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Raid difficulty and challenge motes


Blaeys.3102

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This topic has been discussed at length the past 2-3 years and has easily driven the most active discussions in this particular subforum. It has also been extremely heated and, at times, even hateful.

But between the vitriol and sniping, there have been some productive conversations around how raids should look in this game. Rather than attack opposing points of view, I would like to simply state what I would like to see from raids in GW2, with the hope that others will do the same with the personal attacks or bickering.

Simply stated, I think raids should provide multiple difficulties, through the use of challenge motes, but keeping a few primary points in mind -

  • Any story in raids should be accessible in some playable (important word) format to players of many different skill levels. This transcends the hard/easy argument - it is simply a matter of presenting the same story to all players interested in it.
  • The primary purpose of raids should always be to provide challenging content to those players looking for it.
  • There needs to be a way that players who are not interested in conforming to a meta or spending hours min-maxing can still enjoy raids without having to add to their frustration levels.
  • Even at their lowest difficulty level, raids should provide a challenge above what you would find in a T1 or T2 fractal (the first three encounters in wing 4 feel about right, imo).

So, as they move forward, what I really want to see is a story focused experience that feels along the lines of Samarog or one of the preceding encounters in wing four, with challenge motes turning those fights into min-max nightmares that only the best of the best can beat.

Again, my hope is we can keep the discussion civil and friendly - focus on what you would like to see from future raids, not on how vehemently you disagree with me or any one else expressing their opinion here.

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@maddoctor.2738 said:Unless they make the challenge mote repeatable this is an absolutely terrible idea that will simply kill Raids.

Yeah atm challange motes seem just like a 1 time thing and then forget about it, maybe also retroactively change the "challange" achivements to be repeatable such as slippery slubling or or the one to fight matty after eating that bloodstone dust soup. probably give us a box of raider supplies everytime we do a challange mode, give us more ways to get those insignia and inscription boxes

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Not even 3 threads in, and there is already whining about raids being too hard.

"Any story in raids should be accessible in some playable (important word) format to players of many different skill levels. This transcends the hard/easy argument - it is simply a matter of presenting the same story to all players interested in it."

I completely disagree,

"There needs to be a way that players who are not interested in conforming to a meta or spending hours min-maxing can still enjoy raids without having to add to their frustration levels.'

I disagree.

"Even at their lowest difficulty level, raids should provide a challenge above what you would find in a T1 or T2 fractal (the first three encounters in wing 4 feel about right, imo)."

Then those people could easily just do wing 4.....Is that not good enough?

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  • ArenaNet Staff

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.

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@Crystal Reid.2481 said:

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.

The big question is why are they aren't designed to be more accessible to different skill levels given that they are telling stories that many players would like to experience (in character), my small guild included? They can still remain the most challenging content, while offering different skill levels, as you yourselves have proven with the challenge motes.

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@"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.

And... There you have it. They are interested in content out at a faster pace, and anything else (tiers, LFR, etc), detracts from that.

While it will upset or sadden people, can we finally let this horse rest in peace?

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What a better way to start on the new forum than beating a dead horse , right? /sWing 4 dificulty is arleady a borderline, if they make it any more easier it would just kill the feeling of raiding, and i bet it would affect the CM. Because is way harder to design a fight if you have to worry how to translate it from very easy to hardcore, i bet many really cool mechanics would never come to life if that was something they need to worry about.So please leave the poor horse corpse alone.

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@"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.

Question: do Raids need to be harder than Fractal CMs or that's an exception to the rule?Because I'm very positive for most players Nightmare and -especially- Observatory CM is harder than half the Raid bosses.

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As someone who hasn't raided yet, I think this is the right way forward, although the accessibility thing is very important. The more players who feel encouraged and comfortable to raid, the better the future for them. Without a steady supply of new players, they risk becoming content which no longer warrants the investment in making them. I;d hate to see that since even though I haven't raided yet, I understand the need to have them as part of the health of the game.

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The barrier to experiencing these stories might be lower than you'd expect. There is indeed a good deal of effort required to get into raiding and to clear the bosses if you have never concentrated on playing your class in a way that maximizes its potential, but it is worth it.

The concept of a low-skill-story-version-raid with zero rewards doesn't offend me, but if it isn't in the vision of what the devs have for raids, you should either watch a lore video about them or go practice on the golem.

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@SirMoogie.9263 said:

@"Crystal Reid.2481" said:

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.

The big question is why are they aren't designed to be more accessible to different skill levels given that they are telling stories that many players would like to experience (in character), my small guild included? They can still remain the most challenging content, while offering different skill levels, as you yourselves have proven with the challenge motes.

They aren't designed to be more accessible because it would detract from being able to push out content at an acceptable rate. She even mentioned it in her reply, "... any solution would detract away from the team making more raid content." The only solution to being able to continue to release raids at the clip that they are, while providing more difficulty levels, would be to hire more people. For a game that isn't considered raid-centric, that would seem to be a poor use of resources. In the current set-up, it's a small team or two that are working on them, not a lot of resources.

At the end of the day, they had/have a very specific vision for Raids in GW2. They've told us their vision, and stood by it. At some point, you have to start accepting it, otherwise you just end up bitter (not you specifically, just people in general seem to get bitter when fighting to understand or change something, and it never comes to fruition).

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@SirMoogie.9263 said:

@"Crystal Reid.2481" said:

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.

The big question is why are they aren't designed to be more accessible to different skill levels given that they are telling stories that many players would like to experience (in character), my small guild included? They can still remain the most challenging content, while offering different skill levels, as you yourselves have proven with the challenge motes.

Its very obvious, because the same reason you dont have Hard Mode AB or DS. Its not something feasible. You cant have every piece of content appealing for everybody, so they need to make a choice " Which demograph do i want to delivier to?" and as he said, they choosed the skilled one for raids which made sense, as the easy mode for open world make more sense.

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@Randulf.7614 said:As someone who hasn't raided yet, I think this is the right way forward, although the accessibility thing is very important. The more players who feel encouraged and comfortable to raid, the better the future for them. Without a steady supply of new players, they risk becoming content which no longer warrants the investment in making them. I;d hate to see that since even though I haven't raided yet, I understand the need to have them as part of the health of the game.

The problem with making them any easier than they are now, is that it basically dooms them to become just that. Content devoid of investment. You barely have to invest anything as now, even when you arent being entirely serious.

People keep saying they need to be made easier or have more tiers, and I am constantly poised to force them to look at dungeons. Look at how accessible dungeons are. Look at how much was invested in their creation. And look at how much they warrant the investment in making them.

When you make content too easy the player-base that ACTUALLY PLAYS IT isn't nearly as invested. Do you think raiders are not invested in raids? What about the people who constantly talk about how much their needs to be separate tiers, but have never raided?! How can you say anything about investment when the people who care, and are invested are actually out there raiding? That's how you know they are invested.

You know who isn't invested? The people who post threads like this every week, saying they barely raid, and don't want to put in the work, but want all the experience of those who have. Those people are not invested. Hence they do not warrant an investment in making modified, or lower tier content 'just' to make them feel welcome. It's not healthy to tailor content to players that aren't really interested in it in the first place.

Have those people get some raid experience and become a part of the community. Then I, and everyone else, would be more likely to listen. But by then, their opinion would probably have changed.

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@"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.

EDITIt turn out you can post a comment some one else made (comment above) by going to a link (i came here by a reddit link)....

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Only have 14 or 15 LIs, and only cleared w1, w2 up to Matt (got him to 32%) w3 to TC, and have not done w4 yet, because I keep getting kicked from groups because A ) I only have a thief geared to do raids, and no tank, healer or condi dps. B ) Get kicked because dps to low (even though I have to /gg because I'm the last one alive because I know the mechanics for those fights) (thought it was against the EULA to track someone ELSES data? I know Anet said meters are fine now, but ONLY yourself? Or did I get Anets info wrong? (I kitten still HATE them because of the tool being abused for years with raiding in SWTOR hard/nightmare, and still hate the tool here) or C) After 2 hours and only getting to phase 2 of VG 3 times, everyones tired and gives up and leaves. Now about 8 months ago I was farming fractal t4s (PFL 100) (on a DD thief, he is the only one I have geared with ascended since its expensive) and for about 6 weeks I got them done in about 1- 1 1/2 hours, easy. But the next 2 weeks after that, most of the runs were taking 3-5 hours. I don't have 3-5 hours each day completely uninterrupted to finish them. And yes, when I said brb to go to the fresher, or door, or help with family for something that only took about 2-3 minutes, I would come back and either I was kicked or most of the group had left. Now, I figured since I was running into ll these issues I made the choice to make a healer, for both raids (hopefully I can get into a training guild, working on it atm) and farming t4 fractals (need gold, I'm poor), and the CMs. Only done Nightmares CM, LOVED IT. But every group I see in LFG, my thief isn't geared for it, so hopefully soon I can run those daily and get into SO CM soon. It has taken 8 months, but I'm only a few days or weeks away from getting the last 60 AR I need for my ele and then I can hopefully get back in there.

Anyways, with raids......I know Anet has said they won't, and to a point I agree. I just wish for one thing, and that is having either a COMEPLETELY watered down mode so people can see the storyline (and map the maps) on all of the their characters without having to spend 400-800 gold to deck them out and min/mx them, BUT.......next to no rewards. ie: the REWARD is seeing the storyline that has been "locked" to them and getting those POIs there. The bosses would not drop the boss specific items for the legendary gear, no LIs, heck not even greens or blues, just maybe some exp. Keep the rewards for the group content, so there is a incentive to run them every week. Also, even though I have not done any CM in the raids, I agree with the options above, make them repeatable. That's the only way people who don't have those AP yet are going to get it.

Btw, I KNOW how long it would take for them to make something like that soloable, or even to change it to make it derp easy, just with they could. :) (look to my rants about them removing chapter 7 with the NPE and it took them 1- 1/2 years to re-add it, or my rants about the AR system, so I know they wont "waste" time with fixing or changing features, over adding new content.)

Keep up the good work devs, and hope the new incoming stuff is cool! :)

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@GrimmR.3541 said:To be honest, there is no challenge in T1 or T2 fractals as well as in the first 3 encounters in W4 unless you did old samarog CM.

True, and I agree with you. But just because for US there is no challenge in t1-t2 fractals, doesn't mean all players are like that. I know some people, heck some in my own family, that have issues with t1-t2 fractals, either with the AR system because of how cost gating preventive it is, or to many things going on. Does that mean they should be locked out of storyline content? Btw, not saying they should be given clear rights to AA t4 CMs, just lessen the earlier ones to they can at least play through the new content that is released. (raids also, but because those are bigger, its more time and resources.)

Also, even if some in my family stink at fractals, at least one brother and maybe a 2nd, are pretty good at them, and they want to go higher then 50, literally the ONLY thing holding them back is the AR system, so I'm helping them to get it, just takes time (like weeks), which stinks.

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I fully support better group finding tools.

That's where i draw the line on any changes to raids. Non-Automated, Player Opt-in Systems, Guild Filtering/Searching with a meaningful chart of activity per content source. This way if you want to find people you can now search per timezone & per game mode, then talk to those people to see if they're gremlins or not.

Just noticed we have an LFG forum section. https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/categories/looking-for-group-dfr

This is a nice starting point.

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@NotOverlyCheesy.9427 said:Did this have to be the 3rd thread made in this subforum? There's no horse left, just a puddle of blood.

I'm guessing it shows that there are still people out there that want to do the storylines for them but still havn't in the 1-2 years since they have been released, because they keep getting kicked because they are not meta geared or on a meta class? Btw, I know there is a difference between people who want raids easier for them to see the storyline, and people who want them easier to get the same rewards. I agree and want the former, I disagree and do not want the latter.

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