Stories Locked Behind Raids [Merged]
Sinfullysweet.4517
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The only issue I have with Raids is one thing. Don't lock part of the story behind it. Rewards yes by all means, but the story is the core content. Maybe add a story mode, with no rewards for those of us that really want to get the full story. Those of us who mentally can't do raids (mine is over stimulation, cant use voip) this would help us not feel like we are missing a core part of the story. Leave Raids as they are challenging content for those who like to push the ceiling, but a story path with no rewards but gives us casuals a way to complete the story and understand.
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You are definitely not the only player that feels that way. A few of us made it very clear when they put the Saul D'Alessio storyline in the last raid wing that they had crossed a line. Based on some comments one of the writers made shortly after, I think they understood why that was a bad idea. We can only hope that message got through to the decision makers.
While I would love (and have advocated loudly for many times) a story mode of some kind, the raid team leader indicated just after PoF that it isn't currently part of the plan. While I still believe they will eventually have to reverse that decision to keep raids alive long term, for now, that is something we just have to live with.
So, what we should see next week is a hardmode raid with little to no story or heavy lore tie-ins. Any story that would be of interest to the greater GW2 community (whether it is part of the dragon or elder god story arcs or not) should be told outside of raids for the foreseeable future.
Re-post from the other thread:
The developers went to great length to not make the Raid story an integral part of the overall story. In fact the NPCs you meet inside the Raid act as if you've never seen them before if you've never been inside the Raid. If you play the episodes without ever touching the Raid, you don't miss anything so there is hardly any problem. There is zero reason to believe that they won't do the same with the next Wing. After all Raids are side stories
Watch a vid on youtube. Wp is known or his 1hour vid on the story
Thank you!
I actually did all the side stories except raids so I was still a bit lost on some of the story and why. I had few folks explain it to me that raided and what went on during them. I apologize if I have been misinformed.
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Literally cannot +1 this enough. It's sad so many people think the raid story is anything more than a save the missing squad story, because that's literally all it is.
It's not a whoa lazarus thing, he wasn't even there. The only reason his name is even mentioned is because the white mantle used some half baked theories to think they were reviving something that didnt even need to be revived.
But people will complain about raids because they can not because it's logical. Meanwhile the single biggest offenders of keeping story details limited to story Caudecus Manor gets blown over as if yeah, everyone's done that. I wonder just how many people had never touched it but still got the lines
"I wonder what happened here"
"Oh that was me, i thought they would have fixed it by now"
Yep, raids are clearly the story telling problem here right guys ?
I am not complaining about raids, at all seriously. I am actually glad raiders get an extra play area! I was just really lost in LS3 because it felt all over the place, and had again perhaps been given misinformation regarding extra information that happened in raids. Can I play raids? No. My autism gets over stimulated from the sounds, the comms, and I freak. Do I want them catered to me? Hell no. My problem, no one else. So please do not take this as I am attacking raids or against raids. Just wanted to make sure there was no extra story that I am missing due to my ineptitude of playing in raids.
I have seem to be assured of that.
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I have slightly less issue with the story from the first three raid wings. The Saul D'Alessio storyline in wing four definitely took things too far though, imo.
Raid story shouldnt touch the characters from lore (GW1 or GW2) or storylines that the general GW2 player would find compelling.
Let raids be solely about the fights/challenge with extremely minimal narrative. That isn't a lot to ask.
Raids can have characters from the lore of both games just fine, I expect the next Raid to also touch on major lore characters. This as long as it doesn't affect the main story of the game, finishing Saul D'Alessio's story in such an epic way was one step towards a good direction. Finishing old story threads in Raids, when they do not affect the main story, is the best way to finish them. In an epic and memorable way, not the way we finished Lazarus or Balthazar.
Whether or not it affects the main story is completely unimportant - especially if it involves lore characters or story. These are still stories that most players would like to be a part of - and that is all that really matters.
Hopefully, the developers (hopefully) understand that and take it into account moving forward.
And, to add, I think you will find most raiders do not care about story at all. They are there for the challenge. Tell the stories in more accessible areas of the game and leave raids focused solely on the fights/challenges. There is no reason to widen the divide between players on this issue any more than it already is (which I think was the point the OP was trying to get across).
Actually that's what really matters and there are already rumors about the next Raid also dealing heavily with GW1 lore. These are stories that deserve a good ending worthy of their importance and not a semi-afkable solo instance.
This exactly. That kind of content deserves to be a raid.
And many players would say they deserve the experience of that story without changing the way they have played since the game came out.
This idea that only raiders deserve that experience is not only pure BS, it is belittling to the vast number of players who bought this game specifically to get away from that kind of elitist attitude. I rarely use the term elitist (I think it is overused and misused in most cases) - but here, where were talking about people believing they are owed a story experience or lore wrap up that others are not, it definitely applies.
And, I would expect backlash from players like the OP (and, of course, me, but I'm pretty much white noise to the devs at this point) if this is a trend they plan to continue. Let raids be about the fights/challenge (which is what most raiders seem to care about) and leave story to the rest of the game.
Free lunch is why PoF is dead atm, more free lunch isn't going to revive it.
For those on the forums who advocate for the removal of duo queues in Spvp, realize your actions over the past 7 years has destroyed gw2 Spvp and thinking doing the same thing again is a good idea after several years of it not working crazy. Get better at pvp.
2 questions came into my mind because I haven't played GW1:
There was challenging content in GW1 and it was easily accessible to every single player in the game or not?
If there was it must have had story in it so am I right that even in GW1 players missed out side story parts?
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In the past 8-10 posts, we've seen the same people shift their argument from "these stories are unimportant, so non-raiders shouldn't care" to "these stories are so important that they deserve special treatment." That alone shows us that the argument is less about the story and more about people wanting to keep those dirty casuals out of every part of their corner of the playground. And that is the definition of elitist, imo.
If this were a raid centric game, where it was clear going in that the culmination of these stories would require raiding, then I could understand their inclusion. But it isn't. This game was set up - and more importantly, marketed - differently, even with HOT and POF (especially with POF, where they focused heavily on the storytelling aspects in their marketing). This game centers on the community experiencing the story content together (even things designated as "side" content - a term I still argue is pure semantics in this game). That is what it has always been - and what it is supposed to be now.
And, even if this were a raid centric game, I would argue that changes would be in order. Pretty much every successful MMO that has utilized raids as a storytelling tool has had to adapt their raid model to be more accessible to players of all skill levels and interests.
You should re-read the arguments then:
The stories are unimportant to the main story of the game is the main argument, not unimportant in the entire GW lore.
But the stories are important side stories to be worth a good fight, instead of what we get in the main stories.
A few people will always feel like you do but raids need a story, you need motivation to go and kill the baddies. The raid stories have been pretty tangential to the main plot and there are catchup cinematics in open world or youtube lore videos for you to watch.
@OP: I can't speak for everyone else, but as for myself, I certainly DON'T feel this way.
Although to be fair, I also have nothing against story mode raids, as long as they offer no rewards (as mentioned in your original post) AND don't slow down the development of actual raids (which would likely mean slowing down the development of other parts of the game). But as I suspect, a lot of people would much rather have whole new content like living story instead of those teams reworking pre-existing content into some watered-down uninteresting version of it.
Thank you for that. I respect how you feel. 😊
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A raid without a story would feel out of place. What motivation does the player character have to go into a raid without a story behind it? Why would he risk his life?
I do kind of agree with the aspect that cool story (no matter if GW1 or GW2 related) should not be locked behind raids.
I also think people are greatly (and I mean really greatly) exaggerating the amount of story told in raids. It's literally maybe a 5-10 second boss cut-scene, some npc banter (the same type of dialog most people skip while running around in the open world) and that's it. If I had to summarize the entire story of the current 4 raid wings, it would be less than any 1 Living World Story instance step.
I can sympathize with veteran GW1 players who are not raiding being annoyed that part of the raid story (wing 4) deals with GW1 lore. So far though, it's by far not so fleshed out that it warrants big drama. This might change for future raid wings, but I do think arenanet are on top of this.
Watching a WP video about it will be dozen times more entertaining and insightful than actually running the raid. At the same time the GW1 setting does provide some narrative background for raids, putting them in a proper context without delivering to much story via them.
Thing is, though, the way story was so far implemented, you could experience everything of it except the actual bossfight, with someone opening the instances for you just fine.
OP wants a story mode, so basically he wants to remove the difficult raidbosses. But thats exactly the same? Only difference: not having to put up a lfg for someone to open instance.
I could understand this whole topic if the raiding community was so toxic as to not open instances for others to explore the story. But thats definitely NOT the case.
So, while it might not be accessible in a conventional way, the story IS already accessible.
The actual boss fight, if seen as part of that story, should then of course be done on the approbriate challenge level. Otherwise I want a storymode for every worldboss and mapwide meta event also.
Raids themselves are pretty devoid of any actual lore by the way. Empty instances can literally be run through in less then 2 minutes, and finding the lore pieces in every instance would take no more then 5 to 10 minutes. Anything lore related can be boiled down to pieces of paper with no more then 2/3 lines of text on it or npc's literally giving one-line dialogues.
The only heavy lore bit in Forsaken thicket would be the NPC that get's released after the fight with Matthias who gives a bit of dialogue and a 15 second movie. Who can be accessed via an empty instance, again providing all the lore you might miss out on because a player might not do raids. Most of the rest of the lore you might miss is bosses going "HRRRRRR! ME KILL YOU NOW! GRRRRR" with one-liners. Wing 4 might be the wing with the most lore actually, but everything lore related can be found via Glenna, who you can talk to before every raid boss even starts. You could open a wing before you've fought Cairn, and get every lore there. Go into an instance that cleared Cairn and get everything on Mursaat Overseer and so on for the other 2 bosses.
I'm actually pretty sure people thinking they're missing out on a lot of things will go: "Wait...this is it? This isn't even that much!" If they get the chance to experience all the lore. Wooden Potatoes is a great source on catching up anything lore related to raids, just be prepared to deal with 30min/1hour videos dealing with 5 to 10 minutes of lore because...well...Wooden Potatoes.
There is a reason we go and beat face against Gors...Cairn...VG? Go figure.
Best way to make ot good for everyone is to create "story mode" with no enrage timer, half dmg and hp, but offering little reward.
That way any pug group can play the story/lore and the serious groups still have their more challenging mode.
And in this they failed. Badly. Most likely because they completely misunderstood the problem.
That's not really true. You do miss part of the important storyline. Whether it was one that had a direct impact on the main storyline or not (and Forsaken thicked had such an impact)
That would be... bad. The "side stories" so far were not minor ones.
And that is whay you (and Anet) do not seem to understand. Any stories tied to major lore characters should not be closed to a vast majority of players. Whether those stories have any direct tie-in to the main story or not. Because these are things with major impact on game lore.
Exactly. Those stories deserve to not be restricted to the minority of players only. They are too big and important for that.
Quite the opposite. It's the worst way, because most players won't see it. Even if i do agree with you on how badly the Lazarus storyline was done (this however i consider to be a problem with storywriting, not game mechanics)
Does that story need to involve major points of GW lore to qualify for raids? Can't it be something on the level of explorable dungeon paths (with the notable exception of Arah)? AC explorable paths did not touch on any major lore point, major character or event. And yet they still gave you a reason to go in.
The whole point of a social game is to play with the people you want to play with, not be forced to play with the people you don't.
No it didn't have such an impact.
The side stories were exactly that: side stories.
That's the best kind of story for the Raids.
I do have killed a few raid bosses (not all) and can agree that story should not be locked behind raids.
But there is actually not really much lore/story told in raids. The lore/story is only setting the theme/stage for the fights/encounters and is mostly some dialogue with some NPCs, which can also be seen when someone goes (with LFG) in an already finished raid map and will probably be disappointed and think after that "what? so much fuss about that? thats it?"
But it is a different issue, to make the fights itself easier for people that do want to encounter the fights, in some "easy-mode" by themselves. I think the fights would be different and be also disappointing and will not feel this "big" if they can be facetanked on first try. I am not generally against "easy-mode" raids, but I think that this could devalue the fights and a lot of mechanics that are fun and important for the fights.
Raids are not special because they have the best maps or tell the best story (if they tell story at all) but because they are the most challenging content in this game where (normally) 10 skilled players have to cooperate and coordinate to kill a boss. And of course you can get good loot in raids.
Raids are fights, not story.
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Easy mode is a waste of dev time, it's that simple. People will do it once, then come back to the forum to cry that they can't have the same rewards as other people.
You didn't deny what i said, i see. They might have been side stories in relation to the main storyline, but they weren't unimportant or minor ones at all. And the events from Forsaken Thicket actually started the whole chain of LS3+PoF.
From the raiders' point of view, perhaps (although many raiders i met didn't even know what was happening in the raid instances they were farming. Nor did they care). From the point of view of everyone else's it's the worst choice. Because, by doing that, you deny that part of the story to a majority of the players. Which is okay if those are minor stories, but definitely not okay with the ones you yourself said are important enough to deserve a good and epic ending. Epic ending most people won't see is not epic.
And no, contrary to what devs and some raiders seem to claim, infodumps and YT vids are not a good replacement. If they were, lore inside the game would be completely superfuous - all you'd need is to post some story videos and blogs to keep players happy. And if you thought they were a good replacement, then you'd also not care about those stories being in raids. Reading about them/seeing cinematic from LS would do for you.
The whole point of a social game is to play with the people you want to play with, not be forced to play with the people you don't.
I never said anything about their story being irrelevant. The raids had good part in the lore, as they should, but in no way be part of the main story of the actual game. That's why they are called side stories. Also, what happened in LS3+PoF would've happened anyway, regardless of the existence on not of the Forsaken Thicket.
They are minor stories relative to the main story of the game, as in they do not affect it, not minor as minor points in the lore.
it's almost as if different people have different opinions. I don't mind your personal crusade towards raids to be honest but content devoid of challenge and/or substance is content that players quickly forget. I like they stick to their design philosophy for raids and I like it even more when they state that's what they want. People like you will not like that and complain about it, others will enjoy it and both are fine approaches at least for me. You're not white noise, your opinion will be shared by other people for sure but if you choose to not raid for whatever reason you may have, stick to your guns and don't try to warp everything so it fits your agenda.
This is Guild Wars 2.
The main lore is our character's continued quest to find a way to defeat the Elder Dragons and save the world (both, not just the former).
Stopping White Mantle Activities in Northern Magumma outside of Bloodstone Fen or Saving Saul are not part of this main story.
Regardless of how important you feel this lore is to Guild Wars as a whole, it is irrelevant to the main audience who is currently concerned about Aurene going through her Teenage years. There is no need to insist that there is a relevance and thus raids need to be more accessible, they are accessible enough to those willing to put in the time and patience.
I think people have been requesting different tiers of raids (like the fractal ones) for various reasons since raids are a thing, and the devs don't care. But don't worry! They have a top notch policy to sort out raid related feedback!
You are absolutely correct. Raid audience doesn't care about lore. To be honest raids should just be boss platforms with mechanics. That way we can enjoy the lore without the need to deal with raid community and anet will be able to release faster raids. No textures, no voiceovers, just platforms, bosses and mechanics. Raiders will stop complaining too as they will receive new raids faster. I hope Anet listens
I doubt that people interested in the lore would be satisfied to get specific lore presented like it is in raids. You would be forced to talk to an NPC and just read the stuff + pick up letters from the ground. That's it. Oh I forgot, there would be an extra movie scene of about 10s without much value.
It's highly debatable that the real lore hunters appreciate such procedure because they won't get it in a different style.
In my opinion this whole thing about lore is a dummy argument because lore focussed, addicted and mesmerized people have either already visited the empty instances to "enjoy" the story or raid(ed) themselves due to being longterm veterans.
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Very old argument that was never true
Then enlighten us. What is not true about it?
R.I.P. Build Templates, 15.10.2019
There were enouogh enlightments since raid content has been released in this game and you still don't get it. I can't help you at this point
I mentioned different things in my post and you just replied with one argument that has never been true. Nobody who is reading in this thread now knows what you have meant.
Is it about the lore not being presented by letters and the NPC talking? Because here I'm 100% right, no need to discuss that.
Or is it about the lore being presented to the casual crowd if it weren't in raids? As I said, highy debatable because there is no indication that Anet has ever had plans to construct a side story out of dungeons, fractals, raids and festivals. In the past it has always been a straight going forward LS in the open world or story in instances like dungeons, raids and fractals. They even did it in Aether path.
Or is it about lore hunters being satisfied if they are going to an NPC, for example Queensdale, and read the lore there + picking up some letters? Very doubtful that we wouldn't have a skritpost here or on Reddit accusing Anet to be uncreative etc.
Or do you mean the last sentence of my post? Because I doubt that a player that is obsessed by the lore has refused to go into a cleared instance because reasons (must be weird reasons). Those people want to know stuff, there is no rational reason to not go into the instance if you really want to know everything that happened in the game.
R.I.P. Build Templates, 15.10.2019
I think there has been a misunderstanding, especially when bringing accessibility into the discussion, which to me is irrelevant.
The simple question about Raid story is if it's tied to the main story of the game. Since you can enjoy and understand the story of the game without ever touching raids this is a moot point anyway.
Second question is if Raids should have important, in the lore, story or not. Here comes the "deserves" part, when epic story moments deserve something more than a solo instance, in that way it's great to resolve important subplots in Raids.
Third, there is the question where to put these side stories. Everything we've done in the main story is focused on helping in the fight with the Elder Dragons, even the short break with Caudecus gave us Lazarus/Balthazar, everything in the game is tied to the ongoing conflict with the Elder Dragons. Which begs the question, how do we tell compelling side stories, I mean not every piece of lore can be a part of the Elder Dragon story but the game lacks a way of showing it.
Now I know the big argument against having important lore in the Raids, is that many won't see the story. I'll remind anyone who says that, in the old forums there was a developer post on the subject that they are working on making the Raid story more accessible. Making the story of the Raids more accessible has been an ongoing topic of discussion for a very long time, but the "Raids should be just fights without any story" isn't a very valid argument.
It was already proved by 3rd wing that talking about side stories was a lie. Lazarus / Mursaat arc is very important for LW3 happenings and without context of raid his appearance in out of the shadows is out of nowhere. It would be better if anet created seperate story for raids that are not connected to the main game so anybody fixated about lore of the game can ignore raids. These are create for "challenge" not for immersion
That's silly. Was the appearance of Rytlock in the first instance of HoT out of nowhere too? In the actual Out of Shadows story you get all the information you need, in fact way more than what we got in the Raid, with all the white mantle journals you collect. That's your lore explanation about Lazarus and has nothing to do with the Raids.
In fact, if the Raid actually "counted" for anything then our characters would've for sure reacted in a much different way in Out of Shadows. At least tell the team when fist meeting them at Rata Novus that we cleared a White Mantle hive and found an empty Sarcophagus, our characters would've been the ones to tell Canach that there Mantle activity "north" and not wait for him to tell us, and so on.
Out of Shadows treats raiders as they've never been inside the Raid
Story without knowing the Raid makes more sense than after finishing it. And that was a mistake that hopefully they'll fix in future Raid releases.
I don't think you quite understand. The appearance of Lazarus in LW3 is "out of nowhere" as you said because that is exactly what the devs wanted to create. I mean, replay the story and look at Caudecus reaction. He is surprised and so is the main character.
Edit: you can never have challenge without some form of immersion.
He is surprised because he wanted to sabotage Xera but outside of brief mention in Caudecus's journal the only way to learn about WM activities to resurrect Lazarus is to play raid, which is a direct opposition of devs promise to not include main story within raid. I hope they learned they should respect their community and will never repeat this mistake. We will see very soon
You probably missed these
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Justiciar_Bauer's_Memoirs
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Apprentice_Kasandra's_Diary
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Grand_Savant_Valis_the_Learned's_Research_Journal
Everything you need to know about the resurrection is knowledge given by the game outside of the Raids.
The devs promised the Raid story won't include main story elements and so far they've kept it.
You do realize nothing they did resurrected anyone right ?
There was no Lazarus there. He didn't need to be resurrected and certainly wasn't going to be revived via bloodstone sacrifices. Something you'd actually understand if you ever played GW1 or did LW3 Ch8.
Maybe you're right. What you don't see is that putting a specific story in raids, however it is presented here, locks out that story from the main audience. Because Anet's not going to do that story twice in wildly different formats.
And if you're right it also means that some stories may be presented in a way that does not do them justice. Because "epic" fights do not a good storytelling make.
Indeed. But they did hint at Lazarus' return here, and they introduced this character to people that did not play gw1. Both things were an important groundwork for the first chapter of LS3, and that chapter is incomplete without them.
The whole point of a social game is to play with the people you want to play with, not be forced to play with the people you don't.
I, as a player, understand this, but Xera and her pawns had no such knowledge. This is exactly the point here, there is no reason to put any lore in raids, because all you carre about is encounters. Raids should be arenas with bosses and mechanics, so they won't waste time to create lore for you but release some mechanical contene instead so raid community stop whining every few months they have no new raids. And so, people who are interested in lore can get lore content in more forgiving areas of the game, where social limitations of raid community is not a gate to experience story of the game
LOL and how did that "tease" work in the game? Our characters didn't bother to mention anything about it as if the entire wing 3 never happened.