Legendary armor is MIA

[Adenin.5973]

> @"Feanor.2358" said:

> > @"Adenin.5973" said:

> > That's like saying everyone can become president. Yeah sure it's possible but in practice it's not.

> > Many people just can't raid in practice.

> >

> > I still don't get why the Anet devs think it's such a fantastic idea to make content that in his core design and idea is meant to be exclusive, that in practice only 5% of the playerbase gets to enjoy, while making this content a necessity to get some of the shiniest and best items in the game, while repeatedly refusing to even think about implementing other ways of making said content or its rewards more accessible (by adding 5 man versions or making difficulty levels, adding roles to the lfg and make group finding automated, getting rid of the raid trinity requirement etc).

> >

> > It's not like Anet is a company that is able to pump out so much new significant and replayable endgame content (like Blizzard does for example each year), that no one would mind not ever playing several raid wings and or not/never getting the unique skins and legendary armor.

> >

> > What a waste of time and resources.

>

> Yes, and exactly the same logic can be applied to pretty much everything in the game. Not everyone can PvP, for a variety of reasons. Or do FotM. Or farm Silverwastes if you will. Raids aren't any different, nor are their rewards. And no, it's not a waste of resources. It's making the game more diverse, which ultimately makes it appealing for more players.

 

The "principle" that is important for this discussion is not "any sort of requirements for any game mode". The important principle here is that the devs should do their best to make any game mode as accessible as possible for the playerbase.

 

There are far more people that can PvP, PvP has several levels of difficulty already, it has automated lfg tools and doesn't require endless organization with 9 other ppl etc.

Yes PvP is not liked by many ppl, which leads in practice also to many ppl not "being able to do PvP" but the reason is either because many ppl just don't like PvP in general or because the one game mode: "endless running around in circles just to stand on top of circles" is not appealing to them.

There's no inherent concept in the PvP modes (WvW as well) where the devs intended the mode to be specifically exclusively played by a very small fraction of players. With PvP, there are no artificial barriers that could've been easily designed in a way that would make the game mode far more accessible. With PvP it's the opposite. The devs did their best to make it as accessible as possible for everyone.

 

Wit raids it's the exact opposite. The devs outright said that raids aren't intended to be played by many players.

 

Now lets just take the principle of "making all game modes as accessible for everyone as possible" and apply it to raids.

[Feanor.2358]

> @"Adenin.5973" said:

> > @"Feanor.2358" said:

> > > @"Adenin.5973" said:

> > > That's like saying everyone can become president. Yeah sure it's possible but in practice it's not.

> > > Many people just can't raid in practice.

> > >

> > > I still don't get why the Anet devs think it's such a fantastic idea to make content that in his core design and idea is meant to be exclusive, that in practice only 5% of the playerbase gets to enjoy, while making this content a necessity to get some of the shiniest and best items in the game, while repeatedly refusing to even think about implementing other ways of making said content or its rewards more accessible (by adding 5 man versions or making difficulty levels, adding roles to the lfg and make group finding automated, getting rid of the raid trinity requirement etc).

> > >

> > > It's not like Anet is a company that is able to pump out so much new significant and replayable endgame content (like Blizzard does for example each year), that no one would mind not ever playing several raid wings and or not/never getting the unique skins and legendary armor.

> > >

> > > What a waste of time and resources.

> >

> > Yes, and exactly the same logic can be applied to pretty much everything in the game. Not everyone can PvP, for a variety of reasons. Or do FotM. Or farm Silverwastes if you will. Raids aren't any different, nor are their rewards. And no, it's not a waste of resources. It's making the game more diverse, which ultimately makes it appealing for more players.

>

> The "principle" that is important for this discussion is not "any sort of requirements for any game mode". The important principle here is that the devs should do their best to make any game mode as accessible as possible for the playerbase.

 

Wrong.

This only caters to the uber casual crowd and will make all the long-time players quit, as it will simply make the game boring for them.

 

> @"Adenin.5973" said:

> There are far more people that can PvP, PvP has several levels of difficulty already, it has automated lfg tools and doesn't require endless organization with 9 other ppl etc.

 

The numbers are irrelevant. It's a matter of diversity. And if you want to translate it to business terms, also of dedication. Dedicated players are more likely to spend money.

[Adenin.5973]

Wow, I couldn't disagree more.

 

Look at fractals. There is a fractal difficulty level "1". And yet there are still enough people that run every single day "100cm"? Why. Why haven't all people that enjoy t4 runs stopped playing already?

Why the hell would anyone quit the game or stop playing the challenging content he likes just because there were several other difficulty layers beneath his layer added? It's not like anyone would take anything away from them. The highest level of difficulty is still the one that gives the most rewards. That's also where the Most Efficient Tactic Available (META) will still be defined and have its place, that'S still where you can earn your fancy titles and get your shinies asap.

 

And no the numbers are never irrelevant in reality. They are only irrelevant if you want to philosophize without getting to any conclusion. And they're certainly not irrelevant if you have a company and several hundred employees to pay every single month of the year.

 

The "casuals" are the backbone of the community. If you don't give them easy access to your content they just leave and your game shares the same fate as other games (like Wildstar for example, which failed hilariously) that believed hardcore endgame content would be the way to go.

[Ashen.2907]

Currently there is a very small portion of the game's content that is designed to cater to those seeking a challenging group experiience.

 

I suppose I would support slowing new development to add different difficulty levels and the like to raids so long as general pve development were slowed or ceased long enough to add increased difficulty levels to all pve content first.

[Adenin.5973]

> @"Ashen.2907" said:

> Currently there is a very small portion of the game's content that is designed to cater to those seeking a challenging group experiience.

>

> I suppose I would support slowing new development to add different difficulty levels and the like to raids so long as general pve development were slowed or ceased long enough to add increased difficulty levels to all pve content first.

 

That's the thing, Raids should be general PvE content. And no one said delete everything that is difficult in raids and make story instances out of them. With adding new tiers of difficulty for raids they could even get more difficult at the highest tier.

 

The point is accessibility. And even the hardcore uber raiders could profit because some people that would never start raiding right now could be introduced at the lowest level, where they realize that they really enjoy raids and then they start climbing the ladder.

 

Imagine if there was only t4 fractals, not only would all people that run t1-t3 not play fractals, many many ppl that run daily t4 fractals would also never have gotten into fractal runs, simply because the entry barrier would've been too high

[Feanor.2358]

> @"Adenin.5973" said:

> Wow, I couldn't disagree more.

>

> Look at fractals. There is a fractal difficulty level "1". And yet there are still enough people that run every single day "100cm"? Why. Why haven't all people that enjoy t4 runs stopped playing already?

 

Exactly because there is also t4 and cms on top of that. If it was all t1, we would have. CMs are still fun because they are challenging. The exact same thing means there will be players who find them inaccessible. And that, for the 17th time, is fine.

 

> @"Adenin.5973" said:

> > @"Ashen.2907" said:

> > Currently there is a very small portion of the game's content that is designed to cater to those seeking a challenging group experiience.

> >

> > I suppose I would support slowing new development to add different difficulty levels and the like to raids so long as general pve development were slowed or ceased long enough to add increased difficulty levels to all pve content first.

>

> That's the thing, Raids should be general PvE content. And no one said delete everything that is difficult in raids and make story instances out of them. With adding new tiers of difficulty for raids they could even get more difficult at the highest tier.

>

> The point is accessibility. And even the hardcore uber raiders could profit because some people that would never start raiding right now could be introduced at the lowest level, where they realize that they really enjoy raids and then they start climbing the ladder.

>

> Imagine if there was only t4 fractals, not only would all people that run t1-t3 not play fractals, many many ppl that run daily t4 fractals would also never have gotten into fractal runs, simply because the entry barrier would've been too high

 

There's already lower tier instanced content. Fractals of the Mists. Lower tier raids would serve **exactly** the same purpose and are therefore not needed.

[Adenin.5973]

> @"Feanor.2358" said:

> > @"Adenin.5973" said:

> > Wow, I couldn't disagree more.

> >

> > Look at fractals. There is a fractal difficulty level "1". And yet there are still enough people that run every single day "100cm"? Why. Why haven't all people that enjoy t4 runs stopped playing already?

>

> Exactly because there is also t4 and cms on top of that. If it was all t1, we would have. CMs are still fun because they are challenging. The exact same thing means there will be players who find them inaccessible. And that, for the 17th time, is fine.

 

Haha, so funny. What you're saying just doesn't make any sense to me.

Again:

- The current difficulty of raids becomes "Raids T4"

- We add "Raids T1-T3" beneath it

- T1 is the least difficult with the least rewards and T4 is the most difficult with the most rewards

 

Why exactly is this such a massive problem for you? Why would you and "all the long-time players quit, as it will simply make the game boring for them"?

Litterally not one thing changed for you! Except maybe the fact that more and more people start to climb the tiers, since the entry barrier was lowered, more and more people are there to play t4 raids with you, anet starts to see that players like raids, more people log in daily, more resources are allocated to develop raids.

 

It's a win win situation. We all get the content to enjoy and we probably get even more players to support the game

[Feanor.2358]

> @"Adenin.5973" said:

> > @"Feanor.2358" said:

> > > @"Adenin.5973" said:

> > > Wow, I couldn't disagree more.

> > >

> > > Look at fractals. There is a fractal difficulty level "1". And yet there are still enough people that run every single day "100cm"? Why. Why haven't all people that enjoy t4 runs stopped playing already?

> >

> > Exactly because there is also t4 and cms on top of that. If it was all t1, we would have. CMs are still fun because they are challenging. The exact same thing means there will be players who find them inaccessible. And that, for the 17th time, is fine.

>

> Haha, so funny. What you're saying just doesn't make any sense to me.

> Again:

> - The current difficulty of raids becomes "Raids T4"

> - We add "Raids T1-T3" beneath it

> - T1 is the least difficult with the least rewards and T4 is the most difficult with the most rewards

>

> Why exactly is this such a massive problem for you? Why would you and "all the long-time players quit, as it will simply make the game boring for them"?

 

Let me explain.

 

Raids T3 = FotM T4

Raids T2 = FotM T3

Raids T1 = FotM T2

 

It's not that it's a problem for *me*. It's that **this** would be a massive waste of development time as it creates content that serves the **same** purpose as already existing content. Unlike the actual raid development, which serves an actual purpose by bringing a whole new tier of instanced content in the game.

[Ashen.2907]

> @"Adenin.5973" said:

> > @"Ashen.2907" said:

> > Currently there is a very small portion of the game's content that is designed to cater to those seeking a challenging group experiience.

> >

> > I suppose I would support slowing new development to add different difficulty levels and the like to raids so long as general pve development were slowed or ceased long enough to add increased difficulty levels to all pve content first.

>

> That's the thing, Raids should be general PvE content. And no one said delete everything that is difficult in raids and make story instances out of them. With adding new tiers of difficulty for raids they could even get more difficult at the highest tier.

>

> The point is accessibility. And even the hardcore uber raiders could profit because some people that would never start raiding right now could be introduced at the lowest level, where they realize that they really enjoy raids and then they start climbing the ladder.

>

> Imagine if there was only t4 fractals, not only would all people that run t1-t3 not play fractals, many many ppl that run daily t4 fractals would also never have gotten into fractal runs, simply because the entry barrier would've been too high

 

I didnt claim that anyone was asking that difficulty in raids be deleted.

 

But if people who already have the vast majority of the game's content designed for them want content development for those who receive a tiny fraction of development to be slowed, then they should be willing to have that vast majority of the game's development slowed, or temporarily ceased, so that it can be converted to provide greater appeal to all players as well.

 

Want lower difficulty for raids? Sure, after hardmode is developed for all other content.

[Adenin.5973]

> @"Ashen.2907" said:

> > @"Adenin.5973" said:

> > > @"Ashen.2907" said:

> > > Currently there is a very small portion of the game's content that is designed to cater to those seeking a challenging group experiience.

> > >

> > > I suppose I would support slowing new development to add different difficulty levels and the like to raids so long as general pve development were slowed or ceased long enough to add increased difficulty levels to all pve content first.

> >

> > That's the thing, Raids should be general PvE content. And no one said delete everything that is difficult in raids and make story instances out of them. With adding new tiers of difficulty for raids they could even get more difficult at the highest tier.

> >

> > The point is accessibility. And even the hardcore uber raiders could profit because some people that would never start raiding right now could be introduced at the lowest level, where they realize that they really enjoy raids and then they start climbing the ladder.

> >

> > Imagine if there was only t4 fractals, not only would all people that run t1-t3 not play fractals, many many ppl that run daily t4 fractals would also never have gotten into fractal runs, simply because the entry barrier would've been too high

>

> I didnt claim that anyone was asking that difficulty in raids be deleted.

>

> But if people who already have the vast majority of the game's content designed for them want content development for those who receive a tiny fraction of development to be slowed, then they should be willing to have that vast majority of the game's development slowed, or temporarily ceased, so that it can be converted to provide greater appeal to all players as well.

>

> Want lower difficulty for raids? Sure, after hardmode is developed for all other content.

 

There's one thing you need to realize. The "vast majority of content" is developed for the "vast majority of players". While the "tiny fraction of resources spent on raids" is done for an "almost non existent part of the community".

 

Also we would probably disagree on the actual "resources spent on raid development" since balancing, elite specialization development and much more things are also hugely affected by raids.

 

We have a disproportion on effort spent on developing raids, their exclusive rewards, the game systems and mechanics affected by raids and players that actually play it.

If we have such an disproportion for open world PvE content it would be the other way around. The one thing people cry about that leave GW2 is that there is not enough for them to do.

 

Add raid tiers and these ppl have enough to do for several months. Doesn't take away your challenge, could even lead to a situation, where raids are that popular that the raid team gets way bigger and you get even more of your challenging content.

When raids would be massively popular, maybe anet would've even decided that making another set of legendary armor would be worth the effort.

 

But continue with your trend of keeping them inaccessible and you will only see people crying about them, few people that actually do them and at one point, since the general playerbase shrinks, like it does with any MMO over time, Anet needs to cut certain projects, since their funds decrease and what would be a project that wouldn't affect the general playerbase much? Exactly, raids.

[Adenin.5973]

> @"Feanor.2358" said:

> > @"Adenin.5973" said:

> > > @"Feanor.2358" said:

> > > > @"Adenin.5973" said:

> > > > Wow, I couldn't disagree more.

> > > >

> > > > Look at fractals. There is a fractal difficulty level "1". And yet there are still enough people that run every single day "100cm"? Why. Why haven't all people that enjoy t4 runs stopped playing already?

> > >

> > > Exactly because there is also t4 and cms on top of that. If it was all t1, we would have. CMs are still fun because they are challenging. The exact same thing means there will be players who find them inaccessible. And that, for the 17th time, is fine.

> >

> > Haha, so funny. What you're saying just doesn't make any sense to me.

> > Again:

> > - The current difficulty of raids becomes "Raids T4"

> > - We add "Raids T1-T3" beneath it

> > - T1 is the least difficult with the least rewards and T4 is the most difficult with the most rewards

> >

> > Why exactly is this such a massive problem for you? Why would you and "all the long-time players quit, as it will simply make the game boring for them"?

>

> Let me explain.

>

> Raids T3 = FotM T4

> Raids T2 = FotM T3

> Raids T1 = FotM T2

>

> It's not that it's a problem for *me*. It's that **this** would be a massive waste of development time as it creates content that serves the **same** purpose as already existing content. Unlike the actual raid development, which serves an actual purpose by bringing a whole new tier of instanced content in the game.

 

So, since we already have several armor skins in the game we don't need any more skins in the game?

Since we have already several meta maps in the game we don't need any more of them?

Since we already have dungeons we don't need fractals?

.....this is not about "content serving a new purpose", it's about getting more content out to the players

 

This game needs content and massive amounts of it. What is it players complain when they talk about GW2?

- Expansions offer not much content at release

- Expansions only every 2 years

- Maps have no replayability

- Living story takes too long to release

- Too few armor and weapon sets outside of the shop

- Story too short

- Too few fractals

- Too few raids

- No new dungeons

- No new classes/races

- Too few balance updates

- Too few PvP modes

- Too few updates for WvW

- Too few mount/glider skins available outside of the store

.....

Do they worry that raids might become to accessible? I don't think so.

 

There's not one excuse for the devs of this company to do not everything they can possibly come up with to up the quantity of content in the game. The most effective mechanic to add content is to make the same content just in different versions (adding different mechanics, difficulties, using procedural map generation for instanced content etc).

 

This company simply can't afford to waste time and resources to make content for 5% of people, while PvPers and WvWers get almost never any addition and the huge amount of PvE players run still around in the silverwastes, even after 2 expansion packs have hit the game, constantly hoping for more frequent updates and more significant replayable new content.

 

And that is what this entire discussion comes down to. No one would care about the raid legendary armor and the inaccesible raids if we would be flooded by legendary skins everywhere and with new dungeons and fractals and meta maps and unique world boss drops with mounts and every month a new ls episode and and and.

But we don't get that and people are desperately looking for in game goals and something to do and they get frustrated when they see that the one thing they want is beyond their reach, because the content was deliberately made inaccessible for them

[Mini Crinny.6190]

I have Legendary armour but I transmuted it all to better looking skins, the light headpiece does look good though but that’s all saying that I do think Heavy is the best looking set and medium the worst, just my opinion

[Feanor.2358]

> @"Adenin.5973" said:

> There's not one excuse for the devs of this company to do not everything they can possibly come up with to up the quantity of content in the game. The most effective mechanic to add content is to make the same content just in different versions (adding different mechanics, difficulties, using procedural map generation for instanced content etc).

 

*If* this game had any kind of procedurally-generated instances then it would be easier, yes. But it doesn't. Developing the necessary framework is neither easy nor fast. And then you end up with content of inferior quality, especially when it comes to the quality of the encounters.. So basically the choice is "develop new instanced content or spend precious time recreating existing content into a new form that competes with other content you're developing". And it's obvious which one is the right choice.

[Adenin.5973]

> @"Feanor.2358" said:

> > @"Adenin.5973" said:

> > There's not one excuse for the devs of this company to do not everything they can possibly come up with to up the quantity of content in the game. The most effective mechanic to add content is to make the same content just in different versions (adding different mechanics, difficulties, using procedural map generation for instanced content etc).

>

> *If* this game had any kind of procedurally-generated instances then it would be easier, yes. But it doesn't. Developing the necessary framework is neither easy nor fast. And then you end up with content of inferior quality, especially when it comes to the quality of the encounters.. So basically the choice is "develop new instanced content or spend precious time recreating existing content into a new form that competes with other content you're developing". And it's obvious which one is the right choice.

 

Instanced procedural generation, or in other words "modular maps" (like in DiabloIII or Warframe or similar instanced games) is only one single way to make quality content (nice looking assets, interesting and unique enemies, challenging encounters) and then break this content down in a way that maintains the quality but in quantity.

 

Same thing really with fractals. They design the t4 fractal and since they already made all the assets, mechanics, sound effects, unique skills, enemies etc. all they have to do now is to make the same fractal again but with less enemies, less mechanics.

Yes they have to balance it again but they don't have to make any new mechanics or assets or maps. It's still the most efficient way of getting content out for the players. Imagine how many people played fractals t1-t3 since their release, imagine how many players would play raids t1-t3 or would only start t4 because they climbed the ladder.

 

Imagine how many players would've left if there would've only been t4 fractals or cms, imagine how many players have already left because there is only one raid difficulty.

 

As I said, there's no excuse for not doing it in a time where your players crave for any sort of new content they can play.

[Silmar Alech.4305]

> @"Feanor.2358" said:

> > @"Adenin.5973" said:

> > > @"Feanor.2358" said:

> > > > @"Adenin.5973" said:

> > > > Wow, I couldn't disagree more.

> > > >

> > > > Look at fractals. There is a fractal difficulty level "1". And yet there are still enough people that run every single day "100cm"? Why. Why haven't all people that enjoy t4 runs stopped playing already?

> > >

> > > Exactly because there is also t4 and cms on top of that. If it was all t1, we would have. CMs are still fun because they are challenging. The exact same thing means there will be players who find them inaccessible. And that, for the 17th time, is fine.

> >

> > Haha, so funny. What you're saying just doesn't make any sense to me.

> > Again:

> > - The current difficulty of raids becomes "Raids T4"

> > - We add "Raids T1-T3" beneath it

> > - T1 is the least difficult with the least rewards and T4 is the most difficult with the most rewards

> >

> > Why exactly is this such a massive problem for you? Why would you and "all the long-time players quit, as it will simply make the game boring for them"?

>

> Let me explain.

>

> Raids T3 = FotM T4

> Raids T2 = FotM T3

> Raids T1 = FotM T2

>

> It's not that it's a problem for *me*. It's that **this** would be a massive waste of development time as it creates content that serves the **same** purpose as already existing content. Unlike the actual raid development, which serves an actual purpose by bringing a whole new tier of instanced content in the game.

 

Doing T1-T4 raid difficulty levels would not be a waste of development time, it's an efficient re-use of content instead. It would open availability of content previously unavailable. Currently, only a tiny fraction of the players is able to use the existing raid content. For everyone else, the development time of this content was "a massive waste of development time", because this is content they aren't simply able to play. Such content doesn't exist for these players, but it took away development resources. Resources, that otherwise could go into new open world events, a new fractal, an additional PoF mission, whatever.

Adding T1-T3 raids would suddenly create content for these players. Content that was not present for these players before. For development time lower than the initial creation, if it comes to development time per player. If the existing raid difficulty will not be nerfed, nothing will be taken away from the existing raid community.

[videoboy.4162]

I think that, instead of adding various difficulty levels, it might be far easier for them to update the Training Golem. Let people go into a ring and practice hitting green circles, avoid teleports, and various other boss mechanics. People could add on more challenges as they learned the basics, to learn how to overcome them without constantly feeling like they failed at the raid itself.

 

ex: Start with hitting the green circles while the golem is attacking. Then you try for the circles while avoiding teleports, then add seekers, etc. I think that (and the ability to seriously reduce visual clutter) would be a big help in bringing in more players.

[Adenin.5973]

> @"videoboy.4162" said:

> I think that, instead of adding various difficulty levels, it might be far easier for them to update the Training Golem. Let people go into a ring and practice hitting green circles, avoid teleports, and various other boss mechanics. People could add on more challenges as they learned the basics, to learn how to overcome them without constantly feeling like they failed at the raid itself.

>

> ex: Start with hitting the green circles while the golem is attacking. Then you try for the circles while avoiding teleports, then add seekers, etc. I think that (and the ability to seriously reduce visual clutter) would be a big help in bringing in more players.

 

No, this will not work or at least change not that much. Everyone can in theory successfully complete raids and kill bosses, like everyone could learn Chinese (But we all know that most people just dont do it, even if they would like to be able to understand chinese).

People don't watch fractal YT guides for 10 minutes to understand 100% of the mechanics up to t4, people don't join training guilds, people won't train hours with a training golem to understand the mechanics. That's not how people want to play that game, like it or not, that's just how ppl are.

 

People don't play games because they want to work. When you have to do too much of something you don't like in order to achieve something you would like, it will never become in any way popular with the general playerbase in any game.

People want to play and want to learn the mechanics while having fun, it's neither good game design nor a way of making your game popular, when for introducing your content you rely on third party sites (wiki, YT-Guides) or have your players beating training golems for hours, just to be able to complete your content.

 

The number 1 reason people give on reddit or here on the forums, why they don't like or don't play raids, is: too much time and effort needed.

 

You don't change anything with adding a training golem, you would also still need training guilds and you would need to find ppl that take complete newbs with them. you would also have to make every raid mechanic somehow accessible in the training area, which begs the question if that time could've been spent on simply making a copy of the raid and start deleting mechanics and rebalancing health/dmg/timers/lootables.

[Astralporing.1957]

> @"Feanor.2358" said:

> > @"Astralporing.1957" said:

> > > @"Feanor.2358" said:

> > > No, not everyone can grind and do PvP. It is only true in theory, but then again, in theory everyone can raid as well.

> > True, everyone can pvp and everyone can raid. Not true about _succeeding_ at either however, and difference here is that, unlike with raids, you don't really need to succeed at PvP to get the rewards

> >

>

> Again, that's only in theory. In practice nobody would subject themselves to the constant streak of annoyance and frustration, so in practice people who don't enjoy PvP (like me) are locked out of this content and its rewards. And, again, that's fine.

There's a world of difference between "constant streak of annoyance in frustration" in raids and pvp for obtaining legendaries. In PvP, it's on the level of farming. Not many people actually like that, but many players don't mind to do it every now and then. In raids you can't do that. Because if you do, then not only you will not like it, but also (and that's the important point) you will get _nothing_ out of it. Nothing, because you don't progress at all unless you succeed, and you don't succeed on casual attempts until _after_ you have become a veteran raider (for the sake of argument let's assume you don't have 9 friends willing to hard carry you, because then you're not really doing the content at all)

 

I'm perfectly willing to shoulder some amount of annoyance to get what i want. Problems start, when after facing that amount of annoyance i'm not really any closer to my goal than when i started. That causes some really negative emotions toward said content.

I'm pretty sure that making their players hate the content they devised was not something devs intended.

 

 

[FrostDraco.8306]

Here lies another thread in which most of the participants complain about getting into raids. But flat out ignore marvels like: 10 healing tempest raids [https://youtube.com/watch?v=k3ZYjeG3YTA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3ZYjeG3YTA "https://youtube.com/watch?v=k3ZYjeG3YTA")

[https://youtube.com/watch?v=bEcVtSo0-H8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEcVtSo0-H8 "https://youtube.com/watch?v=bEcVtSo0-H8")

 

Or the fact there are a bajillion video and text guides to each raid that people put sweat and tears into just to be whined at by these people. People go out of their way to help you get into raiding. But it's never enough.

[Irokou.3215]

> @"FrostDraco.8306" said:

> Here lies another thread in which most of the participants complain about getting into raids. But flat out ignore marvels like: 10 healing tempest raids [https://youtube.com/watch?v=k3ZYjeG3YTA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3ZYjeG3YTA "https://youtube.com/watch?v=k3ZYjeG3YTA")

> [https://youtube.com/watch?v=bEcVtSo0-H8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEcVtSo0-H8 "https://youtube.com/watch?v=bEcVtSo0-H8")

>

> Or the fact there are a bajillion video and text guides to each raid that people put sweat and tears into just to be whined at by these people. People go out of their way to help you get into raiding. But it's never enough.

 

Because many lazy players would rather moan and groan and make terrible arguments to support their desire for passive play in an avenue of content that is specifically designed to be engaging and group oriented. The whole idea of "anet is jeapordizing themselves by focusing on raids" is a MOOT point as there is little evidence that raid development has impacted their production pipeline to a significant degree. In the past year alone this game has CONSISTENTLY seen both QoL and quality living world editions AND and expansion with little to no halt in workflow. Raids were also praised upon initial release. So can someone please tell me how they can't afford to focus on raids with the already small yet skilled raid team on hand despite the game seeing more frequent updates regardless?...Ultimately it just sounds like jealousy of players that get their raids done and log off without a hitch.

[Faaris.8013]

> @"Raizel.8175" said:

> ...not everyone can get into raids, especially not in this game where the accessibility to endgame-PvE-content just isn't really availabe due do **bad game-design and a crazed community**.

> It's both a community- and a game-design-problem ANet needs to adress and fix.

 

This hits the nail on the head. I'm thinking about this issue for a while now, especially since I love playing my Daredevil. I also play Daredevil on my second account, which has low achievement points and few masteries done. I mainly use it to farm T4 fractals. Since it regularly happens that I get insta-kicked from a party or that the other party members leave, I always prepare a message "<--- low APs because farm account, please don't kick" and post it the moment I join a group from LFG. Yesterday a player left before I could even post that message, the second player probably hit the leave button before reading it, or didn't care. I basically disbanded the group, there was only one player left. This happens regularly! If you have a necro or thief in the group, it's already a red flag for many players and it lowers the chances for the group to fill up. If you have a thief with low APs and masteries, you are almost doomed. I feel bad putting the group into such a situation. Even if the group starters are good guys/gals and don't discriminate, you have to consider that you are still wasting their time because other players will not join, or join and leave immediately.

 

It feels bad, am I supposed to grind collections and other stuff to get APs to do T4 fractals? I already gave in with my main account and started playing banner warrior. And guess what, I was still dissed by members of a party because I told them that I have little experience with warrior and might need a bit more healing than usual. I switched to warrior to be more useful to the group and some people are still treating you badly. We were in 99cm and finished smoothly. I even did 100cm with my warrior at the first attempt. This stuff is not rocket science, and you don't need 100 essences for doing a good job in 100cm. I did it with 4 guild members who never killed Arkk before either, and the whole fractal took us less than an hour.

 

If you are not already part of a community, you will not be able to participate in high level content in this game. You'll not get into raids, you'll never be able to do challenge mote fractals. There are exceptions, but this is the rule. It's, as Raizel says, partly the game's design and the community. The endgame content itself is not that hard, but for some reason the game and the community set up very high entry barriers. The best way to learn content is to do it with players who already mastered it. The only ways to learn content in GW2 are getting together with other unexperienced players and grind or be well-connected. In the first case, you don't even know what's wrong because it could be everybody. Are we standing in the right spots? Is the healer doing his job or are we just doing it wrong? If you have 4 experienced players and one who is new to the encounter, that person will adapt quickly because it's routine for the others. If you wipe, you know who missed the skull or his task and that can be corrected quickly.

 

In real life, nobody does that. Imagine you want to learn a craft. Do you look online for a group of people who have never used that craft and join them to learn it? That's just stupid. If you get a new coworker, he'll be put on a team that already does the job for a while, it's the most efficient way to get him aboard. You don't climb Mount Everest with a bunch of other newbies, you join a group that already did it.

 

And yes, eventually it's Anet's job to fix this. I don't have a solution, but incentives for being friendly towards other members of the community might help. Right now, you are almost punished for not discriminating and being friendly. Anit-social behaviour gets you forward.

[Feanor.2358]

> @"Silmar Alech.4305" said:

> > @"Feanor.2358" said:

> > > @"Adenin.5973" said:

> > > > @"Feanor.2358" said:

> > > > > @"Adenin.5973" said:

> > > > > Wow, I couldn't disagree more.

> > > > >

> > > > > Look at fractals. There is a fractal difficulty level "1". And yet there are still enough people that run every single day "100cm"? Why. Why haven't all people that enjoy t4 runs stopped playing already?

> > > >

> > > > Exactly because there is also t4 and cms on top of that. If it was all t1, we would have. CMs are still fun because they are challenging. The exact same thing means there will be players who find them inaccessible. And that, for the 17th time, is fine.

> > >

> > > Haha, so funny. What you're saying just doesn't make any sense to me.

> > > Again:

> > > - The current difficulty of raids becomes "Raids T4"

> > > - We add "Raids T1-T3" beneath it

> > > - T1 is the least difficult with the least rewards and T4 is the most difficult with the most rewards

> > >

> > > Why exactly is this such a massive problem for you? Why would you and "all the long-time players quit, as it will simply make the game boring for them"?

> >

> > Let me explain.

> >

> > Raids T3 = FotM T4

> > Raids T2 = FotM T3

> > Raids T1 = FotM T2

> >

> > It's not that it's a problem for *me*. It's that **this** would be a massive waste of development time as it creates content that serves the **same** purpose as already existing content. Unlike the actual raid development, which serves an actual purpose by bringing a whole new tier of instanced content in the game.

>

> Doing T1-T4 raid difficulty levels would not be a waste of development time, it's an efficient re-use of content instead. It would open availability of content previously unavailable. Currently, only a tiny fraction of the players is able to use the existing raid content. For everyone else, the development time of this content was "a massive waste of development time", because this is content they aren't simply able to play. Such content doesn't exist for these players, but it took away development resources. Resources, that otherwise could go into new open world events, a new fractal, an additional PoF mission, whatever.

> Adding T1-T3 raids would suddenly create content for these players. Content that was not present for these players before. For development time lower than the initial creation, if it comes to development time per player. If the existing raid difficulty will not be nerfed, nothing will be taken away from the existing raid community.

 

Thousands of man-hours gone into creating new balance levels, which achieves nothing. That's pretty much my definition of "wasting development time". And no, it won't affect the accessibility a tiny bit. You already have the lower tiers of instanced content which you can use to get yourself ready for raiding. The reason why fewer people play raids? Same as why fewer people play fractal CMs - because the content is challenging and no number of lower tiers can prepare you for it. Only by playing, failing and playing again can you master it. This is what *the players it is meant for* find interesting and fun. And this is the barrier of entry the rest of the players don't want to cross.

 

> @"Astralporing.1957" said:

> > @"Feanor.2358" said:

> > > @"Astralporing.1957" said:

> > > > @"Feanor.2358" said:

> > > > No, not everyone can grind and do PvP. It is only true in theory, but then again, in theory everyone can raid as well.

> > > True, everyone can pvp and everyone can raid. Not true about _succeeding_ at either however, and difference here is that, unlike with raids, you don't really need to succeed at PvP to get the rewards

> > >

> >

> > Again, that's only in theory. In practice nobody would subject themselves to the constant streak of annoyance and frustration, so in practice people who don't enjoy PvP (like me) are locked out of this content and its rewards. And, again, that's fine.

> There's a world of difference between "constant streak of annoyance in frustration" in raids and pvp for obtaining legendaries. In PvP, it's on the level of farming. Not many people actually like that, but many players don't mind to do it every now and then. In raids you can't do that. Because if you do, then not only you will not like it, but also (and that's the important point) you will get _nothing_ out of it. Nothing, because you don't progress at all unless you succeed, and you don't succeed on casual attempts until _after_ you have become a veteran raider (for the sake of argument let's assume you don't have 9 friends willing to hard carry you, because then you're not really doing the content at all)

>

> I'm perfectly willing to shoulder some amount of annoyance to get what i want. Problems start, when after facing that amount of annoyance i'm not really any closer to my goal than when i started. That causes some really negative emotions toward said content.

> I'm pretty sure that making their players hate the content they devised was not something devs intended.

>

>

 

No, there isn't any difference. Because "annoying" and "frustrating" aren't objective qualities, they are subjective perception. You're trying to imply your own subjective perception is universally valid, which is obviously not true. Furthermore, in both cases the amount of farming required is only feasible if you *don't* find the content more annoying and frustrating than you find the reward desirable. Which, again, is subjective perception. What I'm saying is you can find all he possible combinations here. For both game modes there will be players who like the reward (Envoy armor / The Ascension) and didn't get it because they didn't like the mode. There will be those you just like to play it and got everything. And there will be those who only played to get the reward and stopped. No difference whatsoever.

[Faaris.8013]

> @"Feanor.2358" said:

> Thousands of man-hours gone into creating new balance levels, which achieves nothing. That's pretty much my definition of "wasting development time". And no, it won't affect the accessibility a tiny bit. **You already have the lower tiers of instanced content which you can use to get yourself ready for raiding.** The reason why fewer people play raids? Same as why fewer people play fractal CMs - because the content is challenging and no number of lower tiers can prepare you for it. Only by playing, failing and playing again can you master it. This is what *the players it is meant for* find interesting and fun. And this is the barrier of entry the rest of the players don't want to cross.

 

I've never seen an LFG in the raid section that asks for a Fractal Savant title, a 99cm/100cm kill proof or Ad Infinitum to join the group. So while I agree that fractals prepare you skill-wise for raids, they are not an entry-requirement for raids at all, nor do they make it easier to actually get into raid groups. The fractal tiers work great...for fractals. They are not in place for raids. Raid tiers would make raids more accessible, because "instanced content" is not all the same. A group that wants to do 99cm/100cm doesn't care if you have 100LI or some raid title, and a raid group doesn't care if you are a Fractal Savant.

 

You say no lower tier raids can prepare you for raids, but on the other hand, you agree that it works well for fractals. Why do you make that distinction?

[Feanor.2358]

> @"Faaris.8013" said:

> > @"Feanor.2358" said:

> > Thousands of man-hours gone into creating new balance levels, which achieves nothing. That's pretty much my definition of "wasting development time". And no, it won't affect the accessibility a tiny bit. **You already have the lower tiers of instanced content which you can use to get yourself ready for raiding.** The reason why fewer people play raids? Same as why fewer people play fractal CMs - because the content is challenging and no number of lower tiers can prepare you for it. Only by playing, failing and playing again can you master it. This is what *the players it is meant for* find interesting and fun. And this is the barrier of entry the rest of the players don't want to cross.

>

> I've never seen an LFG in the raid section that asks for a Fractal Savant title, a 99cm/100cm kill proof or Ad Infinitum to join the group. So while I agree that fractals prepare you skill-wise for raids, they are not an entry-requirement for raids at all, nor do they make it easier to actually get into raid groups. The fractal tiers work great...for fractals. They are not in place for raids. Raid tiers would make raids more accessible, because "instanced content" is not all the same. A group that wants to do 99cm/100cm doesn't care if you have 100LI or some raid title, and a raid group doesn't care if you are a Fractal Savant.

>

> You say no lower tier raids can prepare you for raids, but on the other hand, you agree that it works well for fractals. Why do you make that distinction?

 

You won't see any. The explanation is a bit further in the text you quoted, but for your convenience I'll write it again:

 

"Only by playing, failing and playing again can you master it."

 

Of course raid LFGs will look for raid-specific experience. You won't see fractal CM party asking for Demon's Demise either, for the same reason - the experience doesn't translate directly. That's the point. Experience not translating directly is what makes new challenging content fun. Because it means you get to figure it out on your own, make the transition from "omg, what just happened" through "ah, I get it", further down the "oh not this again" and finally to "yay for us, team". And that same feature means you **can't** get ready for that content on lower levels. A lower level can teach you some basics, that's true. But these basics you can already learn in fractals. Apologies if I didn't make it clear enough.

 

TL;DR:

Lower tiers don't make you ready, it only teaches basics.

[Adenin.5973]

> @"Feanor.2358" said:

> Thousands of man-hours gone into creating new balance levels, which achieves nothing. That's pretty much my definition of "wasting development time". And no, it won't affect the accessibility a tiny bit. **You already have the lower tiers of instanced content which you can use to get yourself ready for raiding.** The reason why fewer people play raids? Same as why fewer people play fractal CMs - because the content is challenging and no number of lower tiers can prepare you for it. Only by playing, failing and playing again can you master it. This is what *the players it is meant for* find interesting and fun. And this is the barrier of entry the rest of the players don't want to cross.

 

 

- "Thousands of man-hours gone into creating new balance levels, which achieves nothing." - You don't know that it would take that long

- And no, it won't affect the accessibility a tiny bit. **You already have the lower tiers of instanced content which you can use to get yourself ready for raiding.** - Wow that's the most ridiculous thing I've heard. Fractals do not get you ready for raiding, they don't explain you the mechanics, they don't require a meta composition (yes, you can do it with 4 MM necros and a longbow ranger), they don't give you killproof so ppl take you with them in raids. What do they prepare you for? Maybe you learn your class a bit better, maybe you learn to evade better. These things could be learned elsewhere. It's like saying high rank PvP prepares you for raiding.

- The reason why fewer people play raids? Same as why fewer people play fractal CMs - because the content is challenging and no number of lower tiers can prepare you for it. - So you just said literally that the "lower tiers of content can you get ready for raiding" and now you say the complete opposite of it in the next sentence. Also this is again completely baseless speculation from you that has no example in the game. If you would ask right now any person that plays 99/100cm, if the 99/100cm mode was the only and very first fractal they've played, what would be the answer? Exactly, everyone started at the bottom and climbed their ladder, failing already at t1 fractrals and t2 and 3 and t4. And now that they're doing 99/100cms the lower tiers are super easy for them but they were a challenge when they went in the low tiers for the first time. Ask them if a complete newb that never played the fractal should immediately start at 99/100cm or if it would be a good idea to start with t1. We all know the answer.

And yes, of course super challenging content will always be a bit of a niche content, but this is not about making the current raid difficulty level the most played content in the game, it's about making raids in general as content be played by far more people, this includes ppl playing raids at t1-t4. It's about how much hours of content per player gets anet from developing a raid. Currently that number must be unbelievably small, therefore it's a waste of their time but by making raids as a whole be played by more players, this number will drastically increase to a point where new raids are worth their effort and then they might even get more raids out than before, with more lore and rewards tied to them

- Only by playing, failing and playing again can you master it. - Exactly, achieved by raid tiers, where the lowest tier doesnt search for any killproof, where newbs can just join and try the raid, without getting together with the uber elitists that kick them instantly or where the entire group wipes immediately because someone made a mistake.

- And this is the barrier of entry the rest of the players don't want to cross. - Again not true, there are tons of players that failed at fractals but they find either a tier that suits them or they can go down a tier train a bit and eventually they get to the next tier. Fractals are still popular, they wouldn't if the only tier would be t4 or only the cms.

 

You don't have to and you shouldn't lower the ceiling but you should, as already explained, lower the entry barrier. There's nothing that changes for the people that like the challenge but a massive part of the playerbase get's a massive amount of content that suddenly is within they reach and ability to play, with long term goals in improving their gameplay, their equipment and even those that want to do only raids for the story have now a low tier entry raid where they can experience that.

 

That's the exact opposite of wasting development time.