Was Wing 7 a let down?

[lightinthedark.2596]

SO I cannot really be bothered to do W7 anymore whereas I still do 1-4 on a regular basis. I just find the whole Djinn aesthetic dull and the fights themselves were utilising same the old stale mechanics; jumping , red circles, get into the bubble, or one shot etc etc. It is a rather soulless and tedious experience and I don't find it fun to play at all so I'm passing on it. I hope the next raid wing, if there is one is a more unique and unexpected setting with a fresh take on mechanics. I'm bored of the same go to mechs they use, and this bizarre ritual they have of giving one or two people truly shitty roles to do the whole fight; dhuum kiting, demios hand kiter, pylons and lamp in qadim etc etc.

Think out of the box. Research other mmo's and see what FF and WOW do. Even SWTOR comes up with more innovative thinking Raid wise. Raids in GW2 started out so good but it feels like ANET has lost their mojo.

[Yasi.9065]

The challange modes were like... eh what? Thats it? Very boring. Didnt even have to understand the boss fight to beat challenge mode.On the other hand theres too many coordinated mechanics for beginner groups to make this a good beginner raid.Really weird raid that showcases why we need easy, normal and hardmode.

[zealex.9410]

@Yasi.9065 said:The challange modes were like... eh what? Thats it? Very boring. Didnt even have to understand the boss fight to beat challenge mode.On the other hand theres too many coordinated mechanics for beginner groups to make this a good beginner raid.Really weird raid that showcases why we need easy, normal and hardmode.

We dont need 3 modes, 2 are enough. Just take the current and make the nm easier and the cm harder.

[RaidsAreEasyAF.8652]

Too easy for half decent statics, too hard for casual players. Leaving the wing in a really weird spot were almost no one is happy.Honestly, the CM´s should have once again been the normal mode. Especially Qadim feels like hes missing mechanics in normal mode.

[sokeenoppa.5384]

It was bad but it wasn't w3 Bad.

[ButcherofMalakir.4067]

I have to say adina carries the whole wing. Very interesting fight. Sabir is quite easy but it can still be enjoyable. Biggest dissapointment is qadim. I would expect last boss to be the hardest and not the easiest.Also one of the most frustrating things about this wing is that you cannot go inside qadims and sabirs hitbox. It would be ok for me if that was like KC. You die if you go there. But pushing players away feels like social ackwardness....

[Xar.6279]

W7 unfortunately had to be easy. It's already not about W7 at all to be honest. It all started much earlier. W7 is only a consequence of these negligence.There's already no real raiding audience in GW2 to do hard raids for them. Most of them left months/years ago. So ArenaNet made something easy to attract more people. At least try to attract more people.

You won't keep raiders interested when you release new wings (with 2/3 bosses) once per year. Progression is most important part of raiding. While GW2 lacks of real progression. "Raids" are based on farming same things over and over here. IMO this content shouldn't be called "raid" anymore tbh. They should rename it. Because the name is misleading everyone. Doing those "raids" feels more like doing normal pve. Like dungeons or fractals. But not raids as we know from other mmorpg's. Renaming it may also bring more casuals to this content.

[lightinthedark.2596]

I think I agree with the other poster that said earlier, its easy for veterans but not easy enough for inexperienced players.. Its sort of between a rock and a hard place and I personally find it extremely uninspiring. It feels lazy to me..like they had to rush SOMETHING out to appease the raiders. It lacks the style and interest of the first few wings. I mean even to this day, people love doing gorsey.

[Ayrilana.1396]

The gate event is the best raid encounter ever. I’ve never found anything so engaging.

[vyncius.6105]

I kinda like Adina fight

[Lexi.1398]

I feel like the inbetween events could be 1. harder 2. more interesting. All the not-bosses in other wings were mostly fun and interesting events to do with mechanics often exclusive to that event, and also fairly difficult (not the hardest thing in the world for sure- but not easy). Adashim not-boss events felt very bland and more like open world, i could fall asleep to them.

I wouldn't say the bosses are my favourite in the world, though the lack of interesting visuals really attributes here, but they're fun enough for me. When i saw the trailer i was expecting some interesting looking branded creature bosses- but quadim aside, they're basically normal djinn. While not all raid bosses did have an interesting design, my favourites are definitely those which got their own exclusive model- sam, deimos and gorse are pretty notable ones. Mechanic wise, i think most of them have high punishment for rather simple mechanics- this results in the too hard/too easy thing. Once you know what's going on it's not difficult to do.... but until then you die over and over as small failures are often punished by instant-downs.

[Nephalem.8921]

The challenge modes should have been the normal mode again. Qadim feels like half a boss in normal. Its w4 bosses 1-3 all over again.

[Talindra.4958]

I like the difficulty level of w7 being a pug raider and i enjoyed the cm for air and earth.But as per mechanic.. as longas its ping friendly im ok. And yes it should be more creative on game play not just using what currently have ..eg green, aoe, all move to shield .. etc.. maybe some players can give some ideas?

[Astralporing.1957]

@RaidsAreEasyAF.8652 said:Too easy for half decent statics, too hard for casual players. Leaving the wing in a really weird spot were almost no one is happy.This. If they want to keep the hardcore community satisfied, the difficulty level should be at w5 level (or even higher). If they want to get more players on board however, the difficulty (and simplicity) should be at around w4 level at most.

@Talindra.4958 said:But as per mechanic.. as longas its ping friendly im ok. And yes it should be more creative on game play not just using what currently have ..eg green, aoe, all move to shield .. etc.. maybe some players can give some ideas?There's a ton of mechanics that can be taken from other games. Especially those in FF XIV seem really compatible with gw2 system. Meteors (those where you need to hide behind the obstacle to shield from the blast, those that are a proximity-based damage, so you need to move away, and those where one player needs to stand below to eat the damage and prevent a raidwide explosion), gazes (where you need to look away from the boss or gaze-afflicted player), spread markers (this partially already exist as bombs mechanic, but there could be more variations to this. the opposite - stack markers - i think we could safely ignore in gw2, as people keep stacking enough already), mechanics that move the players and try to push them into aoes/off the platform (so you need to position yourself well in preparation for it), for example, all would work well in GW2

[thrag.9740]

I find it disappointing but not so much from a game play perspective, but for slightly different reasons.

Rewards:
I'm incredibly disappointed that Anet decided to release a portable gaeting exchange for qadim cm rather than unlock additional functionality in the portable magnetite exchange. In fact in the past, I made two threads trying to prevent this (https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/40712/add-gaeting-to-portable-vendor-and-mounts-in-w1-4#latest and https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/55838/portable-magnetite-shard-exchange-needs-to-be-updated/p1?new=1). Very disappointed Anet didn't listen to those. Also the fact that LD literally have no long term sink and we can only craft a single legendary ring after all that is very disappointing. Also the fact that they took years to implement these disappointing rewards.

Bugs:Are the floating mines on the earth cardinal intentional? This seems like a bug that has persisted in game for months after release? Its very annoying to have to guess whether the mines are real or fake. Also, way too easy to accidentally get stuck beneath the floor if you fall. Yeah, I get it, don't fall. But if you do, either kills us instantly like in cm, or don't. Random buggy behavior is just annoying.

Game play:More kiters for qadim. I don't consider playing a mini game separated from the group a great mechanic. At first, kiting in raids was alright, sabetha has interesting stuff you can do as kiter. But then it got really bad really fast with deimos. Qadim 1.0 isn't much better. At least the kiters in qadim 2.0 can attack the boss. But the members of my static who get assigned to kiting eventually find it boring in the long term. It seems to me that part of playing group content is actually being with the group.

Also, I find it disappointing that a POF raid gives you a huge advantage for HOT masteries while not using POF materies. Gliding is crazy strong for both cardinal fights. And yet we still have literally no use of mounts in any pof raids, not even for something like the gate event to open wing 7. I would of way prefered something unique and creative involving mounts rather than the, 'stand in circle to capture it' event we got.

[lightinthedark.2596]

@thrag.9740 said:

Game play:More kiters for qadim. I don't consider playing a mini game separated from the group a great mechanic. At first, kiting in raids was alright, sabetha has interesting stuff you can do as kiter. But then it got really bad really fast with deimos. Qadim 1.0 isn't much better. At least the kiters in qadim 2.0 can attack the boss. But the members of my static who get assigned to kiting eventually find it boring in the long term. It seems to me that part of playing group content is actually being with the group.

Also, I find it disappointing that a POF raid gives you a huge advantage for HOT masteries while not using POF materies. Gliding is crazy strong for both cardinal fights. And yet we still have literally no use of mounts in any pof raids, not even for something like the gate event to open wing 7. I would of way prefered something unique and creative involving mounts rather than the, 'stand in circle to capture it' event we got.

I absolutely agree with all of this. When the talk about POF raids began, I thought they are BOUND to include mounts in someway, like using raptors to escape a collapsing area or something. In effect all they did was have the rather token sand portals for the Jackals. Instead of giving someone one shitty job like KITING, they could have thought out of the box and required someone to use a raptor to collect an artefact in a fight or ANYTHING.

[lightinthedark.2596]

@Ayrilana.1396 said:The gate event is the best raid encounter ever. I’ve never found anything so engaging.

But what about River Road haha

[zealex.9410]

Just make nm easier then take a week or 2 and release a proper hard cm, like in all other mmos that have a trace of respect for such content. You end up pleasing way more ppl that way.

[zealex.9410]

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@RaidsAreEasyAF.8652 said:Too easy for half decent statics, too hard for casual players. Leaving the wing in a really weird spot were almost no one is happy.This. If they want to keep the hardcore community satisfied, the difficulty level should be at w5 level (or even higher). If they want to get more players on board however, the difficulty (and

simplicity

) should be at around w4 level at most.

@Talindra.4958 said:But as per mechanic.. as longas its ping friendly im ok. And yes it should be more creative on game play not just using what currently have ..eg green, aoe, all move to shield .. etc.. maybe some players can give some ideas?There's a ton of mechanics that can be taken from other games. Especially those in FF XIV seem really compatible with gw2 system. Meteors (those where you need to hide behind the obstacle to shield from the blast, those that are a proximity-based damage, so you need to move away, and those where one player needs to stand below to eat the damage and prevent a raidwide explosion), gazes (where you need to look away from the boss or gaze-afflicted player), spread markers (this partially already exist as bombs mechanic, but there could be more variations to this. the opposite - stack markers - i think we could safely ignore in gw2, as people keep stacking enough already), mechanics that move the players and try to push them into aoes/off the platform (so you need to position yourself well in preparation for it), for example, all would work well in GW2

We do have proper gaze mechanics tho they could go further with it. They coupd also look at wow and take cleansing based mechanics from that game as well.

Another thing they could take from ff14 is the ability to hide other player's attacks and aoes.

[Cyninja.2954]

I agree on the CMs being to easy compared to the normal fights (though I did enjoy Qadim 2 CM).

I disagree with this wing being to hard for new players. On the contrary, when playing this wing I am reminded of Black Wing Layer in WoW. The wing has a common theme among all its bosses: do the f-ing mechanics and don't let people die (for people who do not know, most vanilla WoW raids had a main mechanic associated with them and Black Wing Layer was all designed around managing your boss threat). Sabir and Adina don't have many mechanics and even Qadim 2 has many repeating mechanics.

All the fights greatly reward having a full squad available at the end and all of them become significantly harder when losing players on the way. The damage required is quite low but the mechanics are quite important. It's a great wing to practice coordination.

As far as PUG groups, I don't consider raid content and how it's designed from the view of PUG squads and I don't believe coordinated group content should be balanced around random players making squads. It's great when people manage, but this content is supposedly designed for coordinated groups.