Guild Wars 2

Blaeys.3102:

You are oversimplifying the issue. People post because this is something they feel passionate about – not simply to “bump” a topic.

Yes. Because someone posting (and I quote the opening post):

Can we haz some?

is not to bump the topic but to start a discussion and because they are passionate about it. There ARE threads that offer something on the subject like someone asking something actually worth discussing, like this one: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/Raid-learning-Issue-question-for-dev/first
talking about an automated system in Raids. I believe that suggestion has been shown to have major issues but there WAS an actual discussion there.

This thread? This one is just a troll one for the bump and nothing else.

Hannelore.8153:

Can someone confirm if they actually ported it to a native client or if they just wrapped it up again in a modern version of 64-bit Wine ?

You should read that thread:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/support/Feedback-Guild-Wars-2-Mac-64-Bit-Client/first#post6626279

Healix.5819:

maddoctor.2738:

Even if it’s only to stop the interact button from working on dead people it’s a good start. Not solving all problems obviously but it does help a bit.

Take it a step further and simply disable the interact range, meaning you can only revive a dead player if you specifically target them. It doesn’t actually need to be out of combat only. There needs to be a fix for dead players griefing other interactable objects in all scenarios.

That’s true. So many times someone dies on top of a chest and it’s hard to trigger that chest

Djinn.9245:

maddoctor.2738:

Djinn.9245:

maddoctor.2738:

Another solution: disable revive of dead people while in combat just like in WvW. Now there is no reason for dead people to wait for a revive anymore.

I disagree with this. There are other times in open world that it’s nice to rez a dead person because maybe they didn’t WP because they don’t have a close WP yet. And there are classes that have abilities that allow them to rez while being hit by a mob so why should they have to kill the mob first and get out of combat if they want to stop and rez someone?

What kind of mob is this, that takes longer to kill than reviving a dead person? Maybe the one doing the reviving has some different (and more important) issues if it takes him longer to kill a mob than revive a person.

Way to turn my point into “L2P” lol. That wasn’t my point. If I’m running along and I see a dead person, I might stop to rez them. If after I start rezing a mob decides to attack me, I shouldn’t have to stop rezing and kill the mob so I can start rezing again.

It’s way faster to rez someone when out of combat than in combat, so unless you are almost done with ressing, killing the mob first will be faster anyway. I don’t understand why that dead person would mind if the mob dies before they are up though. Or why do you care to rez before dealing with some minor interruption first

The only place ressing dead people (instead of fighting first) is useful, is in dungeons when some party member lures the boss away so the others can rez their dead friends. I don’t see it as a problem in the open world at all

Djinn.9245:

maddoctor.2738:

Another solution: disable revive of dead people while in combat just like in WvW. Now there is no reason for dead people to wait for a revive anymore.

I disagree with this. There are other times in open world that it’s nice to rez a dead person because maybe they didn’t WP because they don’t have a close WP yet. And there are classes that have abilities that allow them to rez while being hit by a mob so why should they have to kill the mob first and get out of combat if they want to stop and rez someone?

What kind of mob is this, that takes longer to kill than reviving a dead person? Maybe the one doing the reviving has some different (and more important) issues if it takes him longer to kill a mob than revive a person.

Healix.5819:

The only benefit of disabling revivals is to prevent them from interfering with the interact button, like how the dead grief adventures. Dead players are mostly AFKers, so they don’t care, they’re just going to lay there until the end. The smart ones don’t even participate, they just tag the boss then go do something else. If they want to stop that behavior, the game needs a contribution meter that is more than just hitting the boss once.

Even if it’s only to stop the interact button from working on dead people it’s a good start. Not solving all problems obviously but it does help a bit.

Another solution: disable revive of dead people while in combat just like in WvW. Now there is no reason for dead people to wait for a revive anymore.

Cynz.9437:

Works wonderful in wow, i don’t understand why it can’t work in GW2.

This is why: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/Raid-learning-Issue-question-for-dev/page/2#post6625740

I outlined more than enough issues with an automatic system. Can they be fixed?

In summary:
WoW has 3 roles (Tank/Healer/Damage), Guild Wars 2 has dozens of roles, some very encounter specific. How is an automatic system going to work with all those roles involved?

Op, as i mentioned prior, WOW did EXACTLY this with their LFR system.

I think we can all agree that the LFR system of WoW cannot be used in Guild Wars 2 despite some people asking for it. In WoW you have 3 fixed roles (Tank/Healer/Damage) and you make a build that fills that role. The system then takes enough people from each role to form automatic teams. In Guild Wars 2 we DO NOT HAVE Tank/Healer/Damage roles therefore an automatic system that works like the one in WoW is impossible to use. It’s not hard, it’s not happening out of spite or to keep Raids hard, it’s downright impossible to use the same system in Guild Wars 2.

Emperor Palpatine.5329:

Complete valid points. You are correct here So maybe they might also create these squads based on the specs needed. So get 3 eli, 2 heal etc. Of course you can’t know for sure if the Eli is on the correct build…but than again evein in regular grp u don;t know that unless u check the dps or ping the gear.

This is the problem with GW2 and automatic systems. They’d need to create lots of specs and slots and with variety for each boss encounter, then the system would need extra upkeep and maintenance after every patch.

Let’s take VG as an example again. You need at least 2 condition damage dealers, let’s say that the system allows you to enter the condition damage role if you have a a Ranger, a Warrior, a Necromancer and an Engineer. This was proper pre last patch.
Now after the last patch Elementalists and Thieves got into the meta as amazing condition damage dealers. Now the automatic system needs to be updated to include Elementalist and Thief in the condition damage role. Let’s say a few patches later Warrior isn’t a good condition damage dealer anymore, then the system needs to be updated once again. Every time they do balance patches they will be forced to update their automatic selection process, adding an extra overhead and development work.

I will give another example. Say you kill Samarog with an automatic team. At Deimos you cannot proceed with your Samarog composition because you need one player to kite the red aoes. You cannot send your tank (he’ll be busy on Deimos), you can’t send a healer either. It MUST be one of the remaining players. So what do you do there? If nobody has a Ventari Revenant ready to take that role (or another build that can kite) the team will be forced to KICK someone to invite another person that can fill that role. How can an automatic system account for that?

Another example: at Keep Construct it was widely accepted that Condition builds are at a disadvantage, therefore most players of the Raid swapped to power variants. How does an automatic system take care of that?

I’m giving some examples here on why an automated system cannot work in Guild Wars 2 at all. In order for it to work, there needs to be drastic balance changes. Instead of “bring a Chrono tank”, they need to make it “bring a Tank”, instead of a “bring a PS Warrior” make it “bring a damage/might buffer” and so on. Unless they make the roles clear and distinct, it’s impossible to make an automatic system.

The other solution is to change the Raid encounters or at least make it possible to complete entire wings without any required composition changes. The team that beats Boss 1 can reliably kill Boss 2 and Boss 3. This is NOT happening in the game at the moment.

Emperor Palpatine.5329:

Select the Raid you want to train on and wait in queue until 10 people are selected (it is generated by the system, no human intervention on the way the squad is created).

Let’s see why this is a problem even for the very first Raid boss (Vale Guardian), heck even before reaching the actual fight itself but the trash mobs.

You need someone with extra toughness (above the others) to tank Vale Guardian
You need enough players with good condition damage to deal with the Red Guardian
You need some reliable form of Boon strip to deal with the Blue Guardian
You need a good mix of ranged and melee characters, so the ranged ones can go to the green circles
You need enough Healers to defeat Vale Guardian
Having a Chrono + Druid + PS Warrior triples the DPS of the team. A team with 2 x Chrono, 2 x Druid, 2 x PS Warrior + 4 random DPS builds deals way more damage than 10 random DPS builds (plus other buffs, heals, survival etc)
Selecting 10 Random players won’t work very well on Vale Guardian.

In order for an automatic system to work they’d need to make sure there is a very distinct idea of Tank/Healer/Damage role so you can pick which one you use and the system can put you in the correct slot. That’s not possible at the moment in Guild Wars 2 as there are no clearly defined roles like that. In other games you decide you play a Tank, many classes can play Tank and they are -mostly- interchangeable. That’s NOT the case in Guild Wars 2.

Once you are done with this you can try your luck with LFG and see what squad will take you.

Why do you believe the LI requirements on LFG will disappear if they add this training? Once you are done with training you will be at square one again, looking for (normal mode) training runs to earn those LIs in order to join faster runs after. Nothing will change regarding the LFG.

Faaris.8013:

@Feanor: that principle worked well for many console games. I started playing games in the 90’s, and games at that time started easy and got harder and harder the further you proceeded. It’s also how humans learn in other environments. You start speaking/writing with easy sentences, that’s not a habit you keep when learning more about writing.

That’s how Guild Wars 2 works. It starts easy (low level open world PVE), gets tougher (dungeons / low tier fractals), gets even harder (higher tier Fractals), then the ultimate PVE challenge (Raids). Along the way you have easy events, moderately challenging events, and the hardest events possible (like Dragon’s Stand). I don’t see people asking for an easy mode Dragon’s Stand, or an Easy mode Chakk Gerent and so on.

And even within Raids there are easy Raid encounters and hard Raid encounters. Getting progressively harder the further you proceed is exactly how Guild Wars 2 works.

Faaris.8013:

In low scaled versions of a raid, green circles at VG could take, let’s say, 5 seconds longer to explode than normal. Next scale, 4 seconds, then 3 and so on. People would naturally learn that the higher the scale, the shorter the amount of time until they explode.

A full scaling effect for green circles? Adding multiple scales in the Raids? As if adding one extra mode wouldn’t be more than enough effort, now you want multiple new scales?

And you are delusional if you think people will learn that way. You even made my argument for me using the Thaumanova lasers example. It’s useless to even deal with those at a lower level since they don’t deal much damage and can be ignored, so the teaching value of it for the higher levels is essentially zero.

Taking someone without any kind of experience is far better than taking people with the wrong kind of experience.

Emperor Palpatine.5329:

what are u talking about? Have you even read my post?

This is what you wrote:

So using this noobs can do their thing, learn the mechanics and join other parties once they have the needed experience for real raiding.

So how will someone who gets experience in the training be able to join normal mode parties? If the barrier for entry in normal mode raids is LI what makes you think that the barrier will disappear if they add a training mode?

Did you even read what you wrote?

Emperor Palpatine.5329:

It’s like playing the story and not being able to finish it because the content is way to difficult for u and u don;t have the opportunity to learn it in game.

The problem with your suggestion is that it does not address your own problem. Let’s see a few “problems” as given by members of our community:

Problem: “I want to experience the story of Raids!”
Solution: Add a Story Mode version (even soloable) so everyone can experience the story of Raids

Problem: “I will never get Legendary Armor!”
Solution: Add an easier mode that requires more grind, and is slower, but in the end gives Raid Armor

All are problems for some people, and all have solutions that can help fix those problems, it’s debatable if those solutions are needed, are worth the time to implement and so on, but at least they are solutions to the problems.

Your Problem: “LFG is full of LI requirements that doesn’t allow me to get a Raid group”
Your Solution: “Add an easy mode so I can practice the Raid and once I’m done I will move on to the normal mode”
You never explained how that part will happen. How will adding a training mode eliminate the “200+ Li” LFG requirements? Will the training mode also offer LI? Because once you learn the mechanics you’d be at square one again.

Because the Zephyrite airship was destroyed and doesn’t exist anymore. The remains are around Dry Top

Emperor Palpatine.5329:

Now they have the chance to learn the mechanic, git gud and once that is done join groups or start ur own whatever and do the kitten raid.

So once they learn the mechanics and get good they will be able to join groups (that they can’t now) because of what? Will they get those LI and KPs they need to join groups by running the training?

Since you can;t learn the mechanic other way – except by doing the actual raid – we have a big problems

The idea of “learning” a mechanic through training depends on how the training is implemented. If it’s implemented through blanket reduction on all/most important Raid mechanics then its value as training is effectively zero, like reducing all damage, hit points and increasing enrage timers. In that situation, I’ll take someone with zero Raid experience over someone with the wrong Raid experience any day.
Let’s say that green circles at VG take 2 seconds longer to explode in the training version. Suddenly if you are supposed to be on green duty in the actual raid, you will be a burden for your team (and cause wipes).
Let’s say that in the training mode Gorseval deals less damage with reflects while doing the black goo attack, now in the normal mode you are a liability for your team as if you are a dps you are more likely to go down, and if you are a healer, chances are you never understood how to heal properly at that phase.
Let’s say that Sabetha’s flamethrower doesn’t kill people but it causes damage instead. I don’t think I need to tell you how detrimental that would be to the entire encounter. The “Hey, in the actual Raid that attack would kill you, so try to avoid it in that, but no problem here.” isn’t exactly an argument.

Most ideas for training modes assume that those participating in that mode will actually use it for training. Which is probably really far from the truth.

Emperor Palpatine.5329:

Well I’m thinking of marking in the system the LI (like LFG pugs are doing now) and based on that you can check if the player did it before, how many time etc.

How is this system going to help with the accessibility? Is this going to make the LFG posts requiring high amounts of LI disappear?

You can already do it now by making a LFG entry requiring 0 LI, it’s not like you can’t do it now

Emperor Palpatine.5329:

We should have a system (don;t wanna name it because I am not a fan of that game) where players are matched based on the level of experience they have and create automatic groups for raiding.

How do you measure “level of experience”?

Zushada.6108:

However, newer players without a raid guild, simply cannot get into the raids and learn because the COMMUNITY is blocking good players with KP and LI requirements.

First, you should read some of the other threads on the topic. The responses to this wouldn’t be like this if the OP also read the other threads. You know in those threads there was lot of discussion on the subject.

However, I’ll stay on this particular part. How is an easy mode Raid going to help with KP and LI requirements? Are you saying that the easy mode Raids will award kill achievements and LI? Because you said:

The Legendary gear should NOT be accessible in a SM raid; I agree whole hardheartedly.

Which is it?

Elite specs were supposed to give professions a new role to play with, improve, or even add, a new way of playing your character.

For example, Rangers didn’t have a very good healing spec and Druid was addressing exactly that. However, they also gave Druids massive damage boosts, good CC abilities and in general made Druid essential even for non-healing gameplay

Daredevil offers a new way of playing the damage role without relying on Stealth, unlike Core Thief builds. Huge nerfs to Stealth made other play options far less appealing than using Daredevil. It also didn’t help that the whole idea of the Daredevil conflicted with the Acrobatics line, which was nerfed in order to make Daredevil the new “acrobat”

Tempest is another example of an elite spec causing nerfs to core specs. They nerfed Aura gameplay of Elementalists because Tempest was going to offer new Aura gameplay.

Elite specs shouldn’t make you better at everything you do. They should’ve been created in a way that opens up new builds and ideas, but not buff all existing builds.

See for example how Druid doesn’t buff condition damage Rangers, so the condition damage Ranger build in PVE doesn’t use Druid.

Scrapper does not buff Engineer dps in a considerable way (in PVE), therefore both condition and power meta engineer builds in PVE are not utilizing Scrapper. However, when the survivability of the Scrapper is needed (like in sPVP) Scrapper dominates

You can do raids just fine without talking but you do have to listen

If you leave a mob alive for some time they will get give more experience when killed. The longer a mob was alive, the higher the experience bonus, which is a very nice mechanic to force people to search for distant mobs. This already exists in the game, so why not do the opposite? If a mob is killed within split seconds of spawning it will reward zero experience and not drop anything. It won’t punish legit players, it won’t punish those who afk alone or 1-2 farmers, but it will eradicate multi-person farming as it will now be pointless.

I have a question, have you done other types of instanced content in this game?
Most builds used in Raids are the same as the ones used in dungeons and fractals, especially the dps builds

Astralporing.1957:

Apparently we’re playing with different people, because i see that all the time, even with groups that on average are more likely to kill the boss than not (and notice that the target group of easy mode would be generally below that level).

I’ll blame people using builds from online websites for that. When I was first doing VG on my Ele (during the first week) I always slotted Lighting Flash to go to the greens faster, other builds also have blink skills to help them get to greens faster. When first dealing with CC bars it’s a great idea to bring more CC skills just to be safe, remember the good old slick shoes on Gorseval to break it as fast as possible for example. Or go to certain bosses with 3 healers instead of 2, the enrage timer is rarely a problem and besides having more healers means the dps players will be up for more time and ultimately deal more dps

When you are learning a fight it’s not a bad thing to tweak your build and composition to make your life easier, call it using “training wheels”. Then once you know better how to do an encounter you can remove those. I still use Lighting Flash to get to the cannons at Sabetha, even though I shouldn’t after all this time I should be ready to go up there without it, and it’s a dps loss. Bad habits I guess.

Instead of looking first to change the mechanics of an encounter, why not see if there are skills/traits already in the game that can make those same mechanics easier?

Astralporing.1957:

My point was that at the level we’re speaking of there will be other problems than just those you claim are the only ones that might happen.

And tweaking every single mechanic that some person might fail at isn’t reasonable.

Possibly, but that would completely change the flow of the encounter, which is something to be avoided.

No it wouldn’t change the flow for the vast majority of the encounter other than one simple bit of it. Unlike changing multiple other mechanics by reducing their dps or increasing their time. THAT’s what changes the flow of the encounter.

In my approach you learn how to execute all mechanics

No you don’t actually do that, by changing aspects like damage and hit points it’s not the same encounter anymore.

As you youself have admitted – it’s the greens that cause wipes.

The greens on bad platforms. Regular greens do not.

Astralporing.1957:

They will get downed.

That’s good, people getting downed and then perma-dead is part of the Raids. Hey players might miss this so let’s nerf it, players might not be able to handle that, let’s nerf it.
Which leads to the major issue of how much to nerf the mechanics, how much development time will be spent to make these kinds of changes (multiple changes) to a Raid. Ultimately, how agreeing to tweak even the little things of a fight (like the green circles are) will affect the speed at which future Raids will be created.

I’m going more for a reduction or removal of the most offending abilities because that’s exactly how challenge motes work. It’s something that we’ve seen done and something that CAN happen in a relatively lower time frame, as proven by the challenge motes themselves. Adding a new mechanic on top of the others, or removing a current, doesn’t require the same amount of testing than tweaking numbers for many abilities.

I wanted the easy mode to retain at least some teaching value, so tried to not touch anything that would significantly alter timing and pathing.

Adjusting the timer for a green circle to explode doesn’t alter timing?

Funny how you are talking about teaching value here. Which one is better for teaching VG? Having phase 1 and phase 2 the exact same as the normal fight, but tweak one ability of phase 3, or fight a reduced version of every single phase? I’d choose the first one as a superior training method than the second, at least most of the fight is the same and once you go to the next version you will know how to deal with all the mechanics up to that point, which is exactly how Challenge Motes work.

That, too is generally a third-phase issue and rarely happens during the second. Might be something with running having an impact on healers’ efficiency.

Exactly why I’m saying that the previous phases of VG do not require any alterations at all. Most mistakes (if not all) happen at phase 3 anyway and very rare to happen at phase 2. There is a similar pattern for all Raid bosses, how can ANY group of nobodies fail at Deimos before fighting the first Saul? You just stand still, tank and spank for crying out loud.

Astralporing.1957:

So while targetting the latter mechanics may seem an obvious choice, adjusting any of them (especially greens) would help.

To keep things sort, I’ll only respond to the VG part:
Getting to the green circles in time should never be an issue. It’s the “bad greens” that cause wipes and they appear mostly because the tank doesn’t know when to cross to another platform segment (or low CC but that’s easy to overcome). If you try VG with an expert tank, even if the other 9 players are relatively new, the encounter will most likely succeed with only a few tries.

I find it interesting that in your proposals for VG you didn’t mention the lit platforms at all, while in my experience getting a green circle on a lit platform is the prime reason for any kind of wipe at VG by inexperienced groups, experienced groups mitigate that “problem” with Distortion and/or Rebound but inexperienced groups will likely fail when a “bad green” spawn.

For all Raid encounters, the amount of tries needed to beat an encounter is irrelevant. It’s more like “How many tries to reach Phase 2?”, “How many tries to reach Phase 3?” and so on. Raid encounters aren’t binary success/failure but have multiple levels of success. Thinking in that way can more easily help identifying what’s causing the failure on all encounters and tweak accordingly.

Astralporing.1957:

Still, i’m nitpicking here. In general, you are right in the first phase being an easy mode and something any group (well, almost any) should be able to learn after reasonable number of tries. It’s the next phases that create a real problem.

Yes, it’s the next phases that cause a “problem”. The first phase is the “easy mode” that you can train for by fighting the 3 initial mobs, the second phase (after first split) adds a couple new mechanics and it’s “normal mode”, then the last phase uses the previous mechanics but makes them more deadly (2 lit floors at the same time plus an extra seeker) and that’s the “hard mode”.

As I’ve always said in threads like this one, tweaking the end mechanics is what will make Raids more accessible to newer and less skilled players, not tweaking and adjusting the entire thing.

Sabetha gets double timed bombs at the end
Slothasor gets the shake attack after 50%
Keep Construct gets four rotating fields during break bar after 33%
and so on

But to answer your question: no, i don’t think that the individual split guardians need to be adjusted.

Which is why those same attacks used by the VG do not need to be adjusted either. It’s other mechanic that could be tweaked.

This topic again… once again without any valid proposals, no offered solutions, no actual points for discussion, just a vague “please add an easy mode of Raids by ‘simply’ reducing hit points and damage” (love the word “simply” btw).

Let’s talk about an actual example instead of vague arguments and since it’s the first boss of the Raids, let’s focus on Vale Guardian.

Question 1: Do you think the mobs before the boss need to be nerfed? Personally I can’t imagine a team of players who already beat the rest of the game, having trouble clearing those, but I’m asking just in case.

The adds before Vale Guardian teach you valuable lessons, and that’s the training/easy mode right there, and included by design.
The red one that you need condition damage and some form of seeker control
The blue teaches you to run to the green circles before they expire or bad things happen and also about boon stripping.
The green one teaches you to avoid the blue circles or you will get teleported around

The first part of the VG fight, up until after the first split phase has no mechanics different to those 3 mobs. I can say with a high decree of certainty that no group that can reach Vale Guardian, will ever fail to reach the split phase as well, which means the mechanics present up to that point require no tweaks at all, things like green circle damage, or seeker damage, it’s already an easy mode up to that point.

I want to clear this out before moving on

Dominik.5162:

Adding a mechanic and making an existing mechanic harder is considerably easier than removing one.

For some bosses it will be hard to remove a mechanic yes. But others have very clear phases and they would only need to tweak the mechanics of the last phase and be done with it.

For example, I think we can all agree that the initial VG (before the first split) doesn’t need any kind of change. But removing the extra seeker at the last phase wouldn’t require any kind of effort (not saying that’s what they should do to make VG easier, just an example)

Blaeys.3102:

We have talked many times about many different options as potential solutions – and I think you know that.

Yeah I messed up and thought about the other thread… a problem of having many threads on a similar subject.

Most recently, we have discussed the idea of using the mote system to implement story mote versions of the fights in much the same way challenge motes were implemented in the last raid. It is highly unlikely such a system would take significantly more resources than the challenge motes did.

I answered that when I responded to the OP of the other thread:
Challenge motes do not change the entire fight.
Challenge motes do not reduce hit points of bosses.
Challenge motes do not reduce the damage of bosses.
Challenge motes do not affect the enrage timer.

If you check the challenge motes that were implemented in W4 there are two things they actually do:
They either add one completely new mechanic, or tweak ONE or TWO of the previous mechanics. The rest of the fights in Challenge mote is the exact same as the normal mode version.
Adding ONE mechanic and tweaking another one is not the same amount of work as tweaking all of them at the same time.

An alternative solution is to do exactly what Challenge Motes do but in reverse:
Remove a mechanic or tweak one mechanic (usually of the last phase of an encounter) and keep everything else the same.

Blaeys.3102:

In my opinion, raids need a multi mode access model to address these perceptions (which again, I believe are based on in game realities). And, yes, in many cases it would do exactly that (or, at minimum, show players that Anet is paying attention to them).
Regardless of what happens in game, however, the persistent negative comments every time raids are mentioned outside of this subforum show that this is a topic that not only needs to continue – it is one Anet needs to pay close attention to.

Where is this plan on how this multi mode access would work?
Negative comments and vague comments without substance cannot in any way influence a developer. Coherent and well formed ideas and suggestions can.
You can find more info about it in this sticky thread:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/How-to-Give-Good-Feedback-1/first#post6372017
It’s sticky for a reason but you rarely find any good feedback in these threads.

Is “I hate Raids”, “I want multiple modes for Raids”, “I want a tutorial mode”, “I want an easy mode for Raids”, or any comments you see outside of this subform good feedback? No, it’s not. Read that sticky and you can see that almost none follow the guidelines of good feedback.

It’s right here:

Give details and examples: Not a generic “I don’t like this!” but a specific “I think this could be improved by {suggestions}.” And if someone asks a question about the topic, don’t just answer it — explain why you answered the way you did.

When someone wants a change they should at least form up some plan on how it would work, and then accept any arguments against that idea and try to counter them.

CrustyBot.3564:

What about a mode that doesn’t alter difficulty but just auto revives you like a revive orb if you go down?

First, thanks for making an actual suggestion.

Now your suggestion has the exact same problems as the one by the OP.

The most important one, it lacks incentive. For any new mode for Raids you should ask yourself: “why would I run it?” if the answer is “to train for the normal mode Raids” then scrap it and think of something else.

Imagine the following, and this applies to anyone who wants a “tutorial mode”:
You cannot get the precursor collection items in T1 Fractals
You cannot get the daily research pages from T1 Fractals
You do not get any Pristine Relics from T1 completion anymore
Now T1 Fractals will only be used as “training” or “tutorial” mode for the higher tiers.

If that happened would anyone ever run T1 Fractals anymore? I’d say only fresh new players would, but eventually they’d have to move on because they wouldn’t be able to find enough players to play with. Although finding players wouldn’t be as problematic as Raids, because Fractals do not have a weekly lockout and they require 5 players, not 10.

Rising Dusk.2408:

The real problem with threads like these is that no one is going to change their mind over these discussions.

That’s because most (all?) of these threads are way too general, too vague and this one is no exception. And then once flaws and benefits for any such “suggestion” come up they are getting buried and of course people discussing their own ideas of an easy mode instead of what’s in the opening posts.

I don’t think anyone deep down can say that there is no problem with the “LI system” and say that this whole “you need x amount of LI to even start Raids” is a good thing.

I need to add one more thing.

Tutorial motes are similar to challenge motes, but instead of blue glowing motes, you get a green glowing one.
When tutorial mode is activated, the damage the boss deals is significantly nerfed, and the boss enrage timer is made alot longer.

Challenge mote and tutorial mote

You first go and say that a tutorial mote should be like a challenge mote. And then you describe something that never happens in challenge motes.

Do challenge motes change the amount of damage bosses do? No.
Do challenge motes reduce the enrage timer? No.

What do challenge motes actually do? They ADD new mechanics and sometimes tweak old ones, but most of the encounter mechanics are the exact same between the CM and NM version.

I read once on these forums that “if they can add a CM, they can add an easy mote”, but that’s completely false. A CM doesn’t modify the entire fight, like reducing the damage of all mechanics or making all mechanics easier to deal with. A CM is focused in adding one extra gimmick to any fight, it doesn’t change the entire fight like most posts on easy mode want to do.

For a “tutorial mode” to be similar to a CM, you need to remove a mechanic, or tweak it, from the fight and keep everything else the exact same. No tweaks to damage, no tweaks to enrage timers or boss hit points. Do what CMs do and the “if they can add a CM they can add an easy mode” will actually be true. That way you can actually train for the boss, train for the mechanics of it and keep in mind that in the normal mode some part of the fight will be tweaked, the same way a CM tweaks parts of the fight and not the whole encounter.

Now which mechanic to tweak or remove, that’s the tricky part, although in some cases it’s relatively easy, when the boss has clear phases, you can tweak the last phase, or a mechanic of the last phase.

CaptainVanguard.4925:

Is Accessiblity.

Accessibility is indeed a major topic for discussion on Raids.

Let’s see the issues with this:

By training people with an automated system we can essentially remove the need for trianing groups and eventially have everyone more or less ready for raiding in no time.

First, let’s talk about pugs. You say that pugs post ridiculous requirements for Raids, in the form of LI. How is this tutorial mode going to help if the players will get no LI from running it? You believe that pug requirements will magically disappear if a tutorial mode is added to the game?

Regarding player made requirements, how is this tutorial mode going to help players to enter the actual Raids beyond the tutorial mode?

Second, about the bosses and training. You say you want the bosses to deal significantly less damage, but the damage bosses deal isn’t a problem in nearly all raid encounters. It’s missing the mechanics that causes wipes, not the boss damage. Now tell me if someone can ignore a mechanic, how would that allow a player to learn anything about the actual Raid? It’s more likely that they will learn the wrong way of dealing with the mechanics. This of course extends to instant kills, can’t reduce the damage of an instant kill because it doesn’t do any damage.

You say that with this tutorial mode you won’t need training runs anymore, but if the tutorial teaches you the wrong things then how useful can it be as a form of training?

Third, let’s say that the above issues do not exist and this tutorial mode will in fact train players for the normal Raids, “in no time” as you say. Wouldn’t that mean that sooner or later the tutorial mode will run out of players who want to run it? If you also remove the rewards, what’s the incentive for anyone, other than those who wish to train, to re-run the tutorial mode? Experienced players won’t run it, players training on it will get ready for the normal raids “in no time”, so eventually this tutorial mode will be a ghost town.

The main problem with this tutorial mode as you described it is incentive. What’s the incentive to re-run the tutorial mode for a boss, you’ve beaten (and know) already?
A similar issue is true for the challenge motes, what’s the point of re-running them once you complete them once? I think this question contains the answer to a “tutorial mode” as well.

Story mode vs training mode
A new mode that helps players to experience the story of the Raids, is not the same as a mode to train players for the Raids. They are two completely different things and should be treated as such. A potential good mode for training will still be a bad option for anyone who wants to experience the story alone. A good mode for anyone to experience the story would probably be a horrible way of teaching mechanics and training players. A story mode doesn’t need any incentive for rewards, it should even be solo-able, or doable with a lower amount of people (see Arah story mode). A mode for any kind of meaningful training needs lots of incentive to re-run it so it doesn’t run out of players who are willing to play it and even allows experienced players to run it and help newcomers. (see T1 Fractals)

Two completely different “modes” that apply to different people.

Healix.5819:

Here’s some forums vs reddit

As I expected.

The number of posts and the number of counts on reddit are relatively stable while the numbers for the official forum are on a continuous (but steady) drop.
The number of new accounts posting on Reddit is also much more stable than the same number on the official forums which is on a constant decline.

The drop is normal as all games have attrition, however, new players are supposed to replace those stopping and we don’t see that happening on the official forums. However we can see it on reddit, as unlike the official forums, we’ve even had increases in new account posting over the last few quarters.

Is it because Reddit is much more popular than the official forums, or they are mostly free accounts who can’t post on the official forums, that’s not something we can safely answer with the data, although I think it’s more than likely to be free players rather than anything else

PS: I played a new character lately and I found it very refreshing to see so many new players exploring the world of Tyria. I don’t think the game has a problem with finding new players and the population is fine.

Blaeys.3102:

That will leave Anet with a pretty serious quandary – either come up with something else ultra nice to offer as an exclusive reward or watch raid participation dwindle considerably.

A lot of players who want Legendary Armor already have all the components from Raids and yet they still run them. The Legendary Armor is not the only reason Raids are being run.

As for the next reward from Raids, I suspect it will either be a backpack or some form of jewelry (legendary amulet?). Backpacks are already rewards in other types of content, and jewelry can be added to other content types easily, unlike armor which takes years (apparently) to create.

So it’s a win-win, Raiders will get a new carrot, and that carrot either already exists in other forms, or it can be added easily to other types of content.

ShadowKatt.6804:

It’s interesting… but also seems to require a party to play the content, and I’m a solo casual player, so… meh

SAB is really solo content the notice that it requires a group is false.

Thank you for the rest of your input, that’s why I started the thread to find out the reasons players didn’t buy HoT, not to debate those reasons.

Healix.5819:

maddoctor.2738:

Now that players can try it without paying anything, revenue is dropping.

Sales aren’t the only thing that suddenly dropped after the launch of HoT. The number of people posting on the forums is down 50%, which had been fairly stable at around 20k since the end of 2013. 1Q2017 is currently down 18% compared to 4Q2016.

Isn’t normal for number of posters to decrease if the sales decrease? From personal experience I know a LOT of regular posters in previous years that stopped posting, posters who’ve been active on loads of threads that lost interest, and since we got low sales they aren’t being replenished by new people. As Vayne said attrition is normal, so the lower amount of people posting can also be a result of the lack of sales. Plus a lot of the new people joining cannot post on forums.

Vayne.8563:

Free to play people can’t post on the forums and I’m sure there are a bunch of them.

You just gave me an interesting idea.

I made a reddit thread for free2play players:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/635bnz/free2play_players_why_havent_you_bought_hot_yet/

But to return to the topic, this is about players who already bought the original game and haven’t converted to the expansion yet.

Astralporing.1957:

Also, remember, that there’s the f2p version. People that liked the core approach, but didn’t like what the expac did to the game can just stay f2p now.

Funny that you mention the f2p version, f2p players cannot try HoT to know if they will like it or not and don’t forget the majority of GW2 players aren’t educated enough in gaming matters, they don’t read forums or websites. See, to even try the game before f2p was here, they had to pay, which meant higher revenue. Even if some players disliked the game and stopped playing after a while, Anet got their box sale money (which is what happened with the millions of the release sales for example). Now that players can try it without paying anything, revenue is dropping. I’m not convinced that’s because of anything they expansion did, but more about the core game.

Vayne.8563:

Because the core game was much cheaper. Cheaper often sells better.

There was no sale during the majority of the time period I compared with. In fact the Heroic Edition was at 39$ at the time, while Heart of Thorns now is at 33$ (at least on Amazon), so core game being cheaper isn’t a factor.

Any other ideas?

Astralporing.1957:

Most likely, because everyone that was interested in it has bought it already, and there’s not enough new players to make a visible impact on sales.

I see this a lot as an argument but I don’t get it. Why was Guild Wars 2: Heroic Edition selling at Q4 2014 (before the announcement of Heart of Thorns in January) so well, for a game that was already old by mmorpg standards AND it was during a period of a terrible content drought (last content update was in August 2014)

Why was the Heroic Edition of GW2 outselling Heart of Thorns so long after the release of the game?

To offer some actual data :
Guild Wars 2 gem cards are ranked #3071 on Amazon
In late 2014 (September) it was ranked around #3,465

Heart of Thorns is ranked #4415 on Amazon
Guild Wars 2 Heroic Edition was ranked #1,697 in late 2014 (pre Heart of Thorns announcement)

You can see the vast difference right there. I know it’s only Amazon rankings, they change a lot, new games are added, older games are removed and so on, and it’s only one retailer. However it’s more than clear that the Heroic Edition was doing FAR better than the gem cards, while in the current situation Heart of Thorns is doing much worse than the gem cards. And also, the ranking of gem cards can be called stable, while the box sales are terrible.

So shouldn’t the argument of “everyone who wanted to buy Heart of Thorns, already did” be applied to the Heroic Edition as well? Why was the Heroic Edition still selling 2+ years after release, and Heart of Thorns is struggling less than 2 years after release?

Vayne.8563:

But the biggest number of people that own Guild Wars 2 and play it would almost automatically buy an expansion if they like the game.

I don’t think we disagree here. I thought I said the same thing:

They’d base buying or not on their current core game experience not on some expansion info that according to you they wouldn’t look at.

They’d buy the expansion if they liked the game or not, regardless of what features the expansion announced. In other words, the problem with the lack of sales of Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns (other than the problems that informed players post on this thread) is with the base/core game and not with the expansion. Which also makes sense for the lack of free 2 play conversions too, that’s also a problem with the core game and not Heart of Thorns.

I strongly believe that the core game needs some “fixing” and no amount of expansions will help with that.

But this thread was supposed to be about informed players and why THEY didn’t buy Heart of Thorns. The un-informed ones need a current good experience, the informed ones are looking for a future good experience.

Vayne.8563:

The probably is the most casual players tend to solo and not even look at websites, and so those people will never answer.

Those who didn’t buy Heart of Thorns and don’t look at websites, were already lost causes. After all, if they don’t even look at websites how in the world will they learn if heart of thorns is the game for them or not? They’d base buying or not on their current core game experience not on some expansion info that according to you they wouldn’t look at.

I think the problem isn’t just people not buying HoT, but buying hot and basically avoiding hot content after they got what they needed from it.

That’s for a completely thread then and kind of irrelevant here.

Swagger.1459:

I personally feel this thread is more of an expedition to keep poking the “hot sucks” beast unnecessarily, because these types of threads and posts have gone on since October 2015…

I never intended this to be a discussion, just information gathering.

As to all of you posting why you haven’t bought HoT, thank you, that’s all I want.

Healix.5819:

A new expansion is what actually brings people in. Expansions are huge for advertising, since people actually talk about them outside of the game and they get treated like a new release (reviewed, found in stores).

Yet “our” expansion didn’t sell and that’s why I’m asking why. Now that some months have passed and the initial anger has faded somewhat.

You can’t tell whether the drop is due to GW2 selling poorly, or simply due gem sales. Considering that pre-purchases would be factored into the launch quarter and they went F2P in quarter prior to HoT, GW2 really wasn’t making any major box sales.

Actually it was in NCSoft reports that gem sales are stable. You can also check out online retailers that offer data to see that gem sales are indeed stable, while Heart of Thorns is selling really badly.

Swagger.1459:

The topic has been talked about, ad nauseam, for going on 2 years, and there is more than enough feedback in the hot section for you to look through.

Yes it’s a topic that has been discussed in the past.

Those threads were common around the time Heart of Thorns was released, and at that point, despite the forum threads, the expansion was selling.
Now, however, all the quarterly reports show that the game isn’t selling anymore and I’m asking why that is. They’ve started LS3, which means a good stream of new content, yet HoT still isn’t selling.
Why is Heart of Thorns selling so badly now, compared to how Guild Wars 2: Heroic Edition was selling a quarter before the announcement of the expansion? To compare the two, Heart of Thorns is now getting regular updates, while at that point in time the core game was inside the content drought period (meaning no new content), yet it was selling more.

Fiddlestyx.9714:

This game isn’t worth spending money on anymore.

I’m curious, is that because what you read Heart of Thorns contain, you tried the beta and didn’t like it, or how the game developed even long before the expansion?
In other words, do you find the game not worth spending money on because of the expansion or it was already like this before it?

This is a question that I would like to have some answers to, obviously it’s for players who bought Guild Wars 2 (free players can’t post here) but didn’t buy Heart of Thorns. I’m not looking for players who bought Heart of Thorns but regret it for whatever reason, nor a discussion on how good the expansion is or not, but for owners of the original game that didn’t move on to the expansion to give some reason on why.

So, to repeat the question, what’s keeping you from buying Heart of Thorns?

Cristalyan.5728:

See the interview of Mark Katzbach explaining that the Alacrity should be reduced to give a 33% recharge speed instead of 66%. He said the team decided to not reduce the duration of this buff but instead to reduce the intensity because they don’t want to have two mesmers in raid instead of 1. This decision was generated only and only because of the impact the Alacrity had on the raids. Do you still want an example of skill nerfed because of raids? All the skills generating / using / sharing Alacrity. Almost all the Chrono specialization skills.

Yet, the nerf to the Well was because of PVP and the nerf to Signet of Inspiration was thanks to WvW. Alacrity was really powerful in PVP too, not just in Raids. All game modes provide opportunities for nerfs