Guild Wars 2

Jumping was never mandatory in GW2. Of course you could boycott jumping things and move on in Gw2, but you will find that most things involve jump and run since HoT, so your options are very limited.

After debating them for the last months, I don´t think raiders are toxic by nature. The ones that are are real pains in the behind though and should be banned from everything involving other people until they come around. They just have other preferences of what to do with their free time, and that is legit.
Right now, they get what they ask for. Although that personally bugs me because it either forces me to bend over or boycott a part of my favorite game, it is the course Anet follows and I understand that.

I think that boycotting raids from a sustainable number of people, selfdestruction through too high requirements or some other reason will end this theme sooner or later on its own.

Jaken.6801:

It’s like asking Mario not to jump, because you can’t/won’t push jump-button.

I am probably quickly ruing answering this, but I still give it a try:

Nobody asked for SuperMarioWars2 in the first place. Filler content is filler.

Would you look a football game to see who does the best pass to goal ratio? Don´t know about you but I want to be entertained by content, not gated and annoyed.

Would you catch bugs in a toxic dungeon for your amusement while your people are slaughtered by a dragon? A few seem useful, some are just not necessary, most totally ruin any immension you could feel in HoT.
“Yeah, you know, we got this total awesome staff etc for you, the hero and pact commander! All we ask for you is to jump through a few unrelated hoops! Hm…what do you mean, how is that heroic?”

If you enjoy raiding, good for you. For real. I am not a type 3 player, I am both equipped well enough and not that naive to expect Anet to hand me everything for free.
I still find it sad that I have to deal with this type of content in my favorite game. I also don´t think that the skill bar is too high for most people if responsible raiders take the time to teach them the ropes.
And you will maybe forgive when when I find it equally hilarious and disturbing to see how many of the “git good” types of players this has attracted when you look in the forums(not including you).

I don´t know if it is necessary to be super good at PvE in GW2 to beat a raid. To be honest, I don´t even care anymore because Coconut is sadly right and this is not the right content for me personally.

From what I have read here over the last months, If you want to raid you should look for a group that does it regularly, suck up abusive behaviour until you have proven yourself in whatever role they need if you encounter such people or move on if they can´t control their urges to belittle or harshly correct you because they have already invested time and trained while you did not have the opportunity to do so for whatever reason.

BlaqueFyre.5678:

Torolan.5816:

Contingents and gating should never be a thing in GW2. At least not the GW2 that was initially advertised as come as you are and play as long as you want. If that vision is gone, then Anet should clearly state that so people can move on and maybe find an alternative, which are sadly quite thin at the moment.

Since the beginning of the Game Legendary weapons have been gated behind Open World PvE but that’s fine with you because it’s content you enjoy, that has been almost all of the people advocating for giving Legendary armor to easier content view point. You have to realize Legendary gating has been in the game since launch and only now is an issue because they gated 1 legendary item behind content you don’t enjoy.

Although it is true that I enjoy open world more than raids, it is false that I have legendary weapons because I enjoyed open world. I have one precursor drop since launch, and that was a spear on top of it all.

Out of 9 characters, 2 of mine have 100% map completion. And they have it since content drought dropped down on us. Before that, I never even attempted to reach world comletion because I find it boring to hunt a point of interest by swimming or crawling through this and that. But kind of a desperation drove me there.^^

Heavy Gating is wrong, not only in raids. It was wrong in fractals, is wrong in pvp, and it will be wrong in wvw. Exploration is mind numbingly boring, fractals got finally old for me, pvp was never my thing and wvw is all that is left for me when open world does not get new content.

cakemonkey.6347:

From a financial standpoint limiting access seems pointless. They have to spend time which is money to pay these people to develop skins. Limiting availability to them is an absolute waste. When they make a skin they need to leave the method of acquisition in the game. Even if it is seasonal – like SAB, Wintersday, etc… Making a skin show up briefly never to be seen again is a waste of money.

Same goes for stuff like Living story season 1. The marionette should be back as a world boss. The dungeons that were made should be left permanently. They spent time and money making content just to take it out. Mechanics are there, stuff is designed, leave it out there.

All of this. I also see no reason to limit skins and to let stuff go to waste in a scenario where Anet is hard pressed to give out any kind of content as it seems.

Sarrs.4831:

If you make legendary armor quickly and easily accessible, it no longer becomes a bonus, it becomes mandatory. You’ll see every pug and their mum going “link legendary armor or no invite for you” to not just raids, but also to deep fractals and maybe even dungeons. Making Legendary Armor practically obtainable by everyone is opening a Pandora’s Box.

Having a low skill barrier with a long grind to compensate doesn’t change this. You just end up in the same position, just further down the line. This means that anyone who wants to be able to PUG is kinda forced into an avenue of doing the easy mode raid, week after week, and that’s obviously not good. When the next series of raid wings launches I do not want “link legendary armor” to be the broad cry of raiding guilds and raiding pugs and if legendary armor is easily accessible I can definitely see that happening.

Why play a game where I can only reach the best type of armor if I raid? Why continue playing a game where I am considered to be an unskilled laborer and second class citizen if I don´t raid? Please note that I wrote best in the knowledge that ascended has the same stats as legendary armor, but still it is better and not only a skin, you won´t convince me otherwise.
Of course you could argue that it is the same situation in wow, but there the best armor is only temporary the best armor until the next expansion where your new baby is invalidated again. Legendary armor will forever be the best armor if Anet stay true to their word that legendary grows with any tier that could be introduced in the future.

Lets assume people are forced into easy raids as you say, where is the difference to forcing them into hard raids to get the same type of reward? Hard raids are excluding some people by default, thats how they should work. From your point of argument, it would be best to limit legandary armor to lets say 20000 pieces and then not give it out anymore to avoid it sweeping through Tyria. And this is the point where I massively disagree with the “reward only vs good build and raid” people. Contingents and gating should never be a thing in GW2. At least not the GW2 that was initially advertised as come as you are and play as long as you want. If that vision is gone, then Anet should clearly state that so people can move on and maybe find an alternative, which are sadly quite thin at the moment.

Protecting people from content for their own sake is a really strange argument in my ears, sorry.

Agemnon.4608:

Torolan.5816:

Less Zojja please. Less smurfs in general please. I will never forgive them that they cost me the chance to play a Tengu samurai from the start.^^

Why not blame Sylvari instead?

Zojja has a good voice actress and is a character we can’t help but like.

If Zojja gets killed off then I want Marjory and Kasmeer killed off too. They’re wooden characters that contribute nothing. I vaguely remember then from LS 2 and their dialogue mostly just getting in the way of the real meat of the story, namely the quests and achievements. Braham is dull too.

I don´t blame Sylvari for various reasons:
a) I purely subjectively like Sylvari. Not an argument, just to show that I am indeed biased.
b)There are no Sylvari energy cannons, firearms, energy converters or golems. These weapons should have no place in a fantasy setting. Every other race uses them too, and that is bad enough. But all other races seem to have a flintlock system at best, which is barely tolerable in such a setting for me.
c) Smurfs. They could be only more smurf like if Rata Sum was hidden under a shield that makes it invisible for the evil wizard.

And for your second point, I would have disbanded Destinys Edge long ago and never founded the second group. Even if every single member of both groups were killed, it would have absolutely no impact on the world of Tyria as it is still 1325 there. But you need “heroes” for instanced ls2.

Less Zojja please. Less smurfs in general please. I will never forgive them that they cost me the chance to play a Tengu samurai from the start.^^

I for example would obtain it over time, like I did with ascended armor and weapons. And I am as casual as they come in game due to a full time job and simple unwillingness to play differently.
Casually reaching wolf rank in pvp, silver infanterist in wvw or having every success in fractals was easy and seemed effortless over time too. That is the type of content I am looking for in GW2.

BlaqueFyre.5678:

Torolan.5816:

Sird.4536:

Miellyn.6847:

No people are not happy if you force them into content they don’t like only for rewards.

You are not forced to do this. Legendary armour is just a skin and it baffles me that there are people that think it’s far greater.

Hoographic wings are a skin. Legendary armor is not a skin, it has stats. It is not a tier on its own, but it clearly is an upgrade from ascended. It baffles me that there are people who think that only if the upgrade does not seem relevant to them, it is also not relevant to everyone else. I am also baffled by Anet who think that hiding a casual oriented item like a legendary armor that also can´t swap runes in a hard PvE content is a good idea in any way except for shoehorning casual people into it.

How is Legendary Armor a casual oriented item? "Casuals"couldnt care less about Meta changes, making stat swapping less beneficial towards them, the cost of Legendaries is a roadblock for most “casuals”. Again all content(minus WvW) has specific legendary gear gated behind it so why shouldn’t Raids? Pvp and FotM have special Legendary back pieces not obtainable anywhere else, Easy open world PvE has Legendary Weapons which aren’t obtainable if you don’t do open world PvE, Raids will have Legendary Armor not obtainable anywhere else. From the very beginning of the game There has been items exclusive to specific game modes.

What if I say that I find exclusive gating distateful and wrong in every type of content, despite being an avid fractal runner and wvw player(silver infanterist)?
A casual player would use the armor to see what he likes to play and changes it if he doesn´t like it anymore. A meta player will play meta and only change if it changes, from pirate ship to space ship or wherever it will devolve further into.
If you can walk to your own drum, some people will begin a long journey on their own. If they are whiped on the way, some people simply refuse to walk. I expect most casuals to be people like this, elsewise they would already raid.

So it was floating freely and you were just lucky that it landed in raids? Or rather unlucky because you can´t use it anyway? If it does not have the job to pull people in, why is it in raids if it is clearly an item many people would make if it was not gated?^^

I am curious, what are your thoughts for a blue raid and a red wvw legendary armor then?

so lets assume then that convenience is not an upgrade and it is useless for raiders anyway. Why is it gated and coveted by raiders then?

Because it takes effort to get it is probably your answer. A real skin would basically have the same effect if it of no use to you anyway, or not?
The other reasons I can imagine raiders could want to keep it gated could be that
a) raids as content are a house of cards.
b) no one else should have it but them.
c) to show off
which are all not exactly pro arguments if you ask me. Neither in sustainability, gaming community or any social terms.

Sird.4536:

Miellyn.6847:

No people are not happy if you force them into content they don’t like only for rewards.

You are not forced to do this. Legendary armour is just a skin and it baffles me that there are people that think it’s far greater.

Hoographic wings are a skin. Legendary armor is not a skin, it has stats. It is not a tier on its own, but it clearly is an upgrade from ascended. It baffles me that there are people who think that only if the upgrade does not seem relevant to them, it is also not relevant to everyone else. I am also baffled by Anet who think that hiding a casual oriented item like a legendary armor that also can´t swap runes in a hard PvE content is a good idea in any way except for shoehorning casual people into it.

wrathmagik.3518:

Ditch the 3D multi layered crap of HOT.

Thats my only wish for the next xpac.

This. Please no more SuperMarioWars2.
Improve the story. Do not copy and paste the original story for a third time.
New maps that are actually fun from the start, not only after you master this or that.
Tengu.
Less gating.

Thaddeus.4891:

Torolan.5816:

Where I disagree with raiders are the following points:
*Quality beats quantity when you want to aquire something. Gathering is much more easy and slower paced than hunting. Is it less valuable or productive, or does it devalue hunting? I think not.
*A taks needs an exclusive reward. I partly agree that a good reward is important. But a reward that is only available there is not good and makes no sense either. Why should any company restrict a good to a certain set of people? That makes no sense. Anyone who has the money can buy a Mercedes, nobody cares if it is an heir or a selfmade millionaire. Anet already understood this when they made both legendary stuff for wvw and pvp. Why not also do that for raids?

1) Are you talking about the Difficulty vs Time vs Reward ratio?

2) Well they purposely limit the availability of Ferrari to make sure that they keep a certain value, same with Diamond. Rarity add value to items. It’s also about the effort behind an object. Take military medal for example. Their value isn’t only their price tag, it’s the effort and sacrifice behind it. If I took the time and effort to complete a challenging content. I’m proud of my achievement and if an Item is given as a reward from that challenging content, this item serve as a memento to that achievement. It give an additional value to that item and if that same item is given for a fractal of the effort, it remove that said value. I’m not saying that all item should have that or it should be the majority. But as long as it’s cosmetic items, I believe there is a place for that. The difficulty is to find a balance to not have too much of those either.

1. No. I am talking about the validity of an argument that puts gathering and foraging at the same level of usefulness as hunting. Gathering is surely not as exciting as hunting, but no less useful than hunting. Some people are hunters by nature, most are not and would prefer to not risk their live in hunting big game. Times have changed. Remember the dentist who shot that lion in the national park in Africa some months ago? The kittenstorm was immense, although he did technically not break a law.

2. Ferrari does not limit the number of “commonly” available Ferrari because they don´t want to sell more, but because the demand for more is not there. You are right when you say that Ferrari limits the production runs for certain models so that they become exclusive. This would basically mean that if you want to go for that, you would have to make seasons in raids and turn them off after the season is done to achieve the same effect.
You can always buy a Ferarri of an older series for a scalpers price. You actually can´t buy a raid reward on the TP, you can only buy a ride in this special Ferrari when you are carried. Then you rode that Ferrari so often that the car salesman gives you an old Ferrari of the not limited production run because he has no buyers for it anyway.

Talking about medals, let´s take the two extrmes here, a medal of good conduct and the silver star:
A medal of good conduct is rather easy to get. You fullfil your duty and go home every day. Any soldier can get it.
A silver star is reserved for the bravest of the brave. Only a slelected view will ever get it.
Who is the more valuable soldier? Let´s take a look at the battle of Kursk for example, the biggest tank battle in history:
Military historian agree that von Mahnstein, Model and Guderian were vastly superior tacticians compared to Konjew and his generals. The german soldier was better equipped, more experienced and had some confidence from the only slightly waning initiative in the Blitzkrieg. T34 tanks could not even penetrate the front armor of the Panther tank. All Konjew had were numbers, mines and shovels.

So what brought the Germans down?
Wasted Time and logistics. German tank aces could bring down as many T34 as they wanted, the Russians always showed up for more in even bigger numbers, with tanks straight out of the production lines.
It was the sacrifice of the common, unsung soldiers with their medals of good conduct that turned the tide, not the selected few silver star bearers(or the Hero of the Sowjetunion equivalent).

Again, I am not talking about personal excitement here, but validity and the claim to get special rewards by performing common deeds.

Coulter.2315:

Torolan.5816:

Why should any company restrict a good to a certain set of people? That makes no sense. Anyone who has the money can buy a Mercedes, nobody cares if it is an heir or a selfmade millionaire.

Just read this again, read what you wrote.

[SPOILER] The price of the Mercades is a restriction on who can buy it…

As for your hunter/gatherer example, venison doesn’t grow on bushes – they result in different produce.

So? You won´t find a car trader that does only accept a currency that was won from MMA fighting or something like that. So Anet is the trader here and we are the customers who would bring the money. I indeed fail to see the importance of the source of money for the offering party here. Quite the contrary, the more people buy my stuff, the better for me.

How many people would eat vension if they had to hunt it on their own and other meat was available like it is right now? I guess you would not reach a full %. And hunting vension is hunting and not gathering, not even foraging.

I have no connection to prestige items. I neither adore them or want to have them to show off, most legendary weapons are plain ugly or laughable and for furry fans like the pony bow. But I get how some people like that beside the ability legendaries have. Ok, fair enough.
I also have no connection to raids. Too much work, not thrilled by the idea of practicing at all. But I also get that some people like that. Fair enough too.
So far so good. Live and let live.

Where I disagree with raiders are the following points:
*Quality beats quantity when you want to aquire something. Gathering is much more easy and slower paced than hunting. Is it less valuable or productive, or does it devalue hunting? I think not.
*A taks needs an exclusive reward. I partly agree that a good reward is important. But a reward that is only available there is not good and makes no sense either. Why should any company restrict a good to a certain set of people? That makes no sense. Anyone who has the money can buy a Mercedes, nobody cares if it is an heir or a selfmade millionaire. Anet already understood this when they made both legendary stuff for wvw and pvp. Why not also do that for raids?

I would support the TP solution of Absurdo too instead of easy raids or wvw/pvp availability, although I would clearly prefer the last solution.

Vinceman.4572:

This reminds me of the good old times on the sports ground when we were playing soccer and all the worse players wanted to play with us and we denied it. Holy sh_it, it was always fun if one of them got angry and started to shout insults at us. There has always been one of us who could run faster than those individuals.

The complaints are a joke, sry to say but it’s true. You got enough hints to avoid the requirements from players in this thread/forum. It is like dungeon running was at it’s peak: Build your own frickin group! You have the technology. I bet most of the ranting players are the ones that need to be carried like I can see it every day in dungeons now after this patch and in fractals. The bearbows & greatsword mesmers are still alive going for higher fractals today and they all think they are performing well.
I’ve seen enough players calling for raids and inside they couldn’t even manage to do one important thing like moving their char onto the right places, take over a green circle spot or just avoid being hit at melee range to downstate on vale guard when there was a tank having the aggro.
Just a side note: I helped a friend levelling 12 fractals these days and everytime we finished one he was talking about how well the group has played and that there were some awesome group synergies. The whole run he was quite underperforming (don’t have to mention but: greatsword mesmer) but he didn’t know it due to obvious reasons because if you are bad, you won’t recognize it often. Well you actually can’t because you don’t know how it feels to be good.

Appearance and reality – appearance and reality, that’s all need to be said in the end!

Every player I met that wanted to get in touch with serious raiding has made it. It reminds me of my loved german fellows instead of taking action and work for the success we go deep down into the basement and rant around.

Care to share the rest of your story with us too?
You know, where you were finally forced to take one of the worse players in then and when because one of your buddies had to run of to shame a violin or an instrument like that by trying to play it and he made you or one of your buddies look bad or was at least much better than you had expected.
Assuming that you are old enough to have played on your own instead of in a Kindergarten or Hort(children from 6 to around 10) like the large majority of children today, you at least had the excuse of nobody caring about social skills.^^

I can asure you that this happens every day between children playing soccer. The kids that can play always kitten and moan when we urge them to take one of the not so good players in their team, but most are pleasantly surprised how that supposed loser fared and how at least one of therir frriends can barely keep pace with the other guy.

Where I fully agree with you is this:
“Appearance and reality – appearance and reality, that’s all need to be said in the end!”

Coulter.2315:

Torolan.5816:

So because I did not want something to happen from the start, I should have no voice in it even if it concerns me, even if you stubbornly try to tell people that if they don´t raid, they are not affected by it? This is not an election where you should have to stay quiet if you choose not to vote.
I also never said that I want the raid that already is there to go offline. If Anet was able to work on two things at once and stop their gating fetish, they could produce a raid every month if you ask me. But they have clearly shown that they can´t do two things at once, so of course I am concerned if the focus stays on raiding. I have no idea how you can construct spite out of this.

But you’re asking them to take on extra workload to construct easy mode for you, Astral, Stihl and Ohoni while you all don’t even want raids to exist in the first place..

This is exactly where you keep ending up; “I don’t like raids, maybe the raid team could do more work that fundamentally changes its structure – I hope nothing bad happens.”

Just let it go… Leave raids to the raiders. Also this isn’t an election (might want to remember that, people will begin to think you’re a mad political activist seeing a political system that needs smashing everywhere you look – nothing to lose but your chains right?).

Again;

Easy mode raids are going to be a drain on resources (we want more normal raids not rehashes of old content).

Easy mode raids are going to cause instability in the design team (introducing this new goal will mess with future production – they now need to think “how will we deal with this mechanic for the easy mode?”).

Easy mode raids could overstretch the team and cause it to lag behind like the Legendary Weapon team and have it disbanded (this is a bad thing).

Easy mode raiding will devalue the prestige of items found in the real raid (Ohoni and his friends do not care about this but its still a fact people care about their items and how they aquire them).

Easy mode is unnecessary and being used purely as a protest point because some people who – if they spent as much time raiding as posting on forums – could get the rewards currently choose not to.

I am not trying to break the system. A single voice can´t break the system, I am not that naive. I am actually trying to reach for a compromise, any compromise to be honest.
You correctly assessed that I don´t care for raid mechanics and challenge. Story and an otherwise unreachable reward keep me arguing here.
Let me see the story of the raid without entering it like with that book you got at the end of season 1, then this problem is already solved.

I would be ok with an easy mode for raids, but indeed still vastly prefer to avoid them altogether. Live and let live.

We seem to agree on the idea that Anet is unable to do two things at once. Still, Anet has recently shown that they are able to distribute rewards over all of their game modes. Stretch out legendary armor to other contents like wvw or pvp and this problem is easily too. Some people don´t want this to happen. Why? Do raids stand on such a house of cards that if you remove that card, it collapses? People kept on playing WvW despite it being the red headed stepchild of Anet for years and the rewards there being laughable at best. Why should raids not be able to stand on it´s own without the crutch?

Where we don´t agree is prestige of an item. The moment someone is carried, the item is devalued in the moment that guy gets spotted repeatedly dying in the Jormag fight or something. But that is actually not much of a problem if you insist on prestige, give the stuff a different color and the problem is solved too.

Sorry to hear you have such problems entering raids, OP.

I find it a rather ridiculous concept anyway, but it is kind of grotesque that you obviously have to enter a waiting line, be willing to be humiliated in several TS sessions because you are new to the concept, and then to get into the waiting line for the real attempt now like some people here suggest.

Best of luck after all your efforts.

Coulter.2315:

Torolan.5816:

Coulter.2315:

Easy mode raids are going to be a drain on resources (we want more normal raids not rehashes of old content).

Easy mode raids are going to cause instability in the design team (introducing this new goal will mess with future production – they now need to think “how will we deal with this mechanic for the easy mode?”).

Easy mode raids could overstretch the team and cause it to lag behind like the Legendary Weapon team and have it disbanded (this is a bad thing).

Easy mode raiding will devalue the prestige of items found in the real raid (Ohoni and his friends do not care about this but its still a fact people care about their items and how they aquire them).

Easy mode is unnecessary and being used purely as a protest point because some people who – if they spent as much time raiding as posting on forums – could get the rewards currently choose not to.

PS. Communism doesn’t work (no reason at all I’m mentioning this, none at all)

Who is we? Raiders? I certainly don´t want new raids. I did not even want the one we already have now

This is exactly why you should not be consulted on the future of raiding.

I have no idea why people wish to destroy something others love and they have no interest in participating in, other than spite. You are spiteful and have motives that should be considered dangerous and unhelpful to the development of raids.

You have failed to answer any of my points.

So because I did not want something to happen from the start, I should have no voice in it even if it concerns me, even if you stubbornly try to tell people that if they don´t raid, they are not affected by it? This is not an election where you should have to stay quiet if you choose not to vote.
I also never said that I want the raid that already is there to go offline. If Anet was able to work on two things at once and stop their gating fetish, they could produce a raid every month if you ask me. But they have clearly shown that they can´t do two things at once, so of course I am concerned if the focus stays on raiding. I have no idea how you can construct spite out of this.

TheRandomGuy.7246:

Torolan.5816:

Actually, Fractals did not work this way. If you made some 20+ fractals to get the stuff needed to craft the ascended backpiece, you could fill the rest of what you neded up with lvl1 fractals if you really wanted to. 20+ was a level that the largest majority of people could do with minimal, not hours long preparation. 40+ fractals were completely optional and mainly done for ascended hests and the heck of it.

Yeah you can get ascended pretty easy in fractals, but to get fractal legendary you need to do the “hard mode”.

This is exactly what I am talking about. Ascended is nearly for “free”, “legendary” is not. Why?
The first little step on a gear treadmill? I know that people will now rush in to defend the idea that ascended and legendary are the same, so I will spare everyone the time and agree that legendary and ascended have the same stats at the moment. But maybe you can agree with me that Anet was forced or is voluneering to up their available stats piece by piece. Although nobody uses it, infusions were also a step in that direction.
Recognition by skin? Totally irrelevant for me personally, but maybge a seller for many people. I don´t know.
Incentive to do raids? My personal favorite. Anet knew that raids would be controversial in GW2 and so had to tie something prestigeous to the raid to make it viable enough and even played so hardball that dungeons were nerfed to push raids even more.
The funny thing is that people who can use the armor probably the least are the hardcore raiders! And for good reason, for someone who is looking to milk the last stat out of its equipment, legendary armor is as useful as a hairband for a bald man. So Anet completely missed the mark with that particular equipment except for the “forcing” of people into raids who probably would have thought that the effort is not worth the gain in any other instance. And for the blatant attempt alone I would refuse to raid even if I had the interest to fullfill the other requirements.

TheRandomGuy.7246:

Ohoni.6057:

Yes, exactly. The people who enjoy the current raid are already enjoying it, easy mode is intended to open it up to those who are not currently enjoying it. . . I thought that was obvious.

Easy mode is a training wheel and a way to experience the narrative and character interaction without much stress. Easy mode is not an alternative way to get normal mode achievements. Fractals work that way too. Even season 2 and season 3 work that way.

Actually, Fractals did not work this way. If you made some 20+ fractals to get the stuff needed to craft the ascended backpiece, you could fill the rest of what you neded up with lvl1 fractals if you really wanted to. 20+ was a level that the largest majority of people could do with minimal, not hours long preparation. 40+ fractals were completely optional and mainly done for ascended hests and the heck of it.

Coulter.2315:

Torolan.5816:

Oligarchy(the rule of a rich elite over everyone else) also does not work

You live in an elective oligarchy… (did you not even google it?)

It´s called democracy here, but lets take a trip to bitter voter land for a moment then. How does the fact that it is the least unacceptable solution is in place right now make it work to the satisfaction of people? You could say the same for communism, it is practiced in some places of the world and works there. Maybe not for your or my standards, but people have functional governments there.

Coulter.2315:

Easy mode raids are going to be a drain on resources (we want more normal raids not rehashes of old content).

Easy mode raids are going to cause instability in the design team (introducing this new goal will mess with future production – they now need to think “how will we deal with this mechanic for the easy mode?”).

Easy mode raids could overstretch the team and cause it to lag behind like the Legendary Weapon team and have it disbanded (this is a bad thing).

Easy mode raiding will devalue the prestige of items found in the real raid (Ohoni and his friends do not care about this but its still a fact people care about their items and how they aquire them).

Easy mode is unnecessary and being used purely as a protest point because some people who – if they spent as much time raiding as posting on forums – could get the rewards currently choose not to.

PS. Communism doesn’t work (no reason at all I’m mentioning this, none at all)

Who is we? Raiders? I certainly don´t want new raids. I did not even want the one we already have now, but Anet thought it was a good idea. If they think it is a good idea to make then more accessible, would not by your logic that be the same line of reasoning? It is good because Anet said so.

We do not know if the legendary weapons team was behind or the game was hard to program in that question.

The moment the first guy was carried throughh raids, your prestige item is already ruined.

How would you like it if you wanted to have an item that is exclusively protected by a single type of content? Soldier through countless hours of lets say WvW, despite not wanting to do it? You basically ask people to either bend over and swallow the toad and bore themselves to tears for hours with that reasoning.

Oligarchy(the rule of a rich elite over everyone else) also does not work, so what is your point with communism?

graymouser.4698:

Torolan.5816:

If I had access to teleporters, I would probably only know what a horse is if I saw one in a book. Sturdy animals like an ox find a use in agriculture, and some horses of course too, so that use is still there, but this also screams “Job for a golem!” for me. And why take an unconvenient ride if you can just teleport, or feed a horse if the friendly Golem can do the job? The technic affirmity surely is someday a running buzzsaw falling into the lap of man, but it is how it is.^^

Riding a horse for the sake of reaching a place does simply not make sense for me in Tyria, sry.

Well such lore based arguments as this one have convinced me enough now to accept that Tyria is a successful, believable world WITHOUT mounts.

If they indeed discovered magic and magical driven mechanics and because of this taming and riding ride-able mounts became unpopular, then that’s a reasonably valid explanation for me.

Still it’s a bit strange then that they still rely on swords and such and not 100% on magic driven rifles, canons and rockets etc. And that they did not develop individual transport by magical means. But yeah maybe the government wants to control all distance travel, so they just prohibited individual controlled transport. They probably register every movement in and out a portal

If someone has an idea why primitive weaponry is still being used in Tyria, please add this to the discussion!

Cheers!

Gray

I am with you if you want to imply that that Tyria does not make much sense technology wise, although only if you take basic weapons without magical properties. Police also has battons today to defend themselves in close combat, but I agree with you when you say that people should be primarily armed with guns instead of close combat weapons if they can´t stealth.

I also really think that creatures like Asura are kitten to every fantasy game with their high technology level.

Personal teleportation could just not be possible yet maybe.

randomguy.1283:

“it would be objectively worth the exact same amount”

This is COMPLETELY wrong and the fact that you don’t understand why means you need to read an economics textbook. They would be objectively worth less amount because a person would be willing to pay considerably less of real world money to get it, wether thats in the form of gems to gold or against the terms of service gold buying, it doesn’t matter. Either way, the actual real worth of the legendary armor WILL go down OBJECTIVELY no matter how many times you insist it will not.

“buying raids from other players is a toxic compromise, do better.”

Buying raids benefits both parties, it is the exact opposite of a toxic compromise. I really feel like a better understanding of economics will help you out here, this isn’t mean to be an insult, I really think it would provide better understanding of why being able to sell raids is a GOOD thing.

“But there should be reasonable paths to them for ALL players of ALL skill levels. "

No, there shouldn’t be a reasonable path for them, but I’ll admit this one isn’t an objective reason, that’s just my opinion.

Neither you or me know the break-even-point of a service like raid selling, a large number of people who buy it for less than what you seem worth it could take out more money of the economy han a little number of people paying a huge sum.
Lets take a look at real economy here:
Volkswagen produces large numbers of VW Polos and only a limited number of Audi A3s through the “daughter” company Audi. A bare VW polo costs around 20K Euro, a A3 costs 35K Euro. As a matter of fact, the Audi was, is and probably always will be a dwarf compared to Volkswagens Polo in terms of selling, despite the later being a sturdy but inferior design to the first because more common people can afford them.

The market for exclusivity is of course there, and it is aslo substantial. But money is made with the common man. Even the extremely conservative european economists urge the governments and companies to return to services for the common man and better payment because it is just more sutstainable than selling the Kardashians a Maybach once per month.

Your prestige for the legendary armor is invalidated in the moment a guy with two left hands but a full wallet buys the raids to lay his hands on it. And even if that is of no concern for you, the armor is bound to become more common over time in any way, so staying hardcore can only buy you some time.

I agree when people say that I would run through it on easy mode until I have the armor and seen the story and then never touch it again until the next raid appears and I run it once to see its story. Compared to now, where I never enter it and don´t do it. In summary, people like me would win and hardcore raiders would loose some recruitment as they would have to impress people by being friendly, supportive, patient and welcoming instead of relying on bling-bling to get them.

Sounds like win-win for me.

The idea in general is not bad. The bad thing about is that I still have zero motivation to run through HoT again because even after it has been altered, it is still the plattformer version of GW2 I never wanted to have.

If I had access to teleporters, I would probably only know what a horse is if I saw one in a book. Sturdy animals like an ox find a use in agriculture, and some horses of course too, so that use is still there, but this also screams “Job for a golem!” for me. And why take an unconvenient ride if you can just teleport, or feed a horse if the friendly Golem can do the job? The technic affirmity surely is someday a running buzzsaw falling into the lap of man, but it is how it is.^^

Riding a horse for the sake of reaching a place does simply not make sense for me in Tyria, sry.

IllegalChocolate.6938:

Sublimatio.6981:

IllegalChocolate.6938:

The day when we ask for shorter content and not longer.

Then again I was one of the people who were upset with how small the expansion was.

thats not the point, everyone would like to have more HoT story steps/maps/things to do. These are fractals, it works differently. too long=annoying.

The future of our 5 man end game content consists of 3 minute 1 room encounters with no intricacy in level design, am I the only person in this entire game who thinks this is absurd?

Lol, you have to give it to Anet, they really stand by their word in this one and could not give less of a thought about storyline.

I imagine seeing MO stand before a press conference, proudly declaring:
“Yeah well, we know that people have only made swamp because it is short. To counter this, we have now reduced EVERY fractal to just two rooms! One where you have to do something to reach the boss, then the room with the boss. If this works, we are also thinking of introducing this scenario to dungeons. Screw you, story elements!”

Shylock.4653:

Einlanzer.1627:

Raids were needed, and their popularity shows how you can’t replace controlled small group content with uncontrolled zerg content

Popularity? Do you have any proofs for that?

According to gw2efficiency

58,5% of the players have 0 Magnetite Shards = most probably, have never raided
20% of the players have > 76 Magnetite Shards = most probably, have tried raiding but weren’t very successful
10% of the players have > 240 Magnetite Shards = most probably, raids sporadic
1% of the players have > 1,271 Magnetite Shards = most probably, raids often

Content which is used regularly only by a few percent of the player base can’t be called popular. On top of that bad numbers I’m quite sure that gw2efficiency is mostly used by more ambitious players so the numbers across all players are most probably even worse.

Wow, this are really shocking news.
At worst, 31% of all GW2 players have raided and liked it enough to continue doing it more than once.
At best in my estimation, the largest number of people who have only a few shards are people who did a raid to see how it is, gained some shards and left.
So the number of people that regularly raid is at least a strong 11% and maybe as high as 20%.
Very disheartening for me as that surely means that Anet won´t let go if the idea of raids in favor of the open world soon, no matter if dungeons see a revival or not

Edit: After reading more carefully after the post of Astralporing, news are not so shocking anymore.^^

Competitive players play more that non-competitive players? Stop the printing press, colossal news incoming!^^ But still, how is the ratio from competitive to non-competitive players?

Anet treated his celebrities so well that some people quit mid season or in matches. Great stuff. By the way, I know not one PvP pro of GW2 and exactly 2 PvE reviewers by name.

If Anet was only capable of doing all these things and not just one at a time as if they were working as package workers in a factory, only one thing at a time.

PvP at least did it better than PvE this time. Even it is still boring to watch and play, you can get some easy AP without needing hours to understand how it works.

It was not even a total flop, HoT gets better once you reach higher levels of gliding and talking to X creature.
I am not against festivals, quite the contrary. I am against the same festival I had last year. Not the theme, but the exact same festival with another currency.
And there are indeed some events in HoT that are not directly linked to the meta. I thought you meant other events somewhere else on Tyria.
I confused mastery points with hero points, my bad on Nr 5.

I don´t think that Anet made a contest to find the most capable devs and put them into raids while the leftovers have to toil over the rest of GW2. It still baffles me how there can be so much content from one side and so little content from the other, and the first thought coming to mind is to give the game a new direction. Maybe that is my tin foil hat speaking, how could a company be interested in loosing so many customers, but it just does not make sense to assume incompetence in such a number of professional game designers for me.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Rednik.3809:

And its not about believing or not. As I said, its all about pure facts. We getting raid content and we not getting other content. We getting information about Anet happy with locking exclusive types of items behind raids and NO word about adding anything else for anyone else.

It’s literally “Eat raid or gtfo. What, you don’t like raids or like something else? Too bad, because you not getting anything else. Oh, and we plan to add more raid content, hope you like raids.”

Your post is not facts, it’s hyperbole and impatience. You want facts? OK, here they are.

In the last 7 months:

Raids

• 6 bosses; some trash
• Some rewards, but the big one isn’t here yet

Other PvE

• 4 maps (OK, maybe 3.5 if running around DS is not your thing)
• Each contains a meta cycle, so 4 of those
• Each map contains several boss encounters, VB alone has 5
• Exploration objectives and Easter eggs
• Other events
• Multiple armor and weapon sets
• Legendary journeys for Precursors V. 1.0
• Two festivals
• Shatterer revamp
• Gliding in core Tyria
• Mastery system, which is mostly open PvE stuff

WvW

• 1 new map, triplicated (which was at least a partial disaster)

Going forward:

Raids

• 1 new wing, so 3 more bosses
• Maybe L. Armor will appear, maybe not

Other PvE

• April update (whatever it is)
• LS S3 (whenever it hits)
• July update, whatever it is
• HoT revamp, whatever it is, whenever it hits

People who prefer “other” PvE had to wait about 9 months for HoT. People who prefer harder instanced content have waited a lot longer for not as much.

Those are the facts. Your perspective amounts to, “We haven’t had any PvE content since HoT and raids got 2/3’s of what HoT was supposed to deliver.” You want to be angry that ANet is no longer churning out updates every few weeks? Blame them. You want to blame other players? Blame the ones who burned LS in effigy every time it was offered. For all I know, you were one of them.

1. 4 maps. Aside from Drytop, how many plattformer maps had been released until HoT? If you are a vanilla GW2 fan, HoT is as much problem as solution to the content drought.
2. A meta circle. So what? Kessex Hills contains a meta circle too, except that there is no special reward for doing it. Every PvE map has it, it just restarts more often most of the time.
3. Ok? Boss encounters. What would a PvE map be without bosses? How does that upgrade HoT compared to other maps and raids in that regard?
4. Where has the time gone by when JP were optional?
5. What other events?
6. Festivals, I am pretty sure that Anet had to work overtime to bring the same stale festival over and over again.
7+8. Ok, this is undispitably helpful.
9. Mastery system was so grerat that Anet had to backpeddle as quick as possible with it.

For me, it looks like Anet puts in the absolute minimum for casuals right now and the absolute maximum for raiders. Not that they were overly creative with their festival stuff anyway and ls2 was a brutal desaster, but it was not on that scale yet. If that tactic proves successfull for them and they continue to exclusively churn out stuff like raids, my favorite game that I considered a refugee from raidcentric MMOs is no more.

randomguy.1283:

Torolan.5816:

To be honest I could not care less about your enjoyment, and you should not care for mine, randomguy. Raids are a reality in GW2, I already had to swallow that toad. And with the selling of raids, Ohoni does not need to devalue the rewards, that is something that already the seller does then.

So what are you suggesting to do?
Giving up and admitting that raids took over GW2 for now, stop playing and look for another game when I don´t want to be fed with morsels? Vote with the feet so to say? Or stay a little bit longer and wait for ls?
Please keep in mind if you are so kind to answer me that I am neither interested in learning or buying raids and I already know that old content is old and still there.

“To be honest I could not care less about your enjoyment” Well thanks.

“So what are you suggesting to do? stop playing and look for another game when I don´t want to be fed with morsels?” Yes, go somewhere else, please, you bring nothing but toxicity to this game just based on that first line.
And thanks for proving my point that you are toxic…

If you quote me, have at least the decency to quote me in full as I also stated that you should not think of my enjoyment with what GW2 offers lately.
You can enjoy and keep your raiding, I already said that but this is not the point. It does just not affect me that you enjoy raiding, maybe I said it a little bit harsh and if that is the case, I apologize for it. I don´t enjoy it and was asking for suggestions what you would do when you are not intending to raid and had 16 months of only very meager content else wise.

To be honest I could not care less about your enjoyment, and you should not care for mine, randomguy. Raids are a reality in GW2, I already had to swallow that toad. And with the selling of raids, Ohoni does not need to devalue the rewards, that is something that already the seller does then.

So what are you suggesting to do?
Giving up and admitting that raids took over GW2 for now, stop playing and look for another game when I don´t want to be fed with morsels? Vote with the feet so to say? Or stay a little bit longer and wait for ls?
Please keep in mind if you are so kind to answer me that I am neither interested in learning or buying raids and I already know that old content is old and still there.

Sarrs.4831:

Torolan.5816:

If this turns out to be true and Anet continues to devote so much time to raids as they do right now(in output, not in dev time)

The only reason we’re seeing ‘so much’ of the raids (we aren’t, 6 bosses in 5 months is pretty average) is because they were one of the only teams which was continuing to develop content after the launch of the expansion. The entire issue is the development pipeline around HoT was a complete full tilt from LS content to expansion content; that tilt caused the first 8 month content drought, and the tilt back from expansion content to LS content has caused the last 8 months. Blaming the raid dev team like this is a lazy scapegoat.

Therefore I wrote in output, not in dev time. I don´t really care if the number of bosses is poor, average or good to be honest, I think that the raid team does a good enough job to make raiders satisfied. But that does not help me in any way. As a matter of fact, Anet has only thrown me some morsels over the last 16 months as you say, and my patience with them is starting to run low.

So if they stay this way like Rising Dusk suggests, it is their way of showing me the door, at least for the foreseeable future.

Rising Dusk.2408:

Some thoughts:

• It’s fine if there are other sources of legendary armor. What matters is that the particular legendary armor available in the Forsaken Thicket is only available in the Forsaken Thicket. This is just the first place that it has been introduced; I expect it to show up elsewhere and in raids in future expansions.
• The raid team operates almost entirely independently from other groups barring involvement from the lore / narrative team and the sound team. They are very efficient at their work, and have a proven track record thus far of both listening to the community and making very high quality content.
• Raids are very active and are contributing to player retention.
• The current plan is to have a raid in the next expansion. This may change, though given the success of the team I seriously doubt it.

Note: I do not speak for ArenaNet, but I do speak with them, sometimes in-game. I am not bound by an NDA, but I also don’t want to throw any devs under the bus if they talk to me. Suffice it to say that as far as I understand, ANet considers raids a resounding success both in their impact on player retention and in keeping raiders raiding, and at this point they expect the next expansion will have a raid.

If this turns out to be true and Anet continues to devote so much time to raids as they do right now(in output, not in dev time), I´ll probably finally be able to give up on GW2 despite clinging to it for the last year or so and its change of direction. If there were only a viable alternative right now that comes with a boxed set, maybe Star Citizen will do the trick for me when it comes out.

Beldin.5498:

Torolan.5816:

That would actually be a kick in the balls of everyone who bought HoT for the legendaries. Therfore I say it will happen.^^

I guess also they will sell those Legendarys now forever .. in every expansion that
will see the light of the world .. THIS expansion will now really bring you all the
missing legendarys .. oh no, not this time .. but the next will bring them really,
but maybe not at release .. but at least when the next expansion is released ^^

I can imagine MO, grininng from ear to erar, bring the news:
“Ok, we did not manage to bring them all to you this time, but we have made a nice legendary spear for you! Be grateful!”
^^

That would actually be a kick in the balls of everyone who bought HoT for the legendaries. Therfore I say it will happen.^^

HoT mobs are not the problem. If you leave your berserk thief at home and can play your class, you will die sometimes but surely not when you learned how to deal with them.
HoT maps are the problem. If you are like me, you need some time to see what is going on on a map. I loose interest quickly when I can´t even reach a Mastery point and fight for it because it is encircled by walls you can only breach with tricks.

Sarrs.4831:

Torolan.5816:

This is not necesarily true or the full truth. We know for sure the legendary weapons team was axed, and we also know that the raid team has delivered what was asked from them until now.
A higher number of people raid in GW2 than in WOW. Point for you, true enough. I would still like to remind you that statistcs can be spun around various expectations, questions and goals.

Sure, statistics can be manipulated- but what motive do they have for manipulating the statistics when they’re taking hits elsewhere? What motive do they have for pumping up an audience that is, if assumptions are correct, so small relative to the rest of the game? Is there a reasonable alternative explanation? I don’t see in what world ANet wins by saying “yeah raids are doing pretty well!” when they’re actually doing terribly.

Torolan.5816:

We indeed do not know if the raid team is not finishing what they are doing right now(raid wing 3) and MO will come out again and say the same he did with the legendary weapons team. Of course he could have said that right from the front when he bend over for the leg. weapons to get it over with, but he had a trump card he later played with SAB to appease the players and he also would have lost the raiders right now instead of loosing them in some months where they still buy gems now.

Sure, that’s possible, but that’s speculation- and it’s speculation that goes directly contrary against what they’ve publicly released. I don’t see what’s in it for them to openly lie like that.

Torolan.5816:

I am not saying that this is going to happen, but it is a scenario as likey as yours.

Hey, what will happen, will happen. And I don’t have a horse in this race; I’m not raiding anyway. More content development pushed towards me from raids dying off should probably be to my benefit.

Again a speculation for why a statistic is bloomy(not wrong, bloomy):
Damage control. Let´s say someone, maybe MO himself or Colin Johansson, pushed for raids to raise numbers. He did probably think that this move would be bold and drive people away, but thought that the number going would be smaller than raids attracting people. The bomb fell, raids did well, but the number of casuals dropped rapidly. Anet actually admitted that F2P to HoT does not go well, so of course there has to be a success to present in the next spring numbers for shareholders and investors.

MO stated something akin to the idea that he would look at the manifesto again and promote open world when he axed the legendary weapon team. The manifesto is written for casual gamers, I hope nobody is going to deny that.

I have no doubt that raids fared better than I personally had hoped they would, but I still hope the number is not good enough to continue them. I am sorry for the people that like to raid, but I think that raiding should have no prominent place in GW2 for a lot of reasons. Some of them are business related in a way I see my favirite game going down the drain, other are gameplay related as I see my style of playing getting the short stick, and some are utterly selfish like simply not wanting to be a second class citizen without bending over to the raid community.

Sarrs.4831:

They haven’t announced that they’re diverting resources from raids to produce Living World content. It’s almost like… Hmmm. It’s like spending resources to create raids for the current raiding audience is a perfectly serviceable arrangement. Who would have thought? It’s… It’s almost like…

Maybe, if they’re continuing to make raids… Then raids have met and exceeded their target expectations.

This is not necesarily true or the full truth. We know for sure the legendary weapons team was axed, and we also know that the raid team has delivered what was asked from them until now.
A higher number of people raid in GW2 than in WOW. Point for you, true enough. I would still like to remind you that statistcs can be spun around various expectations, questions and goals.
We indeed do not know if the raid team is not finishing what they are doing right now(raid wing 3) and MO will come out again and say the same he did with the legendary weapons team. Of course he could have said that right from the front when he bend over for the leg. weapons to get it over with, but he had a trump card he later played with SAB to appease the players and he also would have lost the raiders right now instead of loosing them in some months where they still buy gems now.
I am not saying that this is going to happen, but it is a scenario as likey as yours.

I am sorry that I have to quote this from another thread, but it was just too good to pass by. I am not necessarily of the same opinion as Farzo but I let it in for the sake of understanding where it is coming from, so just read it to the last sentence please:

Sird.4536:

Farzo.8410:

Because usually these players that raid are being so tryhard to make it into an “elitist” thing, so I can’t bother with it anymore.

Full ascended gear on 3 different professions is apparently required to enter a raid group.

Yeah, no… not going to bother with that. I can dedicate time and skill, gold, food and whatnot, but I’m not going to bother filling 2 more professions with ascended equipment because these raiding players thinks it’s necessary.

It makes me cringe when elitist players try to make a game that is casual into something hardcore.

In certain guilds they ask for that because certain class stacking is pointless. It has nothing to do with elitism. You can’t expect to bring a bunch of mesmers and not hit enrage. There are plenty of guilds out there that accommodate all sorts of players and there is no reason why you can’t start your own group in LFG or from friends.

It makes me cringe the amount of casuals that want to turn this casual game even more casual.

I think whoever stated that only 4 or 5 people want raids gone, changed significantly or marginalized at least here on the boards stands corrected when it is even stated by a pro-raid enthusiast.^^

Sarrs.4831:

Torolan.5816:

Of course they have the 3 needed components you may say now, but lets be honest here for a moment: Has Anet ever shown that they can satisfy two groups at once? I can´t remember something like that happening.

PvPers are somewhat satisfied at the moment; does that count?

Oh yes, I see people lying in the arms of each other while they celebrate being stuck in tiers or having to deal with scrubs like me who are in for the AP and brutally suck at PvP when they have to fight people that are really dedicated to it. There is of course always crying in PvP over balance, but crying over matchmaking balance is a rather new concept there.^^

ZudetGambeous.9573:

I think it is time to get this thread back to the basics: Are raids good for GW2?

Answer: Yes

Explanation: Pre-raids there were 2-3 threads a month talking about the game lacked end game content and that there was no repeatable content to do that kept players interested in the game in between content droughts. You’ll notice that in the last 6 months not a single one of those threads has popped up because we now have raids to fill that gap. This is a huge boon to Anet since it takes a lot of the negative pressure off of them in terms of endgame content and allows them to focus on appeasing the casual players.

Reducing the difficulty of raids or putting in an easy mode would defeat the whole premise of raids and bring back the multiple complaint threads about how there is nothing to do since everyone will just farm the easy mode and be done with it in minutes. In conclusion:

Raids = Good
Easy mode Raids = Bad

If that was only the full truth.
Yes, raids should stay hard mode. If not, people looking for harder content indeed will indeed never shut up. The problem with this is, they won´t shut up anyway when Anet refocuses on casuals.
“The first raid ended 3 months ago. Where is raid wing Nr. 1 of raid 2? Casuals get all your attention!”
Sounds familiar? This is what has happened the last 6 months in GW2, but with reversed groups. Raids are the first content that has really divided people in a big way.

Now as Anet has opened that can of worms for whatever reason, they have to deal with it. If they do not deal with it, MO will have to come to the forums again someday, drop his pants and bend over like he did with legendary weapons and admit that Anet has not the organization, manpower, money or a combination of the 3 to cater to casuals and raiders at the same time. The to be expected backlash of this has surely made people very nervous at Anet, and if you look at the legendary weapons thread with a significantly less important topic, people are already livid there. I don´t think they want to have another piece of this cake, but they have painted themselves in a corner now in my opinion.

Of course they have the 3 needed components you may say now, but lets be honest here for a moment: Has Anet ever shown that they can satisfy two groups at once? I can´t remember something like that happening.