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@Rhiannon.1726 said:The problem of threads like this is that there is a huge variety of opinions how easy it should get. Just look at the strike mission. Nearly everyone is complaining that it is too easy.

The OP said „Easy mode- reduced mechanics and dps check…”Let’s use this for Escort, MO and even Cairn:There is no relevant dps check (though I don’t know what happens at MO if you reach enrage) so you’d have to remove one mechanic (or make it less deadly) -> you’ll get an open world escort event or a dps golem with the difficulty level of the strike mission.Who would be happy about that?

Well, yes, those encounters would be painfully easy. But they would be the same encounters and could be used for training for the real thing, challenge mote, or hard mode, or it's challenge mote. So they provide a skills ladder where the actual fight mechanics have been seen.

And the other half of my concept, is a harder mode as well. So, yes escort on easy would be very very easy. That's OK, because normal would still exist, cm on normal would still exist, hard mode would be added, and cm for hard mode added.

Now there's a ladder.

Learn Xera on joke mode, scale up...

Now the elitists are where the should be. At the top. And the newbs are where the should be... In the laughably easy mode learning how to get past it.

Having THE SAME CONTENT stratified by difficulty, by nature stratifies elitism. Hence why there is virtually no elitism in fractals until tier 4. (or after few wipes on a tier 3)

Also, my suggestions of 'reduced mechanics and dps check' would have to be adapted per boss. Maybe easy bosses don't enrage? Maybe MO's floor doesn't insta-kill you but insta-down you. There's tons of ways to make the difficulty of each fight lower.

Samarog's break bar is smaller, and his split phase goes faster because Riggom and Guldam have reduced hp.

I'm just throwing ideas, but it really doesn't matter if easy mode is too easy. Play a harder mode. That would be the point. Play with others at your skill level.

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@BrokenGlass.9356 said:

@"Rhiannon.1726" said:The problem of threads like this is that there is a huge variety of opinions how easy it should get. Just look at the strike mission. Nearly everyone is complaining that it is too easy.

The OP said „Easy mode- reduced mechanics and dps check…”Let’s use this for Escort, MO and even Cairn:There is no relevant dps check (though I don’t know what happens at MO if you reach enrage) so you’d have to remove one mechanic (or make it less deadly) -> you’ll get an open world escort event or a dps golem with the difficulty level of the strike mission.Who would be happy about that?

Well, yes, those encounters would be painfully easy. But they would be
the same encounters
and could be used for training for the real thing, challenge mote, or hard mode, or it's challenge mote. So they provide a skills ladder where the actual fight mechanics have been seen.

And the other half of my concept, is a harder mode as well. So, yes escort on easy would be very very easy. That's OK, because normal would still exist, cm on normal would still exist, hard mode would be added, and cm for hard mode added.

Now there's a ladder.

Learn Xera on joke mode, scale up...

Now the elitists are where the should be. At the top. And the newbs are where the should be... In the laughably easy mode learning how to get past it.

Having
THE SAME CONTENT
stratified by difficulty, by nature stratifies elitism. Hence why there is virtually no elitism in fractals until tier 4. (or after few wipes on a tier 3)

Also, my suggestions of 'reduced mechanics and dps check' would have to be adapted per boss. Maybe easy bosses don't enrage? Maybe MO's floor doesn't insta-kill you but insta-down you. There's tons of ways to make the difficulty of each fight lower.

Samarog's break bar is smaller, and his split phase goes faster because Riggom and Guldam have reduced hp.

I'm just throwing ideas, but it really doesn't matter if easy mode is too easy. Play a harder mode. That would be the point. Play with others at your skill level.

the only problem i see, is that those who are at the top dont want the people below them to get any rewards whatsoever. "cant play top tier? NO LEGENDARY ARMOR."

Just..no..make it take it longer on "easier" modes.

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@Rhiannon.1726 said:The problem of threads like this is that there is a huge variety of opinions how easy it should get. Just look at the strike mission. Nearly everyone is complaining that it is too easy.

The OP said „Easy mode- reduced mechanics and dps check…”Let’s use this for Escort, MO and even Cairn:There is no relevant dps check (though I don’t know what happens at MO if you reach enrage) so you’d have to remove one mechanic (or make it less deadly) -> you’ll get an open world escort event or a dps golem with the difficulty level of the strike mission.Who would be happy about that?People that do not find escort and Cairn to be laughably easy.

Trust me, between the strike mission and Cairn there's a really big gap. You may not see it, but it's still there. Just weakening (or even removing) one mechanic would not make Cairn drop down to the strike level. It would not even drop it to freezie level (and freezie, as easy as it is, is still at least one tier harder than strike).

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@Dante.1763 said:

@"Rhiannon.1726" said:The problem of threads like this is that there is a huge variety of opinions how easy it should get. Just look at the strike mission. Nearly everyone is complaining that it is too easy.

The OP said „Easy mode- reduced mechanics and dps check…”Let’s use this for Escort, MO and even Cairn:There is no relevant dps check (though I don’t know what happens at MO if you reach enrage) so you’d have to remove one mechanic (or make it less deadly) -> you’ll get an open world escort event or a dps golem with the difficulty level of the strike mission.Who would be happy about that?

Well, yes, those encounters would be painfully easy. But they would be
the same encounters
and could be used for training for the real thing, challenge mote, or hard mode, or it's challenge mote. So they provide a skills ladder where the actual fight mechanics have been seen.

And the other half of my concept, is a harder mode as well. So, yes escort on easy would be very very easy. That's OK, because normal would still exist, cm on normal would still exist, hard mode would be added, and cm for hard mode added.

Now there's a ladder.

Learn Xera on joke mode, scale up...

Now the elitists are where the should be. At the top. And the newbs are where the should be... In the laughably easy mode learning how to get past it.

Having
THE SAME CONTENT
stratified by difficulty, by nature stratifies elitism. Hence why there is virtually no elitism in fractals until tier 4. (or after few wipes on a tier 3)

Also, my suggestions of 'reduced mechanics and dps check' would have to be adapted per boss. Maybe easy bosses don't enrage? Maybe MO's floor doesn't insta-kill you but insta-down you. There's tons of ways to make the difficulty of each fight lower.

Samarog's break bar is smaller, and his split phase goes faster because Riggom and Guldam have reduced hp.

I'm just throwing ideas, but it really doesn't matter if easy mode is too easy. Play a harder mode. That would be the point. Play with others at your skill level.

the only problem i see, is that those who are at the top dont want the people below them to get any rewards whatsoever. "cant play top tier? NO LEGENDARY ARMOR."

Just..no..make it take it longer on "easier" modes.

You would be upset, if you worked your ass off and bought something for a lot of money and time investment, then your neighbor, who makes less than you... Was given one for free.

So the people who have already worked need to be respected.

But I do agree that it should be easier to get into normal raids. And it would be, if the people filling thier groups in LFG, could trust that you at least know the fight, even if you haven't cleared it on this difficulty yet. Which having an easy mode would provide.

On that note

I actually have thought about rewards...

Easy- instead of magnitie, gain a load of random 'newest season' map currency. (from the 5 newest maps)Easy CM- introduce magnitie into the loot table that decides what currencies you get. So some of them, might be magnitie.

Normal- unchanged. (legendary armor completed on normal or hard difficulty, no interactions with easy mode.)Normal CM- unchanged.

Hard- increased quantity of magnitite, higher chance of ascended dropsHard CM- in game leader board with running seasons. Each season release an existing mount skin with unique lighting shades that make them look metallic. And default unique dye colors. The third best static at the end of the season gets a bronze mount, second silver, and first gold. Each encounter is graded separately, on speed cleared, damage dealt, damage received, boon uptime, and mechanics completed. Allowing these players a badge of honor, that shows not only that your a total raid God. But shows when it happens... because each season awards a different mount, and they never repeat rewards. (30 players, per boss, per season. That's a pretty big number of people. So there will be lots of golden raptors running around.)

This way, everyone can get legendary armor. It's not any easier for the new folks. And the old hands have badges of honor to work for, while also getting better loot drops than regular mode.

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@BrokenGlass.9356 said:You would be upset, if you worked your kitten off and bought something for a lot of money and time investment, then your neighbor, who makes less than you... Was given one for free.

So the people who have already worked need to be respected.

But I do agree that it should be easier to get into normal raids. And it would be, if the people filling thier groups in LFG, could trust that you at least know the fight, even if you haven't cleared it on this difficulty yet. Which having an easy mode would provide.

On that note

I actually have thought about rewards...

Easy- instead of magnitie, gain a load of random 'newest season' map currency. (from the 5 newest maps)Easy CM- introduce magnitie into the loot table that decides what currencies you get. So some of them, might be magnitie.

Normal- unchanged. (legendary armor completed on normal or hard difficulty, no interactions with easy mode.)Normal CM- unchanged.

Hard- increased quantity of magnitite, higher chance of ascended dropsHard CM- in game leader board with running seasons. Each season release an existing mount skin with unique lighting shades that make them look metallic. And default unique dye colors. The third best static at the end of the season gets a bronze mount, second silver, and first gold. Each encounter is graded separately, on speed cleared, damage dealt, damage received, boon uptime, and mechanics completed. Allowing these players a badge of honor, that shows not only that your a total raid God. But shows when it happens... because each season awards a different mount, and they never repeat rewards. (30 players, per boss, per season. That's a pretty big number of people. So there will be lots of golden raptors running around.)

This way, everyone can get legendary armor. It's not any easier for the new folks. And the old hands have badges of honor to work for, while also getting better loot drops than regular mode.

Nice idea, definitely seen that in a similar way and therefore we can be assured that it'll never get implemented.

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@BrokenGlass.9356 said:

@"Rhiannon.1726" said:The problem of threads like this is that there is a huge variety of opinions how easy it should get. Just look at the strike mission. Nearly everyone is complaining that it is too easy.

The OP said „Easy mode- reduced mechanics and dps check…”Let’s use this for Escort, MO and even Cairn:There is no relevant dps check (though I don’t know what happens at MO if you reach enrage) so you’d have to remove one mechanic (or make it less deadly) -> you’ll get an open world escort event or a dps golem with the difficulty level of the strike mission.Who would be happy about that?

Well, yes, those encounters would be painfully easy. But they would be
the same encounters
and could be used for training for the real thing, challenge mote, or hard mode, or it's challenge mote. So they provide a skills ladder where the actual fight mechanics have been seen.

And the other half of my concept, is a harder mode as well. So, yes escort on easy would be very very easy. That's OK, because normal would still exist, cm on normal would still exist, hard mode would be added, and cm for hard mode added.

Now there's a ladder.

Learn Xera on joke mode, scale up...

Now the elitists are where the should be. At the top. And the newbs are where the should be... In the laughably easy mode learning how to get past it.

Having
THE SAME CONTENT
stratified by difficulty, by nature stratifies elitism. Hence why there is virtually no elitism in fractals until tier 4. (or after few wipes on a tier 3)

Also, my suggestions of 'reduced mechanics and dps check' would have to be adapted per boss. Maybe easy bosses don't enrage? Maybe MO's floor doesn't insta-kill you but insta-down you. There's tons of ways to make the difficulty of each fight lower.

Samarog's break bar is smaller, and his split phase goes faster because Riggom and Guldam have reduced hp.

I'm just throwing ideas, but it really doesn't matter if easy mode is too easy. Play a harder mode. That would be the point. Play with others at your skill level.

the only problem i see, is that those who are at the top dont want the people below them to get any rewards whatsoever. "cant play top tier? NO LEGENDARY ARMOR."

Just..no..make it take it longer on "easier" modes.

You would be upset, if you worked your kitten off and bought something for a lot of money and time investment, then your neighbor, who makes less than you... Was given one for free.

So the people who have already worked need to be respected.

But I do agree that it should be easier to get into normal raids. And it would be, if the people filling thier groups in LFG, could trust that you at least know the fight, even if you haven't cleared it on this difficulty yet. Which having an easy mode would provide.

On that note

I actually have thought about rewards...

Easy- instead of magnitie, gain a load of random 'newest season' map currency. (from the 5 newest maps)Easy CM- introduce magnitie into the loot table that decides what currencies you get. So some of them, might be magnitie.

Normal- unchanged. (legendary armor completed on normal or hard difficulty, no interactions with easy mode.)Normal CM- unchanged.

Hard- increased quantity of magnitite, higher chance of ascended dropsHard CM- in game leader board with running seasons. Each season release an existing mount skin with unique lighting shades that make them look metallic. And default unique dye colors. The third best static at the end of the season gets a bronze mount, second silver, and first gold. Each encounter is graded separately, on speed cleared, damage dealt, damage received, boon uptime, and mechanics completed. Allowing these players a badge of honor, that shows not only that your a total raid God. But shows when it happens... because each season awards a different mount, and they never repeat rewards. (30 players, per boss, per season. That's a pretty big number of people. So there will be lots of golden raptors running around.)

This way, everyone can get legendary armor. It's not any easier for the new folks. And the old hands have badges of honor to work for, while also getting better loot drops than regular mode.

You do know that normal cm rewards are rewared once then never again right?

  • that magnatite shards weekly cap get reached before you even finish wing 1-4 bosses on normal during the week even if you 1 shoot them.So what use would the increased magnatite shards for hardmode be for?
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@"BrokenGlass.9356" said:Well, yes, those encounters would be painfully easy. But they would be the same encounters and could be used for training for the real thing, challenge mote, or hard mode, or it's challenge mote. So they provide a skills ladder where the actual fight mechanics have been seen.

That's like saying running T1 Fractals is "training" for T4 CMs... (hint: it's not)Having the "same encounters" but with severely diminished mechanics means it's absolutely worthless for training. In fact, those running the easier version would learn the wrong mechanics and be a liability instead of an asset for a normal team. Obviously your idea has come up multiple times since 2015, including your "original" idea about rewards, I'm also sure in some months another post will appear claiming a "revolutionary" new idea for Raids. We've seen it all, if you bothered to do some research you'd know. The developers already responded, by introducing Strike Missions as a stepping stone for Raids, instead of an easier version for training, we'll all have to see how those turn out. The first one is terrible, but the concept isn't bad, it might work.

But I do agree that it should be easier to get into normal raids. And it would be, if the people filling thier groups in LFG, could trust that you at least know the fight, even if you haven't cleared it on this difficulty yet. Which having an easy mode would provide.

Try getting into a T4 CM Fractal group and tell them you've finished T1. See if they take you. "Know the fight" with completely butchered mechanics means you don't actually know the fight.

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@"Astralporing.1957" said:Trust me, between the strike mission and Cairn there's a really big gap. You may not see it, but it's still there. Just weakening (or even removing) one mechanic would not make Cairn drop down to the strike level. It would not even drop it to freezie level (and freezie, as easy as it is, is still at least one tier harder than strike).

Well, it depends on the mechanic removed. Cairn has two interesting mechanics, Shared Agony (the big red damaging circle) and Unseen Burden (the stacking debuff you get after being hit by Spatial Manipulation), the rest of the attacks are "standard" boss dps attacks. If they removed both of these, Cairn would have no squad/team oriented mechanics anymore and be of similar level as the Icebrood Construct. However, the main problem with the Icebrood Construct is that it has no team oriented mechanics (unlike Freezie for example) so ideally Cairn would need to keep at least one of these team mechanics.

If we want the easy version to be doable by any composition, in random groups like the Icebrood Construct, then Spatial Manipulation/Unseen Burden is the clear choice because it doesn't require specific builds. Shared Agony would be much harder for a random composition, because if a dps player gets it, it will be hard to recover, and you can't make sure there will even be a healer in the group. So Spatial Manipulation would be the Random group mechanic, and the Squad version would have both (because squads can prepare).

That's how you make Cairn as easy as Freezie or the Icebrood Construct

Edit: there is also Displacement, but that's not a team mechanic and, if SA and/or UB are removed it's mostly pointless

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@BrokenGlass.9356 said:Hard CM- in game leader board with running seasons. Each season release an existing mount skin with unique lighting shades that make them look metallic. And default unique dye colors. The third best static at the end of the season gets a bronze mount, second silver, and first gold. Each encounter is graded separately, on speed cleared, damage dealt, damage received, boon uptime, and mechanics completed. Allowing these players a badge of honor, that shows not only that your a total raid God. But shows when it happens... because each season awards a different mount, and they never repeat rewards. (30 players, per boss, per season. That's a pretty big number of people. So there will be lots of golden raptors running around.)

I especially like this part. Sadly this will never happen.I also like the mechanics completed one. It gives groups that arent part of the like 3 hardcore guilds left a chance to participate and win something.

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@maddoctor.2738 said:

@"Astralporing.1957" said:Trust me, between the strike mission and Cairn there's a
really
big gap. You may not see it, but it's still there. Just weakening (or even removing) one mechanic would not make Cairn drop down to the strike level. It would not even drop it to
freezie
level (and freezie, as easy as it is, is still at least one tier harder than strike).

Well, it depends on the mechanic removed. Cairn has two interesting mechanics, Shared Agony (the big red damaging circle) and Unseen Burden (the stacking debuff you get after being hit by Spatial Manipulation), the rest of the attacks are "standard" boss dps attacks. If they removed both of these, Cairn would have no squad/team oriented mechanics anymore and be of similar level as the Icebrood Construct. However, the main problem with the Icebrood Construct is that it has no team oriented mechanics (unlike Freezie for example) so ideally Cairn would need to keep at least one of these team mechanics.

If we want the easy version to be doable by any composition, in random groups like the Icebrood Construct, then Spatial Manipulation/Unseen Burden is the clear choice because it doesn't require specific builds. Shared Agony would be much harder for a random composition, because if a dps player gets it, it will be hard to recover, and you can't make sure there will even be a healer in the group. So Spatial Manipulation would be the Random group mechanic, and the Squad version would have both (because squads can prepare).

That's how you make Cairn as easy as Freezie or the Icebrood Construct

Edit: there is also Displacement, but that's not a team mechanic and, if SA and/or UB are removed it's mostly pointlessDisplacement is often one of the mechanics that result in people getting blown out of the platform in training runs. And even without shared agony, cairn would still remain much harder than freezie, with a number of mechanics that can easily kill less-skilled players.

You're right, though - if any mechanics is to be removed, it has to be Shared Agony, not Unseen Burden. Although i am not so sure about easy mode needing to be finished by any composition. In fact, having to think of the group composition should be one of the core things easy mode should point out to participants.

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@Astralporing.1957 said:

@Astralporing.1957 said:Trust me, between the strike mission and Cairn there's a
really
big gap. You may not see it, but it's still there. Just weakening (or even removing) one mechanic would not make Cairn drop down to the strike level. It would not even drop it to
freezie
level (and freezie, as easy as it is, is still at least one tier harder than strike).

Well, it depends on the mechanic removed. Cairn has two interesting mechanics, Shared Agony (the big red damaging circle) and Unseen Burden (the stacking debuff you get after being hit by Spatial Manipulation), the rest of the attacks are "standard" boss dps attacks. If they removed both of these, Cairn would have no squad/team oriented mechanics anymore and be of similar level as the Icebrood Construct. However, the main problem with the Icebrood Construct is that it has no team oriented mechanics (unlike Freezie for example) so ideally Cairn would need to keep at least one of these team mechanics.

If we want the easy version to be doable by any composition, in random groups like the Icebrood Construct, then Spatial Manipulation/Unseen Burden is the clear choice because it doesn't require specific builds. Shared Agony would be much harder for a random composition, because if a dps player gets it, it will be hard to recover, and you can't make sure there will even be a healer in the group. So Spatial Manipulation would be the Random group mechanic, and the Squad version would have both (because squads can prepare).

That's how you make Cairn as easy as Freezie or the Icebrood Construct

Edit: there is also Displacement, but that's not a team mechanic and, if SA and/or UB are removed it's mostly pointlessDisplacement is often one of the mechanics that result in people getting blown out of the platform in training runs. And even without shared agony, cairn would still remain much harder than freezie, with a number of mechanics that can easily kill less-skilled players.

You're right, though - if any mechanics is to be removed, it has to be Shared Agony, not Unseen Burden. Although i am not so sure about easy mode needing to be finished by any composition. In fact, having to think of the group composition should be one of the core things easy mode should point out to participants.

On top of that, having swiftness partly negates Unseen Burden (though if supports somehow can't maintain that buff, it'll get kinda painful. Shared Agony is probably the 2nd most dangerous mechanic but no. 1 to new players should be Displacement as new raiders tend to get ported a lot and they usually panic, forget to use special skill to return and eat shooting stars which eventually downs them. They usually also get shared agony after getting ported which wrecks them further as they start kiting (which is the worst thing you can do at Cairn). So, quite nasty consequences from getting ported. Kitty also once counted the downs from logs after a few trainings she hosted and about 85-90% of downed states tend to occur outside the carved inner circle (while players should stay inside it to dps and to avoid those shooting stars).Though Cairn also has one heavy-hitting thing that people rarely speak about: its auto-attack sequence. Each attack chain does 2x5,1k damage to anyone standing in front of the boss in melee-range.

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@Linken.6345 said:

@"Rhiannon.1726" said:The problem of threads like this is that there is a huge variety of opinions how easy it should get. Just look at the strike mission. Nearly everyone is complaining that it is too easy.

The OP said „Easy mode- reduced mechanics and dps check…”Let’s use this for Escort, MO and even Cairn:There is no relevant dps check (though I don’t know what happens at MO if you reach enrage) so you’d have to remove one mechanic (or make it less deadly) -> you’ll get an open world escort event or a dps golem with the difficulty level of the strike mission.Who would be happy about that?

Well, yes, those encounters would be painfully easy. But they would be
the same encounters
and could be used for training for the real thing, challenge mote, or hard mode, or it's challenge mote. So they provide a skills ladder where the actual fight mechanics have been seen.

And the other half of my concept, is a harder mode as well. So, yes escort on easy would be very very easy. That's OK, because normal would still exist, cm on normal would still exist, hard mode would be added, and cm for hard mode added.

Now there's a ladder.

Learn Xera on joke mode, scale up...

Now the elitists are where the should be. At the top. And the newbs are where the should be... In the laughably easy mode learning how to get past it.

Having
THE SAME CONTENT
stratified by difficulty, by nature stratifies elitism. Hence why there is virtually no elitism in fractals until tier 4. (or after few wipes on a tier 3)

Also, my suggestions of 'reduced mechanics and dps check' would have to be adapted per boss. Maybe easy bosses don't enrage? Maybe MO's floor doesn't insta-kill you but insta-down you. There's tons of ways to make the difficulty of each fight lower.

Samarog's break bar is smaller, and his split phase goes faster because Riggom and Guldam have reduced hp.

I'm just throwing ideas, but it really doesn't matter if easy mode is too easy. Play a harder mode. That would be the point. Play with others at your skill level.

the only problem i see, is that those who are at the top dont want the people below them to get any rewards whatsoever. "cant play top tier? NO LEGENDARY ARMOR."

Just..no..make it take it longer on "easier" modes.

You would be upset, if you worked your kitten off and bought something for a lot of money and time investment, then your neighbor, who makes less than you... Was given one for free.

So the people who have already worked need to be respected.

But I do agree that it should be easier to get into normal raids. And it would be, if the people filling thier groups in LFG, could trust that you at least know the fight, even if you haven't cleared it on this difficulty yet. Which having an easy mode would provide.

On that note

I actually have thought about rewards...

Easy- instead of magnitie, gain a load of random 'newest season' map currency. (from the 5 newest maps)Easy CM- introduce magnitie into the loot table that decides what currencies you get. So some of them, might be magnitie.

Normal- unchanged. (legendary armor completed on normal or hard difficulty, no interactions with easy mode.)Normal CM- unchanged.

Hard- increased quantity of magnitite, higher chance of ascended dropsHard CM- in game leader board with running seasons. Each season release an existing mount skin with unique lighting shades that make them look metallic. And default unique dye colors. The third best static at the end of the season gets a bronze mount, second silver, and first gold. Each encounter is graded separately, on speed cleared, damage dealt, damage received, boon uptime, and mechanics completed. Allowing these players a badge of honor, that shows not only that your a total raid God. But shows when it happens... because each season awards a different mount, and they never repeat rewards. (30 players, per boss, per season. That's a pretty big number of people. So there will be lots of golden raptors running around.)

This way, everyone can get legendary armor. It's not any easier for the new folks. And the old hands have badges of honor to work for, while also getting better loot drops than regular mode.

You do know that normal cm rewards are rewared once then never again right?
  • that magnatite shards weekly cap get reached before you even finish wing 1-4 bosses on normal during the week even if you 1 shoot them.So what use would the increased magnatite shards for hardmode be for?

To your first point. Yes, in normal mode that would still be true. In easy mode, cm would would just be a normal boss...but the rewards table would give mostly LS currency, and some magnitite... So that you can't easy mode slothazor and cm the rest of the dungeon for better rewards. You can do that, but you get less rewards than just running normal mode.... and in Hard mode, you fight against normal CM bosses as the default for increased loot. (I'm OK with raising the magnitite cap here. You should get better rewards for being better at raiding.) the hard mode CM, would track your encounter for the hard leader boards.... As wells as making the fights harder. (VG splits at random health percentages, the floor is sometime stationary, and sometimes rotating. Every time he casts teleport circles there's a small chance to spawn 4x as many. Ect...) whatever improved rewards could be granted only once per season.

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@BrokenGlass.9356 said:Well, yes, those encounters would be painfully easy. But they would be
the same encounters
and could be used for training for the real thing, challenge mote, or hard mode, or it's challenge mote. So they provide a skills ladder where the actual fight mechanics have been seen.

That's like saying running T1 Fractals is "training" for T4 CMs... (hint: it's not)Having the "same encounters" but with severely diminished mechanics means it's absolutely worthless for training. In fact, those running the easier version would learn the wrong mechanics and be a liability instead of an asset for a normal team. Obviously your idea has come up multiple times since 2015, including your "original" idea about rewards, I'm also sure in some months another post will appear claiming a "revolutionary" new idea for Raids. We've seen it all, if you bothered to do some research you'd know. The developers already responded, by introducing Strike Missions as a stepping stone for Raids, instead of an easier version for training, we'll all have to see how those turn out. The first one is terrible, but the concept isn't bad, it might work.

But I do agree that it should be easier to get into normal raids. And it would be, if the people filling thier groups in LFG, could trust that you at least know the fight, even if you haven't cleared it on this difficulty yet. Which having an easy mode would provide.

Try getting into a T4 CM Fractal group and tell them you've finished T1. See if they take you. "Know the fight" with completely butchered mechanics means you don't actually know the fight.

Way to strawman. T1 aren't training for T4. You're correct. Absolutely.

T3 is training for T4 tho. That's the nature of climbing difficulty scales.

Why so extreme? Like, comparing climbing a ladder to jumping like a bloody kangaroo? Of course you appear correct.

Do you invite a guy who does easy to hard mode CM? Probbs not. Your funeral if you do. But is that guy a better choice than someone who's never raided before? Yep. Especially if he's played the encounter you're talking about. (FYI I'm not saying that noobs magically become good. They don't and learning takes time.) all in saying is, that if your form up a normal raid... And a guy comes along whose beaten the encounters with most of the mechanics functional.... You're gonna have to explain one thing and not the entire kitten encounter.

Also, not everyone just memorizes.... Lots of people learn synergistically. If you know what to do when you see a green circle in raids, your the second kind. If you learn a new encounter, and have to ask, 'what are the green circles again?' you're the first kind.

Nothing wrong with either kind. Just don't assume everyone is one or the other.

Oh and hey, let's address your snarky tone about my idea's originality.... It doesn't matter if I came up with it, or if someone else did. Doesn't matter if it's good either. What matters is that it spurs on NEW discussion in an OLD topic, full of dug in keyboard warriors with no interest in understanding the other side's position. Which it seems to be doing. I don't really care if everything here has been said before, I wasn't there at the time, and folks are reading and posting. So long as most people are discussing.... It doesn't matter what happend in the past. After all, it is always now.

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@"Astralporing.1957" said:Noticed you didn't comment on t3 being training for t4.

Why would I? But since you insist, in the OP they mentioned a single new tier (easy mode) under the difficulty of current Raids, they didn't say to add 10204 new scales. Which would be problematic on so many levels anyway. Yes let's add T3 as training for T4, then add T2 as training for T3, and T1 as training for T1. How many new difficulty settings do we need? And further, if they finally introduced an easy mode that is at the T3 level, do you think these kinds of threads would stop? I believe they would stay the same as they are now, as those that even remotely capable of T3 fractals will move on to T4 anyway. Meaning they'd be asking for a "very easy" mode next, until it's like the Strike Mission.

I'm surprised we haven't seen a thread asking for an easy mode for the Strike Mission yet

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@maddoctor.2738 said:

@"Astralporing.1957" said:Noticed you didn't comment on
t3
being training for t4.

Why would I? But since you insist, in the OP they mentioned a single new tier (easy mode) under the difficulty of current Raids, they didn't say to add 10204 new scales. Which would be problematic on so many levels anyway. Yes let's add T3 as training for T4, then add T2 as training for T3, and T1 as training for T1. How many new difficulty settings do we need? And further, if they finally introduced an easy mode that is at the T3 level, do you think these kinds of threads would stop? I believe they would stay the same as they are now, as those that even remotely capable of T3 fractals will move on to T4 anyway. Meaning they'd be asking for a "very easy" mode next, until it's like the Strike Mission.

I'm surprised we haven't seen a thread asking for an easy mode for the Strike Mission yet

This is just a failure of imagination coupled with nihilism.

Folks like you hear me say 'easy mode' and they hear 'a mode so easy that it isn't worth playing.'

That just not what I'm saying.

Folks apparently don't realize that it doesn't need to be much easier.

The point is to let the elitists stratify up. NOT to get the newbs to stratify up.

If the elitists get out of the noobs way...(you know... Like they do in fractals, with t1 being bassicly all noobs, or casuals... And T4 being bassicly all elitists, or skilled players) then the noobs will have a good time rather than being made to feel small.

Now those people, can improve. Because the climate has changed its toxicity level.

By the time they climb up, they aren't noobs.

And the whole time the noobs are doing that? The elite among us, can play together with less noobs showing up where they shouldn't be: dragging down the fun.

Your hung up on 'how easy, and how hard?' when the point is: THE SAME CONTENT WITH STRATIFIED DIFFICULTY

which separates the community, so the Elites don't constantly feel the weight of noobs dragging them down. And so the newbs don't constantly feel the rejection of the Elites.

This is like Pysch 101 stuff.

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@BrokenGlass.9356 said:

@"Astralporing.1957" said:Noticed you didn't comment on
t3
being training for t4.

Why would I? But since you insist, in the OP they mentioned a single new tier (easy mode) under the difficulty of current Raids, they didn't say to add 10204 new scales. Which would be problematic on so many levels anyway. Yes let's add T3 as training for T4, then add T2 as training for T3, and T1 as training for T1. How many new difficulty settings do we need? And further, if they finally introduced an easy mode that is at the T3 level, do you think these kinds of threads would stop? I believe they would stay the same as they are now, as those that even remotely capable of T3 fractals will move on to T4 anyway. Meaning they'd be asking for a "very easy" mode next, until it's like the Strike Mission.

I'm surprised we haven't seen a thread asking for an easy mode for the Strike Mission yet

This is just a failure of imagination coupled with nihilism.

Folks like you hear me say 'easy mode' and they hear 'a mode so easy that it isn't worth playing.'

That just not what I'm saying.

Folks apparently don't realize that it doesn't need to be
much
easier.

The point is to let the elitists stratify up.
NOT
to get the newbs to stratify up.

If the elitists get out of the noobs way...(you know... Like they do in fractals, with t1 being bassicly all noobs, or casuals... And T4 being bassicly all elitists, or skilled players) then the noobs will
have a good time
rather than being made to feel small.

I'm sorry, but this is both condescending and nosense.

What does a little easier exactly mean? The level of incompetence goes way way way down. There is a vast majority of players who literally have 0 clue of how this games combat, builds or mechanics work.

What maddoctor was refering to was:If we introduce a level of easier raids, who is not to say that these easy raids would not still be to difficult for a vast majority of players? Do we then introduce another layer of easier raids below easy? Or do we tell these even less skilled players to shove off?

People arguing that 1 easy mode is enough most often simply mean: I want an easy mode which suits me personally.

That's neither productive nor helpful or addressing the issue. The strike mission was a great example of how using actual data on player performance (remember the recent quote in performance disparity between top performing players and average players?) can create content unsuited for its purpose. At the same time it shows just how incompetent some players in this game can be (groups failing the strike mission).

@BrokenGlass.9356 said:Now those people, can improve. Because the climate has changed its toxicity level.

By the time they climb up, they aren't noobs.

Have you been to tier 3 fractals? Your theory here is not supported in anyway in game. Tier 3 fractals, basically the equivalent to your easy mode raids if they are meant to be "slightly" easier, is THE most toxic place in fractals.

You are making 1 essentialy mistake which is both a sign of incredible arrogance as well as absolute lack of understanding of basic human interaction:You constantly assume and present that top tier players are the only players who would be toxic. Some of the most toxic interactions I have witnessed were in open world content over trivial things. More casual players are in no way less or more toxic than higher performing players.

Players are players, toxic ones will be toxic, not toxic ones will be not toxic and when players are prevented by others in succedding and getting their loot, most will turn toxic. That would apply to easier raids just as it does to normal ones right now.

@BrokenGlass.9356 said:And the whole time the noobs are doing that? The elite among us, can play together with less noobs showing up where they shouldn't be: dragging down the fun.

Your hung up on 'how easy, and how hard?' when the point is: THE SAME CONTENT WITH STRATIFIED DIFFICULTY

which separates the community, so the Elites don't constantly feel the weight of noobs dragging them down. And so the newbs don't constantly feel the rejection of the Elites.

This is like Pysch 101 stuff.

You should not talk about basic psychology when arguing from an anarchist "the evil elites" perspective. Sorry but half the stuff you said was both offensive and plain ignorant of basic human behavior.

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An explanation of what it would feel like (theoretically) playing in tiered difficulty raids.

Easy: here is where you start raiding. The community formed around this content, would end up with all the beginners. Anyone who finds medium too difficult, or too toxic, would play here. In much the same way that many casual people, who wish to avoid toxic environments play T1 fractals despite being vastly over qualified. This provides the ability to choose to raid, and to choose not to be made to feel like you are less for simply learning. The CM here, to set a boss to normal difficulty (which would produce normal difficulty KP) allows people to get KP in a community that's less toxic. The existence of the CM to raise each boss to normal, is what prevents the need for easier modes. Because even if it is too easy, you can still work within a more accepting community to learn. (again, those not interested in helping others... Play higher difficulty)

Medium: once people have mastered easy mode, this would be the primary spot where most people end up raiding. This level would be the introduction of toxicity. Because this level would be the blending of the oil and water layers of the player base. The reason the total quantity of suffering would be lessened, compaierd to what it is now, is that most of the players who are too emotionally effected by this, will play easy mode. Those who tend to create the most toxic environments for new players, (speedclear, reward oriented players, with little to no patience for anyone else delaying thier fun.) would end up playing the harder mode for the better rewards... Thus creating a middle ground, where knowledge of encounters is expected, and mistakes are more tolerated. Mainly because many of the speed clear, elite players will have moved to hard mode, specifically because of its reduction in unskilled players and increased rewards. The CM here (while you only get these rewards once) should provide a Hard Mode KP, so that you can train in an environment where there is enough pressure from others to elicit changes, but you don't have to drag hard mode players down to get enough KP to eventually join them.

Hard: this mode would collect the YouTube and twitch streamers, the organized raiding guilds (like snowcrows and others) ect. And while these groups are generally non-toxic, the fans of these groups tend to be toxic to those players who are not as invested. Kicking/blocking at the first down, asking for unreasonable quantities of kill proofs, ec. This is, of course justified, as those players not able to keep up to thier speed... tend to ruin the elite's good time, turning one pull into many, and a half hour into hours and hours. And because rewards are capped, these players wish to reach that reward cap as fast as possible. So those people would isolate themselves away, into a contained area, where you have to prove yourself at the door to even get in. The exclusive experience they want, would actually become exclusive.

This is what I have meant by 'stratification of difficulty' in my previous posts.

It's more important that there be layers... Than that the first layer be easy enough.

But, I'm open to just how easy, and how hard the modes should be. And while I have suggestions to this effect, I don't claim to know. I don't think easy needs to be much easier, nor hard to be much harder to stratify the opinions and play styles of the player base.

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@"BrokenGlass.9356" said:Yep. Have been to T3. Why is it toxic? It's the first place where noobs on the way up, interact with the bottom tier of the elite.... In that place, in any difficulty stratification, you'll get toxicity. Fractals as a whole, are MUCH less toxic. (if you're warming up your fingers to refute that point... Why don't you link all the recent 'fractals are toxic' threads next to all the 'raids are toxic' threads.)

I've been a long term (several years) fractal & raid player with a huge amount of pugging and I definitely have to disagree with you. Fractals are much more toxic and T3 is the worst of all tiers followed by T4 groups with almost none to zero requirements that will explode into a skritt show of insults once you wipe more than once on a boss. I've never encountered that kind of humiliations in raids but I've witnessed it a lot in fractals. The overwhelming majority of my block list is filled with people I met in fractals. Most of them were underperforming in combination with toxicity.The mistake you and others are making all the time: You see requirements as toxic but they aren't. We have those everywhere even right now for example:

  • ATM (Ascent to Madness) - chrono - know how to portal
  • Arah P4 (T4 Fractal build and gear) - I don't have to mention that I carried this group some hours ago in the evening. Fast and efficient with my power ranger on 2nd account
  • Lab Farm - NO TRINKETS - NO MOUNTS yadda yadda
  • CMs + T4s - 250 KPs etc.

That's not toxicity. That's the same thing like going to play soccer with your friends and some others are coming by asking to play with you and you negate it because you know they don't have the same level you and your friends have and that it'll take the fun away from you.These days lots of people and especially very young people cannot accept a "No." + in the internet everything is for everyone so people tend to think they have a certain right. They are just plain wrong.

The overwhelming majority of raid kicks are free from insults, hostility or trolling, they are due to heavily underperforming and not meeting the basic standards. On the contrary, most of the commanders are very forgiving letting players stay for more than 2-3 tries although it's obvious that the performance won't change the next try (which is kinda toxic towards the rest of the squad). If you are getting kicked because you clearly didn't belong into a certain group it's not the fault of the others but on you.But still those people call raiders elitists and toxic because in the early days they tried to get into groups without any idea and were booted. What a pity! They could have known it, potentially as raids were announced as the most challenging group content in the game. But hey, those are exact the kind of players that never read any information about the game, patches or in forums or at reddit at all. They play how they want because they think that GW2 was advertised like that which is again wrong.

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About easy/normal/hard modes: Splitting raids into 3 tiers would simply result in normal mode dying as people would simply move to hard mode CM to get their weekly rewards in one run and as the hard mode would be more challenging, people would be even more strict and toxic about their squad comps. And as the good players would run hard mode CM, not-that-good players would most likely run hard mode with toxicity surpassing even what T3 is atm (traditionally T3 is the tier where players go if they're not good enough to deal with T4 stuffs). And CM's being the same as next tier would be kinda pointless as you could just as well run a group in next tier with low reqs.And easy mode would most likely end up either abandoned due to rewards not being worth it or being the clownfiesta that many "semi-exp" runs tend to be atm regardless of their easier difficulty. Strike missions should work well for those players who want raid-like stuff without investing in proper gears and tiny bit of time to prepare for raids. Apparently the difficulty of strike missions is decent for those parts of community as some people still manage to go down in current strike mission even with good raiding healer in squad. (And Kitty's heard reports of some squads wiping to that boss...no idea how that is possible but then again, Kitty's prolly forgot the times when she was a nab.)E: And when Kitty says proper gears, she means getting at least zerker's (good, costs about 30g for full set) or carrion's (budget condi option, 10-15g) exotic gears which should be a very minor investment considering how much raids will give weekly once you can start running them.

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@LadyKitty.6120 said:And easy mode would most likely end up either abandoned due to rewards not being worth it

Yes this would likely be a very big problem. An easy mode would have to compete with the open world farming activities because it will attract the same kind of players. Since normal Raids cannot compete with those farms, it's highly improbable that an easy version for them would. Meaning those farmers won't find the content attractive. It will essentially be Arah Story Mode all over again

And as far as hard mode is concerned, that's the exact reason why the developers haven't made CMs repeatable, fearing the raid players would move on to CMs and abandon the normal version.

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@"BrokenGlass.9356" said:This is what I have meant by 'stratification of difficulty' in my previous posts.

This is what already happens in Raids because the bosses have a huge difference in difficulty. Applying some kind of difficulty split to all of them at once isn't going to work, just compare Shatterer Observatory Fractal with Uncategorized Fractal, Mai Trin with Deepstone, Nightmare with Ascalon and so on, the T1 versions of some fractals are harder than the T2 versions of other ones (or even T3). The tiers aren't as clear as they may look to be. A lower tier Fractal isn't necessarily easier than a higher tier one, it depends on a lot of factors. Same is true for Raids, some bosses are exceptionally easy, like Cairn and Mursaat Overseer, and others are really hard, like Dhumm and Xera, you can't put Raid bosses in difficulty tiers.

And then you say things like:

Folks apparently don't realize that it doesn't need to be much easier.

You are saying that an easy version of Dhuum, that must be easier than the current/normal Mursaat Overseer, to keep them within your own tiers, isn't going to be "much easier". You can replace Mursaat Overseer with most other bosses and that line won't really change. Truth of the matter is, if you want all bosses to belong to multiple tiers, then some of them will have to be "much easier" in order to fit, because there is already a gigantic difference in their difficulty.

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@maddoctor.2738 said:

@"BrokenGlass.9356" said:This is what I have meant by 'stratification of difficulty' in my previous posts.

This is what already happens in Raids because the bosses have a huge difference in difficulty. Applying some kind of difficulty split to all of them at once isn't going to work, just compare Shatterer Observatory Fractal with Uncategorized Fractal, Mai Trin with Deepstone, Nightmare with Ascalon and so on, the T1 versions of some fractals are harder than the T2 versions of other ones (or even T3). The tiers aren't as clear as they may look to be. A lower tier Fractal isn't necessarily easier than a higher tier one, it depends on a lot of factors. Same is true for Raids, some bosses are exceptionally easy, like Cairn and Mursaat Overseer, and others are really hard, like Dhumm and Xera, you can't put Raid bosses in difficulty tiers.

And then you say things like:

Folks apparently don't realize that it doesn't need to be much easier.

You are saying that an easy version of Dhuum, that must be easier than the current/normal Mursaat Overseer, to keep them within your own tiers, isn't going to be "much easier". You can replace Mursaat Overseer with most other bosses and that line won't really change. Truth of the matter is, if you want all bosses to belong to multiple tiers, then some of them will have to be "much easier" in order to fit, because there is already a gigantic difference in their difficulty.

Why? That's the point? You'd fight guys like Dhuum on easy untill you could do it in normal. He can still be among the hardest bosses. Even in easy mode. Why would he have to be that easy? This is just stratified difficulty, across the tiers. This is actually good. Because it allows for a person climbing up the modes to learn on progressively harder bosses. Why would easy Dhuum have to be easier than normal MO? Where did this come from? Easy Dhuum should be easier than normal Dhuum. Apples to apples. Not apples to oranges.

Why does easy mode always have to be thought of this way? It's not supposed to be 'so easy anyone can do it' it's supposed to be, 'easier by a bit' and it's hard to define that because each boss would get "nerfed down to easy mode" differently. Dhuum would of course be handled differently than MO.

As for easy raid rewards being useless. Check older posts. A random assortment of the newest living story map currency. Always useful. So long as the living story team continues to not suck.

It's still a raid guys. It's still supposed to be on the top tier content. It's just providing stairs rather than asking people to scale a cliff.

And strike missions do in fact catch all the easier than easy players. Many of you guys are correct about that.

But lots of the opinions here seem to be built on the assumption that people are so unbelievably bad at this game AND they can't learn. I just think that those people can learn and become great. Lots of times, they just need an environment supportive enough to be allowed to learn. (ask a teacher.)

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@BrokenGlass.9356 said:Why would easy Dhuum have to be easier than normal MO? Where did this come from?

You said it yourself already when you split your Raid boss tiers:

Easy: here is where you start raiding. The community formed around this content, would end up with all the beginners.Medium: once people have mastered easy mode, this would be the primary spot where most people end up raiding.Hard: this mode would collect the YouTube and twitch streamers, the organized raiding guilds (like snowcrows and others) ect.

Or now you change your entire argument so Dhuum (and the other better bosses of Raids) not needing an easy version for beginners? The entire tier system you propose is meaningless if you think about it more than a second.

Easy Dhuum should be easier than normal Dhuum.An Easy Dhuum that is still harder than Mursaat Overseer means it's not a beginner friendly encounter (if we accept that all bosses require an easy version), making it worthless for the intended purpose you want it (for beginners). So you either need to rephrase your argument, your tiers or stop moving the goal posts around as it suits you.

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