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[Raids] Why raids in GW2 stayed niched


Yasi.9065

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Hi,

raids in GW2 are little pieces of art and game mechanic heaven, that sadly never really took off and now are well on their way to decline into nothingness. Thats extremely sad, because, well, as I said, raids in GW2 are so well designed. But there are several fundamental flaws with how they got implemented, and with GW2 in general tbh.

1. No clear roles - no clear balancing

GW2 started 2012 with the promise of tearing down the classical "roles" of tank, healer and dps. Instead you were supposed to counter incoming dmg by dodging and using your healskill for emergencies. Not to mention downstate instead of fulldeath. This worked to some extend in the core game, where certain boons werent as common as they later on were in HoT and even more so in PoF - aegis, stability, quickness, alacrity, resistance. But also because everything at this point was "optimized" around 5 dps builds. Raids have up to 10 available slots, and you suddenly need a tank and have room for a healer, but you also want those juicy boons for everybody, because they increase the dmg output more than adding another dps player.The mirrorsquad was born about 3-6 months after wing1 release for a reason. Per se nothing bad, but it limited the available class-slots a lot. In the beginning of raids, you'd run a very fixed comp and if your favorite class wasnt part of that comp, you had a hard time finding a raidsquad for a successful kill.Other mmos that have a traditional role setup try to either provide builds for each class to fill each role, or they designate a class to a role. So when you start playing a certain class, its either already a tank/support/dps at character creation, or (except for absolute high end instanced content) you can decide during the developement of your character which role to fill.In GW2 those roles didnt exist until raids. And then they were filled with the best in slot variations available. Not a good thing at all.On top of that, the balancing was - and still is - all over the place in terms of supporter builds. Anet is slowly working towards fixing this, but lets be honest here... its too little, way too late. Its still incredibly difficult to interchange support builds, because not all builds have access to the same boons. For beginners and LFG squads this directly translates into choosing 1 support comp that excludes all else. Ofc you can clear raids without a druid, my static does this regularly. But a druid is the easiest to fit into a chrono support comp. The LFG alone is pure nightmare if you want to run something other than 1x druid, 2x chrono. You want to run quickbrand instead of 1 chrono? Herald instead of druid? It always means more limitations on otherwise fully available dps - or healer - slots.

2. No difficulty scaling

In the beginning we were all little noobs, discovering raids together. So in the beginning, we didnt need difficulty scaling. Everybody was pretty much in the same boat and difficulties were solved by running a certain comp and using voice chat. However, about a year after wing1 release, this already was completely different. There were experienced players that raided several times per week, the weekly clearers and the newbies. Weekly clearers just wanted their kills, experienced raiders wanted challenge and newbies just wanted to get into raiding to start their journey towards being weekly clearers. For newbies there are the training guilds - though its getting less and less of those as well. But the weekly clearers and experienced raiders constantly clashed with each other. This caused a LOT of toxicity. It only now has died down because of the immense power creep that removed pretty much all challenge from raids and most of the hardcore raider community with it. Now you could say: well, thats solved then. But.... it isnt. Because those very invested players are needed to keep raids hyped, to test new strategies, new builds. They make it possible for new players, or casual players to just hop into raids and not have to theorycraft everything for themselves, not have to discover each little boss mechanic for themselves. In a way, the hardcore raiders are like teachers, showing you how its done. Ofc you can also learn to swim on your own - well, not everybody, but most - but its way easier (and faster!) to get it shown to you, isnt it?So, at the latest on wing5 release, we needed difficulty settings. Instead, anet tried to make raids easier but still engaging. Wing7 is a direct result of this, like canteen food that has no flavor so to offend nobody, it doesnt fit anyone. Too difficult for new players, too easy for experienced players.There have been several suggestions for easy modes, personally Id highly favor having a buff that gives boons+buffs periodically to each player. But we also need a hardmode to keep players engaged. No downstate debuff as hardmode would be an idea.But, no matter how anet implements it, raids without difficulty scaling can never survive longterm.

3. Fully frontloaded weekly reward system

Thats a really sore point for me. Because the reward system in raids basically translates into everybody clears raids once per week. That works out well if you:a) have enough raids andb) have a big enough raiding communityGW2 lacks both.

4. No longterm draw

Many raiders started getting into raids only for the legendary armor. It was supposed to be that constant draw to get in new players. However, while the design choices themselves are a matter of taste, the fact that you cant properly dye it just kills that longterm goal for most players. That leaves the legendary ring, but its not really a longterm goal to begin with.So, why even start raiding? You have to invest a lot of time getting into raids and the raid rewards arent really worth a lot (pretty much everything has higher rewards per hour compared to pugging raids if you dont need ascended stuff). The only draw left is that its the only instanced pve endcontent except fractals. But thats not enough, especially because of the issues with the weekly reward system, the lack of difficulty scaling.

So, theres several other problems, I know, but imo those 4 are whats kept raids from taking off.

And still, it was a very nice time overall for me - raiding in GW2. With all its ups and downs, memes and trolls. And I can only urge everybody to give it a try. If you've never been part of a static raidgroup, you havent experienced the real mmorpg feeling.

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Well written, though there are another reasons why raids are niche-content and these are - at least in my opinion - far more important to the subject than the reasons you've already stated: Firstly, the main game components (which is all the OW-stuff) are rather antisocial to begin with. There's no trace of conflict whatsoever. Even the combat-system in GW2 is rather antisocial. You don't really have to communicate whatsoever - even in hardcore content. Then there's the fact that raids are purely optional and don't yield anything you'd need for a proper gameplay-experience.

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  1. Small support from ArenaNet (not enough new wings, bosses). Progression is most important part of raiding. While GW2 lacks of real progression. Raids are based on farming same things over and over here.

  2. Most of the gw2 community is very casual.

  3. Whole PvE in GW2 is not engaging for many people (and pointless) which liked this game mode in other games. They do not feel the need to do it.

  4. Alot of people which likes raids already checked GW2 PvE and they didn't like it. And information which tells that there's no real PvE in GW2 has gone into the world. So raiders avoid this game.

  5. Underdeveloped raiding rewards system.

  6. Instability of ArenaNet. No schedules. Real plans. I mean. It looks like they do things at the last minute, which are not part of a larger whole.

These points means that GW2 probably won't be raiding mmo ever. It's probably possible to change it, but it would require A LOT of ArenaNet work. I mean working 24/7 as some other companies do, etc, etc.

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@Raizel.8175 said:Well written, though there are another reasons why raids are niche-content and these are - at least in my opinion - far more important to the subject than the reasons you've already stated: Firstly, the main game components (which is all the OW-stuff) are rather antisocial to begin with. There's no trace of conflict whatsoever. Even the combat-system in GW2 is rather antisocial. You don't really have to communicate whatsoever - even in hardcore content. Then there's the fact that raids are purely optional and don't yield anything you'd need for a proper gameplay-experience.

Very good point. Ive played MMOs from the start, so for me teamwork and communication just is something I did without thinking. But its absolutely true. In GW2 you dont need to do that - ever. Not very MMO-like at all.

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Comes down to the A-net not knowing what direction they want to take the game sadly. The first was more focused around PvP well this one isn't and it burned a ton of the original player base. Sure we had PvE and a storyline but all of it geared us up to go do the sweet, sweet guild/alliance battles which were funn as all get out. Enter Guild wars 2 and we are primarily and over world pve simulator, we lack any need to socialize and guilds are joke. Raiding can't be fixed until the previous issues are and I doubt there is a good way to do it really.

The player-base in the majority clearly enjoy this design, they don't want to have to interact with people and are also extremely casual. In-fact I've never seen casual elitist until this game and frankly its laughable; We also have class balance issues that make BFA blush and with ESO, Final fantasy online and WoW out there we can't compete with their PvE or their Raids. This game was also designed with the express Idea of not having raids, and not having mounts so im sure there are technical reasons why it takes so long to make raids.

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Really, the only flaw with raids is that they don't accommodate the majority of the people that play this game. Anet attracted a specific market with the things the game offered .. then they decided to do raids and do the opposite to the selling points that brought most of the people to the game. This guy gets it:

@thrag.9740 said:your way overthinking it. Its simple:

-gw2 is a casual game-raids are not casual

As a self-labeled casual, I want content I can log in, find a team and complete within 20-30 minutes ... that's not raids so ... I don't bother anymore. I'm probably not the only one that feels most raiding is out of their reach. Raids stay niche because they appeal and are most accessible by niche players.

They should have been:

  • 5 man
  • max 10-15 minutes each
  • two modes (easy and hard)
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The problem is that game doesnt require players to have any skill. There are no challanging parts of the game. Hot came out to fix that but was scaled down by backlash. Only semi-challanging part of the game are raids. Many players that dont play raids are simply not used to trying to overcome any obstackle. They are not used to interacting with players, caring about builds, waiting for teamates, trying to improve or in fact failing.

When I started raiding I wasnt perfect bu I enjoyed the chalkange. Something the game was lacking. I become better and now when I do anything else I always oneshot everything. I dont understand now how I could ever consider it hard.

Good example is queens gambit. I see many posts about how hard it is. I completed the title last year. At that time I was just starting with raids but I oneshoted all bosses exept liadri. I didnt manage to see any nechanics since the boss died in few seconds and I wasnt ever hit. Liadri took few tries because I actualy had to do some mechanics but it was very good feeling when I beated her.

Usualy players dont start because of raids or combat system. And then the dificulty jump is too much for them to try to learn.

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@thrag.9740 said:your way overthinking it. Its simple:

-gw2 is a casual game-raids are not casual

I'd argue about GW2 being a casual game. It truly isn't. What's casual are the skill-requirements for OW-content. But concerning time investment, GW2 is pretty hardcore. You could even argue that GW2 is grindier than some Asia-Grinders. The problem is rather the lack of difficulty progression and necessary learning curves in vital parts of the game, namely OW-content.

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@Raizel.8175 said:

@thrag.9740 said:your way overthinking it. Its simple:

-gw2 is a casual game-raids are not casual

I'd argue about GW2 being a casual game. It truly isn't. What's casual are the skill-requirements for OW-content. But concerning time investment, GW2 is pretty hardcore. You could even argue that GW2 is grindier than some Asia-Grinders. The problem is rather the lack of difficulty progression and necessary learning curves in vital parts of the game, namely OW-content.

What time investment are you talking about here? The couple hours you need to farm the gold for a full set of exotic gear to do almost ALL endgame content?

I mean, that kind of statement doesn't make sense in this game because you DON'T need to make these massive time investments to play it endgame. The time investment in this game is not hardcore at all, unless you CHOOSE to take that path when you don't actually need to.

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@Obtena.7952 said:

@"thrag.9740" said:your way overthinking it. Its simple:

-gw2 is a casual game-raids are not casual

I'd argue about GW2 being a casual game. It truly isn't. What's casual are the skill-requirements for OW-content. But concerning time investment, GW2 is pretty hardcore. You could even argue that GW2 is grindier than some Asia-Grinders. The problem is rather the lack of difficulty progression and necessary learning curves in vital parts of the game, namely OW-content.

What time investment are you talking about here? The couple hours you need to farm the gold for a full set of exotic gear to do almost ALL endgame content?

I mean, that kind of statement doesn't make sense in this game because you DON'T need to make these massive time investments to play it endgame. The time investment in this game is not hardcore at all, unless you CHOOSE to take that path when you don't actually need to.

I think you underestimate GW2 here. Just look at the masteries you have to complete, look at all the achievements, completing your characters by farming HPs, look at all the collections, all the meta events and world bosses you can do daily, maybe legendary weapons or the legendary LW-trinkets. There's a lot of time investment in OW alone. It only adds if you add stuff like fractals, maybe WvW, PvP or whatsoever. What is your average daily play time? Just one or two hours per day? Or 3+ hours where you could argue that you aren't really casual anymore?

In most cases, people claiming that GW2 is a casual game are just using that argument as an excuse. GW2 is casual-friendly, that's not the same as being casual in nature though. If it were casual in nature, the game would already be dead since people won't stay if there aren't long term goals. In that regard, "GW2 is a casual game" is always the most unfitting - since untrue - reason as to why raids in GW2 aren't successful.

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@Raizel.8175 said:

@"thrag.9740" said:your way overthinking it. Its simple:

-gw2 is a casual game-raids are not casual

I'd argue about GW2 being a casual game. It truly isn't. What's casual are the skill-requirements for OW-content. But concerning time investment, GW2 is pretty hardcore. You could even argue that GW2 is grindier than some Asia-Grinders. The problem is rather the lack of difficulty progression and necessary learning curves in vital parts of the game, namely OW-content.

What time investment are you talking about here? The couple hours you need to farm the gold for a full set of exotic gear to do almost ALL endgame content?

I mean, that kind of statement doesn't make sense in this game because you DON'T need to make these massive time investments to play it endgame. The time investment in this game is not hardcore at all, unless you CHOOSE to take that path when you don't actually need to.

I think you underestimate GW2 here. Just look at the masteries you have to complete, look at all the achievements, completing your characters by farming HPs, look at all the collections, all the meta events and world bosses you can do daily, maybe legendary weapons or the legendary LW-trinkets. There's a lot of time investment in OW alone. It only adds if you add stuff like fractals, maybe WvW, PvP or whatsoever. What is your average daily play time? Just one or two hours per day? Or 3+ hours where you could argue that you aren't really casual anymore?

In most cases, people claiming that GW2 is a casual game are just using that argument as an excuse. GW2 is casual-friendly, that's not the same as being casual in nature though. If it were casual in nature, the game would already be dead since people won't stay if there aren't long term goals. In that regard, "GW2 is a casual game" is always the most unfitting - since untrue - reason as to why raids in GW2 aren't successful.

That doesn't make sense ... the time investment isn't about how long it takes to do all the content in the game. Just because there is lots to do doesn't mean GW2 isn't a casual gaming experience. I mean, you're basically saying that even though the game is attracting casual players, it's not a casual game experience because it gives players choice to focus on long term goals? Those things aren't contradictory ... I know lots of casual players that work to the long term goals.

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@Nephalem.8921 said:

@Obtena.7952 said:They should have been:
  • 5 man
  • max 10-15 minutes each
  • two modes (easy and hard)

So basically fractals except that they have 4 modes.Each raid can be pugged in 30min. I've done it a lot. Only w5 needs some luck with the pug but most of the other wings are fairly common pugged in that time.

I'm not saying you can't pug a raid in 30 minutes. There is lots more about raids that keep people from doing them than the fact that they can be pugged in 30 minutes.

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@"ButcherofMalakir.4067" said:The problem is that game doesnt require players to have any skill. There are no challanging parts of the game. Hot came out to fix that but was scaled down by backlash. Only semi-challanging part of the game are raids. Many players that dont play raids are simply not used to trying to overcome any obstackle. They are not used to interacting with players, caring about builds, waiting for teamates, trying to improve or in fact failing.

When I started raiding I wasnt perfect bu I enjoyed the chalkange. Something the game was lacking. I become better and now when I do anything else I always oneshot everything. I dont understand now how I could ever consider it hard.

Good example is queens gambit. I see many posts about how hard it is. I completed the title last year. At that time I was just starting with raids but I oneshoted all bosses exept liadri. I didnt manage to see any nechanics since the boss died in few seconds and I wasnt ever hit. Liadri took few tries because I actualy had to do some mechanics but it was very good feeling when I beated her.

Usualy players dont start because of raids or combat system. And then the dificulty jump is too much for them to try to learn.

I really think that is the core of the issue that kind of feeds into two symptoms that make it hard for people to get into content like Raids.

There are threads in this forum complaining about the difficulty of story missions, even going as far as calling some of the story "bosses" impossible to beat, or claiming they take 30+ minutes of incredible frustration.That's content you can beat in 2-5 minutes pretty much just auto attacking while strafing, or in seconds playing properly, so something definitely went very very wrong there.

The amount of the player base of GW2 that never actually really engaged with the gameplay and combat systems is staggering.

On the other hand there is lack of communities.With how incredibly easy the vast majority of the content is, players never have any need in the game to group up to overcome some challenge, to learn from each other and to form bonds to call upon for future challenges.

Everybody is playing alone together, each in their own bubble, often with blatant misunderstandings about the game and it's mechanics, unwilling to interact, learn, improve and to adapt.

So the ease of content has formed these incredibly stubborn, ignorant but at the same time arrogant players, who not only don't really want to challenge themselves, because GW2 offers plenty of paths with not only less but no resistance, but are also lacking any and all connections to other players to call upon to tackle this more interesting content together, which would be making it way more fun.

It's just such a shame, because even though Raids and Fractal CM's aren't actually that difficult at all, they are some of the, if not the best content I have ever played in any MMO or online game in general in two decades.

But everything in GW2 is about the path of least resistance and if it's easier to dhuumsay or hate on Raids than to actually get a nice group together give them a proper shot, then that's the way to go.Even though there surely are people who just don't have the capacity or time to clear that kind of content, I'm convinced the vast majority of people would do just fine and have a blast with it, if they just gave it a proper shot and would be willing to learn something new and to improve, which imo is what's rewarding about video games and a huge contributor to what makes them fun.It's just that the core of the game has trained them not to ever put in any effort and they will still be just fine.

I don't see anything short of a combination of a major balance pass on the core game and story, implementation of proper tutorial systems and a focus shift in both development and advertising to repeatable and challenging content able to fix this situation. And that's not happening.

So I will enjoy what good and engaging content there is for as long as I can. But the major missed opportunity with GW2 is gnawing on me since quite some time.

Watching people with completely nonsensical combinations of gear, trait and weapon choices struggle to beat mobs over minutes that can literally be killed in less than 10 seconds without taking a hit, crying for them to be nerfed and Anet complying is quite the tragedy, and it feels like it's slowly crushing this game.

@Obtena.7952 said:As a self-labeled casual, I want content I can log in, find a team and complete within 20-30 minutes ... that's not raids so ... I don't bother anymore. I'm probably not the only one that feels most raiding is out of their reach. Raids stay niche because they appeal and are most accessible by niche players.

With a healthy community that would have been Raids though. If Anet had pushed this content more, we would be in a world where you can LFG a Raid Wing at any time and quickly clear it in 20-30 minutes, which isn't difficult at all to do.They are really not that hard or niche. It's just that the very small community makes it hard to get going, and downtime due to looking and waiting for people contributes to about 60-80% of the time spend pugging.

@Obtena.7952 said:They should have been:

  • 5 man
  • max 10-15 minutes each
  • two modes (easy and hard)

I do think Fractals fill that role already though.There definitely was and is a place for Raids in the game, they just needed a bigger push and better support and lead in from the core game.

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@Obtena.7952 said:Really, the only flaw with raids is that they don't accommodate the majority of the people that play this game. Anet attracted a specific market with the things the game offered .. then they decided to do raids and do the opposite to the selling points that brought most of the people to the game. This guy gets it:

@"thrag.9740" said:your way overthinking it. Its simple:

-gw2 is a casual game-raids are not casual

As a self-labeled casual, I want content I can log in, find a team and complete within 20-30 minutes ... that's not raids so ... I don't bother anymore. I'm probably not the only one that feels most raiding is out of their reach. Raids stay niche because they appeal and are most accessible by niche players.

They should have been:
  • 5 man
  • max 10-15 minutes each
  • two modes (easy and hard)

I've pugged many explorable path dungeons that with new people took over 30 mins.And they only had one difficulty scale.I've seen Deepstone take a half hour on t1, it's a pretty long fractal.

If the Secret Lair of the Snowmen had taken 45 minutes, it would have been no less casual by virtue of it's difficulty alone.Look how long people will spend Lab farming at Halloween....in groups of 20+.

I get what you are driving at but this whole "They should be x to be labelled as accessible" is an personal and arbitrary judgement that ultimately makes a meme of your point and devalues it.

Casual players often point to Scruffy 2.0 or Hearts and Minds as inaccessible.Victory or Death is every bit as time consuming as either but you rarely see a complaint.The difference is that one of those fights is won by pressing F.

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@mindcircus.1506 said:

@Obtena.7952 said:Really, the only flaw with raids is that they don't accommodate the majority of the people that play this game. Anet attracted a specific market with the things the game offered .. then they decided to do raids and do the opposite to the selling points that brought most of the people to the game. This guy gets it:

@"thrag.9740" said:your way overthinking it. Its simple:

-gw2 is a casual game-raids are not casual

As a self-labeled casual, I want content I can log in, find a team and complete within 20-30 minutes ... that's not raids so ... I don't bother anymore. I'm probably not the only one that feels most raiding is out of their reach. Raids stay niche because they appeal and are most accessible by niche players.

They should have been:
  • 5 man
  • max 10-15 minutes each
  • two modes (easy and hard)

I've pugged many explorable path dungeons that with new people took over 30 mins.And they only had one difficulty scale.I've seen Deepstone take a half hour on t1, it's a pretty long fractal.

If the Secret Lair of the Snowmen had taken 45 minutes, it would have been no less casual by virtue of it's difficulty alone.Look how long people will spend Lab farming at Halloween....in groups of 20+.

I get what you are driving at but this whole "They should be x to be labelled as accessible" is an personal and arbitrary judgement that ultimately makes a meme of your point and devalues it.

Casual players often point to Scruffy 2.0 or Hearts and Minds as inaccessible.Victory or Death is every bit as time consuming as either but you rarely see a complaint.The difference is that one of those fights is won by pressing F.

You're right, making some arbitrary baseline is personal, but I don't think it makes my point meme worthy ... the fact is that devs MUST do this all the time to decide what difficulty ANY content is, appropriate for the audience.

Bottomline is this: raids aren't casual accessible, HOWEVER you want to define what casual is. Maybe I can't tell you what casual is exactly, but I know what it isn't ...

@Asum.4960 said:With a healthy community that would have been Raids though. If Anet had pushed this content more, we would be in a world where you can LFG a Raid Wing at any time and quickly clear it in 20-30 minutes, which isn't difficult at all to do.

Um, no ... let's not assume we have a 'if we make it, they will come' situation here just to be on the right side of the fence. Anet could push this content all they wanted, but if it's not casual-friendly, casual players aren't going to do it.

I think the main problem with raids isn't difficulty, though I think that is ONE of the problems. I think it's primarily the fact that learning all the dance moves to win the Raid Wing dance contests isn't interesting to a casual player. They just aren't forgiving to a mis-step.

We can justify how 'easy' raids are all we want, but having been on both sides of the fence, I can tell you that lots of players find this content a significant challenge and thus, inaccessible to them.

@Asum.4960 said:I do think Fractals fill that role already though.There definitely was and is a place for Raids in the game, they just needed a bigger push and better support and lead in from the core game.

They do, but they miss one thing ... casuals like to get legendary gear too. Not disagreeing that there isn't a place for Raids ... it's just a very small place for a suspected small number of players. I doubt you will EVER see a bigger push for raids as they are because it's a message to the players that GW2 is no longer trying to differentiateitself in the market and continue to serve the market it attracted in the first place. A push for more raids and raid-like content is a sign to these players Anet forgot who's paying the bills.

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@Yasi.9065 said:

1. No clear roles - no clear balancing

HeeeeeeeeeeeeeehNo.

Same reason I tell people that balance isn't killing PvP either.You need to play a game mode lot to notice Meta issues. To play a lot means that you have already started playing.

The gamemode is a niche not because people are playing and quitting, but because we have more people quitting than new players joining.Balance is not at fault.

@Yasi.9065 said:

2. No difficulty scaling

I find this half-right, half-wrong.

Half right that yes, Raids need an entry point that is not called fractals.Half Wrong because GW2 Raids are actually easier compared to other MMos. If you were to scale difficulty, it needs to actually be harder.

These can be solved in a myriad of ways, for starters, ANET could actually standardize the PvE instanced content in this game so bosses actually have clear tells and mechanics. Just so players can ACTUALLY train for raid mechanics outside of say... raiding.People would have an easier time understanding Greens if they actually see this mechanic, in a less lethal form, somewhere else.ANET need to do a full overhaul of dungeons, fractals, entrance raids, and hard ones so that there is an "actual learning flow". This way people notice things are getting progressively harder instead of the "abyss gap" between Open World content and Vale.

It isn't a wonder that people give up raiding right at the start.

@Yasi.9065 said:

3. Fully frontloaded weekly reward system

4. No longterm draw

Lack of proper rewards outside some exclusive skins and farming for legendary doesn't help either. That said, Raiders are not lacking on money.I guess that Raids need another progression system exclusive for them. Or anything that incentive to continue running then longterm

@Yasi.9065 said:So, theres several other problems, I know, but imo those 4 are whats kept raids from taking off.

Having to join a guild/discord just to start raiding is the worse of all."Oh look, you just need to change your whole build, your class choice, learn a role, learn a overcomplex rotation that changes ever patch notes, spent hours reading and watching guides, joining a practice guild, joining a discord, register, learn how to find a party, find said party, set a date, wipe for hours (the fun part, btw) to get the first raid victory, repeat all those steps 250Li times and then you are now a "Raider" that can actually join PUG parties.For what? Repeat this process another hundred times for a legendary armor?

^^ Now you understand why raiding is a niche?

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@Obtena.7952 said:You're right, making some arbitrary baseline is personal, but I don't think it makes my point meme worthy ... the fact is that devs MUST do this all the time to decide what difficulty ANY content is, appropriate for the audience.The point is not meme-worthy. The way you try and make it certainly is though.Bottomline is this: raids aren't casual accessible, HOWEVER you want to define what casual is. Maybe I can't tell you what casual is exactly, but I know what it isn't ...Or maybe you can just accept some of the content and rewards of this game will not be suited to your personal play-style... no matter how badly you want the shinies. That there will be things that are not for you.You could even prove yourself enlightened and be cool about it. You could accept that your casual playstyle keeps you from certain rewards, and be happy that those who are less casual have something to maintain long-term engagement in this game. You could also take solace in the fact that this game doesnt lock all it's BiS stats gear behind raids like many many others do.Or you can just keep losing your mind every time the topic of raids comes up and reminds you that you do not have legendary armor.Choice is yours really.

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@mindcircus.1506 said:

@Obtena.7952 said:You're right, making some arbitrary baseline is personal, but I don't think it makes my point meme worthy ... the fact is that devs MUST do this all the time to decide what difficulty ANY content is, appropriate for the audience.The point is not meme-worthy. The way you try and make it certainly is though.Bottomline is this: raids aren't casual accessible, HOWEVER you want to define what casual is. Maybe I can't tell you what casual is exactly, but I know what it isn't ...Or maybe you can just accept some of the content and rewards of this game will not be suited to your personal play-style... no matter how badly you want the shinies. That there will be things that are not for you.You could even prove yourself enlightened and be cool about it. You could accept that your casual playstyle keeps you from certain rewards, and be happy that those who are less casual have something to maintain long-term engagement in this game. You could also take solace in the fact that this game doesnt lock all it's BiS stats gear behind raids like many many others do.Or you can just keep losing your mind every time the topic of raids comes up and reminds you that you do not have legendary armor.Choice is yours really.

I think you're being assuming here; I'm not here to complain about not having legendary armor. I've accepted a long time ago I'm not getting the raid shinies ... I'm simply saying why in relation to the discussion that has happening here. I'm certainly not losing my mind over it and I've never made any indication I'm going to. Maybe you're looking for an argument; you won't find it here. Trust me, I'm not losing sleep that raids aren't a huge deal in this game ...

If you want to understand why raids aren't bigger in this game, look at the content that this game was founded on and compare with raids. Someone mentioned that if Anet pushed the raid content more, it would be more popular; that formula is pretty simple ... people want loot, but they don't want to change their game lifestyle to get it ... If Anet wants to push the content, ANY content, that content needs to be appealing to more of the people that bought into this game, its fundamental philosophies and the kinds of content it was founded on.

I get people don't want raids dumbed down for the masses ... but if raids are to be bigger with more focus and effort from the devs, there definitely needs to be a more 'masses-friendly' option. Otherwise, enjoy your 1 raid every 9 months schedule and your cosmetic raid loot.

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@Obtena.7952 said:

@"Asum.4960" said:With a healthy community that would have been Raids though. If Anet had pushed this content more, we would be in a world where you can LFG a Raid Wing at any time and quickly clear it in 20-30 minutes, which isn't difficult at all to do.

Um, no ... let's not assume we have a
'if we make it, they will come
' situation here just to be on the right side of the fence. Anet could push this content all they wanted, but if it's not casual-friendly, casual players aren't going to do it.

I think the main problem with raids isn't difficulty, though I think that is ONE of the problems. I think it's primarily the fact that learning all the dance moves to win the Raid Wing dance contests isn't interesting to a casual player. They just aren't forgiving to a mis-step.

We can justify how 'easy' raids are all we want, but having been on both sides of the fence, I can tell you that lots of players find this content a significant challenge and thus, inaccessible to them.

I'm not saying all casual players will flock to content like Raids if it's just supported better and advertised more, of course not.But I do believe it would be a significantly larger part of the "community", especially if there was such a thing as proper communities and challenging content out in the open world and such that facilitated the forming of them.

For so many people all that keeps them from Raiding is having 9 other people they are comfortable with messing up in front of and to learn and improve with together.That in tandem with core content that made people more considerate of their builds and performance, as well as gently guiding them towards out of game resources to educate themselves with would go such a long way.

Some casuals are just players who haven't yet found anything to be hardcore about or anyone to be hardcore with (phrasing).I certainly thought Raids weren't for me at all when they came in with HoT, and it took me around 2 years to even try them, as I was an adamant solo player.The reason, the little push, that got me into Raids, not being able to earn Spirit Shards while running around doing my solo stuff casually because of having to complete the Raid masteries for that, got removed shortly after, presumably due to being too inaccessible, or something.

Now Raids and the community I formed due to them, by taking the steps (or leap, rather) to get invested into that content and finding/building a group that's right for me, is one of the biggest parts of the game for me and has been the primary source of enjoyment with the game for the last 2 years.If it wasn't for that little incentive "forcing" me into Raids, I might have never experienced that content, definitely never met any of those people and maybe I would be sitting here now arguing how Raids is just not for me or how they don't have a place in the game, or maybe I would have even long stopped playing.

The thing is, the smaller a community sub section like Raiders or Fractal CM runners gets in combination with being starved for new content, the more hardcore that community gets over time, having nothing left but mastering what little content they have, farming up KP with endlessly rising requirements, instead of having a balancing constant stream of newcomers creating their own groups and trainings to provide an easy in for more new people.

That in combination with long waiting times due to lack of people, taking away the hotjoin feel (as well as, again, lack of own communities to play together with), is making it incredibly difficult for more casual players to consume Raids in a more casual way, which otherwise would absolutely be possible.

Sometimes all the game needs is to provide a ramp for people to get up to and then to give them a little push.

@Obtena.7952 said:

@"Asum.4960" said:I do think Fractals fill that role already though.There definitely was and is a place for Raids in the game, they just needed a bigger push and better support and lead in from the core game.

They do, but they miss one thing ... casuals like to get legendary gear too. Not disagreeing that there isn't a place for Raids ... it's just a very small place for a suspected small number of players. I doubt you will EVER see a bigger push for raids as they are because it's a message to the players that GW2 is no longer trying to differentiateitself in the market and continue to serve the market it attracted in the first place. A push for more raids and raid-like content is a sign to these players Anet forgot who's paying the bills.

GW2 differentiates itself from the competition in plenty of ways, the combat system and progression systems as well as a lack of a sub-fee being the prime examples.Raids don't change a thing about that, and aren't about grinding gear progression like it most other games, but skill based.

As to who is paying the bills, I'm guessing that's the extreme minority of players dubbed "Whales" who spend exorbitant amounts of money on the game, like pretty much any other MTX driven business model.If anything I would think the average hardcore Raider logging in every day to play for hours spends more on the game than the average casual who checks in once or twice a week or even just every 3 months, but I reckon both are insubstantial compared to the big spenders who drop thousands a month.Generally the vast majority, especially on the extreme casual end, either never spends anything at all, or extremely little.

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to add another minor factor.while it was good for people outside the community to call it RAIDS (oh, , they have raids now, i will try it out) it was a mistake considering the current playerbase.for some reason: RAIDS = BAD!If they would have called it "Group Adventure", "Megadungeon", etc, ..... a lot more people would have at least checked it out and maybe stick to it instead of saying things like "raids do not belong in OUR game", "i quit X because of raids", " i only start playing because gw2 does not have raids" and not even giving it a try.there are still people here claiming that friends of them quit because raids were added. imagine beeing triggered like that.

generally i can mostly agree with op.especially the - "If you've never been part of a static raidgroup, you havent experienced the real mmorpg feeling." part.rest of the game (while beeing a very good game) always felt quite bland to me for an MMO regarding human interactions.

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It's something that I've been thinking about for awhile, but GW2 has legitimately become harder to play over time. The simple rotations get nerfed, quickness and alacrity became staple boons that ultimately require faster fingers to use, as well as more traits becoming less "passive" as time goes on. While this is all done for the goal of making the game skillfull, the side-effect of all this is that base level competency of all players is incredibly low.

Back when I did baseline DPS tests, I came to discover that, for most professions, their power DPS at base is about half of what their benchmark (AKA expected DPS) , and condi DPS is a third of their benchmark. This is... pretty bad, actually. I've played a couple of online games, and GW2 is the one that is the worst at this. But, all of those tests don't tell the whole story. They presumed competent builds with full ascended gear and food buffs, fighting alongside of other equally competent players in a pre-made composition. As much as we presume those are given here on the forums, the truth is that they're really not.

Traits and skills in GW2 are designed solely with PVP in mind. The PVE damage and application of these is purely coincidental. This means that there is a lot of traits and utilities that are either incredibly inefficient or tactically useless. The good news is that our toons were designed to survive with base HP and defenses. The bad news is, this information isn't broadcast or widely known. The common sense decision is to build your toon with a mixture of defensive stats and traits, because this is what any reasonable person would do for a PVP build or if they've played an RPG before. But, this is the wrong choice for GW2 PVE. The average player is walking through PVE without damage oriented traits, without damage oriented gear, using inefficient weapons and utilities.

Likewise, the tactics used aren't apparent. How few players know what good CC is, is proof enough. A lot of other games, they'll sort of baby you with their skill design. The best way to do DPS is to either use all of the damage-designated skills, or to use a small handful for when they are needed. But, GW2 is not like other games: just because a skill says it does damage doesn't mean that it's actually good at damage. Everything is merged into this blob of damage, condi, and additional effects. There's no ubiquity across weapon sets, so a player is left to intuit the DPS (which is a far more complicated concept than just damage) of all of their skills. This leads to most players just spamming their skills of cooldown.

The rotations of this game are hard. In spite of playing since beta and being a regular fractal runner for many years, I still can't do them. Best I can get is about 80% of the simple rotations, and 60% of the bad ones. The worst one for me is mirage, for which I discovered after several hours of practice that I could do just as much damage by auto attacking and spamming dodge as I could by best attempts at the META rotation. The point being that, to achieve acceptable levels of performance, a player is going to need a high end machine, an excellent internet connection, well health, as well as at least a full 24 hours of non-consecutive practice against the training golem. Which, of course, the average player isn't going to bother with. When they get told they're entitled because they expected to do well after only three consecutive hours of practice on the training golem with a few more non-consecutive attempts, the average player is just going to blow the whole thing off and go do something fun. Having to memorize canceling priority and dance around the keyboard like a concert pianist is not fun.

Guild Wars 2 is the only game I've ever played where your character is incompetent by default. It is the only game I've ever played where you have to summon all of the strength and energy I can muster just to fail at getting things to work properly. This... is terrible design. When people see me play GW2, it doesn't pique their interest. It turns them off. It looks like a mess, trying to use all of the skills properly. Imagine if we imported all of this over to a standard game. Doom, for instance:

(1): Most guns have hidden debuffs that reduce the damage they do severely. Only the "right" gun works at full capacity.(2): You are not told what the right gun is.(3): You are randomly given wrong guns all the time.(4): Armor pickups cause your bullets to have drastically wider scatter and imprecision.(5): You must play Dance Dance Revolution with your number keys to fire your gun.(6): The difficulty of Dance Dance Revolution varies wildly with different types of guns.
(7): The speed of Dance Dance Revolution also varies depending on how many marines you've rescued.(8): All of the demons are extremely slow and feeble, except for large ones that are at full power and double speed(9): All guns have a ranking, and to get the high ranking guns you have to gather ammo for 100 hours of game time to afford it.(10): There's a hidden bash mechanic that is necessary to make the larger demons vulnerable. This is explained nowhere.(11): You have to trick out your Xbox with expensive add-ons, otherwise your character moves and shoots at reduced speed.(12): Everyone else who plays this game is high aggro over how "fine" this all is, and can get incredibly hostile at everyone who doesn't know this.

Sounds silly, right? In a good FPS, all of your weapons are simple and effective. You just press "RT" to get the job done. The challenge comes from the environment and the enemies, not the interface and acquiring special knowledge. At launch, GW2 was like this, too. The highest damaging rotations were pretty simple and required only a few skills. But after two expansions and several changes in game philosophy, and now the we've got the current game.

The barrier to entry for high level content in this game is nigh insurmountable for the new player. We at the top don't notice this, because we're so used to the climb that we fail to see exactly how high it is.

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