@Madja.1369 said:
This sounds really good. I'm hoping the secret content is another expansion as we desperately need some new class, race or specialisations.
In regards to raids I think the main issue is that all the bosses seem to be a pure DPS race and the way to do enough DPS is to memorise a 20-40 step rotation.
i know that's what pushed me away from raids despiterreally wanting to experience them. The mechanics for the bosses that I've attempted are very simple. Vanilla WoW level simple and the only thing that held my guild back from progressing was the lack of DPS.
I think if you want raids to appeal to a broader audience you need to focus more on mechanics and less on enrage timers and DPS races. This will allow it to not be exclusively for those that can devote such a long rotation to muscle memory and it will allow for more classes and specialisations to join.
When it's a requirement to have a banner slave, chrono tank, druid healer, alacrity and quickness spammers if you want to progress at all that doesn't leave room for most people to play what they want.
Obviously it shouldn't be a cake walk, raidsshould still be for the people who put effort in, but the current DPS requirements are ridiculous and excludes most classes and players.
But the enrage timers are ultra forgiving even when you compaire them to most mmos. Iirc vg has a enrage timer that require what? Less than 6k dps per person to fail?
I think what would help people get into raiding is reducing the visual clutter... When you can't see what to dodge, you don't dodge. At least have an optional setting ._.
@Fire Attunement.9835 said:
I can't go into a ton of details on episodes three and four because, you know, spoilers and all, but I can tell you the map is meta-focused with a push-and-pull feel similar to WvW in a PvE setting.
Cool! 😃 This reminds me of the dynamics of Silverwastes, defending the four forts against enemy waves (using WvW siege, even!)
Despite all the good and bad feedbacks of this post, just.. thank you.
Thank you for sharing this, as players currently stand not knowing what is going to happen in 2020 for guild wars 2.
I also think for stir missions to be used and played more the rewards needs more value. Sure currently you can get items from strikes that are worth plenty of gold but something people can achieve.
Some liked the idea some didnt but a suggestion was thrown around for a new strike currency maybe leading towards a piece of ascended gear.
There are certainly alot of players who have not touched the strike missions, some dont like it but alot is to do with it being 'not worth it's to them as they see nothing rewarding by doing them.
Are we getting anymore updates to Build Templates?? It was said that they would be worked on more in 2020, but it's been a month and no updates, no communication at all. Templates still work incredibly poorly with legendaries and are inefficient in other ways still as well
Forums: Why some you ever tell us what your plans are? We won't get mad! Just talk to us!
ANet: Gives an update on things to come.
Forums: You are the worst, these ideas are all just wrong, you can't even do anything right, why did you say anything at all? GG game dead time to quit for real
May I **wish ** that a legendary armor set to be added to fractal? Please
As for raid, I wish that there's a practice mode for certain mechanics (such as the orb push) in the special forces training area, such that it's easier to train another player for important task. I say this as I always see that the people who already mastered this often get "jailed" on the same task.
Because they don't want to hold the entire devlopment of the game for over a year? lol
Not sure what to tell you. Tweak your settings.
Other MMOs have made improvements to their engines as well as adopted modern API's that make proper use of of modern hardware without having to halt any and all content development. I don't know why you think that would have to be any different here. Perhaps you're just making excuses since you seem to think that "tweaking your settings" is an acceptable solution to a 7.5 year old game running with very sub-par performance on pretty much every machine out there.
It's running fine in most situations, and has been for years. Unless the issue is that you can't display 50 players on your screen at full detail simultaneously (other games solve this problem by not attempting to do it - it always causes problems), there's something wrong with your hardware.
Because they don't want to hold the entire devlopment of the game for over a year? lol
Not sure what to tell you. Tweak your settings.
Other MMOs have made improvements to their engines as well as adopted modern API's that make proper use of of modern hardware without having to halt any and all content development. I don't know why you think that would have to be any different here. Perhaps you're just making excuses since you seem to think that "tweaking your settings" is an acceptable solution to a 7.5 year old game running with very sub-par performance on pretty much every machine out there.
It's running fine in most situations, and has been for years. Unless the issue is that you can't display 50 players on your screen at full detail simultaneously (other games solve this problem by not attempting to do it - it always causes problems), there's something wrong with your hardware.
Speak for yourself, the game isnt optimised. Hell, theres a thread in the front page advertising the dx12 addon with plenty of comments from ppl about the performance of gw2.
First of all, congrats Andrew, albeit a little late. And thanks for this.
It's always good to hear from the devs since it feels more like a convo or dialogue instead of just reading updates and stuff.
For someone who's wants to play wvw and raids, I guess I'm kinda semi-happy about the message.
I know players are asking for new guild-related material, so I'm guessing wvw restructuring might address that? (Still waiting. Patiently.)
As for raids, I think it's fine the content is super hard. I always thought it was the ultimate endgame, something I'd play after fractals.
Most players don't or can't play because of other players asking for li and kp , but there are training guilds that help.
Maybe helping these guilds out would go a long way in getting more players to join raids.
Perhaps as some players have suggested, some kind of special training arenas would really be great, especially considering the diff mechanics along each wing.
Learning on the job on raids is actually pretty hard for both teachers and students.
Which is also why I actually felt strikes to be kinda lame; not really a raid, not so much a fractal, just an isolated boss fight.
I'd rather be training for an actual raid. Or doing a bounty. Bounties were a great addition, thank you!
As for meta-based re-playable content, HoT maps are still the best. Heck, that was the best expansion ever, for both elites and maps (even though I hate TD. And why did gyros become wells?!! The scrapper lost its identity. Still upset about that.) But I digress. I feel Saga could learn from HoT or PoF too, or LS3 (I loved LS3; great maps! + Dragonfall). Even the masteries were sensible. I am looking forward to the new content (better masteries please?), and wish everyone at anet best of luck.
A-Net: ( communicates)
Vocal Minority: (it's not what I wanted to hear so I'm angry)
There is a reason the old paths are behind us; the only way we can see what's in front of us is to look forward and remember why the old paths were left behind. Resident Hug Addict and Fire Extinguisher
@Tinnel.4369 said:
Zero WvW highlights for the exciting future. Noted.
PvP also isn't highlighted here.
It's almost as if this is a PvE/Fractal/Raid focused update, because you haven't been the only communities ignored.
Raids and Fractals have been ignored for a little bit, so this is big news for them.
You guys and PvP had a small update not too long ago, instead of being all like "No WvW, Must Be Ignoring Us" on a clearly PvE oriented modes post, maybe ask if you could have something similar for WvW and PvP modes, because this kind of attitude is probably what makes it hard for them to even make posts like these.
Founder of Affinitus Nemus [AFNM]
"Join Us, We're Lonely" - Our Guild At Some Point
@jasonorme.5014 said:
I'd love to start raiding but It's too difficult for new raiders to join raids as groups want proof of experience with a currency we are unable to get because we can't get into a raid group because they want a currency we are unable to get because we can't get into a raid group because groups want proof of experience with a currency we are unable to get because we can't get into a raid group because groups want proof of experience with a currency we are unable to get because we can't get into a raid group because... you see the problem?.
No, I don't see the problem. You can go ahead and acquire KP and LI like the rest of us did. Join groups that are learning or training new people, or make your own groups. But if active players haven't tried raiding in all these years, they just dont care about the game mode and they never will, the LI/KP excuse is just an excuse.
That's not the case at all, people want to raid but elitist gatekeepers push them away.
The stupid thing is, as Andrew has stated " raids attract a small audience", and that audience will never grow if more people aren't let in.
Raiding needs to become accessible for all, otherwise, Anet won't focus their development time working on raids and those elitist gatekeepers will have shot themselves in the foot.
I also think the major "issue" with Raids isn't difficulty or ramp to get into it, nor do I think "elitist gatekeeping" is the primary problem.
They are problems, but imo they are symptoms, not the primary issue.
The thing is that GW2 through almost all of it's content trained people that they can just run around solo and never engage with another person in this MMO and just fly through everything and get everything without really trying. There are barely ever any incentives to build up strong communities.
So when new players then try to join a Raid, what they do is join experienced Raiders looking for other experienced Raiders, trying to fill very specific roles with very specific expectations, which obviously doesn't go well, which then makes them blame those Raiders for being "toxic" or gatekeeping.
Here's the thing though, pugging is never the best experience, by far, for content such as this, usually even as experienced hardcore player it can be an experience that grinds you down at times. It's just that we have those other positive impressions of the gamemode already established which is why those bad PuG moments don't scare, or scar us as badly.
Raids (and Fractal CM's) are bar non the best PvE content in the game, miles ahead of open world with world bosses, events etc. It's not even a comparison in quality of gameplay or experience as group.
But, while all that open world content is best enjoyed just running around alone doing whatever while not having to engage with anyone, Raids are absolutely best enjoyed by forming a static group of like-minded people of a similar skill levels and expectations for the group.
That takes work and effort though, and the game fails to facilitate the forming of these communities with strong bonds and similar interests completely, unless you are a player already into content like Raids, willing to put the effort in to push past that initial hurdle and to seek out other like-minded players.
Raids, imo, never needed an easy mode, a training mode or introductory content like Strikes. That doesn't mean I don't appreciate that content being worked on or don't think it can't be also useful, although it's a shame it seems to come at the cost of actual Raids, and that lack of content and slowed down release schedule since W3 is primarily what drained Raids of it's population.
Everybody can learn Raids while doing Raids, or prepare for more challenging content, both in terms of increasing player skill as well as getting gear ready for it by progression through Fractals already.
What the casual GW2 player at large is missing is a community of like minded people in which they feel safe to fail, to be able to get motivated to tackle group content like Raids together as Training groups for the fun of it and spending time together, where it's okay to "fail" for an hour at a boss, slowly learning the mechanics and progressing further and further into the fight, until they eventually beat it and get that rush of actually having achieved and earned something difficult together with their friends, probably for the first time in GW2, to get hooked - because it's done together with friends.
It's a great experience to slowly progress through Raids together as a group, knowing each others strengths and weaknesses, what everbody can play, knowing what the expectations are if any at first and where it's okay to fail and learn.
Joining an experienced group of Raiders who are just wishing to quickly fill a slot to clear things at a speed and efficiency that they are used to and that brings them fun is imo not the way to be introduced to or to get into Raids, nor does these experienced groups having their reasonable expectations of experience of who they want to join to finish their run in a reasonable way make those groups "toxic".
It's simply a clash of peoples with very different levels of skill, experience and expectations, unlikely to ever go over well.
TL;DR:
Joining or forming a like-minded training group, which takes some effort and is not otherwise encouraged and facilitated by the game, and growing together as players while getting closer as people, in an environment where it's okay to fail, has always been the way to get into organised group content, and makes for the best experience you can have in GW2 should you put in that effort to do so.
Demanding to just get a spot in experienced groups to get essentially carried is not only doomed to fail in the vast majority of cases it also makes for a highly frustrating experience not only for the players trying to do so, but also all the people in the experienced groups just wanting to do their thing. To then whine and name calling hardcore players as "toxic elitists" when it doesn't work out is just as, if not much more toxic than being reasonably turned away in a sometimes rude fashion.
Raids and Fractal (CM's) are not designed for instant gratification, that's imo not an issue though, the issue is that everything else is.
An MMO needs to have a balance of content to stay healthy long term. It can't all be hard content requiring grouping, communication and hour long delayed gratification, as that would be too exhausting and niche. But It also all can't be "Here, a shiny gold medal and an inventory filled with loot! Good Job!" every 5 minutes while running around alone in a circle holding down the Autoattack, or maybe pressing a random other button when off CD, because that just gets incredibly boring and mindnumbing, which is where GW2 ended up over the last years, conditioning players that you never really need to work or team up for anything to not only be successful, but to have a better and more fun experience together than you ever could have doing that stuff alone, even if it might seem scary initially.
The grouping, proper grouping, not pressing a button in an LFG to get thrown together with random people with widely different expectations, that's the real hurdle of GW2 and Raids.
@Fire Attunement.9835 said:
We hope this will help introduce more people to 10-person content, which will in turn increase the number of people interested in Raids.
This is going into the wrong direction IMHO. I noticed in the episode achievements that you really, really want to push these, but I don't understand why. I also disagree with having so many achievements in the strike missions just to get the new emote.
I don't think you will be able to force more ppl into strike missions, let alone raids. Many ppl who came to this game were the ones who wanted to get away from raids and group content locked to a specific number of players. The first one was added as trivial event and ppl starting to play and farm it. I remember it reading constantly in the evenings in guild chat. Strike was everywhere. Now these weren't players "compatible" with raids or even interested in them. Then the first ones in Bjora happened and ppl were already starting to be "meh, I pass on this one, too difficult". Bottom line, those players you want to force into the 10-player content, don't actually like to play it. Not on the level of a raid.
Where does this leave the strike missions? Ignored by many of the players you want to push into them and them being salty about their emote locked behind them (I know you can get it without if you do every other achievement). And farmed by the players already playing mostly raids for easy gold.
Thank you for this message Andrew. I know that not everyone is happy with this announcement, but I am very excited for this year and hope it's going to be a better one for the game and ANet.
@zealex.9410 said:
But the enrage timers are ultra forgiving even when you compaire them to most mmos. Iirc vg has a enrage timer that require what? Less than 6k dps per person to fail?
Sure, VG is pretty easy as he's the first boss most people encounter, but once you get past the first 3-4 bosses it's nearly impossible to get into a raid without being one of the few acceptable specs and the main barrier quickly becomes DPS, not peoples ability to react to mechanics. I personally see it is a huge problem when the sole focus is how to maximize DPS. Guild Wars 2 has some of the most unique utility abilities I've seen in an MMO. This should allow for some really cool mechanics, but so far I haven't seen anything that isn't extremely basic.
It might be that it changes with some of the later bosses, but I haven't been able to do those as my guild didn't want to attempt them for lack of DPS in our regular group. Focus should always been on learning the fight, so that you can do better and better every attempt. Unfortunately right now it's on learning a ludicrously long rotation on one of a only a handful of acceptable specs.
Because they don't want to hold the entire devlopment of the game for over a year? lol
Not sure what to tell you. Tweak your settings.
Other MMOs have made improvements to their engines as well as adopted modern API's that make proper use of of modern hardware without having to halt any and all content development. I don't know why you think that would have to be any different here. Perhaps you're just making excuses since you seem to think that "tweaking your settings" is an acceptable solution to a 7.5 year old game running with very sub-par performance on pretty much every machine out there.
It's running fine in most situations, and has been for years. Unless the issue is that you can't display 50 players on your screen at full detail simultaneously (other games solve this problem by not attempting to do it - it always causes problems), there's something wrong with your hardware.
Speak for yourself, the game isnt optimised. Hell, theres a thread in the front page advertising the dx12 addon with plenty of comments from ppl about the performance of gw2.
"Optimised" is meaningless by itself, since there are varying degrees of optimisation and diminishing returns on the things you can optimise.
It is bizarre that the game still doesn't support DX11 or higher, but that has a fairly modest impact - the overhead required to run GW2 over the last 7 years hasn't increased much, while hardware has improved substantially.
It's certainly not in a state where a properly maintained system with reasonable hardware can't run it without significant performance concerns, and hasn't been for years. So aside from some general upgrades for sanity's sake (like moving off DX9 finally) there's not a whole lot of point in going over the game with a fine-toothed comb to get the last few percent out of it.
as a PVP/WvW player it's great to see anet communicating like this keep this going and make sure to promote wvw and pvp as well most videos that i find in youtube they don't even Know that gw2 have those game modes . they only know it as a story driven game . keep this going
IDK man, there's been a fair few years of laying groundwork for several other features that either went nowhere, or barely took off with minimal successes here and there. I'll believe the whole 'groundwork laying' story when I actually start seeing results such as the launch of the rework of systems mentioned in this post and otherwise.
Raids are a trickier beast. They're a unique experience and community that we want to find better ways to support, the biggest challenge in creating more is the small audience they attract. We gathered data to determine why, and the most common answer was that there is a giant leap in difficulty between raids and other endgame content, and there isn't anything to help players work their way up.
Personally, the reason that my static group don't do raids is we don't always have 10 people online.
Not sure how feasible it is, to introduce, "Training Raids" which are say 5 man, slightly easier e.g. Tier 4 Fractal or later end Strike Missions, but have reduced rewards, so that people can't cheese them and get easy legendary gear.
It will let people learn the mechanics, and then (hopefully) two well practiced, 5 man groups, can join up and make a new 10 man group.
Main problem with small audience in raids are not difficulty, but requirements from players. Currently it's more like "I have to show LI or KP to get into raids, but I have play raids to get LI and KP" which means: it's better if you already have something to show, otherwise we will say goodbye to you. When new raids comes — you have to show KPs from previous raid.
It's not easy to get into raids if someone's doing them first time. Same with CM fractals (only Shattered Observatory). Specific and unique currency is taken as KP and we have to show them to join someone. I got info CMs because my guildmates took me for this adventure. I played with experienced 250KP+ players while having literally 0 of them. In normal conditions I couldn't join anyone. I think we have to get rid of unique, content-specific currencies and items.
Raids are a trickier beast. They're a unique experience and community that we want to find better ways to support, the biggest challenge in creating more is the small audience they attract. We gathered data to determine why, and the most common answer was that there is a giant leap in difficulty between raids and other endgame content, and there isn't anything to help players work their way up.
Personally, the reason that my static group don't do raids is we don't always have 10 people online.
Not sure how feasible it is, to introduce, "Training Raids" which are say 5 man, slightly easier e.g. Tier 4 Fractal or later end Strike Missions, but have reduced rewards, so that people can't cheese them and get easy legendary gear.
It will let people learn the mechanics, and then (hopefully) two well practiced, 5 man groups, can join up and make a new 10 man group.
I think it would be interesting to maybe look into turning 10 man into 8 man? Ff14 uses 8 man which i find rather solid but its also a callback to gw1.
Raids are a trickier beast. They're a unique experience and community that we want to find better ways to support, the biggest challenge in creating more is the small audience they attract. We gathered data to determine why, and the most common answer was that there is a giant leap in difficulty between raids and other endgame content, and there isn't anything to help players work their way up.
Raid isn't so hard. Low number of player is ArenaNet fault. You made entrence barier for new pleyers, like Li or KP.
Even raid players have problem to play new wings. Li is not enough now, you need to have KP from last boss to run raid with others.
kitten dissaster.
PS.
I have more than 300 Li now.
the thing is the strikes arent as mechanic heavy as they need to be, in return the rewards need to be worth it, but difficulty in mechanics should reflect similarities of the raid bosses' mechanics so they can prepare - hopefully this Visions of the Past thing can let everyone experience at least a small minimal sliver of old LS updates and EVEN get the rewards from back in the day.
Forums: Why some you ever tell us what your plans are? We won't get mad! Just talk to us!
ANet: Gives an update on things to come.
Forums: You are the worst, these ideas are all just wrong, you can't even do anything right, why did you say anything at all? GG game dead time to quit for real
I expect some of the comments in this thread are disheartening, maybe even hurtful, but please, communication is absolutely vital for large sections of the community, and these kinds of messages are important to us.
For my part, I'd like to offer some constructive criticism regarding raids, and engaging more within the GW2 community in raids.
From my view, as someone who has raided a lot and offered raid training, there are two main problems as I see it.
The first is that there are no rewards or in-game incentives for training new raiders. Relying solely on the altruism of experienced raiders is only ever going to end up with a slow drip of new players into raids. To encourage more commanders to host raid training there needs to be some incentive to do so. That might be a gold incentive - every player in a group who helps a new player get their first kill on a boss gets more gold - or an incentive through fashion, achievements, or titles. Or all of these.
The second is that there are no in-game tutorials or pointers as to how a player may improve their build, much less a reason why. Consider the most recent strike mission: anecdotally, those who completed the first few Strike Missions found the most recent one to be too hard and so have given up. The first strikes were at their level, but the subsequent strike is above their level and there's no in-game information on what they are doing poorly, how they might improve their performance, or even a reason why they should work hard on improving. The rewards for completing a strike are currently not strong enough incentives for the casuals to get better.
There need to be some messages, in game, to players, pointing the way to improvements. Or some in-game method of holding a casual player's hand as they seek to improve themselves.
Some of this could be in the form of solo minigames. The Commander, Braham and 3 others come up against a powerful foe, but in order to defeat it your allies need to be buffed with 25 might and permanent fury for 20 seconds. Braham then does a special attack and kills the foe. The game could suggest classes or elite specialisations which are particularly effective at buffing night and fury.
Or maybe Braham and others come up against a foe which will do a devastating attack after a set time period, and a special skill Braham has to protect the group from death is on a cooldown of equal length. In order to get the defensive skill to deploy, the commander has to apply permanent alacrity to Braham so the skill is available at the point the foe uses this special skill.
Another might be that Braham is injured, and to save him you have a set time period to defeat an enemy. Braham as a last gasp imbues you with all the spirits of the wild, granting you fury, might, quickness and alacrity. The foe has 1 million health and you need to kill it in 60 seconds (time average of about 16.7k DPS) in order to save Braham.
You could have different difficulty levels, with harder difficulties with tighter constraints. The DPS minigame could be that the enemy has 1.5million health instead.
These minigames could perhaps be programmed in the special simulation chamber that Taimi discovered way back when in Rata Novus. But however it is implemented, the clear goal is simple: personal performance is key to saving your allies. By having instanced minigames the game can give hints and tips on how to pass them if a player is struggling.
These are very much ideas off the top of my head, so are probably a little flawed in someway. But you get the idea: ANet need to have systems in place to allow a curious casual to test themselves with a clear progression along different difficulty levels, with in-game tips, tricks and information detailing how a player may improve their performance.
Separate to that, it may also be useful in the strike missions to have a DPS meter and buff table displayed on screen.
I know ANet have been dead set against doing that for a long time, for reasons that I do understand. But my counter arguement is that it was only when I started using a DPS meter (the safe compliant version of BGDM back in the day, and now ArcDPS) did I realise how utterly terrible I was at the game. Seeing that made me want to improve. Before actually seeing my performance it was very easy to think that I was pulling my weight when I absolutely was not. Now, I use the DPS meter to ensure I'm performing well, and if I'm not I can see I'm not. The DPS meter is a crucial tool in my own quest for self-improvement.
I think my final comment for raids is finding a raiding guild or group can be hard. There are places on the internet you can go to find a group or guild, but unless you are motivated to do that you won't. An in-game Guild Finder would be amazing. Raid training guilds can then advertise themselves as such in-game, and be found in-game by those who want that.
In conclusion, getting more people interested in raids is difficult and complicated. There's probably more that the community could do, both in terms of general attitude towards new players (which does generally stink and I wish to high heaven experienced players and streamers were more forgiving and helpful) and in setting up raid training.
From ANet's side, while the strike missions are potentially a useful stepping stone for new players, Strike Missions on their own are not the complete answer. ANet need to do more to meet the experienced raiding community half way. There are currently no incentives to training new players, and no in-game systems players can use to test themselves, or in game messages giving pointers on how players can improve. As a consequence, there's a tranche of casual player's who have hit the most recent strike, bumped their head on their skill ceiling, and are not being encouraged or incentivised by the game to raise their skill ceiling.
Because they don't want to hold the entire devlopment of the game for over a year? lol
Not sure what to tell you. Tweak your settings.
Other MMOs have made improvements to their engines as well as adopted modern API's that make proper use of of modern hardware without having to halt any and all content development. I don't know why you think that would have to be any different here. Perhaps you're just making excuses since you seem to think that "tweaking your settings" is an acceptable solution to a 7.5 year old game running with very sub-par performance on pretty much every machine out there.
It's running fine in most situations, and has been for years. Unless the issue is that you can't display 50 players on your screen at full detail simultaneously (other games solve this problem by not attempting to do it - it always causes problems), there's something wrong with your hardware.
Speak for yourself, the game isnt optimised. Hell, theres a thread in the front page advertising the dx12 addon with plenty of comments from ppl about the performance of gw2.
"Optimised" is meaningless by itself, since there are varying degrees of optimisation and diminishing returns on the things you can optimise.
It is bizarre that the game still doesn't support DX11 or higher, but that has a fairly modest impact - the overhead required to run GW2 over the last 7 years hasn't increased much, while hardware has improved substantially.
It's certainly not in a state where a properly maintained system with reasonable hardware can't run it without significant performance concerns, and hasn't been for years. So aside from some general upgrades for sanity's sake (like moving off DX9 finally) there's not a whole lot of point in going over the game with a fine-toothed comb to get the last few percent out of it.
The problem isn't that the game runs bad, it does but that isn;'t the problem. GW2 ran "OK" on the PC I built in 2010. In 2018 I built a top notch gaming rig and do you know what kind of improvement I saw in GW2? Essentially none. Sure I gained a couple of frames here and there but the game refuses to use more that 50% of hardware capabilities. I still can't turn shadows up to max, or increase character limit past low and character details past lowestI. Even with those setting I still get 25FPS in some areas and 8 fps when AB meta ends. If I only played GW2 then the money I spend on my rig would have been a total waste. Luckily GW2 isn''t the only game I play.
@Hanakocz.5697 said:
The main problem with idea of Strikes as a lure for raids is that even if those people get good there step by step, they can't access raids because the "friendly" community there will not allow them because they don't have killproofs, even if they can do dps and mechanics on par with everyone else. That is the main reason why the audience is so small. All those killproof currencies should have been abolished as step one, so people actually determined how players are good not before the fight, but during it.
lol, imagine getting LIs before the content. Someone actually tried asking for those for Whisper once. I just look at it quizzically and wonder why someone was that desperate for something I only died ever to chains, but otherwise got downed once or twice to icicles. If anything Boneskinner is the only rough thing.
As a (very) casual player, who has read most of the thread, here are my points of view.
I don't raid or strike. This type of content doesn't interest me as a casual player. I do like that it is available for those who prefer that type of content -- good for them. I don't like that completion gets forced into content.
If I read correctly, there are plans to focus on content that appeals more to the hardcore crowd? I hope that this isn't due to the comments on these forums and on reddit that constantly call for this. I'd wager that many casual players don't even look on the forums/reddit because they are casual players -- heck, in my limited casual play group, I am the only one who does. I caution Anet to remember the pre-nerf HoT and the backlash from it.
@Antycypator.9874 said:
Main problem with small audience in raids are not difficulty, but requirements from players. Currently it's more like "I have to show LI or KP to get into raids, but I have play raids to get LI and KP" which means: it's better if you already have something to show, otherwise we will say goodbye to you. When new raids comes — you have to show KPs from previous raid.
It's not easy to get into raids if someone's doing them first time. Same with CM fractals (only Shattered Observatory). Specific and unique currency is taken as KP and we have to show them to join someone. I got info CMs because my guildmates took me for this adventure. I played with experienced 250KP+ players while having literally 0 of them. In normal conditions I couldn't join anyone. I think we have to get rid of unique, content-specific currencies and items.
I don't think the answer is taking away the ability of players to check for experience of PuG's, besides that usually they will always find a way, it just gets more and more contrived the more difficult it is made (such as resorting to AP).
The game simply needs more (difficult) group content to encourage people to get out of their comfort zone for a moment and to join Guild's such as yours, incentivising the forming of communities that will help each other out and get each other into different forms of content, all while having fun together.
That's what keeps people consistently engaged with MMO's and why Living World only hasn't been healthy for GW2.
Story is solo, open world is solo and even events and world bosses are playing "solo with others". Even early Strikes were essentially solo content, although that at least luckily changed with the more recent ones.
So people just log in, play around for a bit alone, at most chatting a bit with others, and log off again - rather than being part of a community which plays together, encouraging each other to check out the "scary" PvP, Fractals, Raids, WvW and such, aka repeatable content in which you have to group up to get the most out of it, which tends to be much more fun and longterm engaging.
I've always seen pugging as emergency tool for already experienced players, should their group have a few members missing for the day or otherwise be short term unavailable. The main way to get into and enjoy group content, surprisingly, is as (static) group.
That's what the game needs to encourage.
@Randulf.7614 said:
Is addressing the visual noise on the agenda? Right now it's causing huge problems within the game and metas suffer for it. Even if I thought highly of the Drakkar fight, it is obscured by the visual noise. Then you have that horrible blizzard border and that equally impairing Raven barrier.
Please put it to the top of your list. We've been crying out for visual noise reduction for years now, but you seem intent on worsening the issue not trying to solve it at least work around the problem. Surely it comes up in conversations during the design phases?
This. No matter how much people ask for this, Anet not only ignores it but adds even more clutter.
Raids are a trickier beast. They're a unique experience and community that we want to find better ways to support, the biggest challenge in creating more is the small audience they attract. We gathered data to determine why, and the most common answer was that there is a giant leap in difficulty between raids and other endgame content, and there isn't anything to help players work their way up.
Not to call into question your data collection methods, but I think this assessment misses the point that raids are not just unpopular due to a giant leap in difficulty, but also because a large portion of your playerbase prefer soloable/open world content over instanced group content where other players might deeply scrutinize their builds, equipment and level of experience. A lot of your players don't want to play instanced group content, even if they're comfortable with raid-level difficulty.
Once again, a better solution than strike missions to address the unpopularity of raids is to add a solo-oriented mode to raids. You don't even need to make the fights much easier, just the fact that players could try to complete them on their own would make raids far more popular, I'm certain. You could even reduce/restrict the rewards in solo mode to incentivize group raiding. This is a solution that would actually make raids more popular, allowing you to make more of them, which in turn would make everyone happy, because they'd all have more content to play.
@Fire Attunement.9835 said:
Raids
We gathered data to determine why, and the most common answer was that there is a giant leap in difficulty between raids and other endgame content, and there isn't anything to help players work their way up.
Instead of putting all these recourses and effort into a new game mode that is supposed to bring people into raids you should have simply focused on raids for people who want to raid and add difficulty settings. Those who want to raid will raid. Difficulty settings (easy, normal, challenge) would have made the already existing content accessible for a huge amount of players and added a new form of progression. Add actual repeatable rewards (not one kill per week and once in a life time cm rewards) and boom, you would have had a through and through insanely well made game mode.
And this. You say you want to make the game more accessible for casual players while at the same time making challenging content for those who want to play on hard mode. Here's a simple solution, one that can be used in a variety of instanced content. Allow players to choose the difficulty level they want to play at. Personally, strikes are not going to be a bridge to raids for me. I don't like raids, hate the strike missions and am not going to be forced into either.
@jasonorme.5014 said:
I'd love to start raiding but It's too difficult for new raiders to join raids as groups want proof of experience with a currency we are unable to get because we can't get into a raid group because they want a currency we are unable to get because we can't get into a raid group because groups want proof of experience with a currency we are unable to get because we can't get into a raid group because groups want proof of experience with a currency we are unable to get because we can't get into a raid group because... you see the problem?.
Watch an extensive guide for the raid wing you want to do. Determine which role you are going to fulfil in the meta by checking snowcrows or another resource freely available to you. Make a post for your own training group on the lfg, and preferably have a discord set up for the players to join. Get your team comp setup, help explain the mechanics to the other players, and give it a go. You will get kills eventually, but not with every group. After a while, you can start joining or making semi-experienced groups for these same bosses, and slowly work your way through. Its time consuming, I know, but it does work. Its the same thing but easier for fractal CMs since the party size is more manageable.
I know you're being helpful, but I think you also stumbled on the "real" issues.
It's not so much that raids are too hard (after all if players dont do raids, how would they know if it's hard?), it's how annoying/time consuming/non-intuitive they are:
Seemingly everything about them involves using external sources; YouTube for mechanics, snowcrows for builds, discord for coordination. These are all things the average player doesn't want to do at all, they want to log in and play "their" character/build, and they want to just jump in and play. All this combined with needing 9 more players with similar attitudes.
Comparing to fractals is also good, as fractals have natural in built progression, teaching players the mechanics (so to speak) leading to higher tier. They only require 4 players (making it faster) and they are not giant health sponges (meaning more build freedom (outside of speed runners) and less time investment)!
I'd be interested to see where the Devs got their information that came to the conclusion the "reason people aren't doing raids is difficulty".
@MashMash.1645 said:
I guess Alliances are truly dead then huh?
Oh well.
Why are you people so obsessed with saying it will never come? They gave us a timeline of what to expect. Swiss needs to be done testing and in an acceptable state first, they are already focusing on finishing the Alliance system, which is built upon some of the swiss tech, right after. You don't need this reaffirmed every single time something about the game is said. This was a post about PvE.
@Thorstienn.1642 said:
I'd be interested to see where the Devs got their information that came to the conclusion the "reason people aren't doing raids is difficulty".
Well, difficulty definitely is one of the reasons people are not doing raids, because it is that very difficulty that causes everything else you mentioned. Of course, the point is that strikes are not going to change any of it - all they will really be able to do is to show Anet what level of difficulty is appealing to what number of players, and what types of difficulty cause players to just give up on the content. Which is a very valuable information for devs, i am sure, but won't do anything for the game in any foreseeable future.
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.
Thus far GW2 in my experience did great and certainly doesent dissapoint. I do however have moments that i can really not enjoy the game running into things that makes no sense to me, or need to battle thing that offer no fun at all, but overall the storyline, and the more easy going content i really like, i guess thats just on myself, i'm not a fanatic player, i like following the stories, i like a bit of action doing WB's but am not into pvp or wvw. And although i try to get vision and aurora, i think i will never get them as they require things to do that i will probably never do or can complete.
That being said i am looking forward to new content, or updated content, and although i noticed people complaining about the content i hardly had any issues with that. I like it from the day i started playing after changing from SWTOR to GW2. I wish SWTOR developers would listen more to their players, its something that Arenanet is far better at then Bioware
@Tinnel.4369 said:
Zero WvW highlights for the exciting future. Noted.
PvP also isn't highlighted here.
It's almost as if this is a PvE/Fractal/Raid focused update, because you haven't been the only communities ignored.
Raids and Fractals have been ignored for a little bit, so this is big news for them.
You guys and PvP had a small update not too long ago, instead of being all like "No WvW, Must Be Ignoring Us" on a clearly PvE oriented modes post, maybe ask if you could have something similar for WvW and PvP modes, because this kind of attitude is probably what makes it hard for them to even make posts like these.
"what's on the horizon for Guild Wars 2".
Seems universal to me.
If you're going to berate people for speculation, less speculation might be a good idea.
They've earned the response they get. If you think we haven't already asked, many times, you might give understanding the landscape a go; because this kind of attitude is what makes them feel justified in their double talk and neglect of different communities.
If...and this is a huge if..But, if I am sensing correctly, could we see something like Scarlets Raid, only replayable? (Nuking LA and losing the retirement village bland theme would be AMAZING!). I know this is a stretch, but it was hands down, bar none, the most fun event in game to date imho. Newer players just have no idea.. how it was, what it felt like. Even devs said they felt the feels we did seeing LA levelled, the aftermath..the messages on the bulletin board.. ok.. tissue..
Bring back that or create something in line with it, that is replayable, and shut up and take our money. The closest I think the game comes to that team effort is the final battle of Mordy, or Kwalk. Oh man.. the battle of LA with Skyscales would let us go after Scarlets Ships.. Yeah I know they didn't exist then.. WE NEED EPIC. NUKE SOUTHSUN. Seriously nuke it.. huge Seafood bash.. lol
MsTrandentia - Leader of Tyrian Mystical Tours [PORT]
They've earned the response they get. If you think we haven't already asked, many times, you might give understanding the landscape a go; because this kind of attitude is what makes them feel justified in their double talk and neglect of different communities.
I understand/share the frustration by large segments of the community devoted to specific game types with GW2. I myself am very fond of playing sPvP on a fairly regular basis. However, I don't believe the intent with this post was for all communities to have their concerns allayed at once. That said, this is without a doubt better communication than what has been received in the recent past. We as a community should encourage more posts like this from the developers so that all community concerns might be addressed.
ArenaNet has developed a great game and very marketable product. Even with all the shortcomings and frustrations that do exist I can honestly say I am excited to see more. This game is actively being developed, modified, and supported. I believe it is time to retire the "GW2 is dead!" trope.
"There is little love for those of my kind in this place, yet I am here to help save them all. To those who matter, actions speak louder than words and my actions shall echo across this city for eternity until all recognize the honor of the Tengu race." ~ Talon Silverwing
Casuals don't like elitists and we will avoid them like the plague.
Elitists don't like "bads."
We are all gamers and many of us are VERY skilled - but most of us are casual.
Buff the LFG tool and help us avoid each other.
Long winded mostly unnecessary, possibly entertaining, version from a 30+ year "skilled" casual gamer:
First, thank you for taking the time to speak with us. I hope you're reading all of these comments and that I'm not wasting my time by offering mine. You really need to stop trying to figure out the problem and LISTEN to what your players are telling you. Especially the people in here who care enough and are dedicated enough to provide feedback.
Raids are not a "tricky" problem to solve. The tricky part to fixing any problem is not listening to people telling you what the problem is. Imagine going to a clinic, and all the receptionists, nurses, and doctors have headphones in. That's you guys! lol Not you guys specifically - it's all MMO developers when we tell you what the problem with Raids is. It's like...you guys just zone out or something when we give you the root cause.
It's the toxic elitist community.
There's your problem. It really is those cats. It's that small group of "gate-keepers" that none of us want to bother with and it's not unique to your game. The solution is actually simple, but you (developers in general) keep focusing on the wrong things. It's not about dedication, intelligence, skill - many of us are lifelong gamers and this is not the only game we play. Most of us love challenges and the feeling of accomplishment. Take me for example...
I'm a PVP nut (not so much in this game...but that's another story)... I can probably own 70% of you in any fighting game (except Smash Brothers because it's awful). I'm a RTS/Turn based strategy enthusiast. I could teach a graduate course on how to conquer XCom (I've got 3000 hours of Impossible/Legend gameplay). I've been gaming for over 30 years.
You mean to tell me that I'm not dedicated? I don't have the "skill" to follow a rotation of button clicking? Don't sell your gaming community short, there are lots of GW2 players just like me. There are lots of them BETTER than me. I'm not special. We've all got skill, we've all got intelligence, and most of us love a challenge... But we are casual and this game (GAME) is not serious enough for us to tap dance for ill-mannered, narcissistic, internet randos. Not when there are so many movies, books, TV shows, animes, and OTHER games we could be playing.
Seriously, I joined a strike mission a few weeks back...and had a guy (literally named "Elitist Punk" or some jiggity-jive like that)... Fudgenugget whispered me and said...
"This is for people like you who can't get into Raids "
I lol'd at the sheer irony as we face-rolled the strike...and I gave him an obligatory stealth jab as we left the instance afterwards. It's not a skill thing or an intelligence thing. Again, we're all gamers in here. I've been doing wild, complicated, and sometimes EXTREMELY DIFFICULT things on PC and console for over 30 years. I can handle a Raid...I can't deal with "Raid-ERS." Or rather...I won't, and I'm not alone.
My suggestion is that you help your people find each other and help us casual folks group together.
"Dude...why don't you form your own group or join a guild?"
Yeah...HELP US DO THAT.
Do you not know anything about people? I mean, if we were gonna do that...we'd do that. We're smart, but It works better if you "herd" us in the right direction. I've had some success advertising Noob/Casual groups...but even then, I got the occasional "You guys are all bad. I'm logging to yell at my mom for more hot-pockets."
Give the LFG some love... Give us a queue and sort us by our group preferences - BAM. Example group preferences:
Dungeon Difficulty (please do this...) - Story mode, Explorable Mode, Epic Mode
Skill level slider - Beginner (0) to Expert (10)
Temperament slider (this is how you keep the 1337's in their own private sandbox) - Casual to Strict (i.e. - hardcore/elitist/narcissist)
Use in-game checks to keep "n00bz" and "bADz" out of their groups - because that's what they want. Use a behind-the-scenes gear score and experience counter to grey out groups that you're not qualified for. Then all of the elitists can find each other and all of us casuals and n00bz can laugh and wipe together. Or gasp actually attempt and complete this jerk-gated content.
More options:
[X] - Looking for guild
[X] - Recruiting for guild
[X] - Mentor/Trainer
[X] - Looking for training run
[X] - Looking for quick/speed run
[X] - I got all day and I don't care how many times we wipe.
Allright, end book. I hope ya'll figure it out before something new gets my attention. Guild Wars 2 is such a beautiful game with a lot of potential still. Fill your dungeons with decent rewards, buff the LFG...and for the love of cheese man...do more 5 man dungeons. We keep asking for it!
Raids are a trickier beast. They're a unique experience and community that we want to find better ways to support, the biggest challenge in creating more is the small audience they attract. We gathered data to determine why, and the most common answer was that there is a giant leap in difficulty between raids and other endgame content, and there isn't anything to help players work their way up.
Our intention was for Strike Missions to be that intermediary step into 10-person content. As we've mentioned before and you've likely noticed, strike missions are getting harder. Once a full suite of strike missions is complete there should be a graceful ramp up to the existing raid content rather than the imposing leap that previously existed, and our hope is once that ramp is in place, the number of players participating in raids will go up. In addition to that, we're striving to make improvements to Strike Missions themselves to make grouping easier, and to improve the rewards. We hope this will help introduce more people to 10-person content, which will in turn increase the number of people interested in Raids.
Regardless of if that succeeds or not, we understand the importance of balancing our efforts between accessible content with broad appeal, and content that appeals to the more hard core audience, and recognize that we need to do a better job of supporting the latter.
I like your addressing of Raids, but you're dodging the real reason (particularly for international players) why you're getting thin numbers playing them.
Me personally, I've always wanted to play raids, but here's the issue - the inherent drawback to these is that you hamstring them to only have weekly rewards. Weekly means every elitist and hardcore raider lining up at weekly reset and going balls to the wall in every raid wing, then nothing (or very limited groups) throughout the rest of the week. It's like 'we've sapped the rewards from the chest, time to go back to WvW... oh wait.. PvP or PvE it'll have to be, and chasing metas'.
Because of the time discrepancy and your reset, you'll have people still asleep in one part of the world, and others either at work or at school in another. By the time I get home from work and try to catch a raid group, that ship has long sailed. The LFG is dead quiet and there's very few people in the Aerodrome trying to get groups locally. Because of my apparent "behind the 8-ball" situation, I haven't been able to get a single raid group since they were part of the GW2 content, so I've tried to get into a practice group (many of them, actually), and none of them are ever on when I'm on, or despite best intentions, the group fails to form.
I do like your "ramp" idea of gettting people smoothly from Strike Missions into raids, but I'm afraid because of the above situation, I won't be able to tell anyone in a prospective raid group "ohh yeah dawg, I'm a boss at strike missions but I got zero experience in raids". As you'd expect, I'd be laughed out of the group while they /kick.
Timing is everything with raids. Not just in playing and rotations, knowing your character, the other 9 people you're with and especially the boss you gotta deal with and their mechanics, not to mention the map mechanics as well, but also when the best time is to get to play raids. I can look at as many youtube vids on how to defeat X boss all I like, but it won't help me being in that room with those people who've done this before, and expecting I'll know how to do my job properly. No, I gotta be on at the right time, and have the appropriate experience for the raid, geared properly, etc... and I'm sorry, but strike mission experience, as good as the intentions may be, just won't cut it in a room full of elitists and hardcores, and those expecting the raid to go 100% smoothly, not to mention those watching your individual DPS, etc.
Bottom line, for me, is that as far as I can see, the only real hope is to find a guild that does raids and is a bit more understanding of my situation, and hopefully they haven't done the whole weekly-reward thing already when I finally get on.
And those going to suggest "pay for a carry", sorry no, that's not how I do things. I'm here to learn this stuff but I'm stuck in a bad situation where I can't get to learn raids at all. I'm not giving up a good paying job just to play a game either.
Comments
But the enrage timers are ultra forgiving even when you compaire them to most mmos. Iirc vg has a enrage timer that require what? Less than 6k dps per person to fail?
I think what would help people get into raiding is reducing the visual clutter... When you can't see what to dodge, you don't dodge. At least have an optional setting ._.
Cool! 😃 This reminds me of the dynamics of Silverwastes, defending the four forts against enemy waves (using WvW siege, even!)
I am excited. I'm not easily excited. I love this franchise.
Despite all the good and bad feedbacks of this post, just.. thank you.
Thank you for sharing this, as players currently stand not knowing what is going to happen in 2020 for guild wars 2.
I also think for stir missions to be used and played more the rewards needs more value. Sure currently you can get items from strikes that are worth plenty of gold but something people can achieve.
Some liked the idea some didnt but a suggestion was thrown around for a new strike currency maybe leading towards a piece of ascended gear.
There are certainly alot of players who have not touched the strike missions, some dont like it but alot is to do with it being 'not worth it's to them as they see nothing rewarding by doing them.
To leave on a positive note, YAY MORE FRACTALS
Are we getting anymore updates to Build Templates?? It was said that they would be worked on more in 2020, but it's been a month and no updates, no communication at all. Templates still work incredibly poorly with legendaries and are inefficient in other ways still as well
ANet:
Forums: Why some you ever tell us what your plans are? We won't get mad! Just talk to us!
ANet: Gives an update on things to come.
Forums: You are the worst, these ideas are all just wrong, you can't even do anything right, why did you say anything at all? GG game dead time to quit for real
Just like fractals, Raids need a lower difficulty with lower rewards in order to help casual players explore and enjoy this content.
I'm exiciting to see this!
May I **wish ** that a legendary armor set to be added to fractal? Please
As for raid, I wish that there's a practice mode for certain mechanics (such as the orb push) in the special forces training area, such that it's easier to train another player for important task. I say this as I always see that the people who already mastered this often get "jailed" on the same task.
It's running fine in most situations, and has been for years. Unless the issue is that you can't display 50 players on your screen at full detail simultaneously (other games solve this problem by not attempting to do it - it always causes problems), there's something wrong with your hardware.
Any love to Dungeon, WvW and SPvP would be nice pls!
Speak for yourself, the game isnt optimised. Hell, theres a thread in the front page advertising the dx12 addon with plenty of comments from ppl about the performance of gw2.
First of all, congrats Andrew, albeit a little late. And thanks for this.
It's always good to hear from the devs since it feels more like a convo or dialogue instead of just reading updates and stuff.
For someone who's wants to play wvw and raids, I guess I'm kinda semi-happy about the message.
I know players are asking for new guild-related material, so I'm guessing wvw restructuring might address that? (Still waiting. Patiently.)
As for raids, I think it's fine the content is super hard. I always thought it was the ultimate endgame, something I'd play after fractals.
Most players don't or can't play because of other players asking for li and kp , but there are training guilds that help.
Maybe helping these guilds out would go a long way in getting more players to join raids.
Perhaps as some players have suggested, some kind of special training arenas would really be great, especially considering the diff mechanics along each wing.
Learning on the job on raids is actually pretty hard for both teachers and students.
Which is also why I actually felt strikes to be kinda lame; not really a raid, not so much a fractal, just an isolated boss fight.
I'd rather be training for an actual raid. Or doing a bounty. Bounties were a great addition, thank you!
As for meta-based re-playable content, HoT maps are still the best. Heck, that was the best expansion ever, for both elites and maps (even though I hate TD. And why did gyros become wells?!! The scrapper lost its identity. Still upset about that.) But I digress. I feel Saga could learn from HoT or PoF too, or LS3 (I loved LS3; great maps! + Dragonfall). Even the masteries were sensible. I am looking forward to the new content (better masteries please?), and wish everyone at anet best of luck.
A-Net: ( communicates)
Vocal Minority: (it's not what I wanted to hear so I'm angry)
There is a reason the old paths are behind us; the only way we can see what's in front of us is to look forward and remember why the old paths were left behind.
Resident Hug Addict and Fire Extinguisher
I am excited to see the future especially coming from my favorite Dev to give content to "I am rich you know" in Lake Doric
PvP also isn't highlighted here.
It's almost as if this is a PvE/Fractal/Raid focused update, because you haven't been the only communities ignored.
Raids and Fractals have been ignored for a little bit, so this is big news for them.
You guys and PvP had a small update not too long ago, instead of being all like "No WvW, Must Be Ignoring Us" on a clearly PvE oriented modes post, maybe ask if you could have something similar for WvW and PvP modes, because this kind of attitude is probably what makes it hard for them to even make posts like these.
Founder of Affinitus Nemus [AFNM]
"Join Us, We're Lonely" - Our Guild At Some Point
JUST LIKE THE LORAX, WE SPEAK FOR THE TREES!
I also think the major "issue" with Raids isn't difficulty or ramp to get into it, nor do I think "elitist gatekeeping" is the primary problem.
They are problems, but imo they are symptoms, not the primary issue.
The thing is that GW2 through almost all of it's content trained people that they can just run around solo and never engage with another person in this MMO and just fly through everything and get everything without really trying. There are barely ever any incentives to build up strong communities.
So when new players then try to join a Raid, what they do is join experienced Raiders looking for other experienced Raiders, trying to fill very specific roles with very specific expectations, which obviously doesn't go well, which then makes them blame those Raiders for being "toxic" or gatekeeping.
Here's the thing though, pugging is never the best experience, by far, for content such as this, usually even as experienced hardcore player it can be an experience that grinds you down at times. It's just that we have those other positive impressions of the gamemode already established which is why those bad PuG moments don't scare, or scar us as badly.
Raids (and Fractal CM's) are bar non the best PvE content in the game, miles ahead of open world with world bosses, events etc. It's not even a comparison in quality of gameplay or experience as group.
But, while all that open world content is best enjoyed just running around alone doing whatever while not having to engage with anyone, Raids are absolutely best enjoyed by forming a static group of like-minded people of a similar skill levels and expectations for the group.
That takes work and effort though, and the game fails to facilitate the forming of these communities with strong bonds and similar interests completely, unless you are a player already into content like Raids, willing to put the effort in to push past that initial hurdle and to seek out other like-minded players.
Raids, imo, never needed an easy mode, a training mode or introductory content like Strikes. That doesn't mean I don't appreciate that content being worked on or don't think it can't be also useful, although it's a shame it seems to come at the cost of actual Raids, and that lack of content and slowed down release schedule since W3 is primarily what drained Raids of it's population.
Everybody can learn Raids while doing Raids, or prepare for more challenging content, both in terms of increasing player skill as well as getting gear ready for it by progression through Fractals already.
What the casual GW2 player at large is missing is a community of like minded people in which they feel safe to fail, to be able to get motivated to tackle group content like Raids together as Training groups for the fun of it and spending time together, where it's okay to "fail" for an hour at a boss, slowly learning the mechanics and progressing further and further into the fight, until they eventually beat it and get that rush of actually having achieved and earned something difficult together with their friends, probably for the first time in GW2, to get hooked - because it's done together with friends.
It's a great experience to slowly progress through Raids together as a group, knowing each others strengths and weaknesses, what everbody can play, knowing what the expectations are if any at first and where it's okay to fail and learn.
Joining an experienced group of Raiders who are just wishing to quickly fill a slot to clear things at a speed and efficiency that they are used to and that brings them fun is imo not the way to be introduced to or to get into Raids, nor does these experienced groups having their reasonable expectations of experience of who they want to join to finish their run in a reasonable way make those groups "toxic".
It's simply a clash of peoples with very different levels of skill, experience and expectations, unlikely to ever go over well.
TL;DR:
Joining or forming a like-minded training group, which takes some effort and is not otherwise encouraged and facilitated by the game, and growing together as players while getting closer as people, in an environment where it's okay to fail, has always been the way to get into organised group content, and makes for the best experience you can have in GW2 should you put in that effort to do so.
Demanding to just get a spot in experienced groups to get essentially carried is not only doomed to fail in the vast majority of cases it also makes for a highly frustrating experience not only for the players trying to do so, but also all the people in the experienced groups just wanting to do their thing. To then whine and name calling hardcore players as "toxic elitists" when it doesn't work out is just as, if not much more toxic than being reasonably turned away in a sometimes rude fashion.
Raids and Fractal (CM's) are not designed for instant gratification, that's imo not an issue though, the issue is that everything else is.
An MMO needs to have a balance of content to stay healthy long term. It can't all be hard content requiring grouping, communication and hour long delayed gratification, as that would be too exhausting and niche. But It also all can't be "Here, a shiny gold medal and an inventory filled with loot! Good Job!" every 5 minutes while running around alone in a circle holding down the Autoattack, or maybe pressing a random other button when off CD, because that just gets incredibly boring and mindnumbing, which is where GW2 ended up over the last years, conditioning players that you never really need to work or team up for anything to not only be successful, but to have a better and more fun experience together than you ever could have doing that stuff alone, even if it might seem scary initially.
The grouping, proper grouping, not pressing a button in an LFG to get thrown together with random people with widely different expectations, that's the real hurdle of GW2 and Raids.
R.I.P. Build Templates, 15.10.2019
This is going into the wrong direction IMHO. I noticed in the episode achievements that you really, really want to push these, but I don't understand why. I also disagree with having so many achievements in the strike missions just to get the new emote.
I don't think you will be able to force more ppl into strike missions, let alone raids. Many ppl who came to this game were the ones who wanted to get away from raids and group content locked to a specific number of players. The first one was added as trivial event and ppl starting to play and farm it. I remember it reading constantly in the evenings in guild chat. Strike was everywhere. Now these weren't players "compatible" with raids or even interested in them. Then the first ones in Bjora happened and ppl were already starting to be "meh, I pass on this one, too difficult". Bottom line, those players you want to force into the 10-player content, don't actually like to play it. Not on the level of a raid.
Where does this leave the strike missions? Ignored by many of the players you want to push into them and them being salty about their emote locked behind them (I know you can get it without if you do every other achievement). And farmed by the players already playing mostly raids for easy gold.
Thank you for this message Andrew. I know that not everyone is happy with this announcement, but I am very excited for this year and hope it's going to be a better one for the game and ANet.
Sure, VG is pretty easy as he's the first boss most people encounter, but once you get past the first 3-4 bosses it's nearly impossible to get into a raid without being one of the few acceptable specs and the main barrier quickly becomes DPS, not peoples ability to react to mechanics. I personally see it is a huge problem when the sole focus is how to maximize DPS. Guild Wars 2 has some of the most unique utility abilities I've seen in an MMO. This should allow for some really cool mechanics, but so far I haven't seen anything that isn't extremely basic.
It might be that it changes with some of the later bosses, but I haven't been able to do those as my guild didn't want to attempt them for lack of DPS in our regular group. Focus should always been on learning the fight, so that you can do better and better every attempt. Unfortunately right now it's on learning a ludicrously long rotation on one of a only a handful of acceptable specs.
"Optimised" is meaningless by itself, since there are varying degrees of optimisation and diminishing returns on the things you can optimise.
It is bizarre that the game still doesn't support DX11 or higher, but that has a fairly modest impact - the overhead required to run GW2 over the last 7 years hasn't increased much, while hardware has improved substantially.
It's certainly not in a state where a properly maintained system with reasonable hardware can't run it without significant performance concerns, and hasn't been for years. So aside from some general upgrades for sanity's sake (like moving off DX9 finally) there's not a whole lot of point in going over the game with a fine-toothed comb to get the last few percent out of it.
I guess Alliances are truly dead then huh?
Oh well.
I've always wondered what it would be like to go to the mists. It'll be an adventure... - Magister Sieran
as a PVP/WvW player it's great to see anet communicating like this keep this going and make sure to promote wvw and pvp as well most videos that i find in youtube they don't even Know that gw2 have those game modes . they only know it as a story driven game . keep this going
Clouding is More funn than zerging
Thank you for reaching out! It meant enough for me to log onto the forums for the first time in years!
IDK man, there's been a fair few years of laying groundwork for several other features that either went nowhere, or barely took off with minimal successes here and there. I'll believe the whole 'groundwork laying' story when I actually start seeing results such as the launch of the rework of systems mentioned in this post and otherwise.
Personally, the reason that my static group don't do raids is we don't always have 10 people online.
Not sure how feasible it is, to introduce, "Training Raids" which are say 5 man, slightly easier e.g. Tier 4 Fractal or later end Strike Missions, but have reduced rewards, so that people can't cheese them and get easy legendary gear.
It will let people learn the mechanics, and then (hopefully) two well practiced, 5 man groups, can join up and make a new 10 man group.
Main problem with small audience in raids are not difficulty, but requirements from players. Currently it's more like "I have to show LI or KP to get into raids, but I have play raids to get LI and KP" which means: it's better if you already have something to show, otherwise we will say goodbye to you. When new raids comes — you have to show KPs from previous raid.
It's not easy to get into raids if someone's doing them first time. Same with CM fractals (only Shattered Observatory). Specific and unique currency is taken as KP and we have to show them to join someone. I got info CMs because my guildmates took me for this adventure. I played with experienced 250KP+ players while having literally 0 of them. In normal conditions I couldn't join anyone. I think we have to get rid of unique, content-specific currencies and items.
Master of garbage builds and being useless.
I think it would be interesting to maybe look into turning 10 man into 8 man? Ff14 uses 8 man which i find rather solid but its also a callback to gw1.
Raid isn't so hard. Low number of player is ArenaNet fault. You made entrence barier for new pleyers, like Li or KP.
Even raid players have problem to play new wings. Li is not enough now, you need to have KP from last boss to run raid with others.
kitten dissaster.
PS.
I have more than 300 Li now.
the thing is the strikes arent as mechanic heavy as they need to be, in return the rewards need to be worth it, but difficulty in mechanics should reflect similarities of the raid bosses' mechanics so they can prepare - hopefully this Visions of the Past thing can let everyone experience at least a small minimal sliver of old LS updates and EVEN get the rewards from back in the day.
Same as it ever was.
...
Hi Andrew, thank you for the message.
I expect some of the comments in this thread are disheartening, maybe even hurtful, but please, communication is absolutely vital for large sections of the community, and these kinds of messages are important to us.
For my part, I'd like to offer some constructive criticism regarding raids, and engaging more within the GW2 community in raids.
From my view, as someone who has raided a lot and offered raid training, there are two main problems as I see it.
The first is that there are no rewards or in-game incentives for training new raiders. Relying solely on the altruism of experienced raiders is only ever going to end up with a slow drip of new players into raids. To encourage more commanders to host raid training there needs to be some incentive to do so. That might be a gold incentive - every player in a group who helps a new player get their first kill on a boss gets more gold - or an incentive through fashion, achievements, or titles. Or all of these.
The second is that there are no in-game tutorials or pointers as to how a player may improve their build, much less a reason why. Consider the most recent strike mission: anecdotally, those who completed the first few Strike Missions found the most recent one to be too hard and so have given up. The first strikes were at their level, but the subsequent strike is above their level and there's no in-game information on what they are doing poorly, how they might improve their performance, or even a reason why they should work hard on improving. The rewards for completing a strike are currently not strong enough incentives for the casuals to get better.
There need to be some messages, in game, to players, pointing the way to improvements. Or some in-game method of holding a casual player's hand as they seek to improve themselves.
Some of this could be in the form of solo minigames. The Commander, Braham and 3 others come up against a powerful foe, but in order to defeat it your allies need to be buffed with 25 might and permanent fury for 20 seconds. Braham then does a special attack and kills the foe. The game could suggest classes or elite specialisations which are particularly effective at buffing night and fury.
Or maybe Braham and others come up against a foe which will do a devastating attack after a set time period, and a special skill Braham has to protect the group from death is on a cooldown of equal length. In order to get the defensive skill to deploy, the commander has to apply permanent alacrity to Braham so the skill is available at the point the foe uses this special skill.
Another might be that Braham is injured, and to save him you have a set time period to defeat an enemy. Braham as a last gasp imbues you with all the spirits of the wild, granting you fury, might, quickness and alacrity. The foe has 1 million health and you need to kill it in 60 seconds (time average of about 16.7k DPS) in order to save Braham.
You could have different difficulty levels, with harder difficulties with tighter constraints. The DPS minigame could be that the enemy has 1.5million health instead.
These minigames could perhaps be programmed in the special simulation chamber that Taimi discovered way back when in Rata Novus. But however it is implemented, the clear goal is simple: personal performance is key to saving your allies. By having instanced minigames the game can give hints and tips on how to pass them if a player is struggling.
These are very much ideas off the top of my head, so are probably a little flawed in someway. But you get the idea: ANet need to have systems in place to allow a curious casual to test themselves with a clear progression along different difficulty levels, with in-game tips, tricks and information detailing how a player may improve their performance.
Separate to that, it may also be useful in the strike missions to have a DPS meter and buff table displayed on screen.
I know ANet have been dead set against doing that for a long time, for reasons that I do understand. But my counter arguement is that it was only when I started using a DPS meter (the safe compliant version of BGDM back in the day, and now ArcDPS) did I realise how utterly terrible I was at the game. Seeing that made me want to improve. Before actually seeing my performance it was very easy to think that I was pulling my weight when I absolutely was not. Now, I use the DPS meter to ensure I'm performing well, and if I'm not I can see I'm not. The DPS meter is a crucial tool in my own quest for self-improvement.
I think my final comment for raids is finding a raiding guild or group can be hard. There are places on the internet you can go to find a group or guild, but unless you are motivated to do that you won't. An in-game Guild Finder would be amazing. Raid training guilds can then advertise themselves as such in-game, and be found in-game by those who want that.
In conclusion, getting more people interested in raids is difficult and complicated. There's probably more that the community could do, both in terms of general attitude towards new players (which does generally stink and I wish to high heaven experienced players and streamers were more forgiving and helpful) and in setting up raid training.
From ANet's side, while the strike missions are potentially a useful stepping stone for new players, Strike Missions on their own are not the complete answer. ANet need to do more to meet the experienced raiding community half way. There are currently no incentives to training new players, and no in-game systems players can use to test themselves, or in game messages giving pointers on how players can improve. As a consequence, there's a tranche of casual player's who have hit the most recent strike, bumped their head on their skill ceiling, and are not being encouraged or incentivised by the game to raise their skill ceiling.
The problem isn't that the game runs bad, it does but that isn;'t the problem. GW2 ran "OK" on the PC I built in 2010. In 2018 I built a top notch gaming rig and do you know what kind of improvement I saw in GW2? Essentially none. Sure I gained a couple of frames here and there but the game refuses to use more that 50% of hardware capabilities. I still can't turn shadows up to max, or increase character limit past low and character details past lowestI. Even with those setting I still get 25FPS in some areas and 8 fps when AB meta ends. If I only played GW2 then the money I spend on my rig would have been a total waste. Luckily GW2 isn''t the only game I play.
lol, imagine getting LIs before the content. Someone actually tried asking for those for Whisper once. I just look at it quizzically and wonder why someone was that desperate for something I only died ever to chains, but otherwise got downed once or twice to icicles. If anything Boneskinner is the only rough thing.
I, too, appreciate the communication.
As a (very) casual player, who has read most of the thread, here are my points of view.
I don't raid or strike. This type of content doesn't interest me as a casual player. I do like that it is available for those who prefer that type of content -- good for them. I don't like that completion gets forced into content.
If I read correctly, there are plans to focus on content that appeals more to the hardcore crowd? I hope that this isn't due to the comments on these forums and on reddit that constantly call for this. I'd wager that many casual players don't even look on the forums/reddit because they are casual players -- heck, in my limited casual play group, I am the only one who does. I caution Anet to remember the pre-nerf HoT and the backlash from it.
Anyway, that's what I've got to offer for now.
I am a very casual player.
Very.
Casual.
I don't think the answer is taking away the ability of players to check for experience of PuG's, besides that usually they will always find a way, it just gets more and more contrived the more difficult it is made (such as resorting to AP).
The game simply needs more (difficult) group content to encourage people to get out of their comfort zone for a moment and to join Guild's such as yours, incentivising the forming of communities that will help each other out and get each other into different forms of content, all while having fun together.
That's what keeps people consistently engaged with MMO's and why Living World only hasn't been healthy for GW2.
Story is solo, open world is solo and even events and world bosses are playing "solo with others". Even early Strikes were essentially solo content, although that at least luckily changed with the more recent ones.
So people just log in, play around for a bit alone, at most chatting a bit with others, and log off again - rather than being part of a community which plays together, encouraging each other to check out the "scary" PvP, Fractals, Raids, WvW and such, aka repeatable content in which you have to group up to get the most out of it, which tends to be much more fun and longterm engaging.
I've always seen pugging as emergency tool for already experienced players, should their group have a few members missing for the day or otherwise be short term unavailable. The main way to get into and enjoy group content, surprisingly, is as (static) group.
That's what the game needs to encourage.
R.I.P. Build Templates, 15.10.2019
This. No matter how much people ask for this, Anet not only ignores it but adds even more clutter.
Not to call into question your data collection methods, but I think this assessment misses the point that raids are not just unpopular due to a giant leap in difficulty, but also because a large portion of your playerbase prefer soloable/open world content over instanced group content where other players might deeply scrutinize their builds, equipment and level of experience. A lot of your players don't want to play instanced group content, even if they're comfortable with raid-level difficulty.
Once again, a better solution than strike missions to address the unpopularity of raids is to add a solo-oriented mode to raids. You don't even need to make the fights much easier, just the fact that players could try to complete them on their own would make raids far more popular, I'm certain. You could even reduce/restrict the rewards in solo mode to incentivize group raiding. This is a solution that would actually make raids more popular, allowing you to make more of them, which in turn would make everyone happy, because they'd all have more content to play.
And this. You say you want to make the game more accessible for casual players while at the same time making challenging content for those who want to play on hard mode. Here's a simple solution, one that can be used in a variety of instanced content. Allow players to choose the difficulty level they want to play at. Personally, strikes are not going to be a bridge to raids for me. I don't like raids, hate the strike missions and am not going to be forced into either.
ooh thanks for the updates! as a PvE player greatly enjoying everything that's currently going on, this is a heap of good news
I know you're being helpful, but I think you also stumbled on the "real" issues.
It's not so much that raids are too hard (after all if players dont do raids, how would they know if it's hard?), it's how annoying/time consuming/non-intuitive they are:
Seemingly everything about them involves using external sources; YouTube for mechanics, snowcrows for builds, discord for coordination. These are all things the average player doesn't want to do at all, they want to log in and play "their" character/build, and they want to just jump in and play. All this combined with needing 9 more players with similar attitudes.
Comparing to fractals is also good, as fractals have natural in built progression, teaching players the mechanics (so to speak) leading to higher tier. They only require 4 players (making it faster) and they are not giant health sponges (meaning more build freedom (outside of speed runners) and less time investment)!
I'd be interested to see where the Devs got their information that came to the conclusion the "reason people aren't doing raids is difficulty".
Why are you people so obsessed with saying it will never come? They gave us a timeline of what to expect. Swiss needs to be done testing and in an acceptable state first, they are already focusing on finishing the Alliance system, which is built upon some of the swiss tech, right after. You don't need this reaffirmed every single time something about the game is said. This was a post about PvE.
I rather choose death.
Well, difficulty definitely is one of the reasons people are not doing raids, because it is that very difficulty that causes everything else you mentioned. Of course, the point is that strikes are not going to change any of it - all they will really be able to do is to show Anet what level of difficulty is appealing to what number of players, and what types of difficulty cause players to just give up on the content. Which is a very valuable information for devs, i am sure, but won't do anything for the game in any foreseeable future.
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.
Thus far GW2 in my experience did great and certainly doesent dissapoint. I do however have moments that i can really not enjoy the game running into things that makes no sense to me, or need to battle thing that offer no fun at all, but overall the storyline, and the more easy going content i really like, i guess thats just on myself, i'm not a fanatic player, i like following the stories, i like a bit of action doing WB's but am not into pvp or wvw. And although i try to get vision and aurora, i think i will never get them as they require things to do that i will probably never do or can complete.
That being said i am looking forward to new content, or updated content, and although i noticed people complaining about the content i hardly had any issues with that. I like it from the day i started playing after changing from SWTOR to GW2. I wish SWTOR developers would listen more to their players, its something that Arenanet is far better at then Bioware
"what's on the horizon for Guild Wars 2".
Seems universal to me.
If you're going to berate people for speculation, less speculation might be a good idea.
They've earned the response they get. If you think we haven't already asked, many times, you might give understanding the landscape a go; because this kind of attitude is what makes them feel justified in their double talk and neglect of different communities.
If...and this is a huge if..But, if I am sensing correctly, could we see something like Scarlets Raid, only replayable? (Nuking LA and losing the retirement village bland theme would be AMAZING!). I know this is a stretch, but it was hands down, bar none, the most fun event in game to date imho. Newer players just have no idea.. how it was, what it felt like. Even devs said they felt the feels we did seeing LA levelled, the aftermath..the messages on the bulletin board.. ok.. tissue..
Bring back that or create something in line with it, that is replayable, and shut up and take our money. The closest I think the game comes to that team effort is the final battle of Mordy, or Kwalk. Oh man.. the battle of LA with Skyscales would let us go after Scarlets Ships.. Yeah I know they didn't exist then.. WE NEED EPIC. NUKE SOUTHSUN. Seriously nuke it.. huge Seafood bash.. lol
MsTrandentia - Leader of Tyrian Mystical Tours [PORT]
I understand/share the frustration by large segments of the community devoted to specific game types with GW2. I myself am very fond of playing sPvP on a fairly regular basis. However, I don't believe the intent with this post was for all communities to have their concerns allayed at once. That said, this is without a doubt better communication than what has been received in the recent past. We as a community should encourage more posts like this from the developers so that all community concerns might be addressed.
ArenaNet has developed a great game and very marketable product. Even with all the shortcomings and frustrations that do exist I can honestly say I am excited to see more. This game is actively being developed, modified, and supported. I believe it is time to retire the "GW2 is dead!" trope.
"There is little love for those of my kind in this place, yet I am here to help save them all. To those who matter, actions speak louder than words and my actions shall echo across this city for eternity until all recognize the honor of the Tengu race." ~ Talon Silverwing
TL:DR:
Long winded mostly unnecessary, possibly entertaining, version from a 30+ year "skilled" casual gamer:
First, thank you for taking the time to speak with us. I hope you're reading all of these comments and that I'm not wasting my time by offering mine. You really need to stop trying to figure out the problem and LISTEN to what your players are telling you. Especially the people in here who care enough and are dedicated enough to provide feedback.
Raids are not a "tricky" problem to solve. The tricky part to fixing any problem is not listening to people telling you what the problem is. Imagine going to a clinic, and all the receptionists, nurses, and doctors have headphones in. That's you guys! lol Not you guys specifically - it's all MMO developers when we tell you what the problem with Raids is. It's like...you guys just zone out or something when we give you the root cause.
It's the toxic elitist community.
There's your problem. It really is those cats. It's that small group of "gate-keepers" that none of us want to bother with and it's not unique to your game. The solution is actually simple, but you (developers in general) keep focusing on the wrong things. It's not about dedication, intelligence, skill - many of us are lifelong gamers and this is not the only game we play. Most of us love challenges and the feeling of accomplishment. Take me for example...
I'm a PVP nut (not so much in this game...but that's another story)... I can probably own 70% of you in any fighting game (except Smash Brothers because it's awful). I'm a RTS/Turn based strategy enthusiast. I could teach a graduate course on how to conquer XCom (I've got 3000 hours of Impossible/Legend gameplay). I've been gaming for over 30 years.
You mean to tell me that I'm not dedicated? I don't have the "skill" to follow a rotation of button clicking? Don't sell your gaming community short, there are lots of GW2 players just like me. There are lots of them BETTER than me. I'm not special. We've all got skill, we've all got intelligence, and most of us love a challenge... But we are casual and this game (GAME) is not serious enough for us to tap dance for ill-mannered, narcissistic, internet randos. Not when there are so many movies, books, TV shows, animes, and OTHER games we could be playing.
Seriously, I joined a strike mission a few weeks back...and had a guy (literally named "Elitist Punk" or some jiggity-jive like that)... Fudgenugget whispered me and said...
"This is for people like you who can't get into Raids
"
I lol'd at the sheer irony as we face-rolled the strike...and I gave him an obligatory stealth jab as we left the instance afterwards. It's not a skill thing or an intelligence thing. Again, we're all gamers in here. I've been doing wild, complicated, and sometimes EXTREMELY DIFFICULT things on PC and console for over 30 years. I can handle a Raid...I can't deal with "Raid-ERS." Or rather...I won't, and I'm not alone.
My suggestion is that you help your people find each other and help us casual folks group together.
"Dude...why don't you form your own group or join a guild?"
Yeah...HELP US DO THAT.
Do you not know anything about people? I mean, if we were gonna do that...we'd do that. We're smart, but It works better if you "herd" us in the right direction. I've had some success advertising Noob/Casual groups...but even then, I got the occasional "You guys are all bad. I'm logging to yell at my mom for more hot-pockets."
Give the LFG some love... Give us a queue and sort us by our group preferences - BAM. Example group preferences:
Dungeon Difficulty (please do this...) - Story mode, Explorable Mode, Epic Mode
Skill level slider - Beginner (0) to Expert (10)
Temperament slider (this is how you keep the 1337's in their own private sandbox) - Casual to Strict (i.e. - hardcore/elitist/narcissist)
Use in-game checks to keep "n00bz" and "bADz" out of their groups - because that's what they want. Use a behind-the-scenes gear score and experience counter to grey out groups that you're not qualified for. Then all of the elitists can find each other and all of us casuals and n00bz can laugh and wipe together. Or gasp actually attempt and complete this jerk-gated content.
More options:
[X] - Looking for guild
[X] - Recruiting for guild
[X] - Mentor/Trainer
[X] - Looking for training run
[X] - Looking for quick/speed run
[X] - I got all day and I don't care how many times we wipe.
Allright, end book. I hope ya'll figure it out before something new gets my attention. Guild Wars 2 is such a beautiful game with a lot of potential still. Fill your dungeons with decent rewards, buff the LFG...and for the love of cheese man...do more 5 man dungeons. We keep asking for it!
Zzzzzzzzzzzzz
How many times have Anet claimed to start listening only to then do whatever they want!
I like your addressing of Raids, but you're dodging the real reason (particularly for international players) why you're getting thin numbers playing them.
Me personally, I've always wanted to play raids, but here's the issue - the inherent drawback to these is that you hamstring them to only have weekly rewards. Weekly means every elitist and hardcore raider lining up at weekly reset and going balls to the wall in every raid wing, then nothing (or very limited groups) throughout the rest of the week. It's like 'we've sapped the rewards from the chest, time to go back to WvW... oh wait.. PvP or PvE it'll have to be, and chasing metas'.
Because of the time discrepancy and your reset, you'll have people still asleep in one part of the world, and others either at work or at school in another. By the time I get home from work and try to catch a raid group, that ship has long sailed. The LFG is dead quiet and there's very few people in the Aerodrome trying to get groups locally. Because of my apparent "behind the 8-ball" situation, I haven't been able to get a single raid group since they were part of the GW2 content, so I've tried to get into a practice group (many of them, actually), and none of them are ever on when I'm on, or despite best intentions, the group fails to form.
I do like your "ramp" idea of gettting people smoothly from Strike Missions into raids, but I'm afraid because of the above situation, I won't be able to tell anyone in a prospective raid group "ohh yeah dawg, I'm a boss at strike missions but I got zero experience in raids". As you'd expect, I'd be laughed out of the group while they /kick.
Timing is everything with raids. Not just in playing and rotations, knowing your character, the other 9 people you're with and especially the boss you gotta deal with and their mechanics, not to mention the map mechanics as well, but also when the best time is to get to play raids. I can look at as many youtube vids on how to defeat X boss all I like, but it won't help me being in that room with those people who've done this before, and expecting I'll know how to do my job properly. No, I gotta be on at the right time, and have the appropriate experience for the raid, geared properly, etc... and I'm sorry, but strike mission experience, as good as the intentions may be, just won't cut it in a room full of elitists and hardcores, and those expecting the raid to go 100% smoothly, not to mention those watching your individual DPS, etc.
Bottom line, for me, is that as far as I can see, the only real hope is to find a guild that does raids and is a bit more understanding of my situation, and hopefully they haven't done the whole weekly-reward thing already when I finally get on.
And those going to suggest "pay for a carry", sorry no, that's not how I do things. I'm here to learn this stuff but I'm stuck in a bad situation where I can't get to learn raids at all. I'm not giving up a good paying job just to play a game either.