On difficulty modes (Game Maker's Toolkit)

[Miellyn.6847]

> @"Astralporing.1957" said:

> > @"Miellyn.6847" said:

> > See open world has its own exclusive skins, but that's fine right?

> No., it's not fine. I'd completely support making those cases more open, and i have been speaking up in at least some of those already. Which, by the way, you already know because it's not the first time you're bringing that up (nor the second either...).

>

> > @"Miellyn.6847" said:

> > It costs development time that is better spend on creating new content rather than something that is only wanted by a very small minority. The raid community is bigger than you think. The poll here in this forum section suggests about 15-20% of the playerbase is raiding.

> No, the poll suggested that about 15-20% of _the people reading the subforum dedicated to more challenging instanced content_ (and carig anough about it to take part in the poll) are raiding. Which is a really bad result, because in that situation i'd expect it to reach over 50% even if it wasn't very popular otherwise.

>

> > @"Miellyn.6847" said:

> > All modes claim their unique rewards. It just happens that raids tend to attract more vocal people that want the rewards but can't get them more than other parts of the game.

> "It just happens" that other parts of the game are way more open than raids. People are generally more okay with a low-level exclusivity, especially if it's not widely advertised. And it so just happens that raids are not only highly exclusive, but also are very in-your-face about it.

>

> > @"Miellyn.6847" said:

> > So tell us the downsides of raids that are actual facts and not based on pure speculation.

> The greatest? Splitting the community. Something Raiders themselves consider to be a great sin (but only bring up when easy mode is being talked about, forgetting that raids are already guilty of it).

>

> > @"Feanor.2358" said:

> > Toxicity existed before raids and it didn't increase. Players were kicked from parties for something as generic as AP score.

> True, toxicity existed before, and people were being kicked out of parties due to it, but that was a minority. Highly visible, but still peripheral. Before raids, LFGs with restriction were only a small part of the whole. Before raids, a blank, default lfg with no added restrictions was considered to be an "all open" one by everyone joining in (even "toxic elitists"). Now meta and restrictions are the default, and the "open" lfgs are a minority.

> Yes, there was a change, and it is very visible.

>

> > @"Miellyn.6847" said:

> > Legendary armor was never mentioned from ArenaNet until HoT reveal.

> There _were_ mentions about it around the same time they first mentioned a second legendary weapon set and legendary crafting. So, in the first year of the game.

>

> > @"Miellyn.6847" said:

> > Yes and their talent would have been wasted as the majority doesn't want that kind of content especially not in story instances.

> A lot of the effort spent on raids lies in art (graphic and music) department. Those in no way depend on specific gamemode and the people doing it could have worked for any other part of the game with absolutely no problem. In fact, they almost certainly _do_ work on other parts of the game as well - i sincerely doubt that the legendary armor was made by an artist that was hired specifically for raids and for raids only.

>

> > @"zealex.9410" said:

> > How is it a problem? The game had them since release and it kept growing.

> There were only two cases of comparable (or higher) levels of exclusivity before raids. One was hellfire/radiant sets - and you can see that still brought up as a problem from time to time (and it generated some really violent discussion threads in the past). The second (glorious set) was less complained about, because, ironically, it was too exclusive - most of the people didn't even notice it existed.

>

Because only instanced PvE players are allowed in this subforum? Really? There were many players that only write in General Discussion normally. 30% was a number that was to be expected. I already reduced it to 15-20%, the poll said 30%.

 

Yes because raids are part of PvE. So you will see PvE skins more often in open world than WvW or PvP. PvP and especially WvW skins take a lot more time , like the sublime Chestpiece that actually has a combat stance and requires rank 2000. Those people mostly play their game mode and don't show up in PvE very often.

 

Also different open world maps with different difficulties and fractal tiers which existed before raids. And dungeons. Everything splits the community. It is about not splitting the community that plays a certain part of the game. It this doesn't happen with one difficulty for raids.

 

No there wasn't a change. People just realised that you don't have any success in raids with open LFGs so they don't appear. You could see them plenty after Spirit Vale release.

 

And legendaries. Which were designed to be exclusive with their huge material cost. What a coincidence that the armor in raids is purple.

Dungeon and fractal skins are also highly exclusive as most players just don't play instanced PvE. This was always the case even during the high of dungeon running.

[Ohoni.6057]

> @"Miellyn.6847" said:

> Because only instanced PvE players are allowed in this subforum? Really?

 

No, but other players are less *likely* to be on here, less likely to see the poll, and less likely to vote on it. It's called a "self-selection bias." It's like, say you have a bar, and the bar is known to be frequented mostly by members of [insert political party here] more often than [the other guys]. If you were to go into that bar and take a poll of people there, "who will win in the next election?" You might find some people in there from [the other guy party], there's no rule keeping them out, but since the standard clientele strongly skews in the other direction, the results you get are unlikely scientifically applicable to the larger population. It's also worth noting that on this same forum, in a different poll, over 50% of respondents thought that easy mode raids would be a good idea, so. . .

 

>No there wasn't a change. People just realised that you don't have any success in raids with open LFGs so they don't appear. You could see them plenty after Spirit Vale release.

 

And that's the problem. With previous dungeons, bringing along a "bad" player might be a hassle, but a decent group wouldn't likely have trouble winning regardless. That's the benefit that easy mode raids would bring, an open group *could* be posted, and anyone could join, and they could have fun running the raid and not have to worry about failing the run.

 

>And legendaries. Which were designed to be exclusive with their huge material cost. What a coincidence that the armor in raids is purple.

 

Legendary weapons are far less exclusionary than Legendary armor. Almost everyone has at least one if they've been playing a while. As for dungeon gear, I think a lot of players have those too, they just don't love most of the pieces. I was running with CoF gloves on my Tempest until PoF came out, but that's about it. I believe that for a while there, *most* players were gearing up their alts using whatever dungeon armor they got, since it was an efficient path to exotics when they were actually a reasonable expense.

 

 

[Miellyn.6847]

> @"Ohoni.6057" said:

> > @"Miellyn.6847" said:

> > Because only instanced PvE players are allowed in this subforum? Really?

>

> No, but other players are less *likely* to be on here, less likely to see the poll, and less likely to vote on it. It's called a "self-selection bias." It's like, say you have a bar, and the bar is known to be frequented mostly by members of [insert political party here] more often than [the other guys]. If you were to go into that bar and take a poll of people there, "who will win in the next election?" You might find some people in there from [the other guy party], there's no rule keeping them out, but since the standard clientele strongly skews in the other direction, the results you get are unlikely scientifically applicable to the larger population. It's also worth noting that on this same forum, in a different poll, over 50% of respondents thought that easy mode raids would be a good idea, so. . .

>

> >No there wasn't a change. People just realised that you don't have any success in raids with open LFGs so they don't appear. You could see them plenty after Spirit Vale release.

>

> And that's the problem. With previous dungeons, bringing along a "bad" player might be a hassle, but a decent group wouldn't likely have trouble winning regardless. That's the benefit that easy mode raids would bring, an open group *could* be posted, and anyone could join, and they could have fun running the raid and not have to worry about failing the run.

>

> >And legendaries. Which were designed to be exclusive with their huge material cost. What a coincidence that the armor in raids is purple.

>

> Legendary weapons are far less exclusionary than Legendary armor. Almost everyone has at least one if they've been playing a while. As for dungeon gear, I think a lot of players have those too, they just don't love most of the pieces. I was running with CoF gloves on my Tempest until PoF came out, but that's about it. I believe that for a while there, *most* players were gearing up their alts using whatever dungeon armor they got, since it was an efficient path to exotics when they were actually a reasonable expense.

>

>

 

It is also worth noting that most people don't support an easy mode with legendary armor but rather very low or no loot.

 

You can also bring along a bad player as long as it isn't the tank or the healer if you play with a single healer setup. But PUGs want success and each bad player reduces the chance unlike dungeons which could and can be played basically solo and you don't the group to begin with. If everyone died you could still finish the boss. But that has nothing to do with challenge which raids are supposed to provide.

 

Instanced content was always niche content in this game. There were never a time where most players were running dungeons. Most players just took the things they found or crafted their equipment. This also makes legendaries niche content as you need parts from WvW AND dungeons to complete it.

 

To provide data to your claim the majority would profit from your idea just open a poll in General Discussion about it.

[Ohoni.6057]

> @"Miellyn.6847" said:

>It is also worth noting that most people don't support an easy mode with legendary armor but rather very low or no loot.

 

Where's the data on that?

 

I will reiterate though that while Legendary armor is optional (but obviously In see a necessity for it to be made available somehow), I doubt an easy mode with "very low" loot would be worth having, because if the loot it offers is not at least comparable to other content in the game of equal difficulty and time spent (and it would still be more difficult and time consuming than a *lot* of content in the game), then nobody would bother repeating it, and if nobody bothers to repeat it, then it likely wouldn't be worth the effort.

 

>You can also bring along a bad player as long as it isn't the tank or the healer if you play with a single healer setup. But PUGs want success and each bad player reduces the chance unlike dungeons which could and can be played basically solo and you don't the group to begin with. If everyone died you could still finish the boss. But that has nothing to do with challenge which raids are supposed to provide.

 

Which again is exactly the point of easy mode raids. It's for people that want nothing to do with any of that stuff, that just want to be able to tackle the raid in a format that *isn't* likely to fail if several of the players are subpar, one that can be carried by a handful of great players or a majority of decent players, and the only difference havign a "great" party would make is that it would go a bit faster.

 

>Instanced content was always niche content in this game. There were never a time where most players were running dungeons. Most players just took the things they found or crafted their equipment. This also makes legendaries niche content as you need parts from WvW AND dungeons to complete it.

 

I don't think most people were farming dungeons constantly, but I do think that at some point pretty much everyone dabbled in them, doing just enough to get some gear together, and then moving on once they did. And again, the dungeon and WvW requirements for Legendaries were fairly trivial, especially once they changed the map completion requirements.

 

>To provide data to your claim the majority would profit from your idea just open a poll in General Discussion about it.

 

That would provide a different data-set than the raid forum, certainly, but would still skew more toward achiever-types than the general game population, since many of the more casual players don't even bother with the boards. It's really hard to get completely scientific polling data of the game's population without actually taking the poll within the game, randomly mailing individual players, but only ANet could do something like that.

[Miellyn.6847]

> @"Ohoni.6057" said:

> > @"Miellyn.6847" said:

> >It is also worth noting that most people don't support an easy mode with legendary armor but rather very low or no loot.

>

> Where's the data on that?

>

> I will reiterate though that while Legendary armor is optional (but obviously In see a necessity for it to be made available somehow), I doubt an easy mode with "very low" loot would be worth having, because if the loot it offers is not at least comparable to other content in the game of equal difficulty and time spent (and it would still be more difficult and time consuming than a *lot* of content in the game), then nobody would bother repeating it, and if nobody bothers to repeat it, then it likely wouldn't be worth the effort.

>

> >You can also bring along a bad player as long as it isn't the tank or the healer if you play with a single healer setup. But PUGs want success and each bad player reduces the chance unlike dungeons which could and can be played basically solo and you don't the group to begin with. If everyone died you could still finish the boss. But that has nothing to do with challenge which raids are supposed to provide.

>

> Which again is exactly the point of easy mode raids. It's for people that want nothing to do with any of that stuff, that just want to be able to tackle the raid in a format that *isn't* likely to fail if several of the players are subpar, one that can be carried by a handful of great players or a majority of decent players, and the only difference havign a "great" party would make is that it would go a bit faster.

>

> >Instanced content was always niche content in this game. There were never a time where most players were running dungeons. Most players just took the things they found or crafted their equipment. This also makes legendaries niche content as you need parts from WvW AND dungeons to complete it.

>

> I don't think most people were farming dungeons constantly, but I do think that at some point pretty much everyone dabbled in them, doing just enough to get some gear together, and then moving on once they did. And again, the dungeon and WvW requirements for Legendaries were fairly trivial, especially once they changed the map completion requirements.

>

> >To provide data to your claim the majority would profit from your idea just open a poll in General Discussion about it.

>

> That would provide a different data-set than the raid forum, certainly, but would still skew more toward achiever-types than the general game population, since many of the more casual players don't even bother with the boards. It's really hard to get completely scientific polling data of the game's population without actually taking the poll within the game, randomly mailing individual players, but only ANet could do something like that.

 

Raids are not that much harder than T4 fractals outside the learning period and coordinating 10 players. So you need to aim towards T1-T2. This is dungeon difficulty which is not hard at all and does warrant very low rewards. The raid rewards aren't that high to begin with right now. Thanks for finally aknowledging one the main points of all easy mode discussions why it shouldn't happen. This also closes basically this thread as you defeated your opening post.

 

If you want an environment where it is unlikely to fail with many weak players and want most players be able to complete it you need to aim below dungeon difficulty. So either the rewards are way too high or no replayability but you recognized it yourself. It is not worth the time.

 

You got 60 tokens per path and needed 500. That's 9 paths per legendary. This is far far away from trivial for the average player that didn't play much dungeons to begin with especially if you needed Arah tokens. The increase to 100 per path/day is not that old.

 

The fact that many players, that don't raid, here on the forums already said that they have no problem with envoy armor staying raid only or even want it to stay exclusive defeats your whole point if most people here are from the 'achiever-type' which are more likely to want things than the casual.

[FrizzFreston.5290]

> @"Ohoni.6057" said:

> > @"FrizzFreston.5290" said:

> > > @"Ohoni.6057" said:

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

> > > > Its not a problem that there are unique rewards in parts of the game. You have a problem with it.

> > >

> > > No, it is a *problem,* just not a problem for every player, and some players choose not to *care* whether those players are happy.

> >

> > Similarly how you wouldnt care if players who prefer unique rewards would have a problem with having no unique rewards.

>

> False equivalency. It is a *problem* that Player A cannot earn the rewards he wants without having to run content he does not enjoy. It is *not* a problem if Player B isn't allowed to gatekeep what rewards Player A is "allowed" to earn. In the first situation, both players can have the thing they want. In the second, the other player can only be happy with what he has if the other player does not. These are not equivalent situations.

 

Thats not called false equivalency. Thats called double standard. Youre only prejudiced to one form of entertainment telling that people who like the other dont deserve nothing, are only selfish and only want to keep rewards away from people. Which only shows to me that you don't understand how a game works, and use arguments to somehow put your viewpoint on a higher moral pedestal, even though were talking about a game.

 

Every player in this game has access to the content. Refusing to play the content whether this is multiple routes or not, is not equivalent to not having access, is not equivalent to not being allowed to have rewards. THAT is false equivalency.

[Ohoni.6057]

> @"Miellyn.6847" said:

>Raids are not that much harder than T4 fractals outside the learning period and coordinating 10 players. So you need to aim towards T1-T2. This is dungeon difficulty which is not hard at all and does warrant very low rewards. The raid rewards aren't that high to begin with right now. Thanks for finally aknowledging one the main points of all easy mode discussions why it shouldn't happen. This also closes basically this thread as you defeated your opening post.

 

There are easier versions of the Fractals though, which players can practice to learn the basic mechanics, and earn decent rewards for. As I've noted several times in the thread, I'm not opposed to them raising the "every day" rewards that the current raids offer. I'm not certain the exact balance one would need, but if you *genuinely* believe that players would choose to run raids regularly at "dungeon level" loot, then that might be enough. It just seems to me like something one would say if he were in fact dismissive of the idea of easy mode raids and *wanted* them to be un-populated, but perhaps I'm misjudging the situation.

 

Also, if you think that any of that has anything to do with either supporting or defeating my initial post in this thread, then I can't imagine that you actually read my initial post in this thread, as I discussed nothing of the sort there.

 

>If you want an environment where it is unlikely to fail with many weak players and want most players be able to complete it you need to aim below dungeon difficulty.

 

No.

 

>You got 60 tokens per path and needed 500. That's 9 paths per legendary. This is far far away from trivial for the average player that didn't play much dungeons to begin with especially if you needed Arah tokens. The increase to 100 per path/day is not that old.

 

It's practically nothing. I got all the tokens I needed for Dreamer in something like a week, spending an hour or so per day, and those were the first times I did Twilight Arbor. The tokens I needed for Bifrost I just got from the PvP reward track, which I could do in town. Again, trivial.

 

>The fact that many players, that don't raid, here on the forums already said that they have no problem with envoy armor staying raid only or even want it to stay exclusive defeats your whole point if most people here are from the 'achiever-type' which are more likely to want things than the casual.

 

Casual people want things no less than achievers do, they're just less likely to jump through as many hoops to get them. They would appreciate being able to work towards these rewards as much as anyone.

[Ohoni.6057]

> @"FrizzFreston.5290" said:

> Thats not called false equivalency. Thats called double standard. Youre only prejudiced to one form of entertainment telling that people who like the other dont deserve nothing, are only selfish and only want to keep rewards away from people. Which only shows to me that you don't understand how a game works, and use arguments to somehow put your viewpoint on a higher moral pedestal, even though were talking about a game.

 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I am absolutely *certain* that your argument here applies far more strongly to your own position in the matter than it ever would to mine. Perhaps address the plank in your own eye before concerning yourself over the spec in mine.

 

>Every player in this game has access to the content. Refusing to play the content whether this is multiple routes or not, is not equivalent to not having access, is not equivalent to not being allowed to have rewards. THAT is false equivalency.

 

That's a very disingenuous position. If everyone is special, no one is. If every player in the game were equally capable of achieving any task, then we wouldn't even be having this discussion. I would not need to ask for an easy mode, and you would not have any reason to fight it. The entire premise of the raid content in its current form is that it divides the players into haves and have-nots, and you're fighting to maintain that status quo. I am trying to restore access to those left in the cold by that model.

[FrizzFreston.5290]

> @"Ohoni.6057" said:

> > @"FrizzFreston.5290" said:

> > Thats not called false equivalency. Thats called double standard. Youre only prejudiced to one form of entertainment telling that people who like the other dont deserve nothing, are only selfish and only want to keep rewards away from people. Which only shows to me that you don't understand how a game works, and use arguments to somehow put your viewpoint on a higher moral pedestal, even though were talking about a game.

>

> Correct me if I'm wrong, but I am absolutely *certain* that your argument here applies far more strongly to your own position in the matter than it ever would to mine. Perhaps address the plank in your own eye before concerning yourself over the spec in mine.

 

We've been doin a thread no threadS full of correcting you. You dont seem to get it.

 

> >Every player in this game has access to the content. Refusing to play the content whether this is multiple routes or not, is not equivalent to not having access, is not equivalent to not being allowed to have rewards. THAT is false equivalency.

>

> That's a very disingenuous position. If everyone is special, no one is. If every player in the game were equally capable of achieving any task, then we wouldn't even be having this discussion. I would not need to ask for an easy mode, and you would not have any reason to fight it. The entire premise of the raid content in its current form is that it divides the players into haves and have-nots, and you're fighting to maintain that status quo. I am trying to restore access to those left in the cold by that model.

 

You are the one that is disingenuous. There's multiple routes to the rewards already through teamwork and other methods. it has nothing to do with not being able to.

 

[Ohoni.6057]

> @"FrizzFreston.5290" said:

>We've been doin a thread no threadS full of correcting you. You dont seem to get it.

 

Don't confuse *disagreeing* with me with "correcting me." We disagree, that does not mean that your position is the correct one.

 

>You are the one that is disingenuous. There's multiple routes to the rewards already through teamwork and other methods.

 

Ah, finally, I've been waiting with open ears. Please tell me, how in the current game *can* you get those items without doing any raiding?

[FrizzFreston.5290]

Im not starting another circle of denial

[Feanor.2358]

> @"Astralporing.1957" said:

> > @"Feanor.2358" said:

> > Toxicity existed before raids and it didn't increase. Players were kicked from parties for something as generic as AP score.

> True, toxicity existed before, and people were being kicked out of parties due to it, but that was a minority. Highly visible, but still peripheral. Before raids, LFGs with restriction were only a small part of the whole. Before raids, a blank, default lfg with no added restrictions was considered to be an "all open" one by everyone joining in (even "toxic elitists"). Now meta and restrictions are the default, and the "open" lfgs are a minority.

> Yes, there was a change, and it is very visible.

 

There's some truth to that, but it's not a result of the raids per se. It happens because the game now has more, and more challenging, instanced content. Toxicity emerges when people start to have difficulties and their mistakes become more and more dangerous for the whole party. One possible route to deal with this is to never have challenging content. However, that makes the game plain boring and in my opinion a MMO can't really afford that, especially a 5+ years old MMO. Sure, there are some casual player who stick, but I think they are just as small a minority as the hardcore players are. So the safer bet is to add variety to the game, so it has appeal to both casual and hardcore players. And this is where the conflict begins.

 

People in general are bad at estimating their own skill level, regardless of the skill in question. Those who perform below average tend to overestimate their skill, while those who perform above average tend to underestimate it. In the context of the challenging game content, this leads to casual players believing they can play the top-tier content *well enough* when in fact they can't. At the same time, the experienced players will see their failures as even bigger than they are, because they see the task in question as easy. They eventually lose patience and this is when toxicity happens.

 

You can't really get around this. So... you just live with it. You either give up on the top tier or you adapt. I think a big part of why meta requirements became a norm in LFG is because more and more people did one of the above. They either stopped playing fractals (or maybe dropped to lower tiers), or they became "meta" players. Note that either of these leads to less toxicity in the long run, because there are less reasons for it. It's a self-regulating process.

[Miellyn.6847]

> @"Ohoni.6057" said:

> > @"Miellyn.6847" said:

> >Raids are not that much harder than T4 fractals outside the learning period and coordinating 10 players. So you need to aim towards T1-T2. This is dungeon difficulty which is not hard at all and does warrant very low rewards. The raid rewards aren't that high to begin with right now. Thanks for finally aknowledging one the main points of all easy mode discussions why it shouldn't happen. This also closes basically this thread as you defeated your opening post.

>

> There are easier versions of the Fractals though, which players can practice to learn the basic mechanics, and earn decent rewards for. As I've noted several times in the thread, I'm not opposed to them raising the "every day" rewards that the current raids offer. I'm not certain the exact balance one would need, but if you *genuinely* believe that players would choose to run raids regularly at "dungeon level" loot, then that might be enough. It just seems to me like something one would say if he were in fact dismissive of the idea of easy mode raids and *wanted* them to be un-populated, but perhaps I'm misjudging the situation.

>

> Also, if you think that any of that has anything to do with either supporting or defeating my initial post in this thread, then I can't imagine that you actually read my initial post in this thread, as I discussed nothing of the sort there.

>

> >If you want an environment where it is unlikely to fail with many weak players and want most players be able to complete it you need to aim below dungeon difficulty.

>

> No.

>

> >You got 60 tokens per path and needed 500. That's 9 paths per legendary. This is far far away from trivial for the average player that didn't play much dungeons to begin with especially if you needed Arah tokens. The increase to 100 per path/day is not that old.

>

> It's practically nothing. I got all the tokens I needed for Dreamer in something like a week, spending an hour or so per day, and those were the first times I did Twilight Arbor. The tokens I needed for Bifrost I just got from the PvP reward track, which I could do in town. Again, trivial.

>

> >The fact that many players, that don't raid, here on the forums already said that they have no problem with envoy armor staying raid only or even want it to stay exclusive defeats your whole point if most people here are from the 'achiever-type' which are more likely to want things than the casual.

>

> Casual people want things no less than achievers do, they're just less likely to jump through as many hoops to get them. They would appreciate being able to work towards these rewards as much as anyone.

 

The rewards from T1 and T2 fractals are not decent. They are bad. You don't learn all mechanics in low level fractals as some mechanics only start to appear at higher levels. This is one of the reasons T3 fractals are not fun to play with a PUG at all. People can't dodge as the damage is so low in lower fractals that they never needed to, they learn wrong habits. Same will happen in the raid easy mode. It also happens in other games that have this system. I genuinely believe that most players won't run a raid easy mode with dungeons rewards regulary unless the difficulty is below dungeons.

 

So you don't want an easy mode most players can complete? Is it enough if you can complete it? Or are you one of the worst player in the game and the measurement for a difficulty that most can complete it? The torches in CoF P3 got nerfed because PUGs couldn't handle it. Dhuum has the same mechanic with 7 players at the end of the fight. Anything other than below dungeon difficulty will not be managable for PUGs if you want most players to play it and it this point it doesn't have a learning effect. So they need to start from scratch anyway. Another point why the easy mode is pointless.

 

It is nothing for _you_. Many players don't play PvP or WvW at all. So no reward tracks for them, they have to complete the dungeons. If you have 2h every other day 500 Arah tokens are far from trivial. Or SE, CoE, CM. Ascalon, CoF, HoW, TA are fine.

 

But looking at your post and how wrong you are as you base everything on you we can safely assume most people don't care as much as you for making exclusive rewards non-exclusive.

[Ohoni.6057]

> @"FrizzFreston.5290" said:

> Im not starting another circle of denial

 

I'm glad, those are exhausting.

 

> @"Feanor.2358" said:

> There's some truth to that, but it's not a result of the raids per se. It happens because the game now has more, and more challenging, instanced content. Toxicity emerges when people start to have difficulties and their mistakes become more and more dangerous for the whole party. One possible route to deal with this is to never have challenging content. However, that makes the game plain boring and in my opinion a MMO can't really afford that, especially a 5+ years old MMO. Sure, there are some casual player who stick, but I think they are just as small a minority as the hardcore players are. So the safer bet is to add variety to the game, so it has appeal to both casual and hardcore players. And this is where the conflict begins.

 

There is a balance though. It's not to "never have challenging content," and nobody is arguing that it needs to be. The balanced solution is "have challenging content, but **accept that it isn't and shouldn't be for everyone,** so allowances need to be made for everyone else." Let people who *want* to do the challenging content, do the challenging content, but don't punish everyone else by withholding things from them. Provide less challenging alternate methods for them to participate and earn those same rewards.

 

So long as everyone has a path suited to their interests, it's ok if some of the content is outside the scope that most players are comfortable with. If, however, those challenges form hard barriers that block players out from achieving the things they want, then they have every right to become salty about it, and it leads to a toxic environment.

 

> @"Miellyn.6847" said:

> So you don't want an easy mode most players can complete? Is it enough if you can complete it? Or are you one of the worst player in the game and the measurement for a difficulty that most can complete it? The torches in CoF P3 got nerfed because PUGs couldn't handle it. Dhuum has the same mechanic with 7 players at the end of the fight. Anything other than below dungeon difficulty will not be managable for PUGs if you want most players to play it and it this point it doesn't have a learning effect. So they need to start from scratch anyway. Another point why the easy mode is pointless.

 

I think by this point the devs should have a decent handle on what most players are willing and able to do in the game. Raids are deliberately set to the higher end of that skill arc, the easy mode should just be set at the lower end, equivalent to a moderate dungeon.

 

Also, I believe we've had the "is it good training debate" before. My stance remains that:

 

1. If the mechanics are all the same, just with reduced penalties, then a group that *intends* to use it for practice, and *understands* the hard mode mechanics going in, they *can* use the easy mode to train for the harder mode, attempting to use the same tactics they'd need, and making note of the points where they make a mistake that would prove catastrophic in the "real thing," but without the penalty of having to start from scratch.

2. If a group *didn't want to* use it for practice, if they just wanted to take it for what it is and complete it the fastest and easiest way possible, even if those tactics wouldn't work in the hard mode, then that's fine too, that's an equally valid way to play and they aren't hurting anyone by doing so. Let players decide which one they want to do, I guarantee you that you'd see both on the LFGs if both were an option.

 

>It is nothing for you. Many players don't play PvP or WvW at all. So no reward tracks for them, they have to complete the dungeons. If you have 2h every other day 500 Arah tokens are far from trivial. Or SE, CoE, CM. Ascalon, CoF, HoW, TA are fine.

 

I hate PvP and WvW, but you can still progress the reward tracks with minimal effort. Hell, I haven't actually entered either in about a year now, but I've been clearing the PvP reward and WvW Big Spender achievements whenever they appear just on left over reward potions and badges from the time I was playing. Spending a round or two in PvP matches, success or failure, is probably a lot easier for most than clearing the harder dungeons. I'm not saying they would necessarily enjoy it, but as grinds go it's a low barrier of entry.

 

Again though, you should know by now that I'm 100% in favor of expanding these opportunities. I think it's well past time that they introduce PvE reward tracks, identical to the existing PvP ones, but progressed via completing activities on open world maps and other aspects of the game. If they want to tune down some of the junk loot you get while playing open world, I doubt anyone would mind. I could certainly do with opening fewer "Unidentified Item" crates.

[FrizzFreston.5290]

> @"Ohoni.6057" said:

> > @"FrizzFreston.5290" said:

> > Im not starting another circle of denial

>

> I'm glad, those are exhausting.

Well I just see the way it's going to go. You will disagree with whatever we say, we will disagree with whatever you say. At some point it's just better to disagree and see how ArenaNet will move forward. We can keep denying eachothers opinions, but in the end it's just coming back to the same point.

 

[Feanor.2358]

> @"Ohoni.6057" said:

> > @"Feanor.2358" said:

> > There's some truth to that, but it's not a result of the raids per se. It happens because the game now has more, and more challenging, instanced content. Toxicity emerges when people start to have difficulties and their mistakes become more and more dangerous for the whole party. One possible route to deal with this is to never have challenging content. However, that makes the game plain boring and in my opinion a MMO can't really afford that, especially a 5+ years old MMO. Sure, there are some casual player who stick, but I think they are just as small a minority as the hardcore players are. So the safer bet is to add variety to the game, so it has appeal to both casual and hardcore players. And this is where the conflict begins.

>

> There is a balance though. It's not to "never have challenging content," and nobody is arguing that it needs to be. The balanced solution is "have challenging content, but **accept that it isn't and shouldn't be for everyone,**

 

Couldn't agree more.

 

> @"Ohoni.6057" said:

> so allowances need to be made for everyone else."

 

Couldn't disagree more. :lol:

 

> @"Ohoni.6057" said:

> Let people who *want* to do the challenging content, do the challenging content, but don't punish everyone else by withholding things from them. Provide less challenging alternate methods for them to participate and earn those same rewards.

 

No, you see, that's not how it works. You're thinking black-or-white here. You're thinking as if there's only the players who want the challenge and those who don't. When in fact, there are many degrees to that. And the rewards are an undeniable factor, drawing players who would otherwise struggle and quit, into the content. Many of which will go past the struggle and actually enjoy it, but that's not even the point. The point is, they are, in fact, **needed** for that content to be alive. It's a MMO, it needs a critical mass of players to sustain every piece of group content. Because it's **group** content, meaning you can't play it alone. You need to find a group for it, and this process isn't fun at all, as it mostly consists of waiting. So you need to *shorten* it, as much as you can. By offering an easy way, you're **prolonging** said process, as you're reducing the number of players interested. You can see the results of this in dungeon LFG, especially in the longer paths, like Arah. What you're in fact proposing is to ruin the content for the players *it was designed for*, so that the players *not interested in it* can have its rewards. That's utter, absolute nonsense.

 

Go to your first statement. Accept not everything in the game is for you. Move on, have fun. Simple.

[Ohoni.6057]

> @"Feanor.2358" said:

> > There is a balance though. It's not to "never have challenging content," and nobody is arguing that it needs to be. The balanced solution is "have challenging content, but **accept that it isn't and shouldn't be for everyone,**

>

> Couldn't agree more.

>

> > @"Ohoni.6057" said:

> > so allowances need to be made for everyone else."

>

> Couldn't disagree more. :lol:

 

But what is your solution then? You have all these people who won't be satisfied with that, how would *you* propose to make them happy? Simply saying "they should just be unhappy" isn't really going to work. This is an entertainment product, they *want* to keep players happy and engaged as best they can.

 

> No, you see, that's not how it works. You're thinking black-or-white here. You're thinking as if there's only the players who want the challenge and those who don't. When in fact, there are many degrees to that. And the rewards are an undeniable factor, drawing players who would otherwise struggle and quit, into the content. Many of which will go past the struggle and actually enjoy it, but that's not even the point.

 

But what about those players who will never enjoy that content, yet still want those rewards. What "happy ending" do you propose for those people?

 

>The point is, they are, in fact, **needed** for that content to be alive. It's a MMO, it needs a critical mass of players to sustain every piece of group content. Because it's **group** content, meaning you can't play it alone. You need to find a group for it, and this process isn't fun at all, as it mostly consists of waiting. So you need to *shorten* it, as much as you can. By offering an easy way, you're **prolonging** said process, as you're reducing the number of players interested.

 

If you have to bribe a player into doing something that they don't want to do, then you don't *deserve* to have those players shorten your wait times.

 

Let's say that you form a raid PUG, and of that group, seven genuinely love raiding and want to do it, but three are only there because they want the rewards. Sure, those three are making the other seven's lives better, but at the expense of making their own worse. You are not *entitled* to their help in filling out your raid party faster.

 

Obviously you should reward the content *enough* that it's worth the hassle for people who *want* to be there, but the reward should not be *so* enticing that it drags in anyone who *doesn't* want to be there. That is unfair to those players.

 

You guys talk to me constantly about how I should just buy raid runs from people, well why not do just the opposite? Why not lower the rewards to the point that ONLY people who love raiding will want to do it, and then the *raiders* can offer gold in LFG to anyone willing to fill out their parties for them, to shorten their wait times. I'm sure you could get some players willing to help you out, for the right price.

 

>You can see the results of this in dungeon LFG, especially in the longer paths, like Arah. What you're in fact proposing is to ruin the content for the players *it was designed for*, so that the players *not interested in it* can have its rewards. That's utter, absolute nonsense.

 

What I'm pointing out is that the rewards attached to raiding is not something that raiders are *entitled to,* that ANet chose to gift them to raiders, and that they are placing an undue burden on players who don't want to be there. You are not entitled to their help, and ANet should not be enabling that cycle.

 

> Go to your first statement. Accept not everything in the game is for you. Move on, have fun. Simple.

 

That applies to content, it does not apply to rewards.

[Miellyn.6847]

> @"Ohoni.6057" said:

> > @"FrizzFreston.5290" said:

> > Im not starting another circle of denial

>

> I'm glad, those are exhausting.

>

> > @"Feanor.2358" said:

> > There's some truth to that, but it's not a result of the raids per se. It happens because the game now has more, and more challenging, instanced content. Toxicity emerges when people start to have difficulties and their mistakes become more and more dangerous for the whole party. One possible route to deal with this is to never have challenging content. However, that makes the game plain boring and in my opinion a MMO can't really afford that, especially a 5+ years old MMO. Sure, there are some casual player who stick, but I think they are just as small a minority as the hardcore players are. So the safer bet is to add variety to the game, so it has appeal to both casual and hardcore players. And this is where the conflict begins.

>

> There is a balance though. It's not to "never have challenging content," and nobody is arguing that it needs to be. The balanced solution is "have challenging content, but **accept that it isn't and shouldn't be for everyone,** so allowances need to be made for everyone else." Let people who *want* to do the challenging content, do the challenging content, but don't punish everyone else by withholding things from them. Provide less challenging alternate methods for them to participate and earn those same rewards.

>

> So long as everyone has a path suited to their interests, it's ok if some of the content is outside the scope that most players are comfortable with. If, however, those challenges form hard barriers that block players out from achieving the things they want, then they have every right to become salty about it, and it leads to a toxic environment.

>

> > @"Miellyn.6847" said:

> > So you don't want an easy mode most players can complete? Is it enough if you can complete it? Or are you one of the worst player in the game and the measurement for a difficulty that most can complete it? The torches in CoF P3 got nerfed because PUGs couldn't handle it. Dhuum has the same mechanic with 7 players at the end of the fight. Anything other than below dungeon difficulty will not be managable for PUGs if you want most players to play it and it this point it doesn't have a learning effect. So they need to start from scratch anyway. Another point why the easy mode is pointless.

>

> I think by this point the devs should have a decent handle on what most players are willing and able to do in the game. Raids are deliberately set to the higher end of that skill arc, the easy mode should just be set at the lower end, equivalent to a moderate dungeon.

>

> Also, I believe we've had the "is it good training debate" before. My stance remains that:

>

> 1. If the mechanics are all the same, just with reduced penalties, then a group that *intends* to use it for practice, and *understands* the hard mode mechanics going in, they *can* use the easy mode to train for the harder mode, attempting to use the same tactics they'd need, and making note of the points where they make a mistake that would prove catastrophic in the "real thing," but without the penalty of having to start from scratch.

> 2. If a group *didn't want to* use it for practice, if they just wanted to take it for what it is and complete it the fastest and easiest way possible, even if those tactics wouldn't work in the hard mode, then that's fine too, that's an equally valid way to play and they aren't hurting anyone by doing so. Let players decide which one they want to do, I guarantee you that you'd see both on the LFGs if both were an option.

>

> >It is nothing for you. Many players don't play PvP or WvW at all. So no reward tracks for them, they have to complete the dungeons. If you have 2h every other day 500 Arah tokens are far from trivial. Or SE, CoE, CM. Ascalon, CoF, HoW, TA are fine.

>

> I hate PvP and WvW, but you can still progress the reward tracks with minimal effort. Hell, I haven't actually entered either in about a year now, but I've been clearing the PvP reward and WvW Big Spender achievements whenever they appear just on left over reward potions and badges from the time I was playing. Spending a round or two in PvP matches, success or failure, is probably a lot easier for most than clearing the harder dungeons. I'm not saying they would necessarily enjoy it, but as grinds go it's a low barrier of entry.

>

> Again though, you should know by now that I'm 100% in favor of expanding these opportunities. I think it's well past time that they introduce PvE reward tracks, identical to the existing PvP ones, but progressed via completing activities on open world maps and other aspects of the game. If they want to tune down some of the junk loot you get while playing open world, I doubt anyone would mind. I could certainly do with opening fewer "Unidentified Item" crates.

 

No the devs don't know what players are willing and able to do. Path of Least Resistance and the general attractiveness of rewards. They don't know if someone decided before doing it that it is too much work for them or just was never interested in it.

They also know that player Ohoni desperately wants raid rewards but doesn't want to do raids.

 

No it can't be used to train. Not all mechanics punish you the same. In order to beat the boss you need to master the mechanics that wipe you, not all of them. If no mechanic can kill you you don't know which is lethal and which not. So either you know it beforehand so you can just go straight into normal mode anyway or you just don't learn it and relearn the encounter once you want to do normal mode.

In order to learn you need to know your mistakes. If nothing happens you don't know your mistakes.

PvE reward tracks already exist and they have a different purpose than WvW and PvP reward tracks. They are called map bonus.

[yann.1946]

> @"Ohoni.6057" said:

> > No, you see, that's not how it works. You're thinking black-or-white here. You're thinking as if there's only the players who want the challenge and those who don't. When in fact, there are many degrees to that. And the rewards are an undeniable factor, drawing players who would otherwise struggle and quit, into the content. Many of which will go past the struggle and actually enjoy it, but that's not even the point.

>

> But what about those players who will never enjoy that content, yet still want those rewards. What "happy ending" do you propose for those people?

>

> >The point is, they are, in fact, **needed** for that content to be alive. It's a MMO, it needs a critical mass of players to sustain every piece of group content. Because it's **group** content, meaning you can't play it alone. You need to find a group for it, and this process isn't fun at all, as it mostly consists of waiting. So you need to *shorten* it, as much as you can. By offering an easy way, you're **prolonging** said process, as you're reducing the number of players interested.

>

> If you have to bribe a player into doing something that they don't want to do, then you don't *deserve* to have those players shorten your wait times.

>

> Let's say that you form a raid PUG, and of that group, seven genuinely love raiding and want to do it, but three are only there because they want the rewards. Sure, those three are making the other seven's lives better, but at the expense of making their own worse. You are not *entitled* to their help in filling out your raid party faster.

>

> Obviously you should reward the content *enough* that it's worth the hassle for people who *want* to be there, but the reward should not be *so* enticing that it drags in anyone who *doesn't* want to be there. That is unfair to those players.

 

On the other hand people in general have to be "forced" into things they might enjoy. Why are you under the assumption that all people who would enjoy a specific content type would also do that content type?

 

As an example i'm 100% sure their are less players playing PvP then people who might enjoy PvP. Because of comments of toxicity and people not wanting to get out of their comfort zone.

 

[zealex.9410]

But the players arent promised any rewards any skins or any cosmetic.

[Feanor.2358]

> @"Ohoni.6057" said:

> That applies to content, it does not apply to rewards.

 

Yes, it does. Just like in real life. You want something? Just weigh your desire against the difficulty of the task and choose to either work for it or not. Simple.

[Ohoni.6057]

> @"Miellyn.6847" said:

>No the devs don't know what players are willing and able to do. Path of Least Resistance and the general attractiveness of rewards. They don't know if someone decided before doing it that it is too much work for them or just was never interested in it.

 

They could always ask.

 

>No it can't be used to train. Not all mechanics punish you the same. In order to beat the boss you need to master the mechanics that wipe you, not all of them. If no mechanic can kill you you don't know which is lethal and which not.

 

Again, and I quote myself here *"and understands the hard mode mechanics going in, "* I have watched strategy videos on the boss fights. I know that with Gorseval, there are four updrafts, and if you use them all up without beating him, then that's it, game over. If there were an easy mode, and we reached that point, but in the easy mode the first one respawned, I would *know* that we had failed to meet that condition for the harder mode, but also we would be able to continue and complete the easy version. Some may not be this obvious, but ideally ANet could even throw in some flags, like a tag in the chat logs that says "this would have wiped you guys," or a flash on the screen to make it more clear what would have happened, but I don't think that's strictly necessary. In some cases a raid attempt can fail because one player had a different job than everyone else. In that case, the other players wouldn't even need to know whether he succeeded or failed by hard mode standards, they could just stay focused on their own roles. There are possibly some mechanics that could not be trained this way, but I can't think of any.

 

>PvE reward tracks already exist and they have a different purpose than WvW and PvP reward tracks. They are called map bonus.

 

No, those are something else entirely. Map bonuses are things that apply to a single map that you are on, and only spit out relatively generic rewards. If you change maps or characters or disconnect, they get reset. A Reward track is something persistent, it would last through several days or even weeks of playtime across multiple maps and multiple characters, and would fit a single specific reward theme, like a "CoF Dungeon" track, or a "PvP rewards" track. You pick the reward theme that interests you and progress along it by just playing in that game mode whether you like. That's the benefit of the reward tracks, it completely disassociates the reward you get from the content you're running.

 

The two mechanics really have nothing to do with each other.

 

> @"yann.1946" said:

> On the other hand people in general have to be "forced" into things they might enjoy. Why are you under the assumption that all people who would enjoy a specific content type would also do that content type?

 

As I've said in the past, I do see the value in having *some* rewards that are very *shallowly* buried inside specific content, which would force a player to at least *attempt* the content and give it a decent try for a few hours or so, but after that, if the player still doesn't like it, then let them leave in peace, without having to abandon the reward they wanted. It's like Green Eggs and Ham. At the end of the story (spoilers) he eats the green eggs and ham and likes it, and that's great! But what if he'd been right? What if he genuinely didn't like green eggs and ham? Should Sam I Am have kept forcing it down his gullet for months? What would be the benefit to that?

 

Encourage players to try new things, sure, but *also* respect their choices when they don't like those new things. I've played hundreds of hours of PvP by this point, I still hate it.

 

> @"Feanor.2358" said:

> > @"Ohoni.6057" said:

> > That applies to content, it does not apply to rewards.

>

> Yes, it does. Just like in real life. You want something? Just weigh your desire against the difficulty of the task and choose to either work for it or not. Simple.

 

This is a game though, not real life. There is no reason why certain rules need to apply. The rewards exist to make players happy. If players are not happy with them, then the rewards have failed at their purpose.

[Feanor.2358]

> @"Ohoni.6057" said:

> > @"Feanor.2358" said:

> > > @"Ohoni.6057" said:

> > > That applies to content, it does not apply to rewards.

> >

> > Yes, it does. Just like in real life. You want something? Just weigh your desire against the difficulty of the task and choose to either work for it or not. Simple.

>

> This is a game though, not real life. There is no reason why certain rules need to apply. The rewards exist to make players happy. If players are not happy with them, then the rewards have failed at their purpose.

 

LOL no. The rewards exist to give players a reason to play, and specifically to re-play already played content. What you suggest? **This** would be failing their purpose.

[Miellyn.6847]

> @"Ohoni.6057" said:

> > @"Miellyn.6847" said:

> >No it can't be used to train. Not all mechanics punish you the same. In order to beat the boss you need to master the mechanics that wipe you, not all of them. If no mechanic can kill you you don't know which is lethal and which not.

>

> Again, and I quote myself here *"and understands the hard mode mechanics going in, "* I have watched strategy videos on the boss fights. I know that with Gorseval, there are four updrafts, and if you use them all up without beating him, then that's it, game over. If there were an easy mode, and we reached that point, but in the easy mode the first one respawned, I would *know* that we had failed to meet that condition for the harder mode, but also we would be able to continue and complete the easy version. Some may not be this obvious, but ideally ANet could even throw in some flags, like a tag in the chat logs that says "this would have wiped you guys," or a flash on the screen to make it more clear what would have happened, but I don't think that's strictly necessary. In some cases a raid attempt can fail because one player had a different job than everyone else. In that case, the other players wouldn't even need to know whether he succeeded or failed by hard mode standards, they could just stay focused on their own roles. There are possibly some mechanics that could not be trained this way, but I can't think of any.

 

So basically the easy mode fails to teach you the fight unless you already know whats going on. As I said it sucks as a training mode as it needs to teach you everything you need to know without external sources.

Also it is normal mode, not hard mode.

 

[yann.1946]

> @"Ohoni.6057" said:

 

> > @"yann.1946" said:

> > On the other hand people in general have to be "forced" into things they might enjoy. Why are you under the assumption that all people who would enjoy a specific content type would also do that content type?

>

> As I've said in the past, I do see the value in having *some* rewards that are very *shallowly* buried inside specific content, which would force a player to at least *attempt* the content and give it a decent try for a few hours or so, but after that, if the player still doesn't like it, then let them leave in peace, without having to abandon the reward they wanted. It's like Green Eggs and Ham. At the end of the story (spoilers) he eats the green eggs and ham and likes it, and that's great! But what if he'd been right? What if he genuinely didn't like green eggs and ham? Should Sam I Am have kept forcing it down his gullet for months? What would be the benefit to that?

>

> Encourage players to try new things, sure, but *also* respect their choices when they don't like those new things. I've played hundreds of hours of PvP by this point, I still hate it.

>

 

The question remains then how shallow do you need these rewards to be implemented?

When does someone know he like a game mode or not?

This whole debate can be summarised in people having different viewpoints on how shallow\deep and hard\easy one expects rewards to be buried.

 

And you have to make the "shallow" rewards exclusive to that content type otherwise they won't serve their purpose.

Isn't this something you don't want?