Guild Wars 2

Acnologia.6934:

If i wanted a place for serious business i was at work…..

…

It tells its own tale.

I have no clue if this is the intention behind the disabling of those potions in the first place but in my opinion it prevents using possible exploits. In the past there were several exploits with potions and other stuff in dungeons and fractals so if you shut them down from the start you don’t have to care about eventualities.

Also, raids are serious business – no place for joking.

Benjamin Arnold.3457:

Thanks guys, we worked really hard on this and I’m glad it paid off! I hope this sets the standard for what you all can expect from us going forward.

Cameron Rich.3905:

We’re stoked to hear the positive responses today, and like Ben said, this should set the standard for what to expect going forward.

See you all in the Nightmare.

Nice to hear. Looks like every PvE aspect of the game is getting its appropriate portion of attention in reasonable time frames now.

I don’t think so. Old dungeons are falling in the same category of content and they were never touched again.
It’s more that they are serving to a players wish: having ls1 content back in the game. Since the raid team has brought us new, unique stuff in a short amount of time I bet the people developing fractals can do as well.

TheFantasticGuy.7206:

Well, Vince… Hate to break it to you but that’s what Fractals are for now.

Swamp, Uncategorized, Underground Facility, Aquatic Ruins, Cliffside, Volcanic, Solid Ocean…nuff said.

They should work on new stuff after releasing the Tower on monday, marionette and I don’t mind Scarlet fight.

TheFantasticGuy.7206:

Vinceman.4572:

Sad. Again refurbished and rewarmed stuff.

Wasn’t that point of fractals, though? To reuse content and refresh it at the same time?

Nah, not rly.

Linken.6345:

Well we are getting somewere are all the raiders willing to wait for the pve armor journey and skin to be finished before releaseing both then?

I doubt that this would happen and it’s not the raiders’ choice. These are Anets’ plans, raiders have no influence at that. And the problem is they needed so long to develop this specific leggy armor with the collections etc., another armor isn’t even near to be finished. Big deal imho, but it is like it is.

Linken.6345:

Well if thats all you want why do you deserve a special reward for it?
The content it self is what you were after and enjoy doing right?
So if others want same reward for content they enjoy doing that shouldent be a problem, time to get the devs to release the legendary armor skin and all in all game modes then.

At first, you always need a sort of reward in every game mode in a game otherwise nobody would replay it and the development would be a waste.

Besides actual item rewards you can have a cinematic as reward for example in single player games with a good story, winning in a pure PvP game and climbing up a ladder is also a reward for you effort and in mmos it’s quite usual that you were given items. Even in GW2 PvP is compensating you with rewards.

We’ve already stated that the idea of a legendary armor just for raid player wasn’t their best decision. There should have been at least another PvE armor, I don’t mind if it could be obtained via PvP as well. Sure, with another look but it should be there. Like fractal backpiece vs. PvP backpiece and so on.

Lakemine.3014:

But then they go and make it MORE expensive!??! I have no want to go for it now, because it will take two times longer to make and two times more expensive now!?!? sigh (btw, I have tried all the ways to make gold, run AB multi loot maps, run SW, run fractals, do pvp dailys, do the easy wvw dailys, sell stuff ect ect…….I have the gutter end of luck and still only make about 5g a day, if I do fractals its like 7 or 8, and that’s IF I do them, but I don’t like wasting 2 hours on one boss.)

If you are constantly playing the daily T4 fracs and you have enough practice, you need less than an hour for all T4 fractals. Some days if you are lucky and the fractal choice is comfortable it is possible to do them in around 20 minutes, even with pugs (random people).
All in all you get around 10-12 gold (average) per day if you sell everything and a good chance of ascended chests.
Players who play fractals regularly are drowning in chests. And even if they don’t get the pieces they need, the daily gold is enough to craft the missing pieces fast. It has never been easier to obtain asc armor. Just go for T4 fracs and you will see it.
Of course you have a harder mission to manage if you are new. That’s the same thing in every other online game. GW2 already is one of the most forgiving and easy game outta here.

Tbh, I picked your complete post and split it into parts dependent on their content. Nothing what couldn’t separated was separated!

The first part was essential because that what you have stated is just simply wrong and was discussed here several times!
Nobody is negating the content drought we had in the past and it is still an issue but it’s not related to raids!

And sorry if you feel excluded but everybody who put effort in the past and was willing to raid has been successful. There are several examples in this subforum. So, if you want to exclude yourself, go ahead and do so but if you really want to raid, you won’t have a problem if you can adapt to team play and bring social skills with you.

In addition to that we already reminded the devs of the shard issue. I totally agree that they should hand out a bugfix/change on this. No question.

My suggestion to buy one single kill is for the ones who cannot wait because we know it can take “forever” until Anet is fixing something. It is a possibility, not a must.

Goin back to “exclusion” – I have seen people raiding from whom I have never thought they were able to when I met them ingame before. The fact that you don’t need special team compositions, the fact that we have low-man runs with 3 people and usually you go in with 9 buddies clearly shows that raids aren’t hard at all.
But it’s your mind set – if you don’t want to I won’t see any chance for you to achieve your goal to play raids successfully.

According to your last point: You don’t need the mastery to do escort. You need one single person to run through the cave. I haven’t seen it by a player without the second raid wing mastery, so that’s 1 out of 10 players. The usual pug escort have enough of those ppl so it’s no problem that there are several players without the mastery. Pls inform yourself better!

Bandrell.4357:

For one, I’m not comfortable with the idea of having to use weapons that don’t fit my playstyle.

Sorry, but this is the last argument I can take into account if it comes to raiding and problems. Seriously, in wide over 90% of the game content you can play what you want and just because you have to use another weapon inside of raids you don’t play them? I mean this is pure castigation

Bandrell.4357:

Second, I don’t care for not being able to have a main and sticking to it; you’re encouraged and even expected to be able to play multiple.professions. I don’t know about everyone else, but my joy in this game is picking a style of play and immersing myself in that class entirety. Raids don’t allow that, or more accurately, the community is against it.

There are many options nowadays but for me it’s the same thing like the weapon. What is the problem to play your class/char one single time different than from the rest of the time? I mean, you hurt yourself with it instead of giving it a chance, play the raid class you are most comfortable with and enjoy the content. Heck, if I would have insisted on to only play warrior I wouldn’t have killed all bosses till today. It’s a group organisation thing. What could be better than being part in a group that is pleased and happy because everybody contributed to the team play and made the team winning. It’s group content so everybody has to put his own benefit on hold for the team. Maybe raids aren’t for you then.

Bandrell.4357:

Third, I prefer smaller group content, whereally I can (haven’t yet, but I’m still looking) more intimately get to know everyone I am playing with. In raids, you become more of a cog in a wheel, a number or necessity rather than a person. That is just not cool.

The most comfortable raid runs are these where you laugh, make jokes, wipe together, win together, talk to each other and have a real good time in ts/discord. You don’t have to choose an anonymous pug run. I often opened my own group in my language and set a starting date 30min – 1hour before. People were entering asap and since we have filled up there were always nice talkings and interesting discussions.

Tekey.7946:

1. Release with HoT and resources Dungeons were scrapped

Wrong, dungeons were dead aeons before HoT. They were only played for gold & speedclearing/records. Furthermore no dev has been working on them since years, no new stuff, no major bugfixing or any other related thing to dungeon development even though the community worked towards it and made big efforts to revive dungeons. Many many many bugs, little improvements and other stuff were collected in super duper perfect formats but only soakened up by the company and nothing happened.
Don’t forget: The original dungeon dev team was fired relative shortly after core game release.

Tekey.7946:

…and the last fractals were released in November 2013. So what did they do? They released raids instead.
It took them almost 3 years (July 2016) to release a single new fractal. Don’t you think that the manpower of the raid team could have been needed in the fractal team instead?
We always hear Anet doesn’t have enough resources for that. We won’t get new weapon types, new playable races, new dungeons because they don’t have enough resources. Yet, they decided to provide a raid team for a game mode that currently appeals solely to a small percentage of players.

Also not correct. They had to revamp the fractal structure as a whole for HoT or better said: They did it when nobody asked for that! From a players perspective they didn’t have to but they included HoT stuff into fractals (fractal mastery).
So, in the end it was obvious that there hasn’t been any new fractal with the release of HoT due to the massive overhaul.

Raids were a different thing. There was no infrastructure and they could have been planned from the scratch. Additionally, if you compare a dungeon to a raid wing. It’s obvious that there are way more love, lore and details in a dungeon than in a raid.

Tekey.7946:

No matter what caused the financial reports of the last 2 quarters, if you’re in Anet’s situation, you’re not in the right position to exclude the majority of your players from anything right now.

Nobody is excluded. You exclude yourself from raiding if you don’t want to.

Tekey.7946:

They are excluded from obligatory mastery tracks, needed to get xp (and spirit shards) in HoT and LW3 areas. If you want to get xp again, you have to raid. Can you imagine how frustrating it is to do events and the living story, getting 50.000xp but they’re just gone? Your xp bar will forever stay at 0/0, no matter if you’re in Verdant Brink, Ember Bay or the new ice map, that has nothing to do with the Maguuma masteries.

That’s also wrong. You are able to max out every open world mastery track and you get enough points outside from raids. Moreover, you are just excluded from the raid mastery track which is not obligatory for open world content at all and the shards. Nothing else. The shard thing is a problem, I agree but you can play Escort (Raid wing 3 – first encounter) which is more an event than a raid encounter, and open the mastery for ya to obtain shards again!
If you are not willing to you could also buy a raid kill from an offering guild. Prices are not that huge nowadays.

Tekey.7946:

you’ll just log out when you finished your daily routine. Maybe you’ll even take a break for months until the next episode of the Living world is released. That won’t increase the finances of Anet.

That’s a problem of content drought and it’s not related or dependent on raids.

Tekey.7946:

Bobby Stein stated that Raids are not part of our Living World episodes; they are separate game elements.
They broke that promise with the third raid wing, being the introduction to Bloodstone Fen. Non-raiders missed the plans of the White Mantle to revive Lazarus. They got to Bloodstone Fen and wooosh Lazarus appeared out of nowhere. Great job of providing raids as a separate game element that are not part of the Living World episodes.

Also absolutely incorrect. The sidestory doesn’t give an valuable information to the main story. Even if you defeat all raid bosses you still have no clue about Lazarus and a possible appearance of him later on.

Repeating wrong statements don’t make them right!

nagr.1593:

Your not making as strong an argument as u think. The common answer to this is ‘make ur own LFG?’ but have u any repeated trials of this to really prove ur point? I challenge u to post throughout diff times of day, morning, afternoon, whatever and see how long it takes grp to fill. An exp group for sloth today (two days before reset) take more than hour to go and when I came back I saw they were still at 5/10. That’s not to even mention those grps where u find 6/10, then everyone disbands cos there’s no leader or tag in group. You should not be forced to spend 300g to prevent this from happening. It’s unrealistic. Just like u would expect everyone in TS to use mics. U obviously don’t have enough experience in this to actually expect ppl to take ur word for it.

Why not make it more interesting and ask only for absurd LI reqs. See how much longer it takes for grp to fill, before u or anyone else accuse him of hyperbole. It is it really hyperbole in truth? I don’t think so

Dude, I have raided several months with success in this game. With a static group and also with pugs. Almost 200 LIs right now (most of them with pugs), all obtained with different classes (warrior, necro, tempest, druid and revenant – could have been more but I don’t play engi, guard, chrono and thief otherwise I would have tried with them if I was asked for to switch).
Rarely, I have been a silent participant who has been carried but most of the time I was actively talking at TS and here it comes: I have also lead raid groups as a commander, including organizing, inviting, explaining and executing over hours.* And I had more than just usual success for example oneshotting VG, oneshotting Gorse and bringing new players to their first kills plus many more.

While doing that I never had to wait more than 30 minutes getting my group filled and I used LI restrictions + killproofs a lot – no problem to ask for 50 LIs Gorse or 80 LIs Sabetha/Sloth and so on!
It’s just a matter of how you write things in the lfg so that players are willing to join. The more profound and intelligent you write the more people are willing to join and have a nice time with your group. I agree that many “gamers” aren’t showing high social or intellectual levels but if you are using agreeable communicating skills people will feel comfortable and join you.

I read many postings of you since now and I don’t want to be mean but here in this forums you have shown an attitude that would not mesh with my ingame requirements for a raiding group. So, if you are not able to set up a proper, kind and interesting lfg for a raid group, that’s your problem not mine. I don’t have difficulties in raiding, you have or at least you were reporting some of them.

Of course I don’t raid at night or in the morning. Here I am using my brain: Most of the people are working, going to school or studying so do I. Surprise, surprise, we won’t find many raid groups from 1am – 4pm. That’s no different from other games. If you, nagr, have shift work: Tough luck! That’s life – you choosed!

Vinceman.4572:

And do u have proof of this otherwise? Something that doesn’t apply to niche times or primetime when most players are raiding, like first few days after reset or right around daily reset or so? If you don’t have definitive proof of this that doesn’t only apply to a slice of a week where raiders are most active, then don’t state otherwise. For instance, I’ve noticed an increasing dearth of exp and willing raiders as weekly reset approaches, and especially around early morning times. What u might feel as truth might not as such to everyone, thus not the complete truth

LOL! I don’t have to proof it. He came up with an unproven argument and his argument wasn’t the thing of playing next to weekly raid reset. You haven’t understood: He said the number of raiders is not big enough that the system can be healthy for long. Well, this system is still working and raiders are raiding – over a year now. So, his assumption is wrong till we notice differences.
On your argument of raids being played rarely at weekends: That’s the same thing in other games too. You get your sh_t done before reset and most often you do it fast so that there is room for other stuff you can do. It’s no miracle that you would not meet that many groups at weekend than mondays or tuesdays!
Your illogical objection about not having enough ppl in the morning has also been answered by me: The common human has more important things to do during morning time than to play video games —> school, university, college, work!

Ah, the “raids are the root of all evil”-card.

First of all, I don’t see “more and more people” asking for raids. I see the same people here in this forum complaining and not accepting that their ideas are bad in almost all cases. Besides that there are some folks joining here and there raising their voice.
Still, there is no meaningful group picking up torches and pitchforks and demonstrating against raids.

Second,

“Besides…even more raids? The abundance of pvp/wvw/normalpve content is so overwhelming that they found resources to throw on even more raids? (but this depends on when they add those raids….even so it concerns me)”

this statement and the connections between are not correct. The late release of content after HoT release was due to a massive complaint about the grind factor and the difficulty of the HoT maps. So they had to revamp everything. No wonder why we had to wait such a long time for new open world content. The raid team has to deal with a linear instanced content – easier to develop, smaller and with only a few enemies with few newer mechanics.
Also, WvW has always been an issue and I can’t remember any superspecial decision that has resurrected this game mode since its peaks. Even here, raids have nothing to do with that. I could be mistaken here but I am more than convinced that PvP and WvW teams have 0,0% direct connection to the development of open world stuff.

Rebound.3409:

9/10 players don’t even consider raiding because of toxicity, all mmos have that, but this one actually encourages it.

Even though we have raids, the toxicity level is way smaller than during dungeon prime time. The time I was raiding I only met very few groups with toxic attitude. I have to add it wasn’t the group but distinct players inside. You have these bad apples in every game mode. Heck, I read more toxic things while being at Cursed Shore and Silver Wastes than inside any raid group at all.

Rebound.3409:

Have a system that actually has players. I am sorry but as a random, sitting in LFG sometimes for hours to find a group and when u do find a group, disband after 1 whipe or something and then having to invest even MORE dead time is not ok.

Next card: The “No-Effort-” or “I don’t take responsibility”-card.
If you really don’t find a group which is interesting because there are many groups demanding for players if you don’t focus on the night which is obvious because ppl sleeping, go open your own lfg.
This has been the same thing since dungeon prime time. People complaining, complaining and complaining but no one ever opened an own group. It’s a mentality I cannot accept, like “the game has to offer me this and that” and be a servant to me. Sorry, it doesn’t work like that. If you have social issues or you are not a leader, fine, but don’t blame the game. Yes, I’m tired myself after being the leader at work but still I opened lfgs and most often people came in and took over because they had good ideas, were in a good mood or have been commanding before and realized that this group needs a lead since nobody was willing to do it.

Rebound.3409:

“Go find a raiding group/guild” is not for everyone and should never come down to that.

System was installed for organized groups before release. It was no miracle or lucky bag. We got what has been announced.

Rebound.3409:

The system that is now implemented has no where near the number of active raid players necessary to maintain it at a healthy rate.

And sure, you have a proof for that. No? Ok, then you believe what you have to and raiders continue raiding.

Yeah, my question to him was more like rhetorical. It contributed nothing but an insult.

No, seriously. Nothing has changed. Why would nothing widen the the gap?

Ohoni.6057:

They didn’t have to be developed with tiers in mind for tiers to be implemented. They already have all the tools they need to copy/paste the raid, then tweak the bosses down slightly, then provide players access to these duplicate wings via the same UI they currently use to choose between raid wings. All the bits already exists, they just need to combine them.

But they won’t.

gg

Cronos.6532:

Add an infantile and tribulation mode to raids and balance achievements/rewards accordingly

And block new raid content for an indefinite amount of time due to development issues?

No thx!

MashMash.1645:

Oh hey, its the guy who got his guild kicked from raid testing.

Please bless us with your wisdom senpai. Also, any more leaks?

Tbh that thing of stupidity was funny but what is the purpose of your post mentioning that? Or better, what are you contributing to the recent discussion?

Jahroots.6791:

Ayrilana.1396:

Vinceman.4572:

Sad. Again refurbished and rewarmed stuff.

Fractals based on LS1 events have been requested by players. If you don’t like it then you don’t have to play it.

Re-purposed content is great, but this is the kind of thing we should have gotten bundled together (Chaos, Tower of Nightmares, Glint’s Lair etc) months ago, and have some brand new fractals to look forward to.

Absolutely agree.

Ayrilana.1396:

Vinceman.4572:

Sad. Again refurbished and rewarmed stuff.

Fractals based on LS1 events have been requested by players. If you don’t like it then you don’t have to play it.

I’ve also asked for that but not Tower of Nightmare because it was the worst part out of all old stuff, in my opinion.

It’s fine that there is a new fractal, finally! But after Chaos again no real new stuff so it is not illegitimate to ask for what they are doing the whole time and why there hasn’t been any extraordinary new fractal when raids and LS3 are delivering.

Sad. Again refurbished and rewarmed stuff.

On the contrary, most EU groups are gentle, open-minded and not toxic at all. Be sure that you meet the requirements, listen to the commander and be a teamplayer.
Behaving like a d_ck or saying you are a “pro” which is not verifiable only by telling it will obviously result in a kick.
I had the previous poster in one of my groups, it was advertised as “exp”, he wasn’t, so he got kicked. That’s the reason why he is writing such a post because it is very safe he behaved like this several times and had to deal with the consequences every single time.

I just corrected you on one thing you were wrong and derailed nothing with that.

Obtena.7952:

That’s a nice sentiment but you don’t know that anymore than I do not. It’s not really relevant anyways. The fact is that regardless of the reason, I am correct; the changes do create a more inclusive and challenging environment in raids, even if it is just a coincidence.

It’s not a sentiment. They have reacted earlier when things were unintended or not in the line with their plans.

And to the other thing – I wasn’t participant in the discussion – I state you are wrong but because it is your feeling that you are right and it’s hard to rationalize someone’s feelings.

Obtena.7952:

There is if they didn’t think it was hard enough or for whatever other reason they had. They don’t actually need a reason to justify changes to players if we are being honest.

If it were so, they would have reacted sooner.

The assumption also contradicts the recent statements of raids being fine for them.

I still don’t see any profound connection to PvE “issues”, it definitely was a PvP & WvW thing.

Obtena.7952:

It’s wrong that these changes lead to a more inclusive and challenging raiding environment? No, I don’t think that’s wrong.

That’s not what I meant. I’m saying that they had no intention to make raids more challenging on purpose now, at this time point. Without having new elite specs or other new introductions into the game there is no reason to make content harder if it wasn’t over one year. That would be like: “Ah yo guys, they killed our raid bosses way too often since raids are out, let’s make them harder even though 12 months have passed since their release.”

First of all the changes had to do with PvP and were not directly connected to raids. If it were like this and they would know what they are doing, we would have seen nerfs on different classes too where it is way more necessary.

Obtena.7952:

Primarily, because raids were too easy with excessive boon durations and sharing.
Secondly, because the compositions were biased too much against unfavoured classes

So basically, if Anet is advertising an inclusive and challenging raiding environment, everything that got nerfed moves them in that direction.

But that’s wrong. They are pleased how raids are going. I really doubt that they nerf things for making the wings harder if the first is out for a year, the second 6 months and 3rd 3 months. It makes no sense at all, they would have reacted faster.

Raids are not blocking “relevant in-game lore”. Someone who is saying that has never dealt with raids and their lore profoundly.
The story is kinda non-existent and has no impact on every other story outside of raids. Only people having no clue of raids could make such statement. It’s a little side story and just a filler to not run through emptyness and kill some mobs without any connection to each other. Lore hunter would be disappointed if they would go in just for the lore experience.

But nevermind, keep going with wrong assumptions and statements. I also like the “sales-gate” about raids being the evil. Forum hasn’t been entertaining like this since months.

Ohoni.6057:

…

You already told it to yourself: All the things have to coexist on one single map with mechanics being active at the same time while they aren’t in a raid wing.
Not to mention way more space you can move on while following a narrow path in the raid tube, way more different enemy types while actual raids have a handful with HoT-mechanics (!) and open world map designs are richer in details and depths than raids. Also the story is intensive compared to some sentences and notes laying on the ground of the raid path.
You really shouldn’t compare the raid with an open world map especially not when you haven’t travelled through the raid and beaten all encounters as you have already declared to the audience here.

Ohoni.6057:

So what? They still could have spent that time on content for everyone, and it would have been available within the same timeframe.

Let’s assume we wouldn’t have had raids. I’ll give you the shot!
How many additional maps would be outta there? While I say 1 more because the whole raid with 9 bosses won’t even come close to a comparison of a complete HoT map. More is unrealistic as hell – keep in mind the release of all the new maps in the past I mentioned in my previous post.
So, one map plus to the content we have now.

First of all: A another big amount of players wouldn’t play this game any longer. Why is that so? The reason is simple: It doesn’t matter if we have 1 map more on the field. Sh_t’s getting boring. Those open world maps are a source of replayable content but just a little one besides the farmed ones – on the contrary to raids which are repeated like dungeons were in the past and/or fractals now. Dungeons and fractals kept many players in the game. I think many of the non-raiding people which definitely haven’t belong to the playerbase regularly running dungeons underestimate this amount of players. Before HoT, lots of players were only logging in for running dungeons & fractals, nothing more because the game was boring or hasn’t given any reason for them to play more.
Those farm maps like AB are the content played by people running for legendaries or other treasures that cost gold. I doubt that you support those heavily because if so, you wouldn’t complain, there are enough of them to earn gold. No need for an additional one. I suppose you want “real” content. Content that Anet cannot bring as fast as you, some folks here, me and the core of GW2 players are wanting.

It’s undeniable that even with one map plus we would have the tremendous complaint in the general forum about the lack of content. Not only from the ones who are raiding atm.

That’s the good thing raids have brought to this game but I tell you something: Despite having raids in the game, players still leaving this game because the 3 wings are not enough. I haven’t logged in since 3 weeks now and I was playing daily before, btw. without raids I would have thrown the game away way earlier. . I “played” (maybe I should use another word for it) Ember Bay two days – not more. Bloodstone Fen a week, maybe a parts of a second one. I doubt that another map would have been more successful. Lore/story? Fine, played once, was ok. Not more. I don’t think an additional map would keep me or any other players far longer in the game than raids did because they are solid repeatable content. Those maps aren’t.

In the end, raids are not your main concern. The issue is that – I mentioned above – Anet is too small for a company to hand out enough content to the playerbase.
The assumption to make more players pleased with one map plus than giving a raid to the raid audience is doubtful. Maybe this would have held for a month and then the complaints of content drought would rise again.
It becomes even more doubtful when Anet stated that raids were a success in their eyes. They have the numbers of players in contrast to us.

Ohoni.6057:

I really feel like I shouldn’t have to point this out again but the people working on raids was never “4-6 people”. That’s some weird myth based on a misunderstanding. That is the core raid team, sure, the people who work on nothing but raids day after day, but it’s not as if everything you see in those raids is 100% hand crafted by those people. The art was done by people in the art department, the sounds by people in the audio department, we don’t know total numbers, but likely a couple dozen people had their hands on at least portions of the raid.

It is irrelevant that some people helped here or were involved there because Anet already stated that no other content has been delayed or deleted for it. You are evading the key points by bringing that in once again.

Ohoni.6057:

And again, IF the raids were designed by only a handful of people, then they are clearly exceptional developers, and could have produced an equivalent amount of non-raid content if given that task instead. It’s nothing to do with the size of the team, it’s about what content they actually produce, and they produced a lot.

Sry, you have no clue what you are talking about. Look at a raid wing: It’s a linear tube. One thing is triggered right after the other has been done. Only this thing is a overwhelming difference to an area of an open world map which has to synergize with many things inside it.
Of course this small team did a good job but they haven’t had to deal with complex event triggers and many more so they could focus on designing boss for boss.
Additionally the wings weren’t designed from the scratch when the previous one was finished. Most of the work was done during the HoT developing phase.

And yeah, I think they were doin something for the open world scene: Unbound guardian and Sloth. Raid alike encounters on a map, n’est-ce pas?

You are focussing too hard on raids while ignoring the past of releasing new maps till LS3: Southsun Cove, Dry Top, Silverwastse….and nothing more…over years! The HoT maps were 4 from one whole expansion – even though they have 3 “floors/areas” the overall output of maps is brutally minuscule since launch of GW2. Bloodstone Fen small and boring after some days, maximal one week. Not to speak from the last release, a joke for me!
It’s obvious that designing a new map needs heavy ressources and is difficult to release fast.
We had the same discussion years ago when content was lacking before LS2 and afterwards. It has 0.0% to do with raids. Unfortunately this company is not big enough to hand out more stuff.

Ohoni.6057:

And there were some, but the forums are only a tiny portion of the playerbase, and not a representative sampling. People participating on the forums do not necessarily indicate what the game’s overall population believes.

No, there were none!
Completely bs, it isn’t even logical!
“I leave my one and only game because I don’t like a content niche I don’t play.”
How smart would that be? That would be a childish attitude. Sry, utter nonsense, I do believe that the average GW2 player is smarter than that.

Ohoni.6057:

No you’re wrong, the drop coincided with HOT, when many things went wrong. Raids are probably the best thing with HOT.

You liked raids. That does not mean that the community liked raids. The dropoff happened AFTER HoT came out, around the time of wing 2.

Again, on the contrary, without raid, you would probably see a bigger drop-off (and no new content btw, since raid team is a small team)

Again, no, because the number of people playing raids is not large enough to matter in terms of dropoffs. And if they hadn’t have made the Forsaken Thicket into a raid map, they could have taken that same terrain and enemies and balanced it out as an open map, or as a series of single player (small team) story missions, which would have helped during the content drought. Raid proponents keep talking about how it’s a “small team,” but the size of the team is entirely irrelevant, what matters is what they actually produced, and regardless of their team size, they produced a significant amount of game content when no one else was.

Wow, so much wrong things in one post. Really Ohoni, you know that is not true. The whole Forsaken Thicket has the size of maybe a third of one of the HoT-maps (not border-wise – content-wise!) without having map events that fit to each other, triggering together, ending with a deep story and and and.
If the implementation of one single map would be as easy as and not as complex as raids don’t you think we would have had more maps till now?
It cost over half a year to rebalance 4 maps after the HoT-launch desaster. Are you guys really wondering why there hasn’t been almost any content at all during this time and some months more?
Raids are straight linear therefore easier to develop and easier to balance + they were already designed and just needed to be tested. The promise of bringing out 1 raid at the HoT-launch has also failed: The first wing came out 1 month after launch and the rest many months later!

And yes, you have to compare team sizes: If over 100 people are working on LS3 and open world content and they wouldn’t be as productive as the small raid team with around 4-6 people don’t you think we would have seen Anet firing people and recruit more productive designers? Following your assumptions the raid team is either filled with hardcore high performers or the rest of the team is totally underperforming. I doubt both scenarios!

What also speaks totally against your so called “theory” (it is not worth to be called like this): We would have seen many complaints about raids in the general forum and the statement of people: “I leave this game because raids destroyed it.”
This was never a thing. The thing was, we had complaints about the HoT-maps, their grind and difficulty + complexity. None of that had to do with raids. The content was there but many players didn’t like it the way it was implemented. With the patch in april we saw a huge amount of positive feedback. Unfortunately, again it took Anet so long to do something right.

Hypairion.9210:

Ohoni.6057:

Really, your hate on raid made you think silly things…how can you tell that the drop is due to raids? I think that without raids, the drop would have been much more important, so raids saved the PVE in this game.

The drop-off coincided with the release of the raids. I don’t think it could be much clearer than that. And the player rates for raids are not large enough to have any impact on the game’s bottom line. Any impact they do have is on how players outside the raids react to their presence.

No you’re wrong, the drop coincided with HOT, when many things went wrong. Raids are probably the best thing with HOT. I didn’t know, except on forum, any people claiming that because of raids, they stopped playing. Again, on the contrary, without raid, you would probably see a bigger drop-off (and no new content btw, since raid team is a small team)

Exactly, 1000 times this!

Rednik.3809:

I have no idea how anyone can call something “successful and increasing revenue” when revenue is actually rapidly decreasing. Maybe you talk about another game or something.

You are still using the numbers wrong, period.

The biggest crowd had already left GW2 way before HoT came out due to massive disappointments the years before. And the reason was: Too less content, only boring repeatable stuff to do without any challenge at all. Not even for the usual after-work player. I had many “open-world” ingame mates who were leaving the game only because one reason: “I have nothing to play in here.”

It was obvious that HoT wouldn’t be the awesome “relaunch” of the game because too many players were already expelled and had no serious reason to come back.

The connection to raids from your side is such bullkitten I don’t think you are believing it yourself to be honest. Raids came one month after the HoT release and even at this stage the huge open-world playerbase was frustrated, mad and had filled the forums with complaints. Even have a look at the reviews from gaming magazines at HoT-launch. They were disastrous – raids weren’t in to that point of time! That’s the reason why we can see the sales numbers. Raids never had a negative impact, if at all a positive one due to bringing players into the game.

I’m hoping that soon a mod comes in with profound knowledge and teach you not to spread these wrong conclusions any longer.

I never told anything about nerfing ps, just talking to you since you have problems with warrior in pugs as it seems. I play fracs with a warrior without any issues that’s why I gave you some hints.

nagr.1593:

I mean you’d have to give up +5% dmg as well as having shield which means less cc and block if she teles to u, plus vigor is useless since the only thing you’d need to dodge when ranged is her lightning whip attack. Rev also pulses perma fury, swiftness, as well some might so there’s no need to take wh at all except for the trait u mentioned. I mean i agree it’s an option, u just have to give up a few things as I mentioned while rev doesn’t have to sacrifice anything.

Plus I actually did the math wrong, for rev in this case it’s 78% dmg reduction as well as 20% condi reduction about half of the time, or an average of ~60% dmg reduction whole time. No wonder I was able to facetank boss so easily as rev, while it’s hard to even survive for few secs as war. This same thing applies to guard also as they have easy access to prot and regen as well, I mean it’s just not fair. Plus I forgot rev actually has access to endure pain as war just with dwarf stance, plus shorter cd as well. With warrior its troublesome as u wanna bring banner and a signet, so u can’t just run that all the time.

Also, ur argument about war being needed for trin cos of banner etc. is not that strong at all. When u think about it, for pugs rev would more then make up for lack of disc banner as well, AP + perma fury is actually better for group dps. So literally 0 reason to bring war for this fight unless u have another rev or something, or if u need better cc.

The thing is, you are still thinking about perfect group comps when you are pugging and playing with randoms. Banners at Mai Trin are inefficient if the group is not stacking at all. Additionally, most pugs don’t care about ideal circumstances. They want to get the content done in a safe but also fast enough manner.

If you really have troubles with warrior at Mai just go Shake it Off, Signet of Vigor, Endure Pain/Banner. You cannot die. For Weapons you can also use Mace – Sword for 2 blocks. Imho way better than shield as you have enough cc with headbut, lower cd on riposte compared to shield 5 and there are 4 other players for cc sharing with the group as well if you are not playing with super new players which is unrealistic at 100.
Ofc you’ll lose a lil bit of dps but that doesn’t matter at all. The most important thing at Mai in pugs is that nobody’s going down and there is no slide into the descent from one to full wipe.

Concerning all your other posts in this forum you are lacking a profound understanding of the different game modes.
Fractals in pugs is more like a “1 individual in a 5 man group” because synergies and perfect teamplay is not that important while pugging raids needs way more coordination and get together than every other content. This is why T4-fractals are only a very little stepping stone to raids. Overall almost all of them are too easy to finish even when low-manning.

hornswroggle.8023:

I have no clue why they haven’t added that in the first place. Raids aren’t played in the linear fashion they are designed in anyway.

As every veteran player will be able to I can easily answer this question myself: They don’t have the ressources to pump out content like many players wish.
Have a look at the rates between new content, they are devastately long, same goes with bugfixing and other stuff. Considering the priority of issues in this game, the mentioned one is at the bottom of the ladder. Don’t ever expect a realization.

Agree to Nike + adding that during dungeon high peak time there were lots of more posts in this and the discussion forum about dungeon groups kicking ppl, being toxic and some other whiny stuff.

Jahroots.6791:

Pre-HoT it was much friendlier. There was instanced content for all and sundry – Fractals were fairly easy to get into until at least the 20s, and most dungeons were accessible and readily pugged while Arah and a handful of individual paths offered more challenge.

Pre-HoT there hasn’t been any challenging content at all! Arah could and can be soloed and high fractals until lvl 50 were harder than T4 now but no real challenge at all. We have been missing content like raids for years and it’s been asked for by a decent part of the community. Challenging content was reduced to speedclear things and take over someone’s records.
In addition, the fact you can low-man raid bosses and I myself have been participating in groups where we carried 1-3 inexperienced players with and without speedclear runners is clearly indicating that there is no real challenge at all if you get used to the mechanics after practicing. It also indicates that some people moaning about raids being hard have definitely suspect intentions: the loot behind it.

Jahroots.6791:

I’m also not sure what the intention was here. Maybe Anet (1) genuinely believes the player base can and should ‘git gud’, (2) thinks old instanced content and the open world is enough to satisfy less skilled and casual types or (3) messed up somewhere along the line and is struggling to produce content.

Looking at the game as a whole, I’m leaning towards (3) as the most likely.

I would rather go with (2) like maddoctor. It’s way more logical and plausible.

Mitzarin.2963:

Prior to leaving, we duoed fractals as two herald revs.

You ran a suboptimal comp before and you were successful, it seems. So why not go on with rev because you know the class.

The all-time low mark for a game was due to horrible HoT-map decisions for the casual base of this game which were reverted or – call it adjusted – with the patch in April – definitely too late because GW2 had been going down months if not a year or two before because there were several content droughts and no bigger improvements. The massive amount of players already had left the game long before so no wonder why sales were behind expectations. The company is too small and their product too special to hold such a huge playerbase like others can do.
There was no big outcry and players leaving in droves because raids are so hard/bad/whateverest.

And where were they forced to drop a second raid? I’ve never read an official statement about it. wth?
Instead, they were constantly designing new wings and actually a new raid. The next door for a new one is already there.

Hahahaha, and Astralporing is imputing conspiracy theories to me.

Rednik, sorry but the speedrun dungeon community which was the only little bit organized active part as your mentioned minority never called out for raids.
We wanted challenging content and we got it, that’s nice. But none of us was satisfied in the first place they treated dungeons and also fractals. As an active reader and writer you should know that.
On the other hand I don’t see why a team of 5-6 ppl for raid development should be the reason against new innovations in fractal development. The fact that they are working on fracs – see 3rd or 4th rework of them – is a proof against your populist statement. These reworks should be final for the next years so all what left is the start of bringing out new fracs.

And raids aren’t a failure. Maybe for you personally but not for the raiding audience enjoying the content every single day.

Astralporing.1957:

You realize you have nothing to back up your claim besides some tinfoil-hat level conspiracy theory?

Yeah, nail me down on this, i appreciate it.

But ok, let’s have a straight look: Where are the 4 month intervals in presenting us new fractals?
Before Chaos there were years of emptiness and I repeat myself: Chaos is not new.
So, either they aren’t/weren’t able to deliver step by step or they have had other plans.
Thing is fractals never had a high priority besides a rework before HoT. It changed with HoT which is now 1 year old and besides some frac reworks we only had Chaos although they made it to their “current 5-man-instanced content”. One year with almost nothing and a community here in this part of the forum claiming new fractal content for years.
I stay with my statement: They don’t want or they aren’t able to.

things to add:
- still no proof that there has been a fractal development within 4 months from the first drawings/graphical designs to almost bug-free release.

- subject is hard off-topic and still nobody knows why that matters in this specific thread.
if you think logical and stay on the non-proven point they can create a fractal in 4 months it is an obvious desaster that we are having raids with 3 wings from a team with 5-6 ppl and not a single new fractal within a year. you really should make some noise and blame the ppl in power for fractal development. but i tell you something you won’t like: they have nothing to do with the raid guys.

I can’t see any other new fractals around, except Chaos since years, which is, 100% of all GW2 players agree with me, not new.
So, either they are not able to or they are just not willing to do so.

But again, some of you are here just for discussing anything far away from the topic only to prove you have a point. A point in whatever you can get only to have one. ^^

The bottom line stands: They aren’t able to develop a fractal within 4 months. They neither were back in the days nor are they at the moment.

That’s all what needed to be said.

Astralporing.1957:

Yeah, right, while in the height of their work crunch, they decided to make two fractals knowing one will go in the trash bin.
And later on, being in the middle of content drought, having already done Abaddon fractal they still didn’t put it in game.

Suuuuure.

Yes, that’s exactly the thing in this case!

1. Players were asking about the other fractal from time to time after the vote. The answer was: We could but we wouldn’t undermine the coms vote.

2. You haven’t played since headstart, do you? If so, you should know well about LS1 content. They threw it away after using it ingame only for a couple of weeks. That was the worst decision but it was the game philosophy of the company and it was horrible. Sadly, the fractal issue fell exactly in this period.
You had a look at woodenpotatoes from time to time? He was datamining a lot of open world stuff in the past. Some maps directly in the heart of our game map are/were ready to go. So, further ahead than just a thought on a board during a brainstorming. Yet, these maps are not in the game and most likely discarded for whateverest reasons. But hey, we got maps in the northwest, west and southwest (HoT maps, raid maps, new LS3 maps). Same with pvp maps, some of very well-looking maps were landing in the trash can.

3. At last, don’t forget that they had 0 focus to instanced content at this time. Dungeon team was already dismissed and things like dungeons & fractals were treated stepmotherly. Of course they wouldn’t focus on two fracs even though both were almost good to go.

Scipio.3204:

On the 4 months, Kiel won the election early August 2013 and they delivered the fractal late November.

Yeah, as if they have started developing this specific fractal after the vote. Both were ready to go and already in the drawer. They just had to pick out the one the community wanted and adjust it for a release.

OnlyGame.7048:

We will continue uploading speedruns because all existing speedruns were made with the help of third party software.

Can I have a deeper/proper explanation please?

There is no need for T5 or T6. T4 fractals were too easy over a period of time that was too long. It was never intended to get the rewards so fast and easy. Some players and you were thinking that this was the way to go but quite the contrary it was a minus development or a mistake they reversed with the latest patch.

I was running fractals the last 2 weeks with the new instabilities, it’s only a matter of adaptation and if you play regularly you will get better again and have no problems at all. Also I agree, they are a little bit more difficult – had some downstates here and there than before – but overall no problem for a usual pug group.

On your point of “they keep changing them every time when we have fun” I disagree. We had years of stagnation in fractal development and only over the last year there were changes to an improvement. I don’t think we will see another changes to instabilities or anything like this soon, so all will calm down and you will adapt to the recent state.
Hopefully, and I believe this is in everyone’s mind running fractals regularly, the next step is to bring out more and new fractals and not just one recycled per year like they did with chaos. Should be their focus on the plan now because the basis of loot system, instabilities and adjustment of almost all of the older fractals is done.

The thing is the joke was at first very old for this part of the forum (already had such threads) and second not funny at all.