Raid difficulty and challenge motes

[raul.7859]

NO ! we dont want casual raids, i've never been INSIDE of ANY raid and im FINE with it, i like to aspire to one day do it, please devs for the love of god, dont listen to casual/i-want-everything-easy people, i promise you will destroy the game and make it as bad as all the other mmorpgs on the market

[thrag.9740]

I think raid story mode (no rewards, no achievements, all bosses die in one hit basically) should be a thing, so that all players can experience the story.

 

But as far as tiered difficulty goes, no thanks. I've played raids, and I've played fractals. I like raids more.

[zoomborg.9462]

> @thrag.9740 said:

> I think raid story mode (no rewards, no achievements, all bosses die in one hit basically) should be a thing, so that all players can experience the story.

>

> But as far as tiered difficulty goes, no thanks. I've played raids, and I've played fractals. I like raids more.

 

The problem with a pure story mode is that it has no replayability like most story content in this game. Besides people that advocate ez mode in this thread don't care about lore either, just easy rewards......

[maddoctor.2738]

 

> @zoomborg.9462 said:

> > @thrag.9740 said:

> > I think raid story mode (no rewards, no achievements, all bosses die in one hit basically) should be a thing, so that all players can experience the story.

> >

> > But as far as tiered difficulty goes, no thanks. I've played raids, and I've played fractals. I like raids more.

>

> The problem with a pure story mode is that it has no replayability like most story content in this game. Besides people that advocate ez mode in this thread don't care about lore either, just easy rewards......

 

Besides, a raid story mode like that would need to be a solo experience (remember Arah story mode)

[cubed.2853]

> @"Crystal Reid.2481" said:

> Raids need to continue to remain the most challenging content in the game, and they aren't designed to be accessible by everyone from a skill perspective.

 

it's really sad that you think so...

[SidewayS.3789]

Why you guys so upset about not having tiers? If you truly want to show you are all upset, vote with your wallet. Let's let only the raiders sustain the income in this game, and will see how it works. Already a lot of players left the game, and if they continue with this attitude, i guess they (Anet) wont make alive, to the next expansion, because they already, are in a low income and if our new expansion flops, GW2 will have a hard time surviving.

So, TL;DR : Vote with wallet, and we will see how this will works, for Anet.

[NotOverlyCheesy.9427]

> @SidewayS.3789 said:

> Why you guys so upset about not having tiers? If you truly want to show you are all upset, vote with your wallet. Let's let only the raiders sustain the income in this game, and will see how it works. Already a lot of players left the game, and if they continue with this attitude, i guess they (Anet) wont make alive, to the next expansion, because they already, are in a low income and if our new expansion flops, GW2 will have a hard time surviving.

> So, TL;DR : Vote with wallet, and we will see how this will works, for Anet.

 

Very wise words. If not having raid story mode outweighs core tyria, dungeons, fractals, living story season 2, season 3/maps, HoT maps, PvP and WvW then you probably should be playing a different game.

[SidewayS.3789]

> @NotOverlyCheesy.9427 said:

> > @SidewayS.3789 said:

> > Why you guys so upset about not having tiers? If you truly want to show you are all upset, vote with your wallet. Let's let only the raiders sustain the income in this game, and will see how it works. Already a lot of players left the game, and if they continue with this attitude, i guess they (Anet) wont make alive, to the next expansion, because they already, are in a low income and if our new expansion flops, GW2 will have a hard time surviving.

> > So, TL;DR : Vote with wallet, and we will see how this will works, for Anet.

>

> Very wise words. If not having raid story mode outweighs core tyria, dungeons, fractals, living story season 2, season 3/maps, HoT maps, PvP and WvW then you probably should be playing a different game.

 

I don't want story mode dude. I'm not even against raids.All i'm saying is, the ppls who are upset for not introducing tiers (just like other MMOs) to vote with the wallet, and let you raiders sustain the game. And lol, your comment sustain my idea that you guys are so closed minds.

[NotOverlyCheesy.9427]

@"SidewayS.3789" That's exactly what I was saying. If you are so upset about raid tiers that all other content is meaningless then you should spend your money elsewhere.

[zoomborg.9462]

This game is sustained mostly by Gem microtransactions, raids or not, tiers or not, people will still sustain it just like they did b4 even HoT existed. Your comment sounds like more of a threat like "u better add tiers or i leave the game". Anet has no use for customers that deal in ultimatums. No healthy business ever had.

True, this game gets most of it's financial support from casual players who spend real money instead of grinding gold, most of these players are mature enough to know what they wanna do in the game and u won't find them in the forums complaining. They use their free time to actually play the game.

 

Believe it or not this game is still flourishing and it's in a much healthier state than it was during release

 

[SidewayS.3789]

You guys didn't understood my point. I'm NOT AGAINST RAIDS, and i don't care if they add tiers or not. My message was for those who protest here. Jeez, reading between the lines much? No wonder there is a huge gap between raiders and the other players.

> @zoomborg.9462 said:

> Believe it or not this game is still flourishing and it's in a much healthier state than it was during release

>

Keep saying this, maybe one day it will happen. But with your attitude "everyone who have a different idea, let's bashing him" it will take you far...

And this is my last post here, i cant speak with closed minds ppls. I wonder how you guys survive in real life, with this attitude.

[NotOverlyCheesy.9427]

> @SidewayS.3789 said:

> You guys didn't understood my point. I'm NOT AGAINST RAIDS, and i don't care if they add tiers or not. My message was for those who protest here. Jeez, reading between the lines much? No wonder there is a huge gap between raiders and the other players.

> > @zoomborg.9462 said:

> > Believe it or not this game is still flourishing and it's in a much healthier state than it was during release

> >

> Keep saying this, maybe one day it will happen. But with your attitude "everyone who have a different idea, let's bashing him" it will take you far...

> And this is my last post here, i cant speak with closed minds ppls. I wonder how you guys survive in real life, with this attitude.

 

I don't get it. First I say he has a point and then I say I agree with him. It was not a personal attack. I was talking to the people who protest here.

[zoomborg.9462]

> @SidewayS.3789 said:

> You guys didn't understood my point. I'm NOT AGAINST RAIDS, and i don't care if they add tiers or not. My message was for those who protest here. Jeez, reading between the lines much? No wonder there is a huge gap between raiders and the other players.

> > @zoomborg.9462 said:

> > Believe it or not this game is still flourishing and it's in a much healthier state than it was during release

> >

> Keep saying this, maybe one day it will happen. But with your attitude "everyone who have a different idea, let's bashing him" it will take you far...

> And this is my last post here, i cant speak with closed minds ppls. I wonder how you guys survive in real life, with this attitude.

 

U arent making any point. U say u are not against raids, u dont care if they add tiers or not, u dont provide insight or facts about anything, U are just saying Anet will go bunkrupt because of raiders protesting against tiers......but u dont care about tiers as u said......and ofc anyone who has a different opinion is a closed mind.....

U dont even know what u are saying.

[Kolzi.5928]

> @Crevox.5806 said:

> > @meeflak.9714 said:

> > > @Crevox.5806 said:

> > > As a returning player from before Heart of Thorns, I just want an easier time getting into raids. The raids have been out for so long now that everyone expects you have experience running them many times. I know for a fact I have the skill and build to do it, but finding a group is extremely difficult. It's not even a matter of their difficulty, I just literally cannot get 9 other people together to even attempt them.

> > >

> > > I'd like to challenge that hard content you've created, but I'm not being given the opportunity to do so.

> >

> > Many people run weekly raid trainings. There is a discord server dedicated to it. I myself run trainings often =) we are out there you just have to look!!

>

> I joined a couple of these "training" discords. There were literally hundreds of people trying to fit in runs and the people running the Discords couldn't get everyone sorted out, let alone get everyone into an actual group.

>

> I also don't really need "training." I may have never done the raids before, but I am a skilled player and veteran raider in other MMOs. Looking up videos of how the fights are done explain it to me perfectly fine; the mechanics are simple. I completely understand Vale Guardian and his mechanics, I just need a group so I can go in there and kill him. I'm currently doing T4 fractals without issue and top meters every time, using consumables, using the right equipment, but I literally can't get into raid groups because I don't have "experience." Training groups wouldn't help me here, especially if the player quality is going to be the same as the fractal pug groups I'm running with.

 

What a terrible attitude. Everyone has to go through a learning experience, be it in a training run, guild progression or other. You think we all just logged on one day and killed the boss with no work? To think you are somehow above the rest of us is frankly insulting.

 

Even if you are a skilled player (and if I'm honest, your post reeks to me of dunning-kruger but let's leave that aside), you still need to learn the encounters. If you really have the experience you claim in raiding in other games you would be aware of this. Being a good player doesn't give you instinctive knowledge of everything in an encounter.

 

Training runs actually would help you get experience (no quotation marks necessary, it's the literal definition of experience), that's literally what they're there for.

[Metavahn.7293]

so you dont want to add difficulty scaling because you want to keep pushing out content that only <1% of the playerbase will ever see, seems like backwards logic to me and why i and many other players rarely play GW2 for more than a week

 

its these rigid ideas and ideals that keep gw2 from being what it should of been, a contender to WoW and FFXIV which it will never be

 

and im sure all those toxic raid guilds would be so happy to invite every new returning player to come experience the new content, dont make me laugh

 

I will stick to FFXIV as my main MMO, switch to WoW on occasion and GW2 being the last resort, as it should be

 

my money goes to FFXIV because of your amazing and backwards ideals, rely on that cash shop for aslong as you can because you need it to stay afloat

[SidewayS.3789]

> @zoomborg.9462 said:

> > @SidewayS.3789 said:

> > You guys didn't understood my point. I'm NOT AGAINST RAIDS, and i don't care if they add tiers or not. My message was for those who protest here. Jeez, reading between the lines much? No wonder there is a huge gap between raiders and the other players.

> > > @zoomborg.9462 said:

> > > Believe it or not this game is still flourishing and it's in a much healthier state than it was during release

> > >

> > Keep saying this, maybe one day it will happen. But with your attitude "everyone who have a different idea, let's bashing him" it will take you far...

> > And this is my last post here, i cant speak with closed minds ppls. I wonder how you guys survive in real life, with this attitude.

>

> U arent making any point. U say u are not against raids, u dont care if they add tiers or not, u dont provide insight or facts about anything, U are just saying Anet will go bunkrupt because of raiders protesting against tiers......but u dont care about tiers as u said......and ofc anyone who has a different opinion is a closed mind.....

> U dont even know what u are saying.

 

I know what i'm saying. You act like doing raids in this games, makes you different, and no one should even dare to have an opinion about tiers, because just like in a Houdini act, magically a horde of raiders come and beats you with "git gud or gtfo". Now i'm going back to enjoy playing, rather than speaking with these kinds, like you.

[Feanor.2358]

> @Zefiris.8297 said:

> > @Feanor.2358 said:

> > The simple answer is: it's not cost-effective. An "easy/story mode" raid would have no replayability whatsoever. Let alone multiple difficulty tiers. They will serve to only be "accessed" once by some curious players who will never go back to them. It is simply not worth the effort.

>

> Actually, other MMOs have proven this to be wrong: This approach is most cost effective, because it achieves multiple things at once.

> 1. It gets people into raiding, letting them actually try the content and see if they like it (which many do)

> 2. It gets people to practice the mechanics, leading to the average person trying a raid to be better at it

> 3. It keeps people engaged, because there is more content to do with friends, which is *the* reason for a MMO to have retention

>

> This is why the most successful MMOs do use such easier modes. It's not because these games have nicer designers, it's just because it's a more effective use of development time.

 

1. No it doesn't. I've seen many people show interest in raiding and lose it quickly. It was never a difficulty problem, it was commitment. Having to make arrangements ahead of time and having to stick with them for the sake of a game - that's what makes people not become raiders, most of everything. You might argue PUGs exist, but pugging wastes a lot more time in setting up a group, both at the start and when somebody leaves. It's your free time and you're trying to have some fun. Waiting is nobody's idea of fun, so people give up on that, too.

 

2. No it doesn't. Tuned-down mechanics can only teach you bad habits.

 

3. No it doesn't, see (1).

 

 

[Tharos.8509]

> @"Crystal Reid.2481" said:

> New forum, so I'll jump in with a new post on this.

>

> Raids need to continue to remain the most challenging content in the game, and they aren't designed to be accessible by everyone from a skill perspective. Could they be more accessible from a "finding 9 other players to play with" side? Sure. That isn't always an easy problem to solve, and any solution would detract away from the team making more raid content. We'd love to get more content out to you guys faster really.

I'm a regular raider and I agree. Reading back most of the (useful) comments, I'd highlight just one thing.

There is a nice amount of lore inside the raids. Very interesting, too. Casual players, that won't be able to complete raids because of their playstyle, should be able to see an "official" version of the story presented in raids. Be it a simple CGI, some kind of narration, I'm not really sure, but **don't** take lore out of raids, please, its' wonderful. Just make it accessible to casual, lore-loving players.

[GrimmR.3541]

Well, this discussion isn't about raids being hard or not, it's about people wanting to commit towards something or not.

[zoomborg.9462]

> @Feanor.2358 said:

> > @Zefiris.8297 said:

> > > @Feanor.2358 said:

> > > The simple answer is: it's not cost-effective. An "easy/story mode" raid would have no replayability whatsoever. Let alone multiple difficulty tiers. They will serve to only be "accessed" once by some curious players who will never go back to them. It is simply not worth the effort.

> >

> > Actually, other MMOs have proven this to be wrong: This approach is most cost effective, because it achieves multiple things at once.

> > 1. It gets people into raiding, letting them actually try the content and see if they like it (which many do)

> > 2. It gets people to practice the mechanics, leading to the average person trying a raid to be better at it

> > 3. It keeps people engaged, because there is more content to do with friends, which is *the* reason for a MMO to have retention

> >

> > This is why the most successful MMOs do use such easier modes. It's not because these games have nicer designers, it's just because it's a more effective use of development time.

>

> 1. No it doesn't. I've seen many people show interest in raiding and lose it quickly. It was never a difficulty problem, it was commitment. Having to make arrangements ahead of time and having to stick with them for the sake of a game - that's what makes people not become raiders, most of everything. You might argue PUGs exist, but pugging wastes a lot more time in setting up a group, both at the start and when somebody leaves. It's your free time and you're trying to have some fun. Waiting is nobody's idea of fun, so people give up on that, too.

>

> 2. No it doesn't. Tuned-down mechanics can only teach you bad habits.

>

> 3. No it doesn't, see (1).

>

>

 

Easier modes on other MMOS never really trained players.Instead the players just stayed at a low difficulty level and literally "farmed" raids as there is nothing else to do in most MMO's apart from raiding. If VG was nerfed so that green circles dont down players when exploding then u would have the bad habit of completely ignoring them. Same with Sabetha flamewall or Matthias Sacrifice or Deimos mind crush etc etc. The only way people get better either in a game or in RL is try to do something much more difficult than your current skillset and improve with commitment. This is the only way to train.

Most players in GW2 do T4 daylies every single day. Yet as soon as they hop into 99cm,100cm they die all over the place. Why is that? Because only by playing the cms do u actually train for cms. T4 fractals dont prepare u for that. Same with raids, if u wanna train u need to find/create a training group instead of hoping Anet will give a cookie.

 

I completely agree with feanor.

[Moorbazan.3167]

> @"Crystal Reid.2481" said:

>

> 'Raids need to continue to remain the most challenging content in the game'

>

> I see a lot of comments about W4 difficulty, so I'll add some notes on that as well. Balance came in later than expected since we had far more bosses and content to test than usual. Are we totally happy with how balance turned out? Yes and no. The Mursaat Overseer base difficulty is too easy, but we were very happy with the CM difficulty. For the next release we'd like to get difficulty tuned more back in line with Spirit Vale. However, some of that original difficulty and magic is hard to re-capture. You never forget your first raid boss kill.

 

At this point, one week before the xpac, i will share some of my thoughts/wishes about raids and it's development in the future.

I think a big part of the community agrees with me, that old raid content should be still updated/supported after new expansions and content updates.

 

* Keep old raid wings up to date with small changes:

1. Increase Boss HP and adjust it to current/upcoming power creep. (Gorseval, VG, Mo, Sloth..) More Mechanics > Less Dps Golem

2. Reduce some Boss-Timers (particularly W4, they are way to high) and increase it's incoming Enrage DPS/incoming Enrage DPS ignores Armor

* Add new sections to the lfg, to make it easier to form pug, steady groups, raidsells (or to find a raid guild).

* Cooldown-Reset is actually a big, big thing:

1. Full Shroud and Celestial Avatar should be added to /gg

2. Entering a raid and killing a raid boss should reset cd's too (Would be a nice option for Fotm CM's)

* Give W4 CM'S (+KC CM) a weekly reward chest (food container or gold..) like fractal cms and dont waste the good work on it!!!

* Prevent bugs (W3) and improve boss pattern due to high dps or other reasons + boss pathing (Mo and Sloth atm.)

* Remove some annoying Hitboxes in Boss Areas, which eat projectiles and other stuff (Xera: Middle of the Plattform; KC: Middle of the Area in Split Phase; Matt: Hitboxes above the CC Spot; VG: Pylons; !MO!: Killed Statues eat all Projectiles, its super annoying)

* More skill seperation between pve and the other game modes (Stick and Move + Excessive Energy, modifiers should be added with full endurance - dodges are mostly avoided due to dps loss in pve)

* Loot/Rewards should be always more profitable in challenging content, than doing some open world afk farms (wood farm, leather etc.) and there should be a reason to 'Repeat' Bosses:

1. Add a PiP System like PvP/WvW, where you get Pips for each Boss (Pips depend on Boss Difficulty for Example: W1: VG 2Pips, Gorse 3Pips, Sabetha 4Pips; W2: Sloth 2Pips, Trio 2Pips, Matt: 5Pips; W3: Escort 2Pips, KC: 3Pips, Xera: 4Pips; W4: Cairn: 2Pips, Mo: 2Pips, Sam: 2Pips, Deimos: 4Pips) W1-3: 9 Pips each; W4: 10 Pips

2. Food Container

3. Gold

4. Stuff to Salvage

 

That's some of the general stuff, would be nice to see changes in the future. At least i H.O.P.E. so ("\(-.-)/")

[Joji.7934]

> @"Crystal Reid.2481" said:

> New forum, so I'll jump in with a new post on this.

>

> We won't be adding a different difficulty tier at this time. Raids need to continue to remain the most challenging content in the game, and they aren't designed to be accessible by everyone from a skill perspective. Could they be more accessible from a "finding 9 other players to play with" side? Sure. That isn't always an easy problem to solve, and any solution would detract away from the team making more raid content. We'd love to get more content out to you guys faster really.

>

> I see a lot of comments about W4 difficulty, so I'll add some notes on that as well. Balance came in later than expected since we had far more bosses and content to test than usual. Are we totally happy with how balance turned out? Yes and no. The Mursaat Overseer base difficulty is too easy, but we were very happy with the CM difficulty. For the next release we'd like to get difficulty tuned more back in line with Spirit Vale. However, some of that original difficulty and magic is hard to re-capture. You never forget your first raid boss kill.

 

I whole heartedly agree with Crystal here.

As someone who has raided throughout different MMOs, I've seen enough contrast to say that the most enjoyable experience for has been in guildwars AND warcraft in its prime(Ulduar and Icecrown Citadel).

Many years ago, Raids were considered to be an epic journey through a very long zone which required hours of progression through the most difficult obstacles.

Nowadays in MMOs, the 'epic feeling' is questionable and sometimes just a plain instance with a very basic and boring boss encounters; which is not the case for guildwars.

 

One aspect I hope for ANet that stays consistent, is that we do not see it suffer to the multiple-difficulty dilemma (prime example: warcraft has 4 difficulties) which can devalue the meaning of raiding and splinter the reward structure and player base.

To answer the question of how can players experience the story of the raids without having a super casual version of raids, I did like that players can enter a finished instance and interact with Glenna in W4 to access the dialogues and cutscenes of the boss encounters; perhaps Anet can refine this a bit more.

 

 

 

 

 

[ShadowBane.5036]

> @"That Guy.5704" said:

> I completely understand ANet's position. I really do. If it means that more raids can be put out when they dont have to worry about different difficulties, then absolutely focus on new content.

>

> On the other hand, I also completely understand that while raid encounters are not meant to be accessible by everyone, more people would like to get in and get a taste of the general encounters and see the story and I know that nearly all the story is outside of the encounters. I know that the following wont happen, but just going to leave it here as an "if I could" idea.

>

> Easy mote: Increases outgoing damage and condition damage by 33%, decreases incoming damage and condition damage by 33%. Encounters remain the same. Maybe even bigger damage increase/reduction numbers, whatever. Rewards per boss: 2 champ bags 2 bags of gear once a week. Thats it. This wouldnt be something anyone should want to repeat, but would let most people get the encounters done to see whats going on without actually giving them access to any meaningful rewards apart from the story. Doing something like this would allow more core stories to be told. As I remember the Saul story almost didnt make it because it may have been too "core". Also, easy mode shouldnt be available in the newest wing and should only show up once the following wing is released so that first kills are completed on normal mode.

 

But they've already stated that >ANY< effort gone into designing this stuff (no matter how "simple" a suggestion might seem to us it probably isn't in practice) is going to detract from pushing out new raids at a steady pace. IF "more people would like to get in and get a taste of the general encounters and see the story", they should at the very least make an effort to find a Guild willing to train them in >GUILD< Wars Raids. There is more than enough posts and content on GW2 reddit (and other sites such as guildex) to find these guilds. Hell if I could direct link an old GW2 reddit post that helped me find my current Raid Guild I would (it's probably waaay out of date by now, but you can google "Can we get a directory of guilds that teach raids?")

[That Guy.5704]

> @ShadowBane.5036 said:

> But they've already stated that >ANY< effort gone into designing this stuff (no matter how "simple" a suggestion might seem to us it probably isn't in practice) is going to detract from pushing out new raids at a steady pace. IF "more people would like to get in and get a taste of the general encounters and see the story", they should at the very least make an effort to find a Guild willing to train them in >GUILD< Wars Raids. There is more than enough posts and content on GW2 reddit (and other sites such as guildex) to find these guilds. kitten if I could direct link an old GW2 reddit post that helped me find my current Raid Guild I would (it's probably waaay out of date by now, but you can google "Can we get a directory of guilds that teach raids?")

 

I love how I can preface that whole thing with

 

>I completely understand ANet's position. I really do. If it means that more raids can be put out when they dont have to worry about different difficulties, then >ABSOLUTELY FOCUS ON NEW CONTENT<.

 

and then further say

 

>I >KNOW< that the following >WONT< happen, but just going to leave it here as an "if I could" idea.

 

 

and everyone completely misses that I even said it. (added the arrows for clarity since you like those)

 

[Velho.7123]

If they wanted to get rid of the difficulty for "pure Story content" they could just reduce the HP of everything in the raid to 10% and you don't get any rewards while doing it. "Tutorial/Story mode".