Guild Wars 2

Vayne.8563:

I don’t know about this. As I get older I’m looking or less dark, scary save the world stuff. That stuff interests me less and less. I’d rather see drama than action. Anything other than some big boss destroying the world.

Dark for the sake of dark is often the mark of young people, not old people.

True, and Guild Wars writing (first and second) has always been at its best when not being about “save the world”. It’s been the little things, the small vignettes which play out, the quests in the first one which didn’t have much to do about the central plot of the campaigns . . .

Is it weird that the writers made a heck of an interesting world with their efforts, but not so much an interesting story in comparison? (Well, mostly.)

. . . I find the same thoughts having crept into mind on something else which is woefully way off topic. Yet it’s sometimes the case where writers are very hit-and-miss on the plot yet intensely wonderful on the world-building. I guess they take after Tolkein on that score.

Star Ace.5207:

Have similar feelings, playing one game right now that is really quite inferior to this one. I hope GW2 lasts for many years to come. No other game is doing what GW2 is doing for better or worse (for me, better, for some, perhaps worse.) Just logged off that game to play this instead.

Thing is, the one I am thinking of going back to? It’s not inferior, it’s crafted rather well and everything fits . . . but things are just missing which make it less fun to play as a new player in that game as opposed to someone having been there from the start and hit end-game.

I think part of it is just how GW2 has it as an actual viable option to run around the open world without four more people at your back and be able to do things. Other MMOs I tried didn’t have that feeling, they had a white-knuckle “oh god please let me sneak through to that resource node” feeling. It had a feeling of “don’t go off the beaten path lest you get killed”.

Celestina.2894:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Celestina.2894:

Galphar.3901:

You can definitely tell that the writers for GW2 are not the same writers A-Net had for GW. The stories in GW were just written much better. I think the writers are even different when you look at the early Personal Story(levels 1-30) and the story once you choose your faction(Priory/Whispers/Vigil).

Factions says hi.

That plot was horrendous.

So I wasn’t the only one who thought that was the second weakest storyline?

Tbh I felt it was the worst by a long shot.

Hell I forgot who the villain even was for a good year.

To be fair, Shiro Tagachi was the only thing I liked about Factions’ story. . . until his origin and future motives were cranked to the side in Nightfall. (Don’t mind the Lich all that much – he had minor amounts of characterization anyway.)

Prophecies was the worse campaign by a long shot from my estimation. Eight story segments which were set up largely as a way to shepherd you from region to region . . . the first four parts were very weak compared to later and could/did get sliced off when the Storybooks were added.

The characters were worse, much worse, than whatever anyone says about the Biconics right now in GW2. Two obvious “sudden but inevitable betrayers”, several obvious sacrificial characters, and allies who couldn’t do anything . . . anything without you doing the heavy lifting despite apparently being leaders of large factions of people.

The campaign had loads of dead weight in terms of area, too, with massive stretches which seemed to be little more than padding time into walking from mission to mission if you were trying to sequence break. Not to mention the incredibly tedious “Beacon’s Perch to Camp Rankor” trip which was full of nothing but dense enemies.

All this culminating in the final problem – its initial design philosophy. It was intended to be a primer in how to play before players jumped into PvP pursuits. As such, looking at how it was a loosely-written story with many missions choosing to showcase things used in the PvP map types (especially the Crystal Desert) . . . you can tell the campaign was something which had enough effort to be a good start on a backdrop and world-building, but it doesn’t stand as a campaign like the others.

rfdarko.4639:

Gaile Gray.6029:

Is it even possible, given the changes that came about in the world?

The personal story attests to the fact that yes, its possible. Tybalt can be in the streets yelling APPLES FOR SALE to literally no one outside the crumbling ruins of the old bank. It’s weird, but it’s better to give players that story then take it out all together.

There are reasons it might be difficult, or even not worth the time, but “it’s not possible because of the changes to the world.” is not a good one.

I think it was less an excuse and more a question meant to provoke discussion. Gaile does that a lot.

On the subject of how to add Season 1 into the Story Journal? Let’s take a look:

Shadow of the Mad King was the first update which really worked on this. It’s possible to add this to the Story Journal as a time-limited access free option during Halloween.

Lost Shores was immensely open-world and yet you could distill it down rapidly into maybe seven to ten instanced parts consisting of: the initial attack, the investigation, an attack of Garrenhoff while looking for Canach, further investigation steps, then the defense of Lion’s Arch with the new acid weapons, the assault on Southsun, and then the push to the hive and Ancient Karka.

Flame and Frost can go in there almost as-is; the open-world events are not majorly impactful and you can even probably slice them out into mini-instances to preserve the narrative flow if you must.

Secrets of Southsun also can probably be thrown in there with minimal fuss for similar reasons. Spin off four instances in the settlements having to deal with the Refugee/Consortium struggle and the Everyone/Crazed Wildlife struggles, and we’re mostly good there too.

Dragon Bash/Sky Pirates had its climax rolled into Fractals so it’s sketchy what to do about it. But eminently doable.

Bazaar of the Four Winds can be a historical Journal entry but the nature of it and the following “Cutthroat Politics” means it’s more likely to not be possible to truly work it into the Story Journal.

Clockwork Chaos can be trimmed down into five to seven instances centered around the investigation angle and then Scarlet’s Playhouse.

Tequatl Rising and Twilight Assault seem to be ongoing additions to the world – these can be safely ignored.

Tower of Nightmares in its entirety highly depends on group-based behavior, and probably is a good candidate for a 5-15 person raid addition as-is. The finale, however, is decidedly a single-person instance.

Origins of Madness, the Marionette fight is impossible to put into a solo instance without entirely reworking. Again, it would make a good candidate for a 15-30 person raid. And again, the investigation payoff in the secret cavern is a single-person instance.

Edge of the Mists can be safely ignored.

Escape from Lion’s Arch and Battle for Lion’s Arch . . . again, perfect to set up as a large raiding instance in three steps which can be repeated.

Deamhan.9538:

Wow, 60 pages of pretty much players complaining about the new trait system.

It’s called a hint Anet, take one.

They have. Now I suspect they’re trying not to make a move on this until they can feel things out better than they did the first time. Rather than, you know, rush into a change and botch it up worse.

And before someone suggests that’s not possible, please recall Murphy has laws about this sort of thing, and as bad as things are, they can always be worse.

KngGilgamesh.3481:

One word of warning, no other MMORPG will suffice after this. They all will lack something.
This is a Point of No Return.

Anyway Welcome!

. . . unfortunately, I had this experience. I tried a few free-trial MMOs and while one of them I really enjoyed a lot? I just was missing way too many things ArenaNet did with the design of GW2 that I wound up fading out of it. I mean to return. Um, eventually. Wow, if I ever feel like subscribing to it . . .

There’s just too much in GW2 which . . . just is more fun, less work. As much as I don’t necessarily like the “Grand Tour of World Bosses” basically being an effort-free lootstravaganza . . . it’s definitely more fun for me to sink into after work. Or late at night when there seem to always be people around rather than . . . well, dead air.

The only game I miss/missed more than GW2 when I took time off was Ultima Online. (OF course five minutes back in Brittania disabused me of that longing . . . with some nice Corp Por to the face and a run to the healers.)

Celestina.2894:

Galphar.3901:

You can definitely tell that the writers for GW2 are not the same writers A-Net had for GW. The stories in GW were just written much better. I think the writers are even different when you look at the early Personal Story(levels 1-30) and the story once you choose your faction(Priory/Whispers/Vigil).

Factions says hi.

That plot was horrendous.

So I wasn’t the only one who thought that was the second weakest storyline?

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Hi All,

Please list your top three priorities for raiding (Challenging, Instanced, Cooperative, Content)

Mine are:

1: Knowledge>
2: Skill>
3: Raid Group Setup

I will leave the thread open until folks have had a chance to put there top three forward and then I will put forward a proposal on behalf of the CDI group to the team.

Thanks,

Chris

Not doing the “one word summary” thing but I posted a concise bit here . . . or as concise as I could while being clear.

Naetell.3815:

The trinity is a fairly recent thing. Aggro management was a thing long before the trinity existed.

It used to be broader than a trinity, but it existed for at least 20 years. Longer if you count D&D parties. (“Wizard, Cleric, Fighter, Thief; in a pinch you can ditch the thief and get extra healing potions.”)

My top three?

- Don’t lock raids so only guilds can compete. Many people will likely get highly annoyed if it looks like they have to join a “mega-guild” to enjoy this new content. Anyone remember the hoopla around Guild Missions which went on?

- Be mindful if you set a player limit you’re likely to cause players who would like to raid to be unable to raid due to not being able to get groups reliably. Regardless and independent of whether they’re “Zerk or nothing” or “skillful players” you’re still running that risk of leaving them on the sidelines while their friends go raiding without them. This kills the will to participate.

- Multiple methods of receiving the loot off raids, within the framework of the raid. Be it tokens, achievement-based rewards, vendors at the end, some combination of these . . . make sure we don’t solely rely on RNG to get the good stuff.

Punjabi Decerodus.5936:

I want my games like I want my TV, all included all the time no matter what the cost/subscription fee.

See, I’d like it too. But I recall paying extra in my monthly bill for HBO for all the months Game of Thrones is off the air . . . and extra for Showtime for when shows on that aren’t up which other people want to watch . . . I’d really love for the option of paying for just the three-four months Game of Thrones is on and having that fee stop. Or heck, just buying access to the show only.

I do not want to be nickel and dimed every time I turn around, just give it to me straight.

Wait for the season to be over, buy the season pass I’m sure will come out.

I don’t know about you, he was better at keeping my party up when I H/H’d it than Tahlkora or Dunkoro.

Though, turning to stone did change the temperment of just about every other dwarf so maybe that’s to blame.

Yeah, Mass Effect wasn’t the first to do this . . . what comes to mind more is Great Old Ones and how you can’t “kill” them. No, you can just discorporate them.

Scryeless.1924:

Back in the day when people raided, they figured out that they could kite bosses infinitely staying just out of reach or trading off tanks or whatever just long enough for cool downs to come back up. This trivialized the encounters and made them super easy, provided people had the time to play this out. Enrage timers weren’t originally implemented on a wide scale to make everything dps races but to balance out the content so that unskilled/under-geared people couldn’t just ignore mechanics and win.

It doesn’t have to be an enrage timer. This issue could just as easily be handled with increased health regeneration rate. Maybe some other ideas could be put forth so that enrage timers don’t have to be the anti-trivialization method of choice.

Back in the day, they solved kiting with player summons. (“You cannot evade me, Tobias!”) It was meant to stop kiting but became also a fine warning you were DPSing too hard and the tank was losing their spot in the hate list.

Back in the day, enraged happened when the boss fell below a certain % HP, and from what I recall and can look up? That meant “I’ll block everything you throw which doesn’t strikethrough and riposte with a melee attack”.

Then there was “rampage”, which was . . . a headache if it happened to be area rampage. Picture, if you will, everyone on a second hate list (which doesn’t get cleared easily) in melee range eating hits.

Alas, I didn’t get too much into the crunchy bits of how this worked back in the day. I did healer and burn group (as in, it’s under 9% health, start burn now). My brother was the one who tanked, mostly. His explanation to me when I asked about these things was “you should never see them and if you do, back off or wait for a res”.

spoj.9672:

If you have a time constraint you are forced to work harder. You are encouraged to maximise your groups efficiency. This means taking as much damage as you can while also maintaining your ability to survive etc. Without a time constraint you can simply use fully defensive gear and take it as slow and easy as you like. This dimishes the challenge. And thats the reason that enrage timers exist in raids. They encourage the group to try as hard as they can. The enrage timer can be balanced around moderate dps groups and then it shouldnt be a problem for groups with a mix of gear types. Or the enrage can be prevented by some special condition. Enrage mechanics dont always have to be tied to timers.

“Enrage on timer” also encourages groups to only take along those who are “good enough”, which leads to gear checks and other assorted nonsense. I’m all for difficult fights, but a timer on the fight seems like one of those steps towards bad things happening socially.

I found it more interesting when it was “enrage on X% HP”, honestly. You knew it was coming by how you were doing, if you could see health bars . . . and in cases where you couldn’t, it became a good barometer of how well you were doing.

Though that brings the question of: “What exactly is the enraged effect?” Do they hit harder, swing faster, get different attacks? Do the behaviors change completely, and it becomes invulnerable to certain types of conditions/attacks or becomes vulnerable to ones it was invulnerable to before? (See: Monster Hunter: Nargacuga)

Deconstruct what these things are rather than assume them as given from other games.

NoTrigger.8396:

Naetell.3815:

Again, there’s no inherent risk attached to DPS gear. If there is, I’d like you to show that.

if you do a mistake you are dead. thats the high risk of dps gear. you have to play well, you have to know the encounter, and you have to use the right skills at the right time. in tanky gear i can ignore all of that.

I have no problems until that last bit. See, in tanky gear, however that is set up, you shouldn’t be able to “ignore all of it” – you should be able to shrug it off but it should still damage and force you to be inconvenienced.

Not OHKO level, but you should still have to pay attention and not just “tanky gear, hit auto attack and make a sammich”.

NoTrigger.8396:

Killthehealersffs.8940:

b) you simply take 6-8 Elementalist+Hunters and make a rotation with the water fields , and trivialize the encounter
+ 3-4 Guardians that will spamm the Protection with the Elementalist ….

if you simply take ele and hunter and make rotation with the water fields so you can trivialize the encounter, let me ask you one question:
why are people still using defensive gear then?

What the heck is a hunter and where do I get one?

Mada.5319:

Hey, don’t forget to look at Elite Areas from GW1!
Underworld, Fissure of Woe, Domain of Anguish, Urgoz Warren and the Deep were essentially raid-like content. Would be awesome to see elite areas like those in GW2!

I’d definitely like to see those types of areas reborn, only . . . except for Urgoz/Deep which had only one path, a more open arrangement like UW/FOW/DOA . . .

Open world and nonlinear approaches are a strength of GW2 which shouldn’t be discarded when speaking of large-scale (area wise) raids.

It also wouldn’t be amiss to make them as open world areas with a much lower player cap. Imagine Tower of Nightmares with instances where only 15-20 players maximum were around.

hybrid.5027:

Ohoni, it sounds like you’re opposed to any sort of unique rewards for raiding. It also sounds like you’re opposed to raiding in a general sense.

So now that we have established that you disagree with the concept of raiding in guild wars 2, could you kindly exit the discussion so people who wish to be constructive and topical can continue on with the Raid CDI?

That sounds like a wonderful idea. I think I’ll join him.

petespri.6548:

Right, that’s why I’m saying devs have to assign role slots to raids, whatever that makeup/percentage may be of support, damage,control.

No, no they do not have to. In fact I’d rather they didn’t.

GW1 didn’t have “better” RNG so much as it had smaller pools from which to draw from.

RedStar.4218:

Of course, if you want to kid yourself into thinking that GW2’s RNG is perfectly fine and that it’s completely intended for someone to open 80k ToTs and not get a single wolf, feel free.

How about the same amount of Ice Imps at the Mineral Springs killed and no Icy Dragon Sword? How about a grand total of 6 Ectoplasm over seven years of GW1 out of the Underworld?

Don’t try to tell me the RNG of GW1 was better. I had/have to grind me some plat if I want to even think of getting Obsidian Armor.

Vayne.8563:

RedStar.4218:

The RNG in GW2 is worse. Yes GW1 had rare drops and sometime, even after 50-100 tries, you might not get what you want.

But 100 or 200 tries in GW2 is nothing.

The polar bear mini would like a word with you.

Did you have to remind me of that? Not only highly limited by RNG, it’s also time-limited also . . .

Crystal Reid.2481:

And ultimately, and here’s a totally crazy idea (because I love brainstorming)… Why can’t raiding be both?

• If we have a singular story to tell, can it just be a one off instance that tells one story and has one final boss at the end (imagine if we rebuilt the Marionette to be a 15 man encounter in a raid instance and that’s the entire instance)?
• If we have a much larger story to tell, can it be a full sized map complete with multiple encounters and hidden areas to explore (imagine if Dry Top was a 15 man instance and you progressed through the map learning the story of how a huge sand storm is coming, and the final boss is some sort of magical sand storm giant that summons chickenados as its minions)?

This feels close to what we had in GW1 as options of things to group up and do. The difference between UW/FOW/DOA and getting people together for a HM mission or a specific Zaishan Bounty. It also sounds close to what I’d throw together if asked to design raids as far as physically setting up an area.

Two options of “raids” which I thought up which could fit the spirit of GW2, and this suggestion above.

Long raid – Join norn leading a raid north of Frostgorge Sound. The goal is to strike out and push into the heart of Jormag’s territory. An entire zone roughly two-thirds as big as Lornar’s Pass (that’s still huge) which has a number of pathways and potential side-attractions (ending in chests). Alternate paths could include frozen caverns (need to use fire fields/skills to melt ice) which are treacherous to navigate, old Ebon Vanguard scouting trails which are sometimes used by Svanir or Icebrood. It culminates at the ruins of Gunnar’s Hold where a Claw of Jormag attacks, but has learned new attacks to fight with . . . and there’s no Pact assistance with weapons.

Short raid – A hole opening up in the ground leads to the Depths of Tyria and some old dwarven mines overrun with destroyers. A bit more free-form but the goal is to clean them all out before a boss will spawn. For variety’s sake, it is possible to have several different parts of the tunnel complex and it is randomized which one you wind up in, or which tunnels are sealed by cave-ins or left open.

Cuddy.6247:

To be fair, aside from the draconic aegis and fiery gladius, most of what you mentioned would be fairly cheap. It would be like someone complaining of the RNG associated with Impaler.

. . . yes, they would be rather cheap. Except they didn’t drop and the only way I would see one is if I bought it. Like currently, if I want to get, say, Cobalt? . . .

Labjax.2465:

The ones who are plain disinterested tend to leave without a word.

Yeah, that’s what I do when I leave GW2 for a while, which is usually due to RL sapping my will to sit down and play. Or events conspiring so I can go:

“Hmm, I could sit with my brother and our friend and break out Settlers of Catan, or our MTG decks, or . . . I could sit in GW2 and farm the World Boss Grand Tour.”

I’ll give you two guesses which one I choose to do. The answer is, often, different depending on whether I work the next day.

runeblade.7514:

Ranger has one optimal/viable build.

. . . it does? I’m sorry, I don’t know about the other classes listed there but rangers are a little more prone to variation than that.

I mean, unless we just want to talk bearbow.

Yeah, the previous system was decently functional . . . but it had its glaring issues (paying for trait resets), and this one is mostly functional and has more glaring issues (several trait masteries on bad bad bad terrible things to do to unlock them).

I don’t advocate a rollback so much as I advocate Account-wide unlocks for them so every player doesn’t have to unlock each Trait Mastery on each character. Oh, and moving some of them to events or options people do most of the time and make more sense would be good, thanks.

Indigo, I am weird in that when I work my campaigns up for D&D or other tabletop games (of the three I do dabble in) I tend to mix random chance to seeded specific rewards. In D&D I try to have 1 item which will be useful to the party for every 2 which is either of questionable use or not useful at all except as bait to be sold.

(Ironically, they don’t sell that many items – the group . . . started a trophy room hanging all their “completely legally gotten gains” on the walls. Including an oak table I described in a war-room which they decided would look great in the trophy room. I swear it’s amazing what they do . . .)

Another RPG I played, Ars Magica, encourages a lack of random elements to rewards and instead focuses on foresight and planning things out. That game is also the one I have the closest to my heart as far as systems go (yet I will never gather up the courage to try running a game).

As for computer RPGs? The best ones I played also mixed fixed treasure with random chance – Baldur’s Gate was one of the best which did that. MMOs, on the other hand? You know what always reminds me of my first two . . . the fact they were designed so gear was dreadfully simple to come by and there was rarely anything you could lose if you lost your corpse which couldn’t be regained after a couple dedicated hours.

phabby.8945:

Gw1 system was so much better then the current crap RNG based one , at least you knew where to farm if you wanted something,

Really? Because I should point out I have tried many . . . many times to earn skins I wanted in GW1 and still remain without them unless I choose to drop some ectos (not plat, ectos).

Not counting Tormented, mind you. I’ve never gotten myself any of the following:

Froggy Scepter
Icy Dragon Sword
Vampiric Dragon Sword
Celestial Weapons
Amythest Aegis
Draconic Aegis
Mursaat Hornbow (the drop)

I also never got a Fiery Gladius OR Fiery Dragon Sword of good quality so Koss could swing one around.

NoTrigger.8396:

Blaeys.3102:

NoTrigger.8396:

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

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

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

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

its not insulting, its a fact. but you playing the internet police doesnt help either.
i removed that sentence and instead tried to explain why.
i hope you are happy now.

I’m not even sure what the context is, but if you like I will cop to being completely uncreative and impossibly dense, so that I cannot understand raiding in the slightest.

What can GW2 bring to the table? Some have already said it -

- The dodge mechanic is something which can be useful within the context of the raid. Dodging makes it capable of allowing punishing attacks which can be slow or telegraphed and not just “thrown out at a whim” (See also “Plessy Waterbeam vs Plessy Hipcheck”)

- The mobility of having three dimensions also can be useful, so long as the raid is designed to exploit the idea of using all three dimensions instead of just two-dimensional behavior which rises or lowers on a Z-axis.

- Downed state making it possible to “die” when you would in other games but have a window in which to be rescued. This is not too unusual, as in some raids it is possible to sneak in a resurrection during the encounter.

- Instanced loot rewards vs “open loot”. This is moderately important if we assume loot is important in any fashion. It was certainly important back in UO

- To a lesser fashion, Achievements linked to activities is something which can be worked with. Especially since reward chests can now be tied into Achievements. This means it is possible to set up a reward structure which guarantees certain rewards for certain actions during the raid. (N.B – it is a poor idea to link this to actions which, if recklessly done, can cause the raid to fail. See: “Scarlet’s Marionette and the lane achievements”)

Chris Whiteside.6102:

You have always been of huge value in the CDIs. I would ask that you at least hang around and see how the conversation evolves. The Casual vs. Hardcore argument is not in the spirit of the CDI as you know, and I mean this in regard to those on both side of the fence who can’t see that we aren’t even at the stage where this is even worth discussing.

I am watching how the conversation moves, over almost 20 pages now and there’s still this concept being clung to that there can be no such thing as a “casual raid”.

Bull hockey. It can be done . . .

I am asking the CDI group to concentrate on the core combat and mobility of the game. I am asking folks to think like systems and mechanics designers and essentially take the core foundation of the game and theory-craft and discuss how these systems and mechanics evolve into challenging collaborative instanced content.

This is the focus that will give us answers about what raiding could be in GW2.

If you want to think about the systems involved and how they work together, start by identifying the ones which are unique to GW2, and the ones which thread through “raids” as a whole. Or take another step back, away from MMOs as a tightly-focused attention and consider games in general which represent what you want out of a raid. I went back and hauled out some older games . . . and some newer tabletop games . . . to start taking things apart and looking at them.

Here’s what I perceive as the essence of a “raid encounter”:

- More complex than ordinary encounters. (N.B. – Complexity is not required to translate into difficulty.)
- Requiring a commitment to comprehend the complex parts and how they behave in regards to the raid goal.
- Preparation reliant on knowing what challenges are going to be coming up. (In some cases this includes taking gear which is specifically needed for one reason or another – this is something we can work with, but it can quickly become clunky.)
- Unique reward content. (N.B. – Does not mean it must be more powerful, or more advantageous. Also, this part is not required but it is highly desired.)

Minor things which I noted about raids:

- Failing could be anywhere from punishing (permadeath/scenario end) to annoying (wait for resurrection to start over from a safe point).
- Not all of them contained rewards sufficient to make the prep time and raid time worthwhile. (Especially in a case of traditional drop systems not like GuildWars 1/2.)
- Most seemed to center around a singular adversary and either reaching them to fight or fighting in phases. Sometimes this was substituted with a goal (i.e., “Retrieval” or “Defense”) with similar points.
- The most highly remembered ones tend to have lore and a narrative to go with it which was interesting, or entertaining.

[1/2]

I don’t think I have anything left to add, being by and large a casual player who used to raid before raids really took off in WoW and other games. I’ve pretty much said everything I could think of on how to handle things (without going into detail just setting up the whole framework) and it’s apparently not in the direction people want to take things so . . .

I don’t think raids, however they are added, are going to be of either use or interest to me. And I don’t think those who would do raids are going to see me as being of use, or interested in allowing me to join in.

Have fun, everyone.

moiraine.2753:

I would love having to farm reputation.That is something that i really miss.

I am having Mistmoore Castle flashbacks now, as well as Highhold Keep farm flashbacks. I need more booze before I continue. . . so I can block Guild Wars: Factions from entering my memory also…

Faction/Reputation “farm/grind” is something which will inevitably be pointed to as another example of grind (rather than fun) being added to the game. I really dislike this system as a means of handling things because it is rather grindy to deal with. It was in Guild Wars 1, but I’d put a pin in that as one thing not to carry over.

Instead, how about the idea which has been floated as a vendor at the end of a raid, or at certain parts of a raid offering tiered rewards. Sort of llike Dry Top vendors – you can see what items are purchasable if you proceed, and know exactly what you need so you can tell if you just want to call it a day after the First Leg or push as far as you can.

You know why people liked to call Obsidian Armor a status symbol to look for? You had to finish one section of the Fissure of Woe (roughly a third of the whole area) to spawn the armorsmith who would make it from super-rare materials. You had to at least be in a group which got to finish that far – while it was possible to be carried that far, you also needed to have the materials and cash on hand. It was possible but unlikely someone could get to this point without earning it. Likewise, Slaver’s Exile had special weapons available for those who beat EOTN . . . sure you could get run there but that was unlikely to get you the materials. Similarly, you had to reopen Lion’s Arch Keep to get access to most of the War in Kryta content which permitted you to earn Oppressor Weapons (another set for your Hall).

Let’s take a meticulous look at how these worked and why it was used. It pretty much guaranteed a person would have to play through content before getting to these prestigious objects. This is what we should look at, as it . . . whatever you may think of it . . . was one part of the heart of Guild Wars 1. It was the endgame goal for many people to get Obsidian Armor, because of how much it required.

It almost translates into the Legendary struggle, only it relies . . . slightly less . . . on RNGeesus. Here’s where we should take inspiration from, then, for what Raid Rewards might look like.

Arewn.2368:

Conski Deshan.2057:

Arewn.2368:

Mizenhauer.6713:

I think a mix of mobs/bosses is best. Mobile enemies would be nice for encouraging cc and more mobile friendly play (ranged). Structural enemies/bosses defeat the purpose of precision and ferocity. Slow chunkers can be easily stacked up on and taken down. As long as there’s variety, it’s more interesting. I guess nobody liked them, but I really liked the toxic mobs. Downed states may be another interesting thing. Not that I’d love being finished by a monster, but what if certain enemies could resurrect others? Interrupt the rez?!

Good point on downed state.
I think it would be really annoying if every mob in the raid entered downstate, but if they add a few here and there i think it can really add to the experience.
Maybe something to the effect of a “commander mob” that is present in most packs of mobs, and it enters a downstate and can potentially be rez’d by the other mobs.

I did suggest in one of my earlier mechanic posts that mobs be given the ability to
-dodge
-downed state
-finish us
In raids to add an extra level of tension to the fights, it means you have to be that bit more careful.

They’d have to be careful with giving enemies the ability to stomp us. A mob taking the time to stomp a player is almost akin to the mob being CC’ed, since it can’t take other actions for the duration. For that reason, I feel like it could be exploited.
Aside from that though, it would help mix things up if some mobs stomped instead of attacking downed players.

Wasn’t the Toxic Alliance given the “downed state”, come to think of it? And mobs later on gained “Evades” and actually do dodge . . . poorly, but they dodge. (I know they do because I’ve seen it done sometimes.)

I think also the Toxic Alliance would finish but I don’t recall clearly.

So, it’s been done but nobody does Toxic Alliance events because they’re pretty difficult for just an event reward.

I had a sketchy idea earlier this month about a potential “three group raid” and hearing “15 people” made me dig it out again. Take something like an entire instanced zone becoming a raid objective. Taking for inspiration, the current situation with Mordremoth’s influence allowed to move anywhere almost unchecked.

A zone is marked as “under Mordremoth’s attack” and players zoning in are shunted into the zone as normal but with an NPC near the portals/waypoints who auto-addresses them with a prompt to join the fight on one of three fronts if they have a group ready, otherwise they will just suggest they gather a group.

Now spin an instance off of the zone as being attacked by the tendrils and minions of Mordremoth, with three distinct targets. Each target uses different mechanics, different advantages for the players, and different attack patterns. Say one of them for a zone may use underwater mechanics (killing Mordrem pods underwater while hassled by minions), another requires climbing on sturdy vines to attack the target, another is using Pact weaponry (a la Claw of Jormag) to break through and deal damage. Take inspirations from already-existing dynamic World Events which most people do regularly – after all, we’re building on what’s existing to make it easier for people to know what to do.

When those targets are taken, they can share a bonus to others still fighting, but there is only a window of opportunity. If all three targets are taken down within the window, then the main target pops. Say one path which used Pact weapons is now free to redeploy them to assist other paths. Or the high ground means mortars can be set up to drop healing wells or other traplike effects on the enemies. Or the underwater means now stealthed Whisper Agents can help rally players who aren’t actively being attacked.

But the big showdown – The Shadow of the Dragon comes to fight, and is almost as mobile and good at harassing as it was at the Pale Tree – it lands and dishes out attacks, but at set health intervals it will trigger different phases of the fight. (Rather than give it Defiant/Unshakable, another option – if CCd for more than a set amount of time, instead of getting locked that way it moves to the next phase early.) I did that fight and it seemed there was a lot of need to pay attention or get knocked around and beaten up quickly. Along with quite a serious amount of coverage in the area, which suggests this could be perfect as a raid boss if it was able to be mobile and not “stand in one spot and face one direction” like Tequatl, the Shatterer . . . and to a lesser extent, Jormag.

A successful run means the player cannot try again for that attack, a failure means they can try again as soon as they are ready. The zone will lose the attack status after one hour.

Rewards? First time clearing this battle, an achievement with a chest which can give any of the exclusive rewards for the raid. The chest may drop normally at the normal “scarce” RNG rate. And not “Carved Bone Spoon” scarce . . . Make it special weapon models, armor skins, a Mini, or for those who really just want them? Foxfire Clusters or other rare crafting materials from a random bag.

Nick.6972:

Punishing – if one player or all players fail, they should start from the beginning or get completely kicked out of the instance like in Underworld, Guild Wars 1.
That being said, even if the party fails an attempt, the monsters inside the instance should provide decent enough drops with relatively low RNG, again, like Underworld in Guild Wars 1 – Aatxe ecto drops.

Aatxes never dropped ecto for me. They would always drop trash white gear.

Sorry. The RNG drops of UW/FOW were crap – already we could do better in GW2 just by dropping “green or better” plus valuable junk for vendoring.

Dalanor.5387:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

runeblade.7514:

• Stacking- What steps should be taken to remove stacking or should it even be removed at all?

To remove it, I suspect the entire engine would have to be re-written.

To discourage it? Enemies which can pierce through any number of players with a swing rather than hit just one. Stack at your own peril.

Ehm, stacking has nothing to do with cleave attacks. Guardian’s aegis would still negate the damage despite it hits multiple players. Dodge still negates every damage. Active defenses still negates every damage. Reflects and absorbs still negates every damage (lets take aside stealth patches ’kay?).
So please, please let this issue die silently in this thread since vast majority of users who comment on this topic spread only misinformation which hurts both the discussion and players who likes to melee stuff.

Let me be honest – I don’t see stacking as a “problem” which has to be completely rooted out. I see it as a byproduct of design and it has been present since the first time I played an MMO where you could do that.

Heck, my first “raid” as modern definitions call it was rife with stacking so Bard songs could continue to affect people fighting, so enemies could be AOEd down quickly from casters, and slightly so they didn’t ping pong all over the place chasing different targets.

(. . . the first “raid” as I’d call it was the Lupogg King and that one was hilarious for other reasons. Stacking didn’t matter as much as safe spots and management of the aggro methods. )

I don’t want stacking to go away so much as I want counterplay for it.

Crystal Reid.2481:

runeblade.7514:

Controversal Topics that I see around this thread.

• Scaling- Should Raids be rigid to make balancing easier or, should Raids be very flexible so that all guilds can be more inclusive to their members?

• Difficulty- Should Raids be easy enough for casual players, or should raids be difficult so it requires skill on the risk of excluding casual player.

• Stacking- What steps should be taken to remove stacking or should it even be removed at all?

• AI- What AI should be in place?

• Rewards- How rewarding should Raids be?

• Punishment- How punishing should failing a raid be? How punishing should dying be?

These are all really excellent questions! I would love to see some drilling down into these specifics with your proposals.

Already started from a casual non-hardcore non-programmer point of view.

runeblade.7514:

Controversal Topics that I see around this thread.

• Scaling- Should Raids be rigid to make balancing easier or, should Raids be very flexible so that all guilds can be more inclusive to their members?

I think it’d be best if we had a form of the Assault Knights’ scaling. That is, sure, any number of people can come but only 50 can actively help and the rest just upscale the boss with no help. (N.B. this only useful in a raid structure where there are multiple targets to take down not being near each other.)

I somewhat agree with Blaeys’ comment about a 5, 10, 20 person raid has problems if there’s an odd number (7, 14, or 26) of people wanting to come. I’ve been in the position of “too many people, you’ll have to sit out” even in GW1. One of the reasons I made it a point to start a healer class in all my MMO games was so I could get into raids.

I’d like to see if scaling can be solved as an “issue”.

• Difficulty- Should Raids be easy enough for casual players, or should raids be difficult so it requires skill on the risk of excluding casual player.

It should be noted casual players can do things like Tequatl and Triple Trouble just fine. If they know what they’re supposed to do. Which, from my experience, has been a large part of the “set up time” and “get there early” – “Any new players here not know how to do this? Okay, this is what you do in the turrets…”

• Stacking- What steps should be taken to remove stacking or should it even be removed at all?

To remove it, I suspect the entire engine would have to be re-written.

To discourage it? Enemies which can pierce through any number of players with a swing rather than hit just one. Stack at your own peril.

• AI- What AI should be in place?

Anyone here remember the War in Kryta and how the Peacekeeper/Mantle behaved and were built? Yeah, let’s try to take that over to GW2’s engine. Toxic Alliance were an interesting attempt which worked pretty well.

• Rewards- How rewarding should Raids be?

Unique/restricted rewards in the form of skins (armor and weapon, not backpiece) and not great piles of Gold/Karma/Laurels/T6 components. Sorry, I’d like raids to be something less than “must do this to stay in the game” and more “that looks cool, I want it, better learn to do the Sifhalla raid”.

• Punishment- How punishing should failing a raid be? How punishing should dying be?

It’s pretty punishing with equipment damage, I think – if you die more than . . . six? . . . times, your equipment stops counting. Make it so the options to repair are limited, also make it so at certain points if you die you’re locked out of the fight until it resets.

How punishing should failing it be? Same as any current world event – now you wait X hours until you get another shot. This is already pretty punishing for most casual players, and even some hardcore ones who have limited windows to play in.

Devata.6589:

I would rather see having rewards that you sure you will get for completing, but you only get that the first time.

Then some RNG drops of unique items that only drop in there. (one or two) and that should be something that people would really want to have.

Tokens is yet another currency so not a big fan of that especially not as main thing. However if you get some tokens while doing it as a side thing (secondary) that helps you to get a armor set that fits with that content that would be fine.

If however the tokens will be the main thing and just a currency, you are creating yet another currency grind and we really already have more then enough (read: to much) of that in GW2.

First time drops? Tie it to an acheivement reward chest. Problem solved. Let RNG sometimes drop the items in the chest in case you want multiples but the first time you win, “Achievement Unlocked! You get a chest!”.

Still reading most of the topic

KarlaGrey.5903:

I’m afraid raids might be too much to handle for the type of audience currently targetted by Anet.

Depends on the raid. I used to suit up for Plane of Time regularly back in the day, after all. When it was possible to take 30-40 people to something and not guarantee success. And when it was much more possible even with success 75% of the players there were walking away empty-handed. Why? It was mostly because there wasn’t much else to be doing.

And then there was having two buddies and I sit down and prepare for a couple weeks before doing White Fatalis G3 on Monster Hunter . . .

Anyway. I think I made myself clear. Three objections to raids:

- Seeing it foster the attitudes of “this is not for you” with regards to taking part in raids as “the non hardcore”. (Currently my biggest concern, since that keeps coming up even in lighter shades.)

- Do not, do not, do not add higher tier gear to the game which is locked behind raids. There’s barely a point to Ascended Gear doing that, why do it again? While on this, dual-tier the rewards. Make it possible for the rewards to be sold off, but leave some of them as Account Bound so people would have to go through the raid if they want it. Maybe it will inspire them to get their act together and organize to do it.

- Make it less about whether your gear is good enough, or you have a certain class with you. Make it about skill and coordination of effort instead. It’s more likely people will want to try to get organized than they will want to “gear up”.

phys.7689:

Sorry, i would rather struggle for years to beat a hard dungeon 20 times to get an item, than struggle for years killing non stop waves of too weak enemies for the the same reward. One you can aim for, improve, learn and each time you succeed you make notable progress.

I am of two minds here. See, on the one hand I’d agree it’s a better arrangement than “pure RNG”. It gives you a feeling you’re going to eventually get there if you work hard enough, versus merely getting lucky enough.

. . . of course, there’s the other side. If you can cleanly do it, get the item within a few tries, why would you go back? Assuming, of course, the fun of it isn’t figuring into the equation. (After all, people love to throw around things about Skinner conditioning pretending to be “fun”, so it’s arguable we can’t trust “but it’s fun” as an excuse to repeat things.)

I don’t know. Honestly, I’m looking right into this situation right now – I can’t beat the Clock Tower and have hit a point where I’m no longer making progress on the puzzle. I also can’t beat the Aetherblade jumping puzzle and then get that dive. I make it a little farther each time but the need to start all over again killed my desire to do either. I mostly am just waiting to get a couple people who can just portal me up to the Aetherblade goggles so I can keep trying.

the other, well you can watch netflix while pressing buttons repeatedly i suppose, and hope one day your pressing of 1 wins you the day.

Yeah, no. I can’t do that. It really messes with my connection when I stream video and play GW2. Mostly because two rooms over my brother is playing League, and in another part of the house the parents are streaming things from their computers to the television, so the network tends to get a little . . . testy . . . sometimes.

Fernling.1729:

I’m just saying that every single part of every mmo has toxic people. I don’t see why people like to target the raiders.

And I don’t see why people like to talk down about “casuals”, even talking outside of raids. I don’t see why stepping in and telling the people “don’t talk like that” . . . whomever they are . . . is targeting them for persecution.

Right now, in this thread, it started to lean to “raids are for the hardcore real gamers” and that offends me when we’re talking about this game right here. A game which, as I said, was built on the idea of welcoming people who were willing to at least try something instead of going “you must be this l33t to raid”.

If you think I’m singling out the raiders right now? It’s because they happen to be the loudest. They’ve stepped up to go “we don’t want casual players in our fun”. And therefore, they are the ones I’m going to shoot at currently.

Generally speaking?

If you seriously think there is a good reason to design a part of the game specifically to exclude players, so they’re neither welcome to try or worthy of the rewards? You need to step back from the keyboard and thing long and hard about why.

Fernling.1729:

Someone mentions that and it automatically makes the entire pro raid community the stinkers? If we are going to judge from this thread alone, it shows that the people anti raid are much more toxic than the people wanting them.

Did I say that? No, really, I’m looking over and reviewing what I said and that doesn’t appear in there. And this defensiveness is exactly why I suspect a Raiding CDI is going to either fail hard or require so much herding of cats it will never amount to anything useful.

. . . and yes, since you said it, that cuts both ways. Sure, the “ima troo gamer!” chest-thumping annoys me to no end. So does “go back to WoW if you want raids”. We have raids right now, open-world raids, in the revised Tequatl and Triple Trouble. Are these terribly easy compared to other raids?

How should I know? I play this game. I know they don’t hold a candle to Absolute Virtue, if you want to set a bar for “hardcore”. I know Quarm could take that Great Jungle Wurm and pass it like it had a bad burrito. But . . . they make good warmups for knowing how to organize and do your roles so you can get a success.

And that’s important. I’d personally like to see more “raids” extrapolated from those two into harder territories. If it gets too hard? I won’t do them.

It’s still not cool to push for a design so “casuals” can’t play. That’s not the problem with raids anyway – the problem with raids is when you get some yahoo who doesn’t listen and decides to Leeroy up and mess it all up.

The game is built so it has a base inclusive feel for it. Can we please, please not screw that up?

I would seriously suggest you avoid PvP in any game, ever.

I do, but mostly because I utterly stink at it. But thanks for your concern.

And a sidenote – I love how, it’s three pages in and already there are people mentioning “leeching” and so forth.

If you want to know my biggest objection to raids? This is why. That attitude? Don’t want it stinking up the game any more than it already does. Hard content which is punishingly difficult so “the filthy casual leechers” don’t take part? Fine with it, I just won’t do it.

But the thought of someone desiring a part of the game specifically to exclude other players? No. Thank. You.

Chris, need to ask something, and I know you probably do get reminded of it a lot:

Did you ever get that list of 10 things from CDIs which made it into the game? I don’t want to have to start sifting through them myself every time I hear “CDIs don’t do anything anyway”.

phys.7689:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

froacus.6892:

WHY ISNT JOHN SMITH WRITING FOR THE LIVING STORY TEAM?????

Because there’s a big difference between short connected vignettes like this, a short story, a novella, and a novel. Let alone between stand-alone fiction and a screenplay or a script for a video game.

It’s a very nice ending, and interesting to read through. But much like the short stories we were getting last season . . . would not translate well into a game.

hata.
Honestly i think if handled well by the game designers, it could have made for pretty fun content.

What’s that first bit? I don’t get it.

. . . as for the second part? “If handled well” should be your first hesitation to wanting to add this. Though in essence I agree (and would like to see it expanded, such as being able to find people who hint at special Forge recipes rather than require Wiki Magic), I don’t have faith in “handled well” being a default mode for adding things in after the game/content has already gone live.

fellyn.5083:

What GW2 needs is elite areas like GW1 had.

Underworld
Fissure of Woe
Realm of Anguish
The Deep
Urgoz’s Warren
Slavers Exile

And so on. These areas can be rewarding and fun.

But that takes quite a lot of effort. So lets revamp how people purchase gems to make it more profitable for us.

. . . okay, so we need elite areas for the potential rewarding feeling, and fun. I don’t know about you but I had less fun doing most of those. (Foundry of Failed Creations can go straight to …). And I never really found any of them “rewarding” in a sense where it was important I do them. Obsidian Armor, the big draw of the two ‘realms of the gods’, was terribly ugly for my ranger. Most everything else which dropped didn’t appear all that neat to make me want to spend time doing them over and over again.

You know what the real reward I was after for actually doing that list? Hall of Monument statues and that was it. Anything else was possible to get elsewhere, or to just grind out plat and buy it. (Which was, also, ridiculously easy in a few ways.)

I will agree on one thing – I would like to see (I hesitate to say it as “we need”) more challenging content for either open world, or moderate-sized groups. Without the must have carrots to draw people into it . . . I hate that crap.