Yasi.9065

Its Anets new scheme to get you to buy more character and bank slots. Never knowing what you might need later again, you have to store everything. Didnt you know?

> @"Hannelore.8153" said:

> To be fair Silverwastes was some of the best content ever added to the game, no shame in loving it for a long time.

>

> Congrats on your reward for your dedication to "classic GW2"!

Sarcastic, right? Not quite clear. Because some people really think running semi-afk in a circle for hours, pressing interact every few meters is "gud content".

Every week, this image makes me incredibly sad and leaves me feeling empty....

This and the fact that there is no easymode/hardmode to raids and strike missions.... it just smushes me.

After years of this unpleasant system, can we please get 2 conditions build in that allow sending ig mails without cooldown?

1. Receiver and Sender have each other friended

2. Receiver and Sender represent the same guild

Lets just remove GW2 entirely and let Anet send us daily loot quota per email. No "dumb" or "annoying" mechanics anymore to bother anyone. Agreed?

Hint: I never have any trouble with the Sirens Reef fractal, no matter the instabilities, and I always pug fractals since my static dissolved a year ago. It might not be my favorite, I like more boss-oriented encounters like raid bosses, but going onto forum to demand it being changed or removed? xD

I love boneskinner, though I find it a bit sad that the mechanic is so unwieldy that its easier to just bring 2-4 healers and ignore the mechanic.

Theres one important thing: everyone has to STACK - and MOVE - tightly. People start dieing when they move off the stack, or stand in the red circles. To keep the red circles contained in a small area you need to stack tightly. And in that regard I think the boneskinner strike is quite nicely done on difficulty. You have to watch your surrounding and stack properly.. two quite important skills to learn for any instanced pve content. Or if you want to do the mechanic with your raidsquad, you have to watch for the "tell" when to move out behind the torches to re-light them. While this isnt a raidmechanic per se, its a coordinated mechanic.

On the other hand, the learning curve isnt too steep. After a few tries everyone that can read squad-chat and is willing to learn can do the stacking part. It takes a few tries more to get outside to the torches on time, but so far Ive only ever had 1 raidsquad bother with the mechanic anyway.

Ive solohealed the boneskinner squad, but that was with raid players. If both healers know what they are doing, you can get away with 2. Otherwise you need more.


This was with 2 healers (herald and tempest) on the day after boneskinner got "challenging" with a pug squad. The herald had close to 10k healing. So in a "normal" squad you need roughly 20-25k healing output.

Healscourge on magi tops healtempest btw, I can get ~15k barrier+healing combined.

> @"Thalimae.3406" said:

> Your own reply says you changed your play style from running around in a sandbox to following the main story. So yeah, your perspective on what the game is or should be changed because of that no matter how much you want to deny it.

I expressly explained how my playstyle did NOT change.

> @"Thalimae.3406" said:

> And I don't even mean it as an accusation but it's a fact that at the beginning you had a ton of space to run around in.

I still DO have a ton of space. As I wrote before, I re-visit "older" content regularly if its fun content. No, Im not just following the story. Exactly the opposite. Ofc I play new content when its out, but that doesnt keep me from replaying old content like dungeons, HoT metas, core tyria meta events, fractals, raids etc.

> @"Thalimae.3406" said:

But the character's journey right down to what you call narrative rpg elements like branching stories and different personality options have been a selling point in the marketing when GW2 was released.

The "branching story" in GW2 always has been a joke, since the branches always merged back to the same outcome after a couple of storysteps. The character developement mechanics like personality were never implemented past the UI elements. Openworld and WvW, the combat system etc. were on the other hand fully implemented. I stopped long ago to listen to what marketing labels a game and instead judge the games by their content. And for over 3 years, GW2 was developed as a sandbox action mmorpg, not a narrative rpg.

> @"Thalimae.3406" said:

> Another point you bring up is that you don't like some of the new maps. You'd like for PoF and LS4 to have more dense maps and that's fair, sure. And sadly yes, some maps have turned out better than others (we all know that Kourna was a pretty botched job). But the reason for why the maps are the way they are is a different design philosophy due to the new mount system. They are big, mostly flat maps so players should have fun running around in them with their new mounts. Similarly HoT had a new design philosophy due to their new mastery system that ended up with vertically dense maps. You prefer one over the other and that's okay, we all like what we like. Point being that it's all very subjective. ArenaNet is trying new things and some of them will be liked by the players and some not.

Again, you misread what I wrote. Its not about density. Its about the quality of whats in those maps. HoT maps are very detailed with small sidestorys all over the place. They are teeming with "live". PoF maps outside of the questing hubs are... empty. Liveless. And even the questing hubs themselves feel soulless. Its NOT about quantity. Its about quality. And PoF is sadly lacking in quality content in openworld.

> @"Thalimae.3406" said:

> I would agree with you that I think a huge strength of ArenaNet is actually the world design and filling those maps with interesting corners to explore and setting up quests and event chains that tell their own little stories that add to the rich lore of the world - and they should totally lean into that more. But I do enjoy having the PS as a guide through all those maps. (The problem I see with that of course is that ppl will continue to rush through the story and then complain there is nothing to do cause they don't actually like exploring their sandbox - so damned if you do, damned if you don't!)

Anet changed the core storyline to force you to explore between story steps, and imo that made the coregame really weird, since the story instances didnt get scaled up. So you do a lvl30 story instance that you can finish easily as lvl10 character. And thats exactly the kind of decisions that tried to push the game more into the narrative rpg genre, but ended up just being bad design decisions.

Also, a huge part of the problem Anet is having and why they are spread so thin, is because they try to cover everything. Story, sandbox, dungeon crawler. In addition theres WvW and PvP as completely separate gamemodes that need maintenance at least (though they are quite resilient). Other mmorpgs, like Final Fantasy, they mesh at least the PvE elements more together and/or ditch either sandbox or story. Anet started doing that with the first StrikeMission, which is, well kind of, a dungeon crawler element AND part of the story. But with the first chapter in their saga, they already changed back and made separate StrikeMission bosses. The reason, probably, because theres no proper scaling system in GW2. Theres no easymode (aka storymode in other mmorpgs), normalmode, hardmode system that applies to all instanced content. Instead theres special sauce for everything. Dont get me wrong, I totally enjoyed the challenge motes in LS2 and challenge mode in raids. Im one of the few people that love the instabilities system in fractals. But it doesnt help Anet design new content easier/faster. And so either we have to wait quite a long time between new releases - or the quality suffers a lot.

> @"Thalimae.3406" said:

> As for challenging content, well that is pretty subjective again. ArenaNet said they found that there's a huuuge gab in skill between the average player and those who are really good at the game. Most of it isn't a big problem for me either but there are soooo many threads here alone of players complaining about things being too difficult. I'm sure ArenaNet have an eye on that but trying to find just the right amount of challenge is tricky. When HoT came out it was brutally hard for most average players so they corrected course. But as you can see in this thread even there are people who find PoF more difficult than HoT. It all depends on your skill and play style so it's not "HoT was hard and PoF is easy mode!" at all.

Anet caused that problem all by themselves. In ESO for example, you have to level up every character separetely. Theres no levelboosts. The fastest you can levelup is via a farm-event but that still takes hours. And when you finished leveling up, you still have to unlock and level your skills. For that you need skillpoints, that you have to farm separately. Its annoying, but at the same time, due to how skillpoints are limited, you read every skill you could unlock. How many players levelboost in GW2 and then just either copy&paste a build from metabattle, SC or whatever... or keep the build they got boosted to. The skill gap is so huge because GW2 allows you to skip out on a huge part of any mmorpg - the theorycrafting and buildmaking part. You dont have to know what skills cc for how much or even which skill does most dmg, what boons are or what your stats do. Until you want to step out of the openworld/story part of the game and into instanced content/WvW/PvP. Then all of a sudden you get slammed with this wall of knowledge you were supposed to learn, but never did because there was no reason for it.

GW2 isnt a more difficult or intricate game then any other mmorpg Ive played. The only difference is that GW2 lets you get away with playing like a lvl1 newbie all through openworld and story. Other mmorpgs dont do that, and there the skillgap isnt as big or noticable.

> @"Thalimae.3406" said:

> Bottom line, you have your experience with the game and I have mine and we clearly have differing tastes. You like LWS3 better and think it has a better re-playability. I couldn't care less about the LWS3 maps and find myself replaying the LWS4 and LWS5 maps much more frequently. It's a matter of opinion.

Fair enough, but that still doesnt change the fact that Anet did a 180 on me and people like me, that preferred the "old ways". If GW2 released today with all the changes made, I wouldnt play the game. Now people will crop up and say "well, duh... then dont play the game". Its never that easy with a mmorpg. MMORPGs are a longterm commitment. Stopping and starting fresh in another one always takes a lot of energy. Believe me, Ive done it often enough already, and it doesnt really get easier. So when a company changes the game direction that much, starts catering totally to a different audience and neglects their old followers... not nice.

> @"JasonLucas.4981" said:

> This has been actually happening for a few months already, together with frame rate drops in bosses that changes your FoV

This one I noticed as well.

Removing maploadinfo did help some, the loading times still arent up to ssd standards though, so there has to be an additional issue. But at least Im not getting kicked anymore from grps/squads for "taking too long" ;p

@"maddoctor.2738"

I didnt find HoT openworld "hard", I found it challenging. There is a difference for me. Challenging is when killing mobs/doing encounters gives me a sense of accomplishment, when Im not just semi-afk pressing the same rotation on each mob and actually have to watch out for things. Something is hard if I need to try quite a few times to finish it. Hard and challenging dont always go hand in hand. Something can be artificially difficult and therefore hard, but not challenging.

Also, more mobs got changed. The raptors got nerfed, the leaper-thingys got changed, frogs hp got reduced... thats just what I remember. It was quite a big rework that didnt just stop with nerfing openworld mobs, but also re-adjusted nearly all meta events to make them basically infallible with enough players. Considering that openworld isnt meant to be "hard", but rather challenging... that was a good re-work and I really regret that I wasnt more vocal back then in congratulating Anet to such a good expansion, AND the consequent adjustments.

Ive played mmorpgs for over 2 decades, and HoT is one of the few expansions I really found overall an improvement of "my" mmorpg. Not just because the openworld maps felt like lvl80+ maps, but also because each and every map has lots of detail and a coherent story put into meta events. To this day, I consider Dragon Stand the best openworld meta event of all time. HoT was engaging, interesting and challenging. It had enough long-term goals to keep me going back and overall rewards are quite balanced (now ;p ).

PoF in comparison was shallow. The story was nice, but nothing to repeat really. The fights felt artificially lengthened without really being challenging. I often cursed the long cooldowns/dialogues that kept me from progressing faster. The rewards were horrible, no longterm goals, I was finished in < 2 weeks and I seldomly go back except for heropoints.

@"Thalimae.3406"

Im very set in my ways, sorry, my perception doesnt change anymore. Ive played too many mmorpgs for that. The mainstory in GW2 wasnt something you had to do, but rather something you could do, if you chose so. Typical sandbox mmorpg. Me for example, I got to lvl80 first by exploring the maps, then I got my first exotic set and I only did story after I got interested in the AP system.

I dont find GW2 small at all. Sure, it got smaller with gliding, and even more so with mounts. But still, tbh, theres more than enough space to explore. What changed, is how that space is filled. In core tyria, theres one event beside the other, often interlocking event chains that unlock new events. Theres rare items (mostly consumables) you can only buy when finishing a set of events etc. Theres things to do anytime I go anywhere. In HoT you have the meta-event system and the maps are filled to the brim with things to do. PoF maps have vast empty spaces with nothing in them except a few random mobs placed there. They feel often unfinished. LS4 maps mostly the same. Compare Bloodstone Fen to Kourna. Rewards play a role as well. In LS3 maps gathering is always useful. In LS4 maps not so much, etc.

I dont view openworld as serialized content, to be played on release until done and then never come back. I set my goals, I finish them. In between I re-visit events/activities I enjoy. So Im going back and forth between all maps and never really feel like theres a set path for me to follow - except on story ofc. And thats one of the problems with Anet, they usually dont re-visit older releases. The only time they did that was in LS1 and LS2. Especially with most LS maps, theres no reason to go back, except if you enjoy a certain event/activity there. But thats not a lack of content per se. Thats lack of replayability. Take GW1 for example, everything is worth repeating there. And the amount of content in GW1 is definitely a LOT less than in GW2, and still it has way more replayability and therefore it feels just "more".

What Im critizising is that there has been quite a lack of challenging, engaging and immersive gameplay since PoF. In a sandbox action mmorpg, challenging and engaging gameplay is key. In a narrative rpg, it isnt. Since PoF, GW2 has been mostly a narrative rpg, since the focus was (and still is !) on telling a story and NOT on the gameplay. A side-effect is ofc that in a narrtive rpg you need different story view points or a branching story to stretch content, which GW2 isnt really made for... it needs way too much work to be efficient. Whereas in an sandbox action mmorpg rewards and engaging gameplay are your way to stretch content, which GW2 could excell at...

> @"Murshid.9854" said:

> I'm new to the game and I spend tons of hours reading and learning and one thing that always kept bothering me is that the vast majority of the community don't welcome the LB/GS ranger outside of PvP and open world, I myself as person who love ranger in general was having more fun with LB/GS instead of the condi builds and said "if I master it I can do better with it" but I started to notice that my damage output with big bosses are very poor so I decided to grind for exotic viper build as a test and after I got full viper gear I did normal dps test with golems (no boons) and holly kitten the difference is so BIG!!!

> I make 3.6k with LB/GS and incase of only LB is I can't get more then its 3.1k only, but on the condi SB/SB I get 9k average even though I just used the build for only 1 day and I can push the number higher by time while the LB/GS I was playing it for over a month!

>

> Now I get the idea of why LB/GS is very bad compared to the condi builds and I will do my best to adopt to the new condi build.

I love your post :)

From your post I gather you are using a dpsmeter (arcdps most likely) and that got you into a huge part of GW2 that gets neglected by the majority of the playerbase... you started playing around with your build, watching your stats etc. you started theorycrafting and comparing.

Keep going ! Dont let anyone stop you. Theorycrafting in mmorpgs is one of the best things of the genre.

> @"maddoctor.2738" said:

> I must've been playing a different game in the last 2 years. As I found Heart of Thorns easier than Path of Fire in terms of combat. I'm trying to remember a single challenging fight in Heart of Thons story and I only come up with Mordremoth. The rest of the story was really easy.

>

> Meanwhile Balthazar and Eater of Souls (before the nerf) were interesting fights. Compare the last boss in the first instance of pof with the first boss of hot...

>

> As for LS3 only Caudecus was hard and I believe Scruffy in LS4 was harder. Raid wings 1 and 4 are easier than the Path of Fire Raids. And of course wing 5 is harder than both wing 2 and wing 3.

>

> So really I can't see this massive turn in challenge after Hot. Unless you compare playing in hot without elite specs with playing pof with a hot elite spec. That't my only explanation

Thats because you are comparing story instances while others are comparing openworld mobs/events. Dunno how to write this without sounding condescending, but story instances never were challenging for me, neither HoT, nor PoF, nor LS3 or LS4. There were some achievements in LS2 that were quite tricky to get without cheesing, but thats about it.

HoT mobs in openworld on release were overtuned. And they got nerfed to a good level subsequently, maybe nowadays they have not enough hp but thats because of the powercreep. PoF openworld mobs are quite a step down from that level of difficulty. They are only annoying because they tend to group and have boons. But you can counter both easily by adjusting your traits, and then they become quite easy to deal with.

But its not just that. A big part of PoF openworld you simply can jump through on your mount, and that even more reduces the perceived difficulty of the expansion.

For me, the more Im porting, the worse the loading screens become. Uninstalling and re-installing the graphics card drivers only helped for the first few loading screens, now its back to loooooong loading screens. Restarting the computer doesnt help.

> @"ugrakarma.9416" said:

> _"what happened to Anet?"_

>

> they wasted too much energy pursuing "new hype" things, and ended with lots of **unfinished features** with low replayability value at long term.

>

> This creates a vicious cycle:

> -The lower replayability the more the base player demands something new.

> -High demand requires something done in the short term.

> -Things done in the short term have low replayability and lack of deepness.

> -Soon after launching something new, the idea that "the game is dying" increases.

>

> the situation would not be worse if there was no fairy godmother who brings money from heaven (NCSoft)

Isnt that something Anet always did? If something is shipped, its done. Some bugfixes, sure, but no major changes. The only time they really went back and changed a lot was HoT re-work, imo. Even the PoF meta event "rework" was only a reward-change with some bugfixes.

Id be really surprised if we see a gear template system added to build templates for example. Fixes to gear loadouts and build templates/loadouts, ofc. But no big changes, even though thats something thats really sorely lacking.

Or an easymode/hardmode added to raids (or strikes for that matter).

Even though those kind of improvements could really make the game a lot better, its nothing "new" and therefore nothing dev-time is being used on except if its really broken.

Wasnt it the same with GW1? At least on PvE releases.

> @"Vayne.8563" said:

> Anet evolved like any good developer would. They realized the hard core crowd, though loud, isn't quite so numerous. They lost people making HoT hard, even though the hard core crowd loved it, and made PoF the anti-hot. That was for a reason. You might not like the reason, but the age of the average computer gamer is mid 30s. They're not all sitting there on metabattle, or standing in front of a practice dummy. They want to come home, kill some stuff, see some kind of reward/progress and move onto killing something else.

>

> I'm 58 years old and I could care less about raids or PvP. But I'm sure I've put more hours into the game than most people, and I'm sure I've spent more money in the cash shop than most people.

>

> What happened to Anet? Like me, they changed. Change isn't always a bad thing.

Why is it people always think spending money on the gemshop has anything to do with what Anet focuses their gamedesign-time on? That line of argument would have seen WvW being main focus, since the amount of gems for servertransfers was huge. In my wvw active days, transferring was something everybody did every few months on EU. Some transfers we got sponsored by 1-2 people, others we had to pay ourselves. Mind you, that was before mountskins, even before gliderskins.

Sorry to burst that bubble. Its nice that you spend money on GW2, but that doesnt influence Anets decisions.

The age of the "average" computer game is sure not mid 30s. What nonesense. Anet likes to target that demographic, but that has nothing to do with it being the average. Even WoW Classic had an avg age of 27-29 in several polls, and that was quite "old" for a videogame.

Also, "wanting to come home, kill some stuff, see some kind of reward/progress and move onto killing something else", what you described there is a typical dungeon crawler. Thats not what GW2 is nowadays. Nowadays, GW2 is more like an interactive movie, a narrative rpg with some repeatable quests to fill the time between story releases. What you described there, that was GW2 up until LS3.

Wildstar had other problems tbh, geoblocking on account creation, bad character developement, barely any story, steep progression, horrible marketing and customer management. When people started doomsaying the game, it was already dead.

Ontopic: This isnt about Anets monetization philosophy. Imo, nothing really changed there, well... much.

Why is it nobody values the ingame rewards? Easy. Value is a fictive number we, the players, assign on something. If its an ingame reward, that value directly relates to the amount of effort put in to get this reward. If its a gemshop item, its the money value. Since nearly all ingame rewards are participation trophies, theres no value to them.

So this whole debate about who spends how much on the game is rather not what I meant when asking the question about what happened to Anet. And quite honestly, I dont think it even matters that much to Anet. They just need enough income to keep the company going - and NCSoft satisfied. Anet never was a greedy company and still isnt.

No, the changes to the game, the famous "one-eighty-turn" after HoT. Thats about gamedesign. Something made Anet decide that they dont want GW2 to be a action-sandbox mmorpg anymore. Instead they quite drastically turned the game into a storydriven rpg, selfplaying scenes included. They minimized the community interaction to the point that GW2 is close to being a singleplayer game with voluntary multiplayer option.

I just want to know why. What happened there. It cant be money, because revenues were best with HoT release if I remember correctly, before Anet changed the genre of GW2. Did player numbers drop so drastically that Anet got scared? But thats nothing special, and some fixing usually brings a lot of players back after a borked expansion release. Especially in a non-subfee business model.

Was it the leadership change? Or all the devs that left around that time?

> @"Rasimir.6239" said:

> > @"Zanktus.9821" said:

> > > @"Rasimir.6239" said:

> > > The token does drop from the end chest.

> > Maybe the token was a daily/achievement reward for opening the chest?

> No, it definitely came from the chest. I had checked achievements and such before. I did get a couple on my first run, too, but I hadn't paid attention to achievements then, so no way of telling if there was one from the chest or not.

>

> > @"Musha.4025" said:

> > > @"Rasimir.6239" said:

> > > It's a new activity. Nobody knows the ins and outs of it yet. Give it a couple of days for people to figure out how to best gather stacks and get a feel for how the stacks affect the loot chance before crying "nerf". Personally, from what I've seen last night this looks to me like a welcome addition for those of us that prefer cooperative to competitive activities.

> > Then that's a couple of days we are not able to get our full 16 Divine Envelopes.

> It is. So what? It's a game that includes figuring out and learning stuff. It's not a participation trophy that you're guaranteed to get max rewards simply for showing up.

>

>

Ah, but here's the rub, thats exactly what it is. To get credit for the event you only have to wait for a convenient mechanic and do that, or kill a mob. Theres no system behind it that especially incentivises to do well. This so called "challenge" is a textbook case of "participation trophy". Just stick around long enough and you get your loot. Minimal interaction - and effort - needed. Just "being there and kicking the ball once" is enough.

The fact that Anet thinks thats good gameplay just boggles my mind.

And quite honestly, seeing yet another of those afk events being added as content to the game tells me that nothing will change. Because the core design philosophy stays exactly the same as it has been since LS3. Participation trophies, anything remotely sparkly in the gemshop, total fixation on telling "a story", minimized interaction with the game and other players.

> @"Stand The Wall.6987" said:

> seems like they abandoned the dungeon layout of gw1 which imo was more arpg (diablo, path of exile, grim dawn) like. went downhill from there. everything about the game world in gw2 is so weak and plain boring compared to the tried and true methods of olde. theres no sense of danger or urgency.

I think this explains it best, though I dont like the arpg description, since its quite undefined. Diablo, PoE etc are your typical dungeon crawler or hns rpgs, GW1 went in that direction as well. GW2 imo was a sandbox rpg up until LS3, then Anet started turning it into a narrative or storydriven rpg. Which imo was a very bad choice. Theres a reason people caution against mixing the different rpg genres, they are just too different and people will always have something to complain if you add too much of another subgenre into your rpg. Someone expecting a narrative rpg like the Witcher series, but getting Dark Souls (dungeon crawler) will find the game shallow, while the Dark Souls fan will hate the boring combat of Witcher games.

And I mean, thats what we've been seeing for quite some time now on the forums and reddit. The different genre fans are more and more discontent because Anet tries to create content that fits all, but really fits nobody well.

1. Logging into the game in Divinities -> 92sec loading screen

2. Porting to Aerodrome -> 67sec loading screen

3. Loading into raid instance -> 52sec loading screen

4. Porting to endboss -> <10sec loading screen

Before patch that whole "port journey" would take me less than 60 seconds, considering DR is full atm due to festival, thats an increase of > 200%. The more models that have to be loaded, the worse the loading screen.

My loading times increased by roughly 150% with this patch. Nvidia asus 1060 gaming card. Up-to-date drivers, windows7, windowed fullscreen, medium graphics settings. Nothing changed except the game was patched. Doesnt matter which zone. The maploadinfo shows that models are slower being loaded then Im used to, so Im guessing its related to that.

A very serious question. What happened to the company that made GW1, that made dungeons, early raids, wvw, pvp.... the amazing combat system in GW2.

Now its "challenging" new content to run in circles in a former story instance using abilities scavenged from former releases?

GW2 was so engaging in the beginning. I had tons of fun with LS1, LS2, HoT. But ever since PoF everything has become streamlined, easy-mode, non-offendable bland. Well not everything, there are some flashes of the brilliant gameplay developement I fell in love with in GW1.

Fractals:

- Firebrand

- Alacrity-bot

- Banner-bot

Raids:

- Chrono

- Druid

- Banner-bot

Who cares about DPS. If your support stands, your dps can be the worst greeding monkeys and you still will be successful. If your support is bad, your dps can be the best players and you still have a high chance of wiping.

> @"Murshid.9854" said:

> I do great with it at open world PvE but now I'm going to craft new gear and its kinda big decision with LB/GS that I'm more comfortable or condi build, so I would hope to hear the advice from the more experienced players.

> Care that its only low and may be mid only, not high level.

If you are starting out towards fractals, you are entering a new world in GW2. The world of organized instanced PvE content. That part of the game is heavily governed by meta builds, benchmarks and optimization. Now Kitty has shown you how to make a LB/GS soulbeast build work in that environment, and as long as you dont join highend speedrun groups, you will do absolutely fine with that. Though, you might want to hide your lb until the fight starts ;) and never, absolutely NEVER stay on range with your lb. GW2 group content is all about stacking as tightly together as each mechanic allows, usually clustered around the boss. If you are staying range, then you dont get heals, you dont get boons, and you will get kicked even from t1 fractals, because nothing is more annoying than someone not stacking properly in gw2. It causes all amounts of different problems and no matter if you are a lb soulbeast or a rifle deadeye or a GS chrono, stay stacked if you arent doing a special boss mechanic.

Raids are organized content in a game that to 95% markets itself towards being a singleplayer mmo without any organization needed.

Thats why theres low participation.

Achievements and/or more rewards wont solve this.

Strikemissions are more along the lines of "hop in, get loot, hop out" that the big majority of players in gw2 nowadays want, sadly they will fail also because anet is too stingy with rewards on those. People rather farm dragonfall then do a daily strikemission, even if the strikemission is more fun.

Ive said this a few times already, what raids need to make them attractive to new players to put in the effort of organizing themselves, is a form of easymode that minimizes necessary organization. Like a buff the commander can trigger that pulses all boons to everyone every few seconds for 100% boonuptime. Not having to organize builds to maximize boons makes it so much easier to get a raidsquad going. 1 tank, 1-2 healers, rest dps.

The same system then could be used to add a hardmode a la: no downstate debuff.

You get an extra reward in form of gold or champbags for doing normal or hardmode.

Voila, 3 modes instead of the current horrible "one size has to fit all" system that nobody likes and causes raids to die each week some more.

But lets be real here. This has been discussed ad nauseum on this very anet-owned forum and the reddit. Many very good solutions have been presented, some of them even very easy to implement for anet. They have done nothing. That should tell you everything you need to know about raids in gw2.

If you really want to raid in an mmo, theres games that offer way more raiding support for their community. Be it WoW (Classic) with its massive 40man raids, FFXIV, ESO etc. Pick one of those that you like the underlying combat system the most of and play GW2 the way anet wants you to play the game: a singleplayer game with a new story episode every few months.

Trying to get anet to "fix raids" is absolutely hopeless. Dont waste your energy.

> @"ReActif.9251" said:

> Hi, I would like to have feedback from other players about the Boneskinner after the December 5th patch.

>

> Many of us understood of course that there was a bug in the past because it was far too easy, far too much and it came from the failure of its game mechanics. But after the patch many consider that the developers have not done a test because it seems to have become much too hard, there are several hypotheses that go from the fact that the torches would not do well what they have to do, or that its aura is too high, etc....

>

> What do you think of that?

> Did you manage to do it after the patch?

>

> On our side on several guild there was only one group that managed to do it and yet they found that this one had become too hard for a simple strike mission boss and they too had the impression that there was something wrong with its operation.

>

> 

>

> ----------

> **Edition :** _repost my last answer to close my question._

>

> Thank you for the answers with arguments.

> This makes it possible to confirm the normality of this fight and therefore to exclude the hypotheses that some had an abnormal (_although necessary_) difficulty.

> After reading all the posts (_except those that have nothing to say_) it appears that it is considered balanced (_regardless of the individual point of view_)

> I will be able to give them the information that they will not have to hope for any changes.

Is the boneskinner strikemission too difficult? Hmm, somewhat.

Why? Because its a strikemission and considering the other strikemissions before, the jump in difficulty is too big.

Theres also the fact that you get punished for doing the torch mechanic when its way easier to stack 3-4 fullhealers and just cheese it. Im sure, stacking healers to ignore the mechanics was not what the devs had in mind to teach with this strikemission.

The mechanic at 75% etc that puts out all torches (boneskinner jumps up) needs a graceperiod before putting the debuffstacks on everybody so everyone (with swiftness) can run out to a torch and re-light it, without dieing halfway there.

On the other hand (haha!) the aoe circle mechanic needs to continue below 80%, because thats a really good way of teaching players to watch their surroundings.

With those small adjustments thats going to be a really good strikemission, a step up towards teaching mechanics without forcing specialized builds.

Anet did pretty good with their engine, however I just dont like the look of them. They look weird to me. I can appreciate the work that went into them, and really... kudos... what Anets devs and programmers have done with that engine is really incredible.

However, Id love an option to not show capes and infusions :( Both are just unaesthetic to me and ruin the otherwise good graphics for me.