What's the future of raids in GW2?

[Zoda Slayer.4176]

With no rewards for challenge mote for those who have done their weekly clears/shard capped/achievements done, the future looks pretty grim. Seems like a lot of wasted effort making a challenge mode for each boss that only gets played once by a player and then nobody wants to do it again.

[maddoctor.2738]

> @"Zoda Slayer.4176" said:

> With no rewards for challenge mote for those who have done their weekly clears/shard capped/achievements done, the future looks pretty grim. Seems like a lot of wasted effort making a challenge mode for each boss that only gets played once by a player and then nobody wants to do it again.

 

This is one of the problems, however there are both benefits and drawbacks in adding rewards to those.

[SkyShroud.2865]

Just more legendary, the trinkets legendary not completed yet.

[zealex.9410]

> @STIHL.2489 said:

> > @zealex.9410 said:

> > > @STIHL.2489 said:

> > > > @zealex.9410 said:

> > > > > @Astralporing.1957 said:

> > > > > > @STIHL.2489 said:

> > > > > > > @Malediktus.9250 said:

> > > > > > > > @zealex.9410 said:

> > > > > > > > Rewards wont matter if a new wing takes a year to come out.

> > > > > > > Glad I am not the only one who is annoyed by the slow release shedule. They said they could make upto 6 raid wings per year. The reality seems to be more like 1, if lucky 2 per year.

> > > > > > >

> > > > > >

> > > > > > IIRC, I thought they said something more along the lines of 1 every six months, but none the less, just because they 'could' do something, does not mean they will do it.

> > > > > >

> > > > > > Maybe if they sold the raid wings as their own private content, like a Mini-Expansion, that might inspire faster/more development.

> > > > > >

> > > > > I doubt there's enough raiders to pay for raids though. In the end it's mostly paid for by the money from people that do _not_ raid (or raid, but not consider that content to be essential enough to specifically pay for it).

> > > > >

> > > >

> > > > That goes for everything is this game. I prob paid for the wvw update we had pre pof and i rarely if ever do wvw.

> > >

> > > Ya can't sell a "balance patch" as no one would buy a nerf.

> > >

> > > But I could see a WvW Adventure pack, with additional maps, reward tracks, vendors, and the like. The main problem I see, is how to do that without breaking up the existing system. It would kind of need to be, where everyone that wanted to WvW would need to buy the upgrade, unlike PvE, where they can separate the zones, WvW does not have that.

> >

> > My point is moneybwent to updates and content aditions to modes i dont play. Saying its bad or not worth for only one part of the game is unfair.

>

> Dude, if it meant that WvW got more love.. I'd buy packs for people that don't even play this game.

 

Prob same if it meant the game would got better.

[zealex.9410]

> @maddoctor.2738 said:

> > @"Zoda Slayer.4176" said:

> > With no rewards for challenge mote for those who have done their weekly clears/shard capped/achievements done, the future looks pretty grim. Seems like a lot of wasted effort making a challenge mode for each boss that only gets played once by a player and then nobody wants to do it again.

>

> This is one of the problems, however there are both benefits and drawbacks in adding rewards to those.

 

The benefits outweight the drawbacks.

[IseeU.4519]

I'm assuming there will be some sort of exclusive mount skins available only in raids. They would be the big selling point "drop wise" for the enxt wing.

[Mega Skeleton.8259]

The challenge motes are great, but it's insane to me that after they added repeatable challenge motes to fractals, that they failed to do so for W4. Adding something for high level players to consistently shoot for for an extra reward would be a great start.

 

I think just an extra good roll, or guaranteed mats, or some shots at other good payouts would go a long way to push people harder. As someone who's full cleared almost every week for almost 2 years, it's all just rote, mostly just a way to easily gear up new chars and earn some cash.

 

The other side of this coin is increasing rewards for repeat clears. All they need to do is toss in an extra rare and decent shots at exotics, to make it feel more worthwhile to help friends and keep doing raids throughout the week. A handful of bags just feels crummy. I think small steps like these 2 would go a long ways to just getting more bodies in there, other reliable means for some decent cash. If they're worried about people farming the easiest quickest boss over and over like Mursaat Overseer, just make it daily rewards. It seems all pretty straightforward.

[Mega Skeleton.8259]

> @zealex.9410 said:

> > @maddoctor.2738 said:

> > > @"Zoda Slayer.4176" said:

> > > With no rewards for challenge mote for those who have done their weekly clears/shard capped/achievements done, the future looks pretty grim. Seems like a lot of wasted effort making a challenge mode for each boss that only gets played once by a player and then nobody wants to do it again.

> >

> > This is one of the problems, however there are both benefits and drawbacks in adding rewards to those.

>

> The benefits outweight the drawbacks.

 

> @zealex.9410 said:

> > @maddoctor.2738 said:

> > > @"Zoda Slayer.4176" said:

> > > With no rewards for challenge mote for those who have done their weekly clears/shard capped/achievements done, the future looks pretty grim. Seems like a lot of wasted effort making a challenge mode for each boss that only gets played once by a player and then nobody wants to do it again.

> >

> > This is one of the problems, however there are both benefits and drawbacks in adding rewards to those.

>

> The benefits outweight the drawbacks.

 

Yeah, I think making bonus rewards for challenge modes weekly or daily is an easy easy control mechanism to prevent something from being overly farmable.

 

Another option is adding some kind of daily challenge reward for bonus magnetite and a chest that semi-randomly picks a challenge mote to do. A daily challenge would be a good way to reinvigorate ALL previous challenge motes without making them abusable, and they can reuse the current system.

 

Long story short they have a ton of systems in place to increase the rewards without being abusable, I just must think the teams must not be communicating well.

[Astralporing.1957]

> @maddoctor.2738 said:

> > @Astralporing.1957 said:

> > I doubt there's enough raiders to pay for raids though. In the end it's mostly paid for by the money from people that do _not_ raid (or raid, but not consider that content to be essential enough to specifically pay for it).

> >

>

> Found this on reddit:

> BGDM is fairly popular, at the moment there are 16,000(!!!) active users using BGDM, that means users that have been active within a period of one week, the BGDM server has 2k concurrent users on average with peaks of 4-5k users at which point the data sent/received by the server is an astounding 80MB/50MB respectively.

> Link:

>

> It's a 6 months old post by the creator of BGDM. 16k active users within a week and 4-5k concurrent users at peak time (probably Monday when Raids reset)

> The game had maximum 460k concurrent users at some point during the first year (with those 3.5 million sales)

> Link: https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/guild-wars-2-the-first-year/

> That's nearly 1% (0.86%) of the RELEASE concurrent players. I wonder how many concurrent players the game has now, to compare with the 4-5k peak BGDM users.

>

> I think the amount of Raiders in the game is way higher than these forums say :)

 

Do you have any data about how many of those players actually raid though? A lot of people i know are using dps meters. Most of them either don't raid, don't raid anymore, or raid very sporadically. Most of them (even those that do raid) would definitely _not_ buy Raids if they were offered as a DLC.

[maddoctor.2738]

> @Astralporing.1957 said:

> Do you have any data about how many of those players actually raid though? A lot of people i know are using dps meters. Most of them either don't raid, don't raid anymore, or raid very sporadically. Most of them (even those that do raid) would definitely _not_ buy Raids if they were offered as a DLC.

 

Once again, it's a count of concurrent players at peak time. It's an actually useful metric that shows how many users were online at peak time using that 3d party tool (it's no longer available btw, been banned), the "raid sporadically, don't raid anymore arguments would be valid if it counted "active" users, which is what I want to avoid, because what is an "active" user in Guild Wars 2 is up for debate.

 

As for Raids as DLC it depends. If they also add world maps, wvw maps, pvp maps, elite specs, new gear types, fractals, dungeons and so on as DLC and a player can pick and choose what to make their game like, it can work.

 

Of course asking a Raider to buy an expansion to get elite specs and/or new gear stats, then pay more just to buy a Raid wouldn't work.

Either the entire game given as DLC in pieces, so a player can pick a choose what they want to support, or we stay in the current model.

[Astralporing.1957]

> @maddoctor.2738 said:

> > @Astralporing.1957 said:

> > Do you have any data about how many of those players actually raid though? A lot of people i know are using dps meters. Most of them either don't raid, don't raid anymore, or raid very sporadically. Most of them (even those that do raid) would definitely _not_ buy Raids if they were offered as a DLC.

>

> Once again, it's a count of concurrent players at peak time.

 

Sure. But you used BGDM numbers when replying about my doubts about raider population size (and their willingness to support that type of content on their own). So, do you have any info about how the data you supplied is related to the point you were replying to, or was it just some completely unrelated info you just wanted to share with us?

 

 

[maddoctor.2738]

> @Astralporing.1957 said:

> > @maddoctor.2738 said:

> > > @Astralporing.1957 said:

> > > Do you have any data about how many of those players actually raid though? A lot of people i know are using dps meters. Most of them either don't raid, don't raid anymore, or raid very sporadically. Most of them (even those that do raid) would definitely _not_ buy Raids if they were offered as a DLC.

> >

> > Once again, it's a count of concurrent players at peak time.

>

> Sure. But you used BGDM numbers when replying about my doubts about raider population size (and their willingness to support that type of content on their own). So, do you have any info about how the data you supplied is related to the point you were replying to, or was it just some completely unrelated info you just wanted to share with us?

>

>

 

High concurrent players = more players it's rather obvious isn't it?

[maxwelgm.4315]

> @maddoctor.2738 said:

> > @Astralporing.1957 said:

> > I doubt there's enough raiders to pay for raids though. In the end it's mostly paid for by the money from people that do _not_ raid (or raid, but not consider that content to be essential enough to specifically pay for it).

> >

>

> Found this on reddit:

> BGDM is fairly popular, at the moment there are 16,000(!!!) active users using BGDM, that means users that have been active within a period of one week, the BGDM server has 2k concurrent users on average with peaks of 4-5k users at which point the data sent/received by the server is an astounding 80MB/50MB respectively.

> Link:

>

> It's a 6 months old post by the creator of BGDM. 16k active users within a week and 4-5k concurrent users at peak time (probably Monday when Raids reset)

> The game had maximum 460k concurrent users at some point during the first year (with those 3.5 million sales)

> Link: https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/guild-wars-2-the-first-year/

> That's nearly 1% (0.86%) of the RELEASE concurrent players. I wonder how many concurrent players the game has now, to compare with the 4-5k peak BGDM users.

>

> I think the amount of Raiders in the game is way higher than these forums say :)

 

I just want to point out, as a frequent WvW player, that a large portion of WvW guilds use BGDM , among other DPS meter tools. I'd wager that the lion's share of DPS measuring actually goes on in WvW even. It is also very frequent in Fractals. I have serious doubts about the raiding population but, as you put it very well, it is merely personal evidence that wouldn't justify any argument (I try to raid here and there during the whole week and always see the same people).

[maddoctor.2738]

> @maxwelgm.4315 said:

> I just want to point out, as a frequent WvW player, that a large portion of WvW guilds use BGDM , among other DPS meter tools. I'd wager that the lion's share of DPS measuring actually goes on in WvW even. It is also very frequent in Fractals. I have serious doubts about the raiding population but, as you put it very well, it is merely personal evidence that wouldn't justify any argument (I try to raid here and there during the whole week and always see the same people).

 

I hope they don't use BGDM anymore j/k

I've been a lot in WvW even during that era and never encountered dps meters, not in a single squad. I guess it was in organized guild squads or something? Those doing GvG? Since we have number of servers and the number of approximately players in a GvG (10-20), we could count the number of GvG guilds too and get how many of those players are WvWers but obviously it wouldn't help with concurrency numbers. I'm just pointing out that I don't think dps meter users in WvW were so many.

 

Truth of the matter is the number of that peak concurrency is a rather huge one (1% of the release total) Btw other games release when they get 100k+ concurrent players - BDO did, B&S did and if I recall ESO did too. 100k concurrent players as a number is a reason to rejoice and advertise, it's a number other MMORPGs boast, yet Guild Wars 2 doesn't. Could it be that it doesn't reach that number? Or just don't want to because the game reached 460k at release.

 

Who knows.

[kujc.9843]

> @Zenith.7301 said:

> They could start with improving the gold payouts. It's pathetic how little raids pay for the effort they take. Putting t6 materials and leather/cloth/metal/wood boxes for trade for magnetite shards would also be nice.

 

you get 30+ gold out of it as is, you get 13 rares and 13 exotics and there's quite a high chance that you'll drop at least one ascended item from the bosses all that for 2h of work is fine

[Zenith.7301]

> @kujc.9843 said:

> > @Zenith.7301 said:

> > They could start with improving the gold payouts. It's pathetic how little raids pay for the effort they take. Putting t6 materials and leather/cloth/metal/wood boxes for trade for magnetite shards would also be nice.

>

> you get 30+ gold out of it as is, you get 13 rares and 13 exotics and there's quite a high chance that you'll drop at least one ascended item from the bosses all that for 2h of work is fine

 

You get 30+ gold from 1 hour of fractals that only takes 4 other people and less running costs to do. Fractals also don't have a weekly lockout....

 

And then there's the 4 people I've ran with all getting infusion drops that sell for 1.2k gold.

 

Raid rewards are pathetic.

[Astralporing.1957]

> @maddoctor.2738 said:

> > @Astralporing.1957 said:

> > > @maddoctor.2738 said:

> > > > @Astralporing.1957 said:

> > > > Do you have any data about how many of those players actually raid though? A lot of people i know are using dps meters. Most of them either don't raid, don't raid anymore, or raid very sporadically. Most of them (even those that do raid) would definitely _not_ buy Raids if they were offered as a DLC.

> > >

> > > Once again, it's a count of concurrent players at peak time.

> >

> > Sure. But you used BGDM numbers when replying about my doubts about raider population size (and their willingness to support that type of content on their own). So, do you have any info about how the data you supplied is related to the point you were replying to, or was it just some completely unrelated info you just wanted to share with us?

> >

> >

>

> High concurrent players = more players it's rather obvious isn't it?

 

Yes, but it's not clear how the number of _BGDM users_ compares to the _raider_ population.

[STIHL.2489]

> @Kheldorn.5123 said:

> Most of them (even those that do raid) would definitely _not_ buy Raids if they were offered as a DLC.

 

Why not?

[maddoctor.2738]

> @Astralporing.1957 said:

> > @maddoctor.2738 said:

> > > @Astralporing.1957 said:

> > > > @maddoctor.2738 said:

> > > > > @Astralporing.1957 said:

> > > > > Do you have any data about how many of those players actually raid though? A lot of people i know are using dps meters. Most of them either don't raid, don't raid anymore, or raid very sporadically. Most of them (even those that do raid) would definitely _not_ buy Raids if they were offered as a DLC.

> > > >

> > > > Once again, it's a count of concurrent players at peak time.

> > >

> > > Sure. But you used BGDM numbers when replying about my doubts about raider population size (and their willingness to support that type of content on their own). So, do you have any info about how the data you supplied is related to the point you were replying to, or was it just some completely unrelated info you just wanted to share with us?

> > >

> > >

> >

> > High concurrent players = more players it's rather obvious isn't it?

>

> Yes, but it's not clear how the number of _BGDM users_ compares to the _raider_ population.

 

I already explained earlier about the BGDM WvW users. We have the number of servers, we probably have the number of Guilds doing GvGs too, they aren't so many.

Regular pug WvW raids never used BGDM, I mean what's the point anyway. At the very least a commander could use it to spy on the enemy team (it showed number of players around). From my time in Fractals ArcDPS was preferred over BGDM

 

But you are right it's not exactly showing the raider population because not every raider ever used BGDM so the population is likely much larger, not to mention there were already loads using ArcDPS even back then.

 

If you do not accept that at the very least it shows the number of players doing high end fractals, raids and high end GvGs, ie: the more hardcore part of the community. That on its own is also a very valuable statistic when we hear a lot about how much the casual players outnumber the hardcore player population.

[maddoctor.2738]

> @STIHL.2489 said:

> > @Kheldorn.5123 said:

> > Most of them (even those that do raid) would definitely _not_ buy Raids if they were offered as a DLC.

>

> Why not?

 

Unless they offer the rest of the game as DLCs too then Kheldorn is right.

Why would a raider be required to spend $30 to get the elite specs and then another $10 to buy the Raid?

[zealex.9410]

> @maddoctor.2738 said:

> > @STIHL.2489 said:

> > > @Kheldorn.5123 said:

> > > Most of them (even those that do raid) would definitely _not_ buy Raids if they were offered as a DLC.

> >

> > Why not?

>

> Unless they offer the rest of the game as DLCs too then Kheldorn is right.

> Why would a raider be required to spend $30 to get the elite specs and then another $10 to buy the Raid?

 

ESO sells the whole package as dlc. That includes raids new zones quest and maybe dungeons. Making only 1 side of the content b2p on a game that work differently for everything else is bad. Either go the whole way or go home.

[nsleep.7839]

If I had to use real money to buy new raid wings I would just change my main game to something else. If the raids were in the gemstore it would depend on the gem costs and release interval, but that's me since I don't have much problem making gold in this game but newer or less active players would probably need to spend real money and this could make them turn away from the game.

 

As for raid rewards, they are pretty bad for anyone who has been playing the game for a while but I can't really say they are unfair considering the difficulty of the encounters after the optimal compositions and sustained dps rotations were figured out. Maybe adding some repeatable challenge mote rewards (not as good as the first time, but good enough that it can be felt) would be a nice start to improve the quality of rewards while pushing the difficulty for the players who are up to the challenge.

[STIHL.2489]

I'm going to disagree with all of you, because I have played games that sold Large Scale DLC, like expansions, and Smaller "Adventure Pack" style DLC.

 

It works quite well for games overall, as expansions, as the same implies, expand the game, often in the form of Power Creep (Mounts, Gliding, Elite Specs, New Armor Combos, Etc)

 

Where Adventure Packs, simply just provide something to do.

 

Now selling Instance based content (Dungeon/Fractal/Raid) has no impact on the rest of the game, like say a Mount, Gliding, or Elite Spec, does. So things that are wider in impact, should be saved for Expansions. Things that just occupy time, are fine to sold on their own.

 

In this case, they already sell Living Story to anyone that wants to buy it, (Because it does not change the game) as such, Selling Raids, Dungeons, Fractals, and even things like Obsidian Sanctum, would be good.

 

Imagine.. everything you want. Raids, Hard Mode Maps, Challenging Jumping Puzzles, all of it, would get made, simply because you put your money where your mouth is.

 

Equally so, to everyone saying that you would not pay for it.. think how that sounds, I mean really, if you are not willing to pay for it... why should Anet make it then?

[maddoctor.2738]

> @STIHL.2489 said:

> I'm going to disagree with all of you, because I have played games that sold Large Scale DLC, like expansions, and Smaller "Adventure Pack" style DLC.

 

Single player games and MMORPGs are very different

[TheRandomGuy.7246]

If the quality of these dlc raids is even remotely the same then they are just not worth the money. If they are high quality and are released frequently then it will segregate tiny community that is already pretty much dead.