoW’s terrible PvE for years for a themepark MMO. You are right about one thing though, this conversation is pretty much over.

Back on topic, let’s shift gears back a bit. If we wanted to develop content that the general populace wanted to get into, but more or less retained that ‘Raid’ feel for epic encounters and some lore…

What if we had more Triple Troubles? Tied some Legendary Equipment Collections to the open-world difficult world bosses? Or maybe they can make a special open-world map that has some very difficult events (a Harder Dragon’s Stand maybe?). Maybe involve mechanics from the Bandit Executioner who walls off players and despawns if everyone dies within his circle, although mesmer portals (creative use of mechanics) can go through just fine.

Of course, have there be a healthy amount of loot to be earned even when failing, bring some of that current HoT meta rewards where there are loads of keys and loads of ambient chests everywhere.

Rednik.3809:

It’s your job to prove your point about mythical WotLK low quality, not mine. Mine point is supported by numbers, yours – only by some wild guessing and weird examples from failed and asian (lol) MMOs. And it’s you who was caught on trying to backup your theories by lying, which invalidates your position even further.

Incorrect, your data doesn’t validate your point because I was able to discern my alternatively valid conclusion from it.

All that data clearly shows is subs dropped after WotLK and during the Launch of Cataclysm. That’s it. You and I with our speculations of the cause aren’t grounded.

The difference is, my position is something I can back-up, as I can go find sources for games that have expansions that when they release, see a jump in their interest and play-rate. This data suggests however that at an expansion launch, for an MMO mind you with content that takes a lot more time to devour than a simple DLC to Skyrim, straight up dropped in interest. That is contrary to what should have been more likely to happen.

Which is why I point to my conclusion that WotLK caused such an overwhelming drop in subs once it finished, because players lost trust in Blizzard for its decisions during WotLK’s lifespan. Why take a risk and buy another WotLK? Many chose to leave instead, which doesn’t foil the logic of Expansion Launches creating a spike in play-time and interest.

In fact, I suppose it goes to prove just how awful WotLK was. So unless you can show me proof somewhere of how an expansion launch can actually cause less interest, I think we are done here.

Rednik.3809:

Sykper.6583:

I get that you can make this claim hence is why I brought it up. It is just that I cannot recall a single other instance of where an expansion caused less interest in the game, the opposite often happens where for a time numbers grow, and then they would fall off.

Find me another MMO where an expansion release caused less subscribers or active players.

There is no good raiding games on market except WoW.

Let me expand then. Find me an expansion release from any games where from the outset the game had less players than before due to the release.

Maybe Diablo 3 Reaper of Souls- no wait that brought a lot of players in. I might have to go look around quite a bit for this phenomena. Maybe some CoD DLC maybe somewhere…

I also like how you seem to neglect FF14 and even SWTOR. FF14 likely has the better raiding scene than WoW right now, but that’s borderline going in a different direction.

Let me know when you find something, in the meantime we can assume that if it wasn’t Cataclysm’s release that caused the massive drop, it was likely what I have been saying all this time.

Rednik.3809:

Sykper.6583:

Did the numbers dip due to Cataclysm’s explosive release of new content, and millions of players judged Cataclysm in the first months? Even when the previous two expansions saw an increase of subs in the opening months?

Yes. It was exactly that bad.

I get that you can make this claim hence is why I brought it up. It is just that I cannot recall a single other instance of where an expansion caused less interest in the game, the opposite often happens where for a time numbers grow, and then they would fall off.

Find me another MMO where an expansion release caused less subscribers or active players.

Rednik.3809:

How about you will finally stop trying pushing fantasies as explanations instead of most logical answers? Numbers are tied to players interest to content, that’s it. Good content – players pay to play it, bad content – they cancel subs. That’s how real world works.

In more instances than not you would be right.

But the subject matter is an MMO, where content is delivered at a pace. The release of a new expansion is an explosion of new content, and the premise of Cataclysm where Deathwing literally rends the land asunder was an excellent one.

If the real world logic applied to that chart as you claimed, even for the duration between Vanilla and Burning Crusade, there would have been more dips due to content getting old between patches, or large game changes. Instead we saw increases constantly until WotLK was over which we both can clearly see.

So let’s take this side to side:

Did the numbers dip due to Cataclysm’s explosive release of new content, and millions of players judged Cataclysm in the first months? Even when the previous two expansions saw an increase of subs in the opening months?

Did the numbers dip due to WotLK ending and players letting their subs run out because they did not see a good future of content worth buying the next expansion and subsequent subs for? Even with the hype and content premise of Deathwing and his Cataclysm?

Take this next part as my opinion, you don’t have to read it if you don’t want to. Being there until WotLK ended, I can only say the latter was talked frequently in Dalaran and Guild chat, with my friends and raider colleagues. Deathwing coming out was a massive temptation, the idea of fighting Deathwing was extremely alluring, but there was an air of disappointment with how bad WotLK was compared to Burning Crusade. Burning Crusade might have been too good of an Expansion perhaps.

Rednik.3809:

Sykper.6583:

You can’t even look at your own data, this is the exact data that proves my point.

Cataclysm released Quarter 4 of 2010, so why did a brand new expansion for WoW have Less Subs coming in the immediate quarters after, contrary to that steady rise you see before?

Because it was bad and disappointing. Simple, right?

Because the first quarter of Cataclysm, or the very first months where people were leveling, dungeoning, and starting to raid the new content in Cata clearly was a turn-off for people, gotcha.

No one could gauge the expansion within the first quarter, not with the advertising train Blizzard put out and DEATHWING. In actuality we should have seen yet again another growth or at least the subs staying steady.

We got an immediate drop-off, which supports my point that players let their subs die en masse once WotLK ended. This drop-off was so awful that not even Blizzard’s Hype Train could bear it.

Rednik.3809:

Sykper.6583:

ICC was the last raid for WoW and that released Q4 2009, as I said before millions of players would stick around until the end of WotLK due to their investment already, but their raid days and subs ended when Cataclysm released.

You see this directly with the drop-off of subs within the first two quarters that matched the effective growth of subs during all of WotLK’s timeline. And it kept dropping after that.

Yes. Because WotLK was so good that subs were growing even near the end of expansion, and then “awesome” Cataclysm happened. I was so “good” that my hardcore raid guild that was here since vanilla lost almost half of raid roster. Also it not making your lies about WotLK subscription numbers more trustworthy anyway.

Subs grew at the end due to Cataclysm advertising, and disappointed raiders at least wanted to see WotLK to its end, even when they released Patch 3.35 for Ruby Sanctum as a precursor to Cataclysm.

Ultimately, WotLK was an OK expansion to an MMO, but paled in quality and quantity of content to its predecessors. All because of shifts towards normal and hard modes. A raiding game that failed to bring good raids (except Ulduar).

Astralporing.1957:

So, your real opposition is to the word “raiding”? <snip>

There’s some sort of cognitive dissonance going on here, I don’t know how you gleamed my argument was somehow related to the word ‘Raiding’ being used for this newer content was the issue.

Here’s what I said:

Raiding requires a mindset that adapts and learns through failure, however long it takes. If you aren’t prepared to die a lot to overcome an obstacle, and feel accomplished when you do so, I genuinely believe you might not be cut out for raiding. Raiding needs to have a good chance of failure to be successful.

If you want it in more simple terms, Raiding requires effort and the expectation that you will fail. If you cannot handle failure and ultimately do not relish in success when it comes after you put in all the effort, you are not cut out for raiding.

Astralporing.1957:

He didn’t say that. He said he didn’t feel satisfaction. And yes, that’s a problem. One that the easy mode ra… “Explorations” are meant to solve.
Also, no, relief is not realyy similar to satisfaction. After satisfaction, you want more of what caused you to feel it. After relief, you are glad you don’t have to repeat the experience.

Which more or less supports my point, and why I wanted to know more details. But if he wants to just say ‘I really hated fighting VG and when I finally beat him I felt nothing’ that just tells me he didn’t like raiding. He then should ask Arenanet like any other normal player if similar rewards that Raiding uniquely has could come into other content he does enjoy and not try to impede raid content that his other players like much more than him in its current state.

Astralporing.1957:

While i see that there’s not really any such evidence at all.

I can’t help point out the obvious for those who do not wish to see.

Astralporing.1957:

I’m not asking for it to be destroyed. There’s nothing that would even suggest it might get destroyed. All the fears from the raiders side seem completely unsupported by any facts.

See above, Raiders have made several points with facts backing it up. Part of why we have this divide, if you wanted to go there, is because the ‘anti-raid’ crowd did not have the luxury of prior raiding and what the introduction of casualizing did to the quality of raiding content down the line.

Astralporing.1957:

See the Rednik’s post above. I’m afraid that the fears are all in your head, they are not supported by facts.

Rednik doesn’t know what the heck he is talking about, and ironically can’t really read the chart he listed. He simply thinks that because WotLK peaked during its end in “active” subs that it must have been an overwhelming success when in reality, the very first quarter after Cataclysm you see the beginning of the end with subs finally ending from all the players who would let them run out after WotLK.

Rednik.3809:

Sykper.6583:

They did not. What part of ‘WotLK was the last expansion for millions of WoW players’ did you not understand? It had the peak of players, but it was such an utter letdown that millions left before Cataclysm. Players wanted to ride out that Expansion Box price and pray that the content would get better, that raids would get better.

The only redeeming raid in WotLK was Ulduar, which could be compared to its predecessor raids in Vanilla and BC. Icecrown Citadel would have been bland if it didn’t have Arthas in it. WotLK rode off the hype from Vanilla and BC and it tore it all down.

How about you to stop lying to prove your point? WoW Cataclysm was released Dec 10 2010, and population was steady rising before that. WotLK and all WotLK raids was an ultimate success, whatever you like it or not.

You can’t even look at your own data, this is the exact data that proves my point.

Cataclysm released Quarter 4 of 2010, so why did a brand new expansion for WoW have Less Subs coming in the immediate quarters after, contrary to that steady rise you see before?

ICC was the last raid for WoW and that released Q4 2009, as I said before millions of players would stick around until the end of WotLK due to their investment already, but their raid days and subs ended when Cataclysm released.

You see this directly with the drop-off of subs within the first two quarters that matched the effective growth of subs during all of WotLK’s timeline. And it kept dropping after that.

mbhalo.1547:

Give us an option to clear raids for pugs in green gear, spamming autoattack and not using dodge.

Nah, all the players who can’t afford green gear and are stuck with whites and blues would be left out. Remember, raiding has to be able to be done by everyone right?

Astralporing.1957:

Sykper.6583:

It would be better for everyone if content was made that was NOT raids offered the same quality of equipment

Possibly it might be. So far however, there’s no indication that anything like that is going to happen anytime soon (or, in some cases, ever)

Nobody thought Arenanet would even bat an eye at the GvG scene in WvW using the area behind windmill and give them an arena in WvW, which would eventually lead to Guild Arenas.

This is one of the few things both sides agree on, why can’t we continue to ask for it? Set up a set of Legendary Armor outside of Raids, it makes perfect sense given they have different game-modes for Legendary Backpieces.

Astralporing.1957:

Sykper.6583:

I find this a little hard to believe that you didn’t get some sort of satisfaction from killing VG for the very first time.

You expect other people to react the same way you do, and can’t really understand that people are different. That lack of understanding is the very core of the divide.

I don’t pin too many expectations on players to react in certain ways, but when you spend that much time on something you clearly don’t enjoy, and finally complete it, not even expressing relief is a little surprising in my opinion.

And please stop preaching in a manner that insinuates that the side I am taking is the only one that lacks in understanding. There is a clear divide because of two different viewpoints, neither side is more at fault, we can only speak our pieces and provide discussion through logical reasoning and evidence.

Astralporing.1957:

Sykper.6583:

I suppose frustration might have curbed your enthusiasm since you have said you have spent 100+ hours, but if what you have said is true, you might just not have the mentality to enjoy raiding.

Mentality to enjoy raiding. You don’t know whether he would enjoy it if he didn’t have to sacrifice 100 hours of constant failures first.

Sorry, I fixed that misconception for you. Or rather, it’s because you put ‘hardcore’ in there is why you are on the side that believes raiding is too difficult.

Astralporing.1957:

And yes, constant failures do kill enthusiasm and fun very fast. If you continue to keep going regardless, and eventually succeed, what you feel then is not satisfaction. It is relief. Relief that you have this beyond you.

Raiding requires a mindset that adapts and learns through failure, however long it takes. If you aren’t prepared to die a lot to overcome an obstacle, and feel accomplished when you do so, I genuinely believe you might not be cut out for raiding. Raiding needs to have a good chance of failure to be successful.

Besides, relief is extremely similar to satisfaction. That’s a perfectly normal reaction for raiders to have after a long ordeal, but if he didn’t even feel that…there’s a problem.

Astralporing.1957:

Sykper.6583:

You could keep raiding, it’s as accessible as you make it, but if I were in your position I would instead of asking for easier raids, ask for content you actually enjoy to give similar rewards.

Would you? Even knowing that the second option is (at least at the current direction of the game) far less likely to happen?

kitten right I would. I am asking for it right now. I feel quite strongly given all my experiences, all the evidence pointing to it that signifies that introducing easy-mode raiding to GW2 would be one of the worst decisions ever made by Arenanet (I would say it rivals not following up with the full Legendaries for HoT) that I am crossing that line to ask for similar rewards elsewhere.

You are taking the easy way out, demanding that something so special and so absolutely unique in GW2 PvE to be destroyed for your selfish gains. Raise that war flag elsewhere, constructively provide points for why Legendary Armor should be in other content than Raids.

Astralporing.1957:

Sykper.6583:

You might enjoy it but it would be at the expense of raiders right now who have their content delayed.

They do? That’s a news to me, seeing as raids are the only thing around here that is being released on really fast schedule.

See above.

Astralporing.1957:

Sykper.6583:

If Blizzard, the supposed ‘creators of raid content’ can’t find a way to not neglect the quality and quantity of their raid content by catering to a ‘Easy-Mode/Hard-Mode’ mentality, what makes you think anyone can?!

And yet somehow people liked that, didn’t they? WotLK was not a failure you make it to be. Quite the contrary.

And that was in a Raid-centered game, which GW2 is supposedly not.

Seriously, by going that way, there’s way more to gain in GW2 than it was in WoW. Because the percentage of hardcore raiders (as opposed to percentage of people that merely raid because the content is there) is likely smaller.

They did not. What part of ‘WotLK was the last expansion for millions of WoW players’ did you not understand? It had the peak of players, but it was such an utter letdown that millions left before Cataclysm. Players wanted to ride out that Expansion Box price and pray that the content would get better, that raids would get better.

The only redeeming raid in WotLK was Ulduar, which could be compared to its predecessor raids in Vanilla and BC. Icecrown Citadel would have been bland if it didn’t have Arthas in it. WotLK rode off the hype from Vanilla and BC and it tore it all down.

ekarat.1085:

I don’t buy that someone cannot make an easier mode raid simply by tweaking a few numbers. You can argue that that wouldn’t be good enough to lower the difficulty (I don’t agree, but you could argue that). You can argue that even that would take resources (to be fair it does, but it’s not clear how much). However, you can’t reasonably argue that it couldn’t be done.

Of course it could be done, the argument is that it’s not as simple as numbers. There’s the prospect of ‘how low can we go before it feels less like raiding and more like 10-man open world where you can ignore mechanics’. It’s not authentic, not to mention there will always be someone asking for an easier mode, always. What you might be able to pull off and agree as an easy mode, someone else will demand it be even lower. It’s more work, for people who are clearly not that interested in raids to begin with.

It would be better for everyone if content was made that was NOT raids offered the same quality of equipment, everyone including Arenanet agrees on the exclusivity of trinket stats in Raids was a bad thing, hence we will see it in Living Story soon.

ekarat.1085:

I spent 100+ hours practising twice a week for months to beat Vale Guardian once. When I defeated him, was I proud of my accomplishment that all my hard work paid off? No. I don’t want to go through that again. It was much harder for me than it was for other people and took much more work for me than for other people. However, most of all, it wasn’t fun.

I find this a little hard to believe that you didn’t get some sort of satisfaction from killing VG for the very first time. I suppose frustration might have curbed your enthusiasm since you have said you have spent 100+ hours, but if what you have said is true, you might just not have the mentality to enjoy raiding. You could keep raiding, it’s as accessible as you make it, but if I were in your position I would instead of asking for easier raids, ask for content you actually enjoy to give similar rewards.

ekarat.1085:

An easier mode would be fun. Do I demand it? No. But I would enjoy it if it were made. I would probably not be posting this now if I didn’t keep seeing so many excuses on why people claim an easier mode would be a bad idea.

You might enjoy it but it would be at the expense of raiders right now who have their content delayed. And these excuses you speak of are not without merit. The best example of this would come from WoW’s Raid Content comparison between Burning Crusade, to Wrath of the Lich King where the latter introduced ‘Easy-Mode’ and ‘Hard-Mode’. Burning Crusade ended it’s unique raids with 7 Full Raids (3+ bosses) and 2 Small Raids (1-2 bosses, Gruul’s Lair and Magtheridon’s Lair). All of these were unique raids with specific raids sizes and a single difficulty.

Wrath of the Lich King had:
Naxxramas, Recycled raid content from Vanilla WoW that was given a 10-man and 25-man version, as well as a normal and hard-mode.
Vault of Archavon, Small Raid instance that began with 1 boss and due to the convenience of ‘Giant Doors’ and ‘Empty Space’, rolled out an additional 3 bosses over each major patch to eventually turn it into a Full Raid with 4 bosses overall.
Obsidian Sanctum, Small Raid instance with a single main boss.
Ruby Sanctum, Small Raid instance with again 1 majordomo.
Eye of Eternity, Small Raid instance “insert 1 boss here”.
Ulduar, FIRST original Full sized Raid in WotLK, there was only 10-man and 25-man versions however the hard-mode was activated for different encounters through different actions (or inactions).
Trial of the Crusader, Full sized raid without ‘Trash Mobs’, Raiders really hated it for being the follow-up past Ulduar which was widely loved.
Icecrown Citadel, the Final Full Sized raid and end-game of WotLK.

Even if you count VoA which started off with a single boss as a ‘Full’ Raid, there was still MORE full raids in Burning Crusade (7) compared to WotLK (5). …THERE WERE MORE RAIDS IN GENERAL, 9 in BC compared to 8 in WotLK! And Eye of Eternity? NO TRASH! You clicked a item as you spawned in the instance and started the encounter!

If Blizzard, the supposed ‘creators of raid content’ can’t find a way to not neglect the quality and quantity of their raid content by catering to a ‘Easy-Mode/Hard-Mode’ mentality, what makes you think anyone can?!

Once again, the only valid reason I’ve seen that an easy mode would be bad is the issue of whether or not you get access to the same rewards (but in lower quantities). If so, then people who did the original mode would get angry. If not, then the people who want an easy mode would get angry. This is a fundamental no-win problem.

Rewards are one thing, wasting the dev’s time, diminishing the quality of the raiding, there are a LOT of bad things that happen when Raiding starts becoming ‘easier’ because people don’t want to put the effort in.

Astralporing.1957:

Sykper.6583:

Astralporing.1957:

Dinosaurs.8674:

Eh I don’t think this really answers his question. I know you said it was oversimplified, but I think that rather than asking generally why there should be easy mode in raids, he was asking something more specific, along the lines of “Why is it important that raids have an easy mode rather than just having similar content that is easier?”

And the answer (well, one of the answers) should be obvious. It’s because raids are being developed at a decent rate, while other content is not. Just as i said before – getting an easy mode raid is not going to cost us a new dungeon, because we’re not going to get that new dungeon anyway.

And people that suggest that as an option know that well.

And for the umpteenth time: The raid content being released has zero bearing on the progress of other content.

So what? The only thing that matters is that it is being released. Dungeons, for example, are not. So, waiting for new dungeons is completely pointless. Asking for raids to be tweaked so they’re satifying for people that liked dungeons on the other hand does have a chance of succeeding.

Stop asking for content that isn’t catered to you to be. Should I start demanding open world PvP because SPvP doesn’t have enough maps?

How about being more patient?

Astralporing.1957:

Sykper.6583:

Stop asking for raids to not be developed as if that will hasten the deployment of other parts of GW2.

I’m asking for easy mode raids because i know nothing will hasten development of other parts of GW2.

And take away work from future raid content that current raiders enjoy? I don’t think so.

Astralporing.1957:

Would i prefer new dungeons with new , nice, dungeon rewards? Sure i would. But i’d rather aim for realistic goals.

Asking raids to be balanced towards easy mode is not realistic, goes against what raids are about, and likely causes even further delays for all content down the road. People have this assumption that it is as simple as tweaking numbers.

Astralporing.1957:

Tentonhammr.7849:

W2 and w3 were not developed solely in the time between releases. This entire raid has undoubtedly been in development for a long time, with a cadenced release planned from the start. Obviously, some continuos work and polish probably happened for w2 in the months and weeks prior to release, same for w3, but the bulk of the work was clearly already done since they had guilds playtesting them.

According to devs, it took them 4 months to make the second raid wing.

Source? Also remember when Mike presented raids for the first time and we all saw Gorseval? Raids have been in development from concept to execution for far long than a few months.

Astralporing.1957:

Tentonhammr.7849:

As amazing as the raid team is, they’re not super devs churning out content from scratch at a record pace. The development of projects as large as raid wings and LS seasons doesn’t hinge on 6 people.

Oh, so you’re saying that, contrary to what every raider is claiming, there are way more than 6 people working on raids?

6 people are dedicated to raids, 70 people are dedicated to expansion, some semblance of folks are dedicated to sounds, maps, etc.

How would you best organize teams dedicated to a certain kind of content in this game? Sound teams likely get a few requests for different projects and work on them in a queue, much like how map artists do so.

6 people dedicated to raids means those few folks find a direction, know what they need to request from other teams, put that in, and see where it goes. I doubt the Sound Team just comes up with on the fly the different themes that get put into the game, someone brings up a concept to them first.

Agreed.

If I recall we won’t see the next raid until the next expansion, there’s plenty of time there for LS, new maps (akin to what we got with Dry Top and Silverwastes), Balancing, etc.

With the last raid wing released for Forsaken Thicket, we can likely anticipate raid releases won’t happen for a while now.

Astralporing.1957:

Dinosaurs.8674:

Eh I don’t think this really answers his question. I know you said it was oversimplified, but I think that rather than asking generally why there should be easy mode in raids, he was asking something more specific, along the lines of “Why is it important that raids have an easy mode rather than just having similar content that is easier?”

And the answer (well, one of the answers) should be obvious. It’s because raids are being developed at a decent rate, while other content is not. Just as i said before – getting an easy mode raid is not going to cost us a new dungeon, because we’re not going to get that new dungeon anyway.

And people that suggest that as an option know that well.

And for the umpteenth time: The raid content being released has zero bearing on the progress of other content.

Plain and simple, the raid team which is smaller than the literal number of players you would typically bring into the Forsaken Thicket, has no bearing on how PvP balance is coming along, nor are they coming up with the new musical scores that the sound team is working on.

Stop asking for raids to not be developed as if that will hasten the deployment of other parts of GW2.