Guild Wars 2

That may very well be the truth, Zach.

But tell me: Would you like, and I mean really like, not only tolerate or grudgingly do, something in a game that is a chore for you, even if it is just a netto time of 10 minutes per attempt? It is not even important if I succeed or not as I have the patience to pick up scraps to build the armor in general while other people celebrate their elitist victories. Going to raid is a grinding experience for me, and I personally loathe doing so and already begin to catch myself looking for reasons to avoid it.

And to tell you the truth, HoT made me weary of GW2. I loved the game before HoT started. But now i find myself dragging through 3 layered jumping maps in an attempt to finish the personal story, level this or that, uncover horridly gated and covered hero- and mastery points and the chance to attack the boss of a mechanic I never asked for to get something I find desireable. Fractals got kind of an update, although it´s just the same with a new level of dificulty, and WvW is dead while PvP and raids reign supreme.

So forgive me if I hope that the pendulum swings back in my direction one day. i love GW2, and would hate to let it go.

I am not sure, OP.

I doubt raids will destroy GW2, but it will change it for sure in a new direction I personally dislike. The frirst guild made the entire raid in 11:20 hours a day over the span of 3 days. Tell me what you like, that is not casual. A timespan like this over an extended period of time is a very good reason to get frired, divorced or socially awkward.

I am a little bit happy about the chance to get legendary armor the really hard way by failing the boss and then call it a day. This is indeed important for people like me who are both unwilling and unable to spend their whole gaming time in a raid. It´s something I would normally not give a flying kitten about, but legendary armor is not just a convenience item. it means that you can take on chances most of the time you can´t take if you don´t have a closet of a multitude of other armor sets. Then there is also the nagging feeling that you are a second class citizen if you are not willing or able to do raids. Does anyone really think that people pay for the privilege to be second class, barely tolerated citizen with their own ghettos(read up the description of the word ghetto in the dictionary if you think this has something to do with right wing nationalism only) and camps(core Tyria)?

Hot catered to groups of people I loathe and/or have sympathetic mercy with, hardcore raiders and jumpers. I don´t regret buying HoT either, it would have nagged to much at me not to do it because I wanted to see where it heads and how it looks, but from my perspective it is around 70% grind and jumping garbage with 30% novel and enjoyable ideas.

I really, really hope that Anet takes a nosedive with this strategy and gets more casual friendly again.

So dedicated progamers took 35 hours in 3 days to clear it, that is around 11:20 hours each day. Makes me a litte lost for words for various reasons. But anyway, congratulations for the rewards of your effort anyway.

Leming.8436:

Torolan.5816:

I have no problems with people wanting and getting raids, although i don´t think that it is the majority of people. But please don´t put something substantial like legendary armor in them. Give them lots of gold, titles and skins. Or at least make the ingredients tradeable so that people like me can buy them from the TP instead of devoting 3+ hours into stuff we don´t want to do, aka grind.

1) And what is legendary armor if not a skin?
2) Why not give them this skins if they are able to “grind” something as hard as raid?
3) Thats what i dislike in player that far in this game: "buy everything with gold, do not achiev anything that is anything harder than “preschool level” yourself."

1) It is not only a skin. It kind of stays a skin and a convenience item if ascended stays top equipment, but take a look at my reasoning above why I don´t think that it will stay top equipment.
And then it is not really correct that it is just a skin. i compare it more like a Tank to a Transformer.
You tank is strong and durable, but it was to be refittet(in the mythic forge) if you want to change it from a desert to a winter combat. A transformer does just that, it transforms for the task at hand. If that is not a massive advantage, moneywise and convenience wise, then I don´t know what is an advantage.
2) They can earn the skin this way. I am just asking for an alternative method of obtainment. My comment with the TP was kind of born out of desperation as Anet is obviously unwilling to give us the chance to earn the armor in fractals, wvw or pvp yet.
3) You misunderstood me here. I had fractal lvl 50 before it was cool and 4 full ascended characters with the 5th on the way, so I don´t want something just handed over. The topic of ths thread is if I rather want to pay for content and not for grind. My answer is that I want content, but a raid is my definition of a grind(something you have to do over and over again to get something and probably don´t want to do on top of that) so it does not count as content for me personally.

Opc.4718:

There’s not a whole lot of difference between exotic and ascended gear, and there’s no stat difference between ascended and legendary gear. You don’t have to get them if you don’t feel like it.

There’s a ton of people out there who like the concept of challenging raids, and raids is what they paid for when they bought HoT. Overcoming these challenges is an awesome form of content. If you don’t like it, nothing is stopping you from ignoring it, and the best thing is, you’re not missing anything in terms of progression! If you’re not willing to put in the effort to get legendary armor and the QoL stat change it allows, you can farm yourself a set of ascended armor instead through other content.

Also, anet has already said that ascended tier stats is the last tier that will ever be added. It was not part of the original game because they didn’t polish it enough in time for release, but it was always intended to be part of the game at some point.

You base your argument on the idea that ascended will stay the best armor. But you can´t be sure of that, Anet basically threw their whole concept out of the window with the end of free ls, so I give their statements from years ago not much credit. Money talks. If the accounting department reports that income is low and the marketing department suggests that gear grinders were not sufficiently catered too, you can bet your lucky dollar that ascended will be relegated to second grade armor quickly.

And isn´t it a grind in itself if I am reeled in to do raids, which I loathe for various reasons, because I want the shinies in it and can´t get them anywhere else? I already know that a raid means for me that I have to change my habits and do things I don´t want to do, so what are my options?
A) Do it and change habits and gear. Not enjoy doing it, loosing interest in the whole of the game in the long term. Mabe stay because of nice people in the guild.
B) Do it, stay as I am. Need to relly on a social place in a raid from my guildies, feel like a leecher. Stop doing it quickly, nobody wins.
C) Not do it. Feel like a second grade player despite buying the expansion. Hardly motivating.

I have no problems with people wanting and getting raids, although i don´t think that it is the majority of people. But please don´t put something substantial like legendary armor in them. Give them lots of gold, titles and skins. Or at least make the ingredients tradeable so that people like me can buy them from the TP instead of devoting 3+ hours into stuff we don´t want to do, aka grind.

Anchoku.8142:

There are more than enough casual aspects remaining in HoT. Gw2 is not hard core by any measure. The long, gated events requiring a minimum population and participation are less hard hard core than annoying in how heavily scripted they are.

Hard core is…
When you lose a week’s worth of experience each time you die.
When the nearest res point is a huge distance from your group.
When you get so little xp for mobs you can solo that everyone is forced to group because xp requirements to level are exponential.
When everyone in the group is expected to memorize a list of mob type weaknesses and immunities.
When the combo system is three or more tiers deep, attached to most spells and attacks, and everyone must know the which skills to use in the right order to avoid combinations where the mob takes normal or reduced damage from.
When most high level skills are rare drops from specific mobs you need a group to farm for.
When you wait for half an hour up to, maybe, all day to gather a group to go grind for xp or a rare drop you want/need.

I think nobody suggests that HoT is unplayable if you do not have much time to play it. I played Eve where you get penalized for nearly everything, I agree that there is a vast difference in quality and quantity of grind and challenge level.

But only because another game has much more severe problems with hardcore requirements, it does not let a game originally advertised as the casual, cooler classmate of regular MMOs that turns into one of the regular but kind of laid back kids of the hook in this regard.

Sarie.1630:

Manasa Devi.7958:

I don’t plan the time I spend playing games. I’m not a freak.

I knew you’d respond like that.

But if you wont help yourself… ciao!

Wut? Ok, I can understand that you offered some advice and a solution at least. But in my mind you´re far from reality if you really think that casual gamers will plan how they game and turn it into a job or at least a sports club. The answer was a little harsh, but it is basically spot on. For the working people a game is light entertainment to forget that they came home from heir job with nagging responsibilites, not something you put yourself into to work at spreadsheet wars 2.

If Anet in the future does not want to cater to this people, it is their right to do so but the impact may be harsh if it is a group large enough to really cut into their profits.
I leave it to you if you agree with me that at least a considerable portion of such Vets are in the process of leaving the game and may return if the grass gets greener again, aka the next expansion caters more to them.

Torady.3907:

wasnt it evident that this was the direction they wanted to go when they released Dry top and Silverwastes ?

but honestly what direction do you want to go ? back to big static maps like Lornar’s Pass ?

The funny thinig is, I despise Dry Top for it´s emphasis on jumps and slim RNG luck with insect drops.
On the other hand, I like Silverwaste. It does not involve jumping if you do not want to jump, and RNG is much more generous.

I would be perfectly happy with HoT if it had taken the direction of SW, but it is Dry Top all over again. And to add insult to injury, you only do not have to jump on the rooftop here, but also in the cellar in later maps. Boring, exclusive and grindy all at once.

nearlight.3064:

850 hours of pvp is fun. 5 hours of spider farming is not.

And besides there’s literally nothing you can get from pvp that you couldn’t get from pve. Those finishers are essentially useless to you, since you won’t finish anyone in pve. I mean yeah there’s WvW but that’s not relevant to the conversation.

Please speak for yourself. 850 hours of PvP is the worst GW2 related torture I can imagine.

If we PvE people have to suffer through stuff like this, it is reasonable(not fair to all of us!) that every part of gameplay is affected. I have to walk through millions of xp to come to auto loot, something that is just a convenience feature for example.

Zero Day.2594:

Like the other guy said, idiots will be idiots.

How do you know that someone isn’t texting his best-friend-forever during a fight?

It’s like, saying there will be more car crashes from installing rear-view and side-view mirrors – since some people won’t be able to take their eyes off them. SOME PEOPLE.

Put a (drivers) licence you have to pass before entering a raid in your argument and you have a point that cars should have mirrors but not only rely on them. Most states don´t just allow you to pilot a car without testing, and it´s not necessarily reflex testing but also environmental awareness. I don´t know about you, but I was advised to actually look over my shoulder when changing lanes instead of using the mirror all of the time. So a mirror is a tool that is not mandatory to use, but a DpS O meter surely would be used that way. Don´t have a mirror? Sorr,y no car driving for you.

Since the beginning of the development of HoT, I tried here over and over again to tell people that Anet had virtually nothing when they changed their business model except for the next few epiodes of the ls and so had to hastily assemble something together in what is not much time for game development and HoT came out stuttering and scratching. I sure hope that this is now blatantly obvious to most of you.

I can also quite understand people that want to do a meta event on a map. It´s not hard to relogg and join a map that does not have a meta going, it should not be asked too much if you don´t want to do the event itself.

I like HoT in general. But:
I play casually because of work restrains lately, and even I managed to get some stuff going in HoT while dividing time between Core Tyria and HoT. Yes, the novelty was there, but it gets grindy really fast, inventory fills up quickly and is pretty annoying too at some places. How someone could hide an unreachable mastery point in the first map for a beginner is completely beyond me, or why there are places where you die when you can´t glide anymore. I don´t know how often I failed the gliding minigame and got squat, this is as annoying as the best Super Mario hard mode game ever. This thing is simply horrendous for someone who is afraid of heights, and to get diddly squat for your effort then is the icing on the cake.
I am also a little bit sad for the lack of new fractals, the development is surely a grindy one here.

Although I think it is a great idea to have all the guilds show off their stuff, it is probably impossible to stuff it all in the open world, sadly.

Speaking of guild halls, my fellow guild members go all nuts over it, but I don´t see much of a reason to have a guild hall to be honest.
Arena: Irrelevant if you don´t do PvP or GvG
Nodes: Personal instance has nodes too. So something for the farmers, but nothing that adds to the fun of the game experience.
Trophys: This could be good, but what is a trophy good for if only a handful of members can see it? Even if people join later and watch them, they did not contribute anything to them and can´t brag with it.
Decorations: Yeah, that could be good if it were not jus stuff that someone could create as a scribe. If I want to play the sims or second life, I would be there.

So basically a guild hall is just a glorified recruitment center.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Other notes:

1. Raid currency to buy boss rewards if you are unlucky with drops (even get some if you fail to kill the boss, limited to weekly amount)

Bravo, Anet. For real, that is one of the few ways to make raids tolerable for the more casual gamers who lacks time, will or ressorces to min max every number of his toons for days.

And on a different positive note, it totally kills any bragging rights for entitled achievement thinking over time.
Player A : “So, yes, this is my raid content item X. I got it when I defeated Creature of Doom Y!”
Player B : " Wow, looks great. Hey, player C, have you fought the same mob, even if you are only here for an hour a day? You have the same item after all."
Player C : " Uhm, no. I actually can only play an hour and can´t train for raids regularly, so I collected this currency while trying as good as I could and bang, there I got it over time."
Player B: “…”

Shoe.5821:

if out of 4 zones you can’t find ANYTHING you enjoy doing, what makes you think you are going to enjoy raids

Because for some people, anything but the absolute best equipment with handpicked friends, an alway available entrance and a raid that is so hard that it challenges them but still so accessible and fluid that it produces adrenalin in masses while it takes place at the best place is not acceptable.

I don´t know if that is a spoiled brat behaviour or a strong competitive streak. But I know that is like asking for a round peg to fit into a square hole, or asking the Niagara Falls to turn yellow after you went to the toilet in front of it. I pitty Anet in their from the start futile attempt to please this crowd, but it was something they basically asked for on their own and so probably deserve all the flack this is bound to produce.^^

We probably all know how truly and fully annoying movement in HoT is without gliding and jumping, and it is still moronic when you can´t use updrafts. After you pass that point, the game experience undeniably gets much better. I don´t know from which well of ideas a concept like this springs up, and I keep asking myself if this is really the best way of inclusion for everyone who is willing to improve and experience the very good mobs, but unwilling to play super mario most of the time?

So the design of the HoT prevents me personaly from being there much longer than I must, after I have grinded my raids for my legendary armor and followed the personal story, I am probably not much in HoT anymore. There are some designs that I find highly debatable and rejectable, like for example the mastery point that is guarded by poison in the first map? I mean, huh? You have a point you can only reach while far into the masteries at the starting map? Tarir ist another example. Why put a cellar under Tarir that is far from the reach of the average player and part of the personal story? You could wander for days and not get that right if you don´t do the story. Or the myriad of stuff you have to do for the meta events. Couple this minor problems and quirks with low tresholds of endurance of players, and you can probably see where the future for HoT lies when the big run for it is over

If maps were not layered and some stuff not so ridiculously hidden, I would have nearly no concerns with HoT at all up to this point. My moaning and groaning will start again when raids are implemented.

In my personal opinion, Frogs were massively underated in the beta and smokescales way overrated. I especiall like the big frogs with the belly flop attack. The only mobs I loathe up until now are the rolling dinosaurs, not fun at all to fight them.

I am a little bit curious right now:
Has vertical instead of horizontal progression made any difference for your right now with a different type of gate in place? As raids are suggesting the use of acended armor, has this tactic really paid off in your opinion if you should discard your exotic armor anyway at some point? Level raise through the backdoor, yes or no?

Vicko.1204:

I’ve seen so many ppl using Super Mario,including myself,as a term to describe the HoT map experience!It comes naturally I guess :-D Super Mario Wars 2

Because it has everything that Mario has too. Looking for power ups, multilayered. Even the mushrooms are there! And if Hylek were tortoises instead of frogs, Bowser would also be there. The only things missing are gorillas, a princess, plumbers and beards on most Marios, ehm, players.^^

The good:
1/10 I like the new opponents, at least most of them.
2/10 Glidding is fun. No reason to buy HoT, but a good idea still.
3/10 Fractals got something good and new. Give me new fractals and this would be even better and a 4/10.
4/10 Precursor made obtainable.
5/10 Masteries are ok.
6/10 The continuation of the story is good.
7/10 New collections

And the bad:
6/10 The first map is pure Super Mario, thast´s disgusting for people who have a bad sense of orientation. I expected to mee a pizza delivery boy or a gorilla throwing barrels at me any time.
5/10 HP are not only hard to complete, they are like little jumping puzzles in some instances on the first map. Despicable.
4/10 Gates! Gates everywhere!

I guss that HoT is much more fun if you have all the skills you can obtain from it, but up until then, not so much.

I said from the start that Anet had nothing to show when the business direction was changed except for some episodes of ls2 maybe. They hastily thre a bunch of stuff together that was proven although grindy and threw it out as fast as they could. I am sure that the game will see some patches over time that returns it more to the core games idea. but for now what you see is either a gnawing management issue or a total surprise for the developers when they got the news that there will be expansions, not ls anymore.

Oh the irony.

People asked for an expansion because of good GW1 expansions – Got super mario maps instead. Even the mushrooms are there. Glorious, Anet, I had a very good laugh from this.
People asked for jumping puzzles(not me!) – got super Mario maps instead.
People thought ls1 was a boring grind fest that penalized you if you did not log in for 2! weeks and asked for something else – got ls2 instead, who was not only more difficult but also really boring and a much worse grind fest.
People ask for raids – Have to journey through a map to reach it. Complains everywhere. I would laugh my behind off if Raids are gated behind not only an equipement wall, but also a mastery wall.

You got EXACTLY what you asked for. The hard level cap was not touched in any way, you can move left or right on the map so it is in the strictst of senses not a true grind(of course it is a grind, but you know what I mean), navigating is as funny as getting stepped on the foot and you have to replay the old content because of HP.
so Anet basically brought you everything you wanted, just in the most grindy and undesireable fashion.

Aren´t you entertained?^^

I don´t want ro raid, you don´t want to make hero points. Tough luck for the both of us I suppose^^

Don´t punch me with a dictionary please, but in my perception something that is monotonous is an event, an action or a move that you do over and over again.
A monotonous action is for example to put barbie dolls into boxes. It is so monotonous that it is done by robots, who would surely be frustrated too if they could.

So a raid is not monotonous if you do it one time. Maybe it is not monotonous if you do it 10 times. But it surely will get monotonous if you do it for the 50th time. As raids require practice to succeed they are bound to become monotonous, especially if you hit a brick wall for a longer time.
If it engaging or not makes no real difference. Try listening to Beethovens 9th symphony for 10 hours straight and you will find it monotonous to listen it again the next day, despite it being an acclaimed masterpiece.
And I have to agree with Ohoni on the idea that engaging is really subjective and can quickly turn into frustration after some attempts. I already know that I will be frustrated with raids very quickly, but Anet leaves me no choice if I want a versatile armor.

Always funny to see people that demand raids attempt to wiggle out of hero points because that is a grind for them. Try walking in my shoes for a while now. Why do I think that the vast majority of you are raiders, and some pure wvwers? Because a casual PvEler probably gives a rats rektum about hero points and hoew long it takes to get them in a casual way^^

So you think it could be a Pavlov´s dog case? Ring the bell and the goodie is not even necessary anymore? Although that could actually be accurate and would really fill out my last unachieved stereotype about hardcore raiders if I think about it, why put a reward in at all? The bell is rung, the dogs will appear anyway with or without a goodie to get.

Windsagio.1340:

maddoctor.2738:

Astralporing.1957:

Possibly. They may have been doing spvp/WvW roaming up to that point, and actually be better skilled than most raiders, you know.

The chances of a spvp/wvw player to come do PVE just for raids are very slim. If they had an interest in instanced content they would’ve done some already. Raids won’t change that and also being good at spvp or wvw doesn’t make someone an expert at dungeon running by default.

In the end, I doubt this whole “ascended is recommended” discussion is aimed at spvp and wvw players, but rather at pve players who had no interest in instanced content so far but yet want to participate in Raids, and just in Raids, for some reason.

I still think it’s aimed at people who like raids and are thinking about buying HOT

If that truly is the case, why put a set of armor behind it at all? Why not something entirely new or just a title if it is a new layer of customers Anet wants to attract? As maddoctor already said, people that did for example fractals at high level are probably much more willing to do raids than your casual guy who plays an hour a day maximum. So that group surely won´t get bigger, rather smaller when you substract guys like me who do raids as long as they deem it to be necessary and then never set foot in one again. So your only way out if it is indeed an entirelly new set of players that are willing to level and gear up.

I also think that WvW players and SPvPers are the most unlikely participants in raids. You don´t need legendary gear in wvw, ascended or even exotic does the trick if you know how to play your chosen class. PvE was already there the whole time, why enter now with something much more time consuming coming in when people could not be moved to enter the less time consuming stuff?
It´s even worse in the case of pure SPvPers, why should they step foot into PvE at all? They get all they need to play and will see a large influx of easy victims with HoT. So why bother with raids?

If there is a guaranteed(important!) drop of a legendary armor precursor/piece whatever and the price looks reasonably to me, I would definitely buy a place. Certainly not for a piece of ascended armor or just a chance to get the legendary item.

Something tells me that people with a thick valet will have raid rewards long before more deverving but not as wealthy or short for time players, which will of course instantly nullify any idea of reward vs. effort/skill that is so loudly proclaimed by the hardcore community.

Money talks, and it is the only language a company understands all of the time.

Kayberz.5346:

MyriadStars.5679:

The reason why people are unhappy is NOT because there is a lot of grind in a game, but because there is a lot of grind in the xpac of a game originally advertised as one that “does not require time to prepare for fun” and “respects your time”.

That is, people are unhappy that Anet failed their legendary “quest” of designing a MMORPG without grinding.

The fact that there are grindy stuff in some other games is totally irrelevant. Anet tried to avoid grindy stuff and then gave up in the xpac, and that’s it. Of course there are people who are happy about Anet’s failure because they like grindy stuff, while others will be unhappy.

I don’t think anyone can argue about this.

Your whole argument is bunk because anet promised a game with no MANDATORY grind which is still the case. You all keep acting as if having a legendary is an integral part of the game and is required. Legedarys are an item, a cosmetic skin, it doesnt unlock some previously unaccesable content in the game., its a completeky uneeded luxory item. Anet added more long term goals for the type of player that enjoys grinding, not getting a legendary in no way inhibits your gameplay

If it is of no consequence if you have a legendary or not, why for example put it behind a raid gate? I actually agree with everyone that does not want to craft armor over and over again to do the same but on a higher level, I just believe the “there is only one way” method of obtaining legendaries is not enough ans counterproductive for the game.

Anet also said that they would introduce this and that over the years, and look how their resolve waivered and how thing changed over time. Sometimes for the better, sometimes not.

And how does making stuff acount bound make it less grindy if you have to play all the aspects of the game, including the stuff you hate? People like you appear to me like someone that wants to find gold with the equpiment of a prospector of the 19th century with mules and shovels because it is very cheap and easy to obtain and whine when other people have collected metal craps from the floor and made a modern factory out of it.

Testudo.4620:

Torolan.5816:

How is raiding for hours exciting? How is stumbling around in a three layer maze with either relatively powerful or mob wusses exciting? How exciting is turning a close combat class into a bowman, or an archer into a staff wielder? How exciting is it to have a PvE map camouflaged as a WvW map?

Quick answer: it isn´t. If it were not for fractals, precursor aquiring methods and new pets, HoT would be pretty skippable in my opinion. Getting mastery xp for actually playing the game is the least of my worries for HoT to be honest.

that all sounds pretty exciting to me. i guess i won’t be running into you.

You could run into me. Like the idiot I obviously am, will stay loyal to GW2 and grind my way through all the things I don´t like to do until I get the shinies I want. If there is an interesting hunting ground in HoT, I may even spend some time there after I have the mastery xp, but that remains to be seen.

Kayberz.5346:

except the fractal back piece is an ascended item, not a legendary, and we don’t even completely know the requirements for the new legendary one coming which may or may not require 50-100 lvl fractals. legendarys were designed to be something for dedicated players that master ALL areas of the game. this IS NOT a casual friendly set of items, its designed for HARDCORE players. just because you want one doesn’t make you entitled to one easily. I don’t have a legendary specifically because i don’t feel like grinding out the things i would need to make one, but i am not going to demand anet give me one just because i am unwilling to change my play style. no, i deal with it and play the game without the unnecessary shiny.

Unlike you, I dont mind to grind but heavily dislike to be shoehorned into something by a game. And btw, I am pretty sure that all the GW2 players with a legendary have made them by doing ALL content instead of buying them on the TP. I am TOTALLY sure of that. So this argument is already killed from the start by Anet themselves.

@maddoctor
We had this argument already some time ago, didn´t we? The easier, differently coloured hammer of content X still hits the nail still as good as the sledgehammer of hard content X. I do not and did never even disagree that this is a grind, but why should you be spared the grind if I have to grind through raids when we see raids as something you have to repeatedly do to reach a goal and it is not fun for you?

Yes, I am pretty sure that this is something that Anet is looking for, players quitting because content is not suitable for them. Look, I know you raiders had to take the backseat for long and now have the right to be excited.

I do fractals a lot and like them. Would I have found it fair if there was stuff that was only available in highlevel fractals? No. Because, everyone, and I mean really everyone who is not ill or severely disabled, can run lvl 1-9 fractals and get the fractal back. Everyone.

Why is it so hard for you to understand that there should be a method like this here too? It is not like Anet has never done this, why are they now all of a sudden do a 180° on that proven policy? Pushing of raids, shoehorning because they knew the resentments against raids in general are probably high bcause the customers are mainly casual, news coming from the mouth of hardcore gamers thermselfes?

Kayberz.5346:

Except all those things were ADDED to the game. They didnt replace anything. If you dont like the new content DONT PLAY IT. All the stuff in the core game is still there, play the stuff you bought the game for no one is holding a gun to your head to do thenew stuff. All of your posts on multiple threads just show that all youcare about is rewards and not actualy playing the game as if you are entitled to all rewards in the game for only doing what you want

That is like telling someone that he bought a game and does not have to use the dlc. Which is ironically completely spot on with a single player game, but highly stupid in a multiplayer online game. Of course he does not have to use it, but this is not a single player game where you can get away with stuff like this if you want to do anthing in the future and have a progression of your character without being dragged into content you don´t like. Not to speak of the really horrible marketing effect this has. GW2 is no longer the safe spot for the casual gamer if he is not willing to be a second class player which is, as you can already see with many replies in the forum, a selling point of GW2.

And to complete your little lazy gamer wants the shinies only theory:
I would not give a single dump about raids if there were not the only place to get legendary armor, and I love the diversity of them and want to have such an armor. So yes, you are right when you think that I want the rewards only from raids, and would be really happy if there were other methods to do it. If I am bothered long enough by running against the raids with zero gain, I may still just say screw that and call it a day.
Does that devalue me as a customer? Or a player?
Please keep in mind that I have some characters in full ascended, including weaponry and another one on the way, so I would not even statistically lose something right now if I skipped raids. But telling people to stay in their circles and let the other people enjoy the new content is just wrong on so many levels.

How is raiding for hours exciting? How is stumbling around in a three layer maze with either relatively powerful or mob wusses exciting? How exciting is turning a close combat class into a bowman, or an archer into a staff wielder? How exciting is it to have a PvE map camouflaged as a WvW map?

Quick answer: it isn´t. If it were not for fractals, precursor aquiring methods and new pets, HoT would be pretty skippable in my opinion. Getting mastery xp for actually playing the game is the least of my worries for HoT to be honest.

And there we already are with different opinions and perceptions.

I think for example SPvP is boring and puts me better to sleep than a sleeping pill could and people should be paid for playing it. And even with that in mind, I would still vastly prefer if over raids bcause I can exit a PvP match after one round and get something for my effort. So it is not fun for me. On the other hand, going over the old maps to collect something does not bore me. It doesn´t particulary excite me of course, but I can spend hours with it if there is nothing better to do or if I want the mats.

Diovid.9506:

Because there is a huge difference between skill and organization as a requirement on the one hand and grind as a requirement on the other? Not that I am one of the people who complains about ascended equipment, mind you, but I can see where those people are coming from.

Irrelevant. If you like it or not, you want to have the reward, you have to do the grind. I don´t like raids, but I have to do them if I want the reward. Both parties lose, but it is a compromise often found in politics too, the least satisfying solution for everyone.

I personally find that to be easily avoidable, but Anet is armed to the teeth with the resolve to push raids, so let the suffering begin.^^

-Microsoft thought they had hit the jackpot with Windows Vista, but that buzzsaw of a program fell them right between the legs.
-3D glasses were thought to be the best invention since the wheel in the 90s. They are not even widespread in 2015.
-Fans waited 10+ years for Chinese Democracy from Guns n Roses. It quickly became a tripwire for everyone involved when you think that it came from a band who sold millions of CDS in the 90s.
-Goldman and Sachs banked on the US government to cover them up for the blunders they made and their blatant lying to the common man on the street. People working there found themselves at the unemployment office quickly.

As you can see from various examples, some companies like Apple or Microsoft are succesful despite being themselves, and some proiducts like VR glasses are technically superior bot nobody wants them. Marketing is not a science like mathematics, it involves much handweaving an educated guesses and with lots of potential blunders. Just think of Tiger Woods, the companies sponsoring him could not move away fast enough from the guy and lost wagonloads of money from it in a meekly attempt to keep the damage small.

After a hard days work, I always love to see threads like these. Thanks, OP.^^

Let me ask you a question still:
If I like to have legendary armor, should I have to do raids for it? I mean, to quote you:
“PS: If you enjoy crafting, that´s fantastic. But it should be a choice.”
I would like to replace that with:
“PS: If you enjoy raiding, that´s fantastic. But it should be a choice.”

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Torolan.5816:

@König des Todes
You don´t know Anet won´t drop them. You just don´t. If the next cycle of fotm content is reached, raids may be dropped quickly again under the flag of “This is new, this is groundbreaking, this is exciting!”. Could very well reasonably happen.
Konrad Adenauer probably said it best:
“What do I care for my speech from yesterday?”

Exactly. My. Point.

Technically, we can never know for sure.

But now ArenaNet has given us empirical evidence that would support them dropping it. Because just about all past “new, groundbreaking, exciting” stuff they did end up dropping after 1 or 2 iterations.

There was plenty of empirical evidence for that theory early on, you even named a few:
-New Dungeons. Speaks for itself.
-Southsun
-World bosses revamped after triple trouble. They technically were revamped with more HP and a slightly harder mechanic in most cases, but that was it.
-Various non PvP leaderboards. i dont know why Anet is so bend on making PvP viable in spite of most people agreeing that it will never be popular,. but here we go again.
-Abaddon fractal. About to be added later when Ellen Kiel was elected. Well, ok, maybe in HoT.
-No grind. LS2 for example has plenty of pure, snore inducing but still hard to do grind.
-No raids. I have to give that it took them 3 years to finally give in on that one, but the protesters were obviously loud enough.
-SAB.
-Wvw rewards. will robably be adressed, elsewise see the no raids point.

I sometimes wonder if GW2 is not an online game, but a social behavior experiment when I read news like this.

Not enough that you actually deny stuff to people for various incomprehensible reasons like that newbies can´t catch up if you do not(hard cap foir dailies), you also nerf content that is still played for some reason while not giving this type of the community new stuff they ask for(dungeons). I am not even a supporter of dungeon running, but I scratched my head in an attempt to understand your reasoning for this.

Are you really that desperately trying to accomplish that all people have to do raids and fractals? If this is the case, just turn the dungeons into fractals, let mobs drop the tokens there and get over with it.

@König des Todes
You don´t know Anet won´t drop them. You just don´t. If the next cycle of fotm content is reached, raids may be dropped quickly again under the flag of “This is new, this is groundbreaking, this is exciting!”. Could very well reasonably happen.
Konrad Adenauer probably said it best:
“What do I care for my speech from yesterday?”

Jordo.5913:

I feel like people are thinking this content is going to be so hard that people can’t beat it, but if it’s anything like Underworld and DoA from GW1, its not going to be so overly hard that you can’t beat it. It’s just that you are going to have to beat it a lot, to farm for your legendary gear, just like you had to for Primeval gear.

So the solution to avoid grinds in the open world for ascended armor is to fill in grinds(“going to have to beat it a lot”) in raids for legendary armor pres? A grind 2.0 basically?^^

Uhm yes, guilty as charged with the word easy. i just don´t know how to describe it elsewise. Less time consuming, a differently structured raid of the same difficulty level maybe? I have no problem to work for my stuff in general. But if I have only way to work for it I don´t like, my motivation for GW2 will not exactly skyrocket if you know what I mean.

And yes, they probably won´t reach it this way if it is not easy enough for them. So this would only solve the problem of time restrains, not devotion. To be frankly honest, I have no solution for a lacking devotion and would not ask for something like that in the first place.

The compromise in a grand scheme you describe is also something from politics, a generally fair agreement of the worst possible bottom solution or inability so that no one feels left out because all suffer the same. It´s a type of solution I often use too if I don´t find a better one, but it never makes me happy. You?

maddoctor.2738:

Torolan.5816:

High level Fractals are maybe not hard for elite gamers but for anyone else. Add a reasonable drop chance for legendary armor at levlels 90+ as soon as they are on and we´re golden.

So you are saying that Fractals level 90+ should be the same difficulty as Raids? Only for 5 people instead of 10.

Also about WvW and PVP. You do know that there a lot of different things to do in WvW and PVP that are hardly hard. For example night capping without opposition in WvW or playing on the lower tier of the PVP leaderboards. Or you can rig it, lose on purpose 100 games so your rank drops to the nether regions, then win 50 games in a row for a chance at getting your legendary precursor.

A) Your personal barrier may be much higher than mine, so we´re back to the word reasonable for a casual gamer that has X time at his disposal. I am pretty sure that Anet has numbers for this, so it would be their job to set the barrier in other types of content.

You do understand that “reasonable for a casual gamer that has X time at his disposal” means easy content right? So the argument of Alternatives not being easy is pointless.

B) I can´t justify it. But I can justify that you have to give and take to get a compromise many people can live with, like in politics.

Yes that’s how compromises are done.

*Lvl 90 fractals can have the same difficulty level as raids, yes. They are very suitable to solve the problems of available time as casual does not mean bad player be definition.
*If you and me already know the weak points of PvP and WvW, Anet knows too. Make it player kills or capture the flag with Stonemist only(for example) and you would need a really big conspiracy to actually cheat your way to legendary armor while at the same time spending more time, something you wanted to avoid doing in the first place.
*We wold be back at the definition of hard and easy then. One of my main problems with raids is that you are either going out with the price in the course of the week or basically nothing except for the privilege to not have to start fron new until the start of next week. So if you don`t have time at the end of the week and have not made it, all your effort up until then was pointless. I am all for making alternatives hard, but they should be something that stays with you when you can´t make the time limits of raids. A sudden explosive challenge instead of a long drawn out attrition war with a raid if you want so.
*I am all for compromises, but Anet gives us non-raid people no chance to avoid rhe raids if we don´t want the one size fits all solution. No easy, less time consuming path, no alternative method, nothing. That is not a compromise.

Alternatives for people who don´t want to raid are either easy to realize or indeed nearly impossible to make, depending on what the main problem of a raid for a given person is: Time, effort, social ability or equipment.

All can be replaced by Pvp and WvW. Pvp and Wvw are by definition hard(unpredictable) if you take away the ability of players to set up arenas for cheating.
High level Fractals are maybe not hard for elite gamers but for anyone else. Add a reasonable drop chance for legendary armor at levlels 90+ as soon as they are on and we´re golden.

A) Your personal barrier may be much higher than mine, so we´re back to the word reasonable for a casual gamer that has X time at his disposal. I am pretty sure that Anet has numbers for this, so it would be their job to set the barrier in other types of content.
B) I can´t justify it. But I can justify that you have to give and take to get a compromise many people can live with, like in politics.

“Please ignore all opinions critical of raids. Ther is nothing to hear or to consider from the other side, official news have already arrived and we´re golden. Move along, good folk. Nothing to see here.”
Your post, OP, just much shorter. Textbook propaganda stuff. Congratulations, good sir.

I followed most threads about raids and find it fascinating that Wanze of all people replied first to you. My impression of him is that he is a min-maxer of the trading post with a potential to behave in a game busting way like all money handlers but is still a polite guy even when someone disagrees with him. Maybe you should take a book out of his page, OP. And maybe I should too.

Forum warfare for pro or con raid – wait, that is old too.
EotM 2.0 map turns into WvW map – Kind of lost for words with that.
Vertical progression camouflaged as horizontal progression – you have to admit, this is kind of rare and new.
Maps not wide but high and mazelike – my personal lowlight, but kind of new.
Not that much content for a kind of high price – definitely new for GW2.
Fractal level raise – That is really exciting news, at least for me. give me some new fractals and my opinion will turn from meh to cautiously interested.
Precursor hunt, not another round of RNG – good stuff.

You already said the other stuff that is really interesting, so maybe we´re stuck with this.^^

Also not stoked for raids like Kazimeras, not in the slightest to be honest. But Anet pulled a clever fast one on me and put equipment I really want behind the raids, so I will grudgingly do them until I have the equipment and I can ride in the sunset, but not without b.tching, crying, foot stomping, moaning and complaining.^^

insanemaniac.2456:

BrotherBelial.3094:

This again….. We don not need a one set to rule them all.

this is precisely the purpose of going legendary.

Sadly this. I would maybe scratch my head a little about raids if this was not the case and move on to let people simply have fun in their chosen content like I do with PvP.

On that I fully agree with you. The content with the best reward should be something different than grinding 5000 random mobs or something like that, but it also should not be a fortress on a mountaintop with only one angle to attack from.

What do you prefer, building a wall to keep people out or dig holes for them to fall in? It´s basically the same idea, just the opposite direction and a different perception.

What is hard work? I consider sitting on my bottom for 60+ minutes and listening to instructions to get a piece of equipment hard work. I also consider walking around to see this and that hard work as that is actually boring for me. You may call this a team effort raid and world exploration, both maybe highly desireable for you. Maybe a nice guy that helps others in map chat works harder for the game than you or I if he answers the same questions over and over with a smile. Is he properly rewarded except for the satisfaction of a job well done?

And what you call falling through if I understand you right when you think that means the holes are way around the hard content, I consider to be a social achievement and a good example of tolerance raiders ask for. People unwilling to do raids should have other ways to get the legendary armor. Either you make everything exclusive, or nothing.
And yes, there are already exclusive things in GW2, but they are either only equipment in the widest of senses like skins and/or are replaceable with a different piece of equipment with the exact! same properties.