Predictions for the next Raid!

[maddoctor.2738]

Forsaken Thicket: White Mantle and Lazarus

Bastion of the Penitent: Mursaat and Saul

Hall of Chains: Dhuum

 

Given that all past Raids have been mostly about Guild Wars 1 lore (LS3 brought the White Mantle/Lazarus into the Living World afterward), what lore point from Guild Wars 1 story would we see in the next Raid?

 

My best bet is the Fissure of Woe. With Balthazar dead, the Eternal Forge is now open for the taking by Menzies. Seeing how the Underworld was a Raid, Fissure of Woe can be one too.

Any other lore points we might see in a future Raid?

 

Obviously the next Raid might not have anything to do with Guild Wars 1 lore and be something entirely new and original, or based on specific Guild Wars 2 lore instead. But, I'm more interested in any remaining plot points from Guild Wars 1 that could be turned into a Raid.

[Glider.5792]

I belive the next raid will still be in underworld. There is something fishy about Desmina, so i belive we will be fighting her again.

Alongside, the current underworld map has ALOT of undiscovered space, i have a feeling there will be another map above/under hall of chains.

[Tyson.5160]

Wizard’s Tower would be cool.

[Walhalla.5473]

> @"Glider.5792" said:

> I belive the next raid will still be in underworld. There is something fishy about Desmina, so i belive we will be fighting her again.

> Alongside, the current underworld map has ALOT of undiscovered space, i have a feeling there will be another map above/under hall of chains.

 

Not just that but also when you go to the Aerodrome and to the door leading to Hall of Chains, you can see that this wing is part of the Underworld like the first 3 Wings were Part of the Forsaken Thicket. There are more Wings for the Underworld.

 

And yes Desmina is not trustworthy and I guss more sinister than we know right now.

[maxwelgm.4315]

As it appears, the devs have left some open room to do a whole "2 wings" or "3 wings" raid all inside the Underworld. I would not like that because A) Desmina is not really as menacing as Dhuum and even if she seems fishy, she's more or less the queen of the Underworld at the moment, without even Reapers to do anything about that, and B ) it would take more background than they have to work with, if they wanted to have any other villain lurking down there.

 

Fissure of Woe would be a great idea, though I'm not even sure we'd fight Menzies. Anet did not ever state it clearly but maybe Balthazar did kill him after all. With Dhuum, they did have lots of Underworld creatures spawn inside the world as far as back in the game release, whereas I don't recall seeing any of the Darknesses nor any members of the Shadow Army. Regardless, it is said by Kormir that the gods have left in a much stronger sense than before, as in, they even left their own realms inside the Mists to go even further beyond (a lame plot device to never deal with them again, just like other GW1 characters, but you get the point). Grenth leaving the Underworld has left a vacuum of power that Desmina has filled, and likewise the same can happen to any of the godly realms. In short, even the unseen domains of some of the other gods (Lyssa, Dwayna and Melandru) could be used as a new wing.

 

Also they would have to come up with lots of new assets for this but, if they do want to go full GW1 up our kitten, they might as well explore the current state of the Realm of Torment (aka Kormir's library and whatever surrounds it) after she left for good, or even better, take us to the Hall of Heroes (which is supposedly at the "center" of the Mists inside a place called the Rift, but is not the Heart of the Mists? I never got that but they could use such a place).

 

As a final suggestion, I'd say they might actually not play the Mists card again and explore an area of the open world that we have not yet seen. With the recent release of Deepstone, we might be looking at a full raid on the Dwarven side of the Shiverpeaks.

[Tyson.5160]

> @"maxwelgm.4315" said:

> As it appears, the devs have left some open room to do a whole "2 wings" or "3 wings" raid all inside the Underworld. I would not like that because A) Desmina is not really as menacing as Dhuum and even if she seems fishy, she's more or less the queen of the Underworld at the moment, without even Reapers to do anything about that, and B ) it would take more background than they have to work with, if they wanted to have any other villain lurking down there.

>

> Fissure of Woe would be a great idea, though I'm not even sure we'd fight Menzies. Anet did not ever state it clearly but maybe Balthazar did kill him after all. With Dhuum, they did have lots of Underworld creatures spawn inside the world as far as back in the game release, whereas I don't recall seeing any of the Darknesses nor any members of the Shadow Army. Regardless, it is said by Kormir that the gods have left in a much stronger sense than before, as in, they even left their own realms inside the Mists to go even further beyond (a lame plot device to never deal with them again, just like other GW1 characters, but you get the point). Grenth leaving the Underworld has left a vacuum of power that Desmina has filled, and likewise the same can happen to any of the godly realms. In short, even the unseen domains of some of the other gods (Lyssa, Dwayna and Melandru) could be used as a new wing.

>

> Also they would have to come up with lots of new assets for this but, if they do want to go full GW1 up our kitten, they might as well explore the current state of the Realm of Torment (aka Kormir's library and whatever surrounds it) after she left for good, or even better, take us to the Hall of Heroes (which is supposedly at the "center" of the Mists inside a place called the Rift, but is not the Heart of the Mists? I never got that but they could use such a place).

>

> As a final suggestion, I'd say they might actually not play the Mists card again and explore an area of the open world that we have not yet seen. With the recent release of Deepstone, we might be looking at a full raid on the Dwarven side of the Shiverpeaks.

 

I think they need to reserve the Hall of Heroes to a PvP map, honestly. It’s fits with the PvP theme more then pve at least for gw1, though I do recall you could get there in pve too.

[Tyson.5160]

It would be nice if the next raid wing was a new unique story that wasn’t from gw1 as a nice change of pace.

[maxwelgm.4315]

> @"Tyson.5160" said:

> It would be nice if the next raid wing was a new unique story that wasn’t from gw1 as a nice change of pace.

 

While this is not quite the topic at hand (the OP specifically asked about GW1 themed raids due to it being the trend), I heartfully agree with that, it would definitely be good to see something new and fresh. My only caveat to this is that it's actually harder than it seems to come up with something that is not at least peripherally a nod to GW1, because they touched on just about everything lying on what space we have on the map right now. Going completely off the map to a continent never visited would be one possibility, or some region that we actually have no idea what they look like (such as the Isles of Janthir, the Scavenger's Causeway, and Dzalana).

 

In fact, I think they are also using GW1 stuff recently as a way of optimizing resources. Coming up with the mechanics and such for Dhuum for example (while keeping it fresh and not rehashing from the other bosses too much) is a challenging enough task, now think of also having to develop completely new assets and come up with an engaging story that is completely new to every single player. I think it's much more probable that they keep using GW1 stuff for a while (for the better or worse).

[Tyson.5160]

> @"maxwelgm.4315" said:

> > @"Tyson.5160" said:

> > It would be nice if the next raid wing was a new unique story that wasn’t from gw1 as a nice change of pace.

>

> While this is not quite the topic at hand (the OP specifically asked about GW1 themed raids due to it being the trend), I heartfully agree with that, it would definitely be good to see something new and fresh. My only caveat to this is that it's actually harder than it seems to come up with something that is not at least peripherally a nod to GW1, because they touched on just about everything lying on what space we have on the map right now. Going completely off the map to a continent never visited would be one possibility, or some region that we actually have no idea what they look like (such as the Isles of Janthir, the Scavenger's Causeway, and Dzalana).

>

> In fact, I think they are also using GW1 stuff recently as a way of optimizing resources. Coming up with the mechanics and such for Dhuum for example (while keeping it fresh and not rehashing from the other bosses too much) is a challenging enough task, now think of also having to develop completely new assets and come up with an engaging story that is completely new to every single player. I think it's much more probable that they keep using GW1 stuff for a while (for the better or worse).

 

Kinda got me thinking of this place, it just screams raid, plus it positions itself near a PoF map.

 

https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/The_Hidden_City_of_Ahdashim

 

Time to use those PoF assets in raids.

[zealex.9410]

I just hope next raid isnt another one off and that it doesnt get pushed back for a double release with s4ep4.

[GrubySzymek.1362]

I would like to see wintersday raid. With gingerbread boss and gift mechanics, all in the spirit of the best mmo community.

[maddoctor.2738]

> @"maxwelgm.4315" said:

> As it appears, the devs have left some open room to do a whole "2 wings" or "3 wings" raid all inside the Underworld. I would not like that because A) Desmina is not really as menacing as Dhuum and even if she seems fishy, she's more or less the queen of the Underworld at the moment, without even Reapers to do anything about that, and B ) it would take more background than they have to work with, if they wanted to have any other villain lurking down there.

>

That's a possibility, but I can't say I really like it either.

 

> Fissure of Woe would be a great idea, though I'm not even sure we'd fight Menzies. Anet did not ever state it clearly but maybe Balthazar did kill him after all. With Dhuum, they did have lots of Underworld creatures spawn inside the world as far as back in the game release, whereas I don't recall seeing any of the Darknesses nor any members of the Shadow Army. Regardless, it is said by Kormir that the gods have left in a much stronger sense than before, as in, they even left their own realms inside the Mists to go even further beyond (a lame plot device to never deal with them again, just like other GW1 characters, but you get the point). Grenth leaving the Underworld has left a vacuum of power that Desmina has filled, and likewise the same can happen to any of the godly realms. In short, even the unseen domains of some of the other gods (Lyssa, Dwayna and Melandru) could be used as a new wing.

>

Visiting the domains of the other gods would be amazing! If that ever happens, I want to visit Lyssa's world first.

[Raizel.8175]

I just want to get rid of all the human-centric stories. It's getting dull. PoF was all about humans and LWS4 too (yeah, we had that Charr tribe and stuff, but still...) and all the other raid wings are about humans too. Time for a change. Would also be nice if they keep the difficulty moderate so that you won't get locked out of content by the community if you haven't done the wing right when it has been released.

[maxwelgm.4315]

> @"Raizel.8175" said:

> I just want to get rid of all the human-centric stories. It's getting dull. PoF was all about humans and LWS4 too (yeah, we had that Charr tribe and stuff, but still...) and all the other raid wings are about humans too. Time for a change. Would also be nice if they keep the difficulty moderate so that you won't get locked out of content by the community if you haven't done the wing right when it has been released.

 

The entry barriers are all player-imposed and have nothing to do with the actual difficulty of the encounters. You just gotta find the right guild (unfortunately pugs will never be friendly as long as it's 10-man content). I used to raid with 2 guilds that literally wouldn't take anyone to even enter W5 before they mastered everything else (and I mean real mastery here). We eventually reached a soft capping of barely being able to do W4 and dismantled due to not progressing, but I think we wouldn't have progressed anyway due to never seeing anything other than Samarog/MO/Cairn. 10 people is a lot to gather together and in many cases a single person can ruin the encounter for everyone else. This absolutely does not mean that the encounters are over-tuned, it's just the community itself being contrived and unable to get outside their box of "what has worked for me will work for you" mentality. Having an even moderately hard (as opposed to simply hard) encounter would alienate the ones wanting to remotely have any challenge while not destroying the entry barriers inherent to speed-clearing with pugs. One example would be Arcane Weavers trying to DPS when they were already experienced DH players long before they had an ele, or claiming Scourges can absolutely only complete encounters with epidemic when they are the only class able to actually not care about a formal rotation and their DPS is more than the minimum required per player to complete any boss. This is all a player problem, nothing to do with the boss development (that is A-OK if only very slow paced, but we're still getting more or less original mechanics with each boss which is good).

 

EDIT: I might have gone off-topic here so, I somewhat agree with you that they could leave the human-centric stories behind for a while. Thing is, this is also hard to do if they keep the trend of GW1 themes because GW1 was human-centric to begin with. One viable possibility would be to explore more of the Charr Legions, notably we could visit their actual Homelands (we never see these in GW1 if I recall). Another thing could be an Asura-based raid inside the Depths of Tyria. We know Destroyers have driven the Asura away from there but we also know that the ruins down there were build by even more ancient races. While writing this it also occurred to me, it would be a nice closure to the Mordremoth arc if we actually got a Sylvari raid dealing with everything that was left to rot under Malyck's tree, such as the nature of the Dream and the Nightmare Court.

[Raizel.8175]

> @"maxwelgm.4315" said:

> > @"Raizel.8175" said:

> > I just want to get rid of all the human-centric stories. It's getting dull. PoF was all about humans and LWS4 too (yeah, we had that Charr tribe and stuff, but still...) and all the other raid wings are about humans too. Time for a change. Would also be nice if they keep the difficulty moderate so that you won't get locked out of content by the community if you haven't done the wing right when it has been released.

>

> The entry barriers are all player-imposed and have nothing to do with the actual difficulty of the encounters.

 

That's wrong. While I agree that the community is a big part of the problem, the weird game-design is also a problem. Balancing and decent class-design in MMORPGs is of utmost importance, yet GW2 features the worst class-balance I've ever encountered in a MMORPG. It's not just the huge difference in dps-potentials, it's also the "flavor of the boss" design (having some classes being utterly broken at some bosses and pure trash at others is just ludicrous game design), the stacking of several roles on only few classes (the whole support-supremacy), the weird distribution of key-utilities (there simply are some utilities that are mandatory for certain encounters). Then, implementing such a questionable skill-indicator-system as LI/KP didn't help either; neither did the far too easy main-game-experience without proper difficulty-curve which led to stupid community-based entry-requirements anyway. The game design itself led to the current community problems.

 

> EDIT: I might have gone off-topic here so, I somewhat agree with you that they could leave the human-centric stories behind for a while. Thing is, this is also hard to do if they keep the trend of GW1 themes because GW1 was human-centric to begin with. One viable possibility would be to explore more of the Charr Legions, notably we could visit their actual Homelands (we never see these in GW1 if I recall). Another thing could be an Asura-based raid inside the Depths of Tyria. We know Destroyers have driven the Asura away from there but we also know that the ruins down there were build by even more ancient races. While writing this it also occurred to me, it would be a nice closure to the Mordremoth arc if we actually got a Sylvari raid dealing with everything that was left to rot under Malyck's tree, such as the nature of the Dream and the Nightmare Court.

 

I'm tired of all the GW1 (and thus human-centered) fanservice anyway. We have five playable species, they all should get some love. I wouldn't mind exploring some other, new paths. I'd actually like to have a Sylvari-themed raid where we explore what became of the Nightmare court (and why one of their members helped us at Dragons Stand) or where we explore the lore around Malyck.