[Suggestion] Allow us to practice bosses

I'm new to raids, I run with a very tiny guild group and we are getting our feetsies wet in the ways of the raids, but we find something very frustrating; unless we defeat the boss we cannot practice/meet/get familiar with the next boss, so I've been thinking it would be nice to have a "virtual enviroment" to just summon or get teleported to a boss, and get to practice the mechanics, so we are ready for that encounter the next time, instead of having to wait a lucky kill for the next week.

Why practice on a boss when you aren't able to kill the previous one? Progression in a raid group is part of the fun. There is no point in your group being 100% perfect on Sabetha when VG or Gorseval causes issues.

TL;DR - BUY A BOSS INSTANCE OFF OF THE LFG TOOL

My apologies, I wasn't clear enough with what I was suggesting. Right now we can summon a golem that can measure dps, what I'm suggesting is summon a golem that can allow us to practice the second, third, all bosses; an environment to practice mechanics one at a time and add them in the simulation on a set interval

I would prefer the raid team work on making the new raid content up to the quality they have set currently. Taking time away from development to work on older things is a step backwards.

TL;DR - BUY A BOSS INSTANCE OFF OF THE LFG TOOL

Been suggested before and this response is typical, personally I and a few others see some value in having the kitty golem be used for training purrposes.https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/37656/how-would-an-easy-mode-raid-work-vg/p1

@"Sephylon.4938" said:Been suggested before and this response is typical, personally I and a few others see some value in having the kitty golem be used for training purrposes.https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/37656/how-would-an-easy-mode-raid-work-vg/p1

I am sorry about all the time you put into your post that promotes easy mode VG, but I would refer to you this post on MassivlyOP and on our gw2 forum:

http://massivelyop.com/2017/09/13/guild-wars-2-raids-wont-be-getting-more-difficulty-options-in-path-of-fire-at-this-time/https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/comment/113984/#Comment_113984

@"Crystal Reid.2481" said:New forum, so I'll jump in with a new post on this.

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

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

I could see the benefit of a golem, BUT to sink development time on something that you can do right now without added features is not the best use of resources.

TL;DR - BUY A BOSS INSTANCE OFF OF THE LFG TOOL

so then why would any of this affect you then?

@Frel.3086 said:

@"Sephylon.4938" said:Been suggested before and this response is typical, personally I and a few others see some value in having the kitty golem be used for training purrposes.

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/37656/how-would-an-easy-mode-raid-work-vg/p1

@"Crystal Reid.2481" said:New forum, so I'll jump in with a new post on this.

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

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

Check out the 20 man raid idea we cooked up. Limit dev resources required.

@Frel.3086 said:... to sink development time on something that you can do right now without added features is not the best use of resources.

If they take time to develop something that you can do in-game currently, that will push back the timeline for all raids and potentially other content. That affects all players of this game.

@Tyson.5160 said:

@Frel.3086 said:

@"Sephylon.4938" said:Been suggested before and this response is typical, personally I and a few others see some value in having the kitty golem be used for training purrposes.

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/37656/how-would-an-easy-mode-raid-work-vg/p1

@"Crystal Reid.2481" said:New forum, so I'll jump in with a new post on this.

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

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

How do you train for a boss when you have 20 people and can quickly DPS your way through the mechanics without much effort?

@Ayrilana.1396 said:

@Tyson.5160 said:

@Frel.3086 said:

@"Sephylon.4938" said:Been suggested before and this response is typical, personally I and a few others see some value in having the kitty golem be used for training purrposes.

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/37656/how-would-an-easy-mode-raid-work-vg/p1

@"Crystal Reid.2481" said:New forum, so I'll jump in with a new post on this.

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

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

I guess by not always taking the full 20? Maybe going with 11 or 12?

@Tyson.5160 said:I guess by not always taking the full 20? Maybe going with 11 or 12?

Why not just take 10? :thinking emoji:

@Frel.3086 said:

@Tyson.5160 said:I guess by not always taking the full 20? Maybe going with 11 or 12?

That would be your choice really.

Is there any reason to turn this into yet another thread with the same ten people or so arguing about raids apart from the shameless self-promotion?The answer has already been given by Frel in the first reply. Pay an opener off the LFG if you want to practice. An easy solution all of us use. Most people give you their instance for free, many of them would like to have a spot as they obviously missed the boss in question (good way to meet people if you are forming a group).

While currently Special Forces Training Area is great for testing your builds and dps, it doesn't allow you train or test anything else. I would think that it shouldn't be impossible to add mechanics into golem room. Lets have VG blue teleport circles or green circles, red seeker etc. For tanking, make the golem follow highest toughness and do some basic attacks for tank. Healing, add some possibility have some sudden mass damage bombs or whatever. Just have basic mechanics similar way as you can now put conditions, health pool etc for golem already and boons for you. After all for example for fractals you can try out different kind of instabilities in fractal lobby. I don't want to fight virtual version of VG, Gorseval or any other raid bosses, but some basic mechanics would be nice and adding those shouldn't be too big of a deal. They have added and changed Special Forces Training Area before. Besides why have such area if you can only hit dummy with the stick, you can practice that on raid bosses too.

What comes to easy mode or story mode, I agree that GW2 doesn't need those. While it would be nice to get inside to lore of the raids, that wouldn't be beneficial in the long run.

@Frel.3086 said:TL;DR - BUY A BOSS INSTANCE OFF OF THE LFG TOOLThis guy couldn't be more clear. Everything is fine get 1200g and go buy a fc. B)

@Dreddo.9865 said:

@Frel.3086 said:TL;DR - BUY A BOSS INSTANCE OFF OF THE LFG TOOLThis guy couldn't be more clear. Everything is fine get 1200g and go buy a fc. B)

@Mikaq.7102 said:While currently Special Forces Training Area is great for testing your builds and dps, it doesn't allow you train or test anything else. I would think that it shouldn't be impossible to add mechanics into golem room. Lets have VG blue teleport circles or green circles, red seeker etc. ...

This already exists. You have all three important mechanics in front of VG in form of the red, blue and green guardian. You can either practice just one mechanic, or pull two or all three together. You don’t even need 10 people for that.When you’ve practiced the three mechanics, you can go to VG and practice without the need to move around and without cc. If you can do that successfully, you can go on and make it more difficult with phasing VG into the next phases.

It’s the same for Gorseval:First you just have just to do dps, than you have to do dps and clear some orbs and than you have to do dps, clear orbs and dodge red circles twice.

Ask for opener in map chat

I know that on VG you can train those mechanics separately on those guardians before actual VG fight, but it is only boss which has those. Rest of the bosses only way to train against certain mechanics, is to face rest of the half dozen mechanics. Adding things to training area just would make raids more approachable to players. I don't understand why this would be bad thing.

People tend to have issues having to handle multiple mechanics on top of everything else. Having the ability to train on a single mechanic won’t really help, and with the more mechanics you add, the better off you are to train in the actual environment.

@Ayrilana.1396 said:People tend to have issues having to handle multiple mechanics on top of everything else. Having the ability to train on a single mechanic won’t really help, and with the more mechanics you add, the better off you are to train in the actual environment.

That's why I'm suggesting a training golem with all the bosses mechanics, so we can practice all day any boss without having to defeat the previous one. My raid group goes in the wings twice per week, we would like to have a better way to practice the second, third, fourth bosses so we are ready to face them once we defeat the other bosses at any time without the wings resetting themselves.

Would be much simpler to give you an easy mode raid, kills 2 birds with 1 stone, you get your practice area, and others get 10 man content that doesn't need the wipe/retry pattern approach to gameplay.

I gotta agree with the OP here. I have tried to watch video's, read rotations, practice rotations, blah blah.But anyone with a brain knows it's different when you do it. So what does it hurt if they add an option in the training area to open a boss instance alone and try to kite him while doing your rotation. sure it may take a little manpower but it's not like a total redesign. Just a scaled down, no reward practice instance.I would foresee more people raiding, but more importantly, more quality raiders coming in green. You'll always have trolls, we all know that, but there is a large segment, who just don't want to drag down a group while we learn. And despite the high quality community GW2 has always had, raid groups can be salty