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Top 3 reasons why raids only attracted a small audience


Swagger.1459

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honestly its over 7 years. I dont know why ppl that wants a holy trinity still plays this game.I LOVE the NO TRINITY SYSTEM, where everyone is responsible for himself, everyone can support and damage, even healers.

The reason that raids doesnt appeal is because theres incentive from the game to do it. They should have tied a story mode version of it on the campaigns, forcing players to at least do it in story soloable mode.Most of players, including myself, gives up on the beginning because it got sooo hard to get in and the rewards doesnt worth and the story is non-existant that i just dont want to bother myself doing that

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@Astralporing.1957 said:

@Astralporing.1957 said:Considering that when wings 6 and 7 came, the decline was already a done deal, their difficulty level seems mostly inconsequential.
Wing 5
difficulty however might have played a part.

Or maybe the fact that it took them
10 months
to release Wing 6, even after promising more frequent releases played a very very important role.It's not like everything was completely fine until well after wing 5, and problems only started after wing 6 took too long to get released. Remember, that many raiders never even moved past
wing 4
. It was Wing 5, not the long relase window between it and wing 6, what stopped them from doing any future raid content.Yes, the top raider teams liked that w5 was harder than all wings before it, and considered w4 difficulty to be a failure, but remember, that for a lot of players doing raids it was exactly the opposite - it was w4 difficulty they'd have preferred as a baseline.

Notice also, that w6 and w7 did nothing for those players. While the difficulty of those wings was much easier for top teams that were able to perform mechanics well and had top tier dps, it was nothing of that sort for everyone else. For people that found w4 their perfect difficulty level, w6 and w7 were as much of a disappointment as w5.

Wasnt the cadence kittened since w3 tho? Iirc the w8 or w4 and then w5 was also substantial.

But yeah w6 and w7 esp was a classic case of the content not catering to anyone, that coupled with an unhealthy cadence and why would anyone stick around for that when ff14 and wow do it more often and better.

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@zealex.9410 said:

@Astralporing.1957 said:Considering that when wings 6 and 7 came, the decline was already a done deal, their difficulty level seems mostly inconsequential.
Wing 5
difficulty however might have played a part.

Or maybe the fact that it took them
10 months
to release Wing 6, even after promising more frequent releases played a very very important role.It's not like everything was completely fine until well after wing 5, and problems only started after wing 6 took too long to get released. Remember, that many raiders never even moved past
wing 4
. It was Wing 5, not the long relase window between it and wing 6, what stopped them from doing any future raid content.Yes, the top raider teams liked that w5 was harder than all wings before it, and considered w4 difficulty to be a failure, but remember, that for a lot of players doing raids it was exactly the opposite - it was w4 difficulty they'd have preferred as a baseline.

Notice also, that w6 and w7 did nothing for those players. While the difficulty of those wings was much easier for top teams that were able to perform mechanics well and had top tier dps, it was nothing of that sort for everyone else. For people that found w4 their perfect difficulty level, w6 and w7 were as much of a disappointment as w5.

Wasnt the cadence kittened since w3 tho? Iirc the w8 or w4 and then w5 was also substantial.Yes, there was a release cadence change between w3 and w4 (mostly not because w4 took longer than previous wings, but because most of the release time for first 3 wings got hidden due to them being developed alongside HoT and people simply weren;t aware how long they
really
took). I'm not talking about people that left during that gap, though. I am talking about groups that were still there when w5 got released, attempted it, and then said "nah, let's stick to older wings and not bother with this one". In fact, many of those groups were still doing fine when w6 appeared - they were just not doing w5. And when they attempted w6, realized it's still not for them (even when top raiders were complaining about how w6 was a disappointment difficulty wise)... well, they just stopped playing.

Top raider groups might have thought that w4-w5, (and then w5-w6) was a big gap, but the groups i was talking about ended up having a much greater content gap, because for them w5 was practically not there. And, as i mentioned, it's not like w6 and w7 were any better.Many raiding groups were waiting for another w4. They never got it.

But yeah w6 and w7 esp was a classic case of the content not catering to anyone, that coupled with an unhealthy cadence and why would anyone stick around for that when ff14 and wow do it more often and better.Precisely. And this error could have been resolved if only there was more than one difficulty mode. Both groups could have obtained something for them, then.

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Pve raids are today what spvp was a few years ago. Anet hyped a lot about spvp, gave a lot of focus, gave great rewards and ignored what most players wanted and kept pushing the game mode. You can't go against the player base for very long. Eventually spvp and the esports thing ended miserably and pretty much died. For raids it is happening same thing. Even Anet seem to be throwing the towel and moving to strikes that are nothing other than easier content to suit the player base.'s needs They even posted in the forums admitting pve raids attract very small amount of players.

This game was designed and marketed without raids in mind. This alone is enough for the majority of the current player base to dislike that kind of content and not take part in it. Not only you have players with predisposition to dislike that kind of content, you also have the fact that the pvp and pve were designed for 5 player groups and without the need of classes playing specific roles such as healer/support. The implementation of content with more than 5 players and the pseudo trinity is a mess.

After years deep in the game anet decided to do a 180º turn and implement pve raids. I'm not sure why some people are surprised that it is not popular. If it wasn't by Anet putting the pve legendary behind raids I wonder if we would have even a quarter of the players we have now running raids. About the W5 discussion, for me the reason is quite simple. One can get the PVE legendary armor doing only wings 1,2,3 and 4. I know several people who cleared all bosses from 1 to 4 to get their legendary armor and never steeped back to raids again.

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@"Astralporing.1957" said:Top raider groups might have thought that w4-w5, (and then w5-w6) was a big gap, but the groups i was talking about ended up having a much greater content gap, because for them w5 was practically not there. And, as i mentioned, it's not like w6 and w7 were any better.

Well if they stayed true to the "we will have more frequent releases" and released W6 much much sooner then that content gap wouldn't be so gigantic. But of course Wing 5 was a mistake. I didn't move to Wing 5 either when it was released, as I said I was too busy helping guildies get their legendary armors, Wing 5 has nothing of value, only reason to finish it is for completionist shake, and because it has some enjoyable fights (for those that like those kind of fights)

@"zealex.9410" said:Wasnt the cadence kittened since w3 tho? Iirc the w8 or w4 and then w5 was also substantial.

As for the cadence:Last of Forsaken Thicket was released on June 14, 2016Bastion of the Penitent: February 8, 2017 (8 months later)Hall of Chains: November 28, 2017 (9 months later BUT with an EXPANSION released during that time)Mythright Gambit: September 18, 2018 (10 months later, no expansion)The Key of Ahdashim: June 11, 2019 (9 months later) - 28 months after the release of the first POF Raid we got access to the "big" unique reward of the POF RaidsAs of now: February 17, 2020 (8 months later)

The time where the game both needed AND promised a faster release frequency was the time with the LONGEST delay. Go figure.Also, the long w8 wouldn't be so bad, if an expansion was there. It's after they promised more frequent releases that the release cadence became horrid.

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@Jayden Reese.9542 said:

@Jayden Reese.9542 said:Then don't be a part of it? Why does it bother you that something you don't want to do is in GW2? Is it the simple fact it exists? Is it they divert time to make something you don't want to do instead of more pve stuff? That toxicity exists? It's everywhere with or w/o raids just go pvp and see. It seems you want raid easier mode like wow and somehow think that won't be toxic at times. I just don't get your issue

It's not that people don't want to do the content, it's that they either are or feel excluded from it because of the attitudes and reputation said content has gained from a number of it's players.Specially attitudes that become angry at any and all suggestion of more inclusive options to the content such as easier difficulty modes or story modes that would help a number of people gain vital hands on experience with raid mechanics that would allow them to go into the actual raid knowing what to do and how to recognize these mechanics.

When people are made to feel unwelcome or like they're a burden, that alone is massive incentive to just never bother trying something.. and that plays a big part in how the larger majority of players see raids in GW2.

Yeah and if they lower difficulty there will be players there in the lower levels toxic too. Just look at this strike prep for raids stuff. Toxicity there already so you want raids to be easier modes then these strikes? Sure if they that easy no one will be toxic. I never raided and i'm fine that raids exist for others where this op is against strikes let alone raids so I still don't get his point I just keep getting randos responding about how they feel like I'm excluding you in any way when I don't do that content either or t4 fractals but find plenty toxicity in wvw and pvp and dumb places like matriarch if god forbid it charges. If you feel unwelcome or a burden then you joining the wrong raid groups. Start with training etc with less toxic players or avoid it. Dropping to difficulty to story mode level where we can 1 spam thru it is just as bad an idea cause noone will learn and just quit the instant it gets harder whether it be story easy medium hard epic or w/e scales they give

There wouldn't be toxicity in easy raids if there were no rewards.They would be done purely for story or training/experience purposes, failure would have no conciquences and success no rewards.Most experienced raiders wouldn't bother with them because of that and those that would do so with full knowledge that they are there to teach others.Under those circumstances toxicity would be pointless and moronic so it just wouldn't happen, or if it does extremely rarely.

If you've never bothered with raids then you can't understand the significance of an easy mode.The difficulty does NOT! come from general combat like a typical boss creature, it comes mostly from the unique fight mechanics.. usually mechanics that will one shot you or your whole party if you screw them up.Just knowing what you have to do in the fight diminishes that dificulty spike significantly and that's the main problem for new players in raids.They don't know these mechanics and they don't know when to expect them or how to recognize their tells and it's very easy to get overwhelmed by them in normal raids.This is where having experience in the content makes all the difference and that experience can be obtained and easily transferred between easy and normal raid modes, simply by making these mechanics less punishing while taking nothing away from the actual fight itself.

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@"Teratus.2859" said:This is where having experience in the content makes all the difference and that experience can be obtained and easily transferred between easy and normal raid modes, simply by making these mechanics less punishing while taking nothing away from the actual fight itself.

As I said in the other thread on the same subject, this is highly unlikely to work. If the mechanic is less punishing, then players won't do the mechanic properly. Period. If Sabetha's flamethrower starts dealing damage, instead of insta killing, players will be face-tanking it instead of dodging it. The assumption that a player will see a mechanic and say "Hey this would've killed me in the actual fight, next time I need to be more careful", is false, as demonstrated very easily if you play any kind of content in the game. You will see most players face tanking easily avoidable mechanics, instead of... avoiding them.

Edit: it's not easy mode but take a look at Gorseval and how players completely ignore the wall mechanic, because they can. Think of that Gorseval as an easy mode, and imagine there was a version of Gorseval that didn't allow that, but instead it required you to run to the wall. Now a player that learned how to fight Gorseval the easy way goes to this imaginary normal mode. Trying to do it the wrong way. The same can be applied to any kind of "less punishing mechanics" proposal.

You are saying having experience in the content makes the difference. I say having the wrong experience will make a player a liability instead of an asset in the normal fight. It's better to get someone with zero experience than someone with the wrong experience.

There ARE things that player could train for, but outside the fights themselves. Eating the orbs at Dhuum, going up the cannons at Sabetha, gliding between the platforms at Xera, are things a player could learn on their own, outside the hassle of the actual fight, and the penalty of wiping the entire group if they fail. This, I can understand.

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@Astralporing.1957 said:

@Astralporing.1957 said:Considering that when wings 6 and 7 came, the decline was already a done deal, their difficulty level seems mostly inconsequential.
Wing 5
difficulty however might have played a part.

Or maybe the fact that it took them
10 months
to release Wing 6, even after promising more frequent releases played a very very important role.It's not like everything was completely fine until well after wing 5, and problems only started after wing 6 took too long to get released. Remember, that many raiders never even moved past
wing 4
. It was Wing 5, not the long relase window between it and wing 6, what stopped them from doing any future raid content.Yes, the top raider teams liked that w5 was harder than all wings before it, and considered w4 difficulty to be a failure, but remember, that for a lot of players doing raids it was exactly the opposite - it was w4 difficulty they'd have preferred as a baseline.

Notice also, that w6 and w7 did nothing for those players. While the difficulty of those wings was much easier for top teams that were able to perform mechanics well and had top tier dps, it was nothing of that sort for everyone else. For people that found w4 their perfect difficulty level, w6 and w7 were as much of a disappointment as w5.

Wasnt the cadence kittened since w3 tho? Iirc the w8 or w4 and then w5 was also substantial.Yes, there was a release cadence change between w3 and w4 (mostly not because w4 took longer than previous wings, but because most of the release time for first 3 wings got hidden due to them being developed alongside HoT and people simply weren;t aware how long they
really
took). I'm not talking about people that left during that gap, though. I am talking about groups that were still there when w5 got released, attempted it, and then said "nah, let's stick to older wings and not bother with this one". In fact, many of those groups were still doing fine when w6 appeared - they were just not doing w5. And when they attempted w6, realized it's still not for them (even when top raiders were complaining about how w6 was a disappointment difficulty wise)... well, they just stopped playing.

Top raider groups might have thought that w4-w5, (and then w5-w6) was a big gap, but the groups i was talking about ended up having a much greater content gap, because for them w5 was practically
not there
. And, as i mentioned, it's not like w6 and w7 were any better.Many raiding groups were waiting for another w4. They never got it.

But yeah w6 and w7 esp was a classic case of the content not catering to anyone, that coupled with an unhealthy cadence and why would anyone stick around for that when ff14 and wow do it more often and better.Precisely. And this error could have been resolved if only there was more than one difficulty mode. Both groups could have obtained something for them, then.

Id argue with 2 or so difficulty settings more ppl would be playing the content but if the content still took the better part of the year to come out the engagement would go down overtime. I think the ppl that did w4 then w8 for w5 then decided "fuck w8ing aroumd a year for 4 bosses" and left pr stopped is greater than the ppl who skip w5.

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Do we actually need to be told about these "reasons"? Niche content attracts a niche crowd. Introducing multiple difficulty tiers might slightly increase the size of said crowd but raids would continue to be niche content no matter what.You either decide to have niche content in your game for very specific crowds or you do not. Trying to make all content appeal to most players is never going to work. Some people simply do not enjoy PvP. No amount of carebearing will ever change that. Many players are never going to enjoy competitive PvE. And again, no amount of babysteps to introduce them to raiding will change that fact.

The great majority of the players who wanted try raids already did do so. They went through long phases of active raiding and they eventually quit due to a lack of new content. The number of people who have been actively raiding since day is getting closer to zero by the day. Everyone is moving on or at least going on an hiatus for a while.

Feels like we have a said this a thousand times already... The only way to maintain a sizeable raid community is a good rate of new raid content. No amount of new incoming players who might or might not even like raids are going to make up for those who already quit.

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@maddoctor.2738 said:

@"Teratus.2859" said:This is where having experience in the content makes all the difference and that experience can be obtained and easily transferred between easy and normal raid modes, simply by making these mechanics less punishing while taking nothing away from the actual fight itself.

As I said in the other thread on the same subject, this is highly unlikely to work. If the mechanic is less punishing, then players won't do the mechanic properly. Period. If Sabetha's flamethrower starts dealing damage, instead of insta killing, players will be face-tanking it instead of dodging it. The assumption that a player will see a mechanic and say "Hey this would've killed me in the actual fight, next time I need to be more careful", is false, as demonstrated very easily if you play any kind of content in the game. You will see most players face tanking easily avoidable mechanics, instead of... avoiding them.

That's because some people build their characters to do that in other game modes.. because they enjoy that kind of playstyle.Why would you bother dodging or avoiding attacks when you've built your character to be able to withstand them?.. that's the entire point of a tank.The only time this playstyle is ever a problem is when mr glass canon cares more about his DPS numbers than what's about to down him for the 5th time.

You say people won't learn yet their sole reason to play easy is to learn..Unless they just want the story element in which case they don't have to care all that much.But those who want to raid properly will be playing to learn the mechanics, fully aware that the real thing is going to mess them up hard if they screw them up.Reading them up online is nowhere near as useful as actually experiencing them.. and since you can't go in and do that solo then you gotta find a group that's either willing to take you and teach you or inflitrate a group so you can learn at their expense.

Edit: it's not easy mode but take a look at Gorseval and how players completely ignore the wall mechanic, because they can. Think of that Gorseval as an easy mode, and imagine there was a version of Gorseval that didn't allow that, but instead it required you to run to the wall. Now a player that learned how to fight Gorseval the easy way goes to this imaginary normal mode. Trying to do it the wrong way. The same can be applied to any kind of "less punishing mechanics" proposal.

That's a mechanic flaw that frankly Anet should fix.If it's what you're supposed to do and people have a work around then that's just blatant exploiting.This example isn't relevant as it's based on skipping mechanics not learning how to recognize them and how to deal with them.It's not even remotely the same as Sabatha's flamethrower going from a one shot to a 70% hp shot in easy.. its more like giving you a Special action key to jump over the flamethrower instead.. that's not what easy mode would or should be.

You are saying having experience in the content makes the difference. I say having the wrong experience will make a player a liability instead of an asset in the normal fight. It's better to get someone with zero experience than someone with the wrong experience.

There ARE things that player could train for, but outside the fights themselves. Eating the orbs at Dhuum, going up the cannons at Sabetha, gliding between the platforms at Xera, are things a player could learn on their own, outside the hassle of the actual fight, and the penalty of wiping the entire group if they fail. This, I can understand.

They won't have the wrong experience, they'll have exactly the same experience only with higher stakes for mistakes.You say they can learn these mechanics outside the fights but that simply isnt true.It would be if there were a training instance specifically for those mechanics or if dumbed down versions of these bosses appeared elsewhere in the game but they don't, the only way people will learn them is by experiencing them and the only way they can do that is by playing the raid and learning as they go.As I said reading about them and experiencing them are two very different things, I know that from experience because me and my friend group did a lot of prep work for our first raid which got pretty much thrown out the window once we actually started playing and we learned what we had to do via trail and error instead.Ultimately that made the raid far more enjoyable as well.

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@"Teratus.2859" said:They won't have the wrong experience, they'll have exactly the same experience only with higher stakes for mistakes.

So a completely different experience. When the stakes are different, the experience is different, the way you deal with the mechanics is different and even the mentality towards the content is different. In the Sabetha example, if it doesn't kill you but does 70% of your health as damage, there would be zero reason to move and lose your dps while moving. Since the flamethrower only does the damage once, you can face tank it (on any build), expect to be healed (or get downed and get revived) and just dps.

But those who want to raid properly will be playing to learn the mechanics, fully aware that the real thing is going to mess them up hard if they screw them up.

Those who want to raid properly will join a training discord or a training guild and practice with them. Also, this type of easy mode is a recipe for disaster as having players with fundamentally different expectations doing the same content can have very bad results. In the Sabetha example again, in this "easy mode" where the flamethrower isn't an instant kill anymore the meta mechanic would be to stand still, out heal it, and not use potential dps due to moving around. The player that wants to "train as if it's the real thing" will rotate around, going away of the stack. Now in this example, he'll still be in buff range (unless messing up completely) but you can see how having different expectations can create all kinds of problems.

How do you fit in this easy mode version both a player that is there for the rewards/efficiency AND a player that wants to train for the real thing? "Hey guys, I will do the mechanics as if they are real, you can ignore them since they aren't punishing" isn't going to work very well.

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@"Swagger.1459" said:1- No forms of difficulty scaling.

2- The way your professions were designed... https://massivelyop.com/2019/03/28/massively-overthinking-thoughts-on-the-holy-trinity-in-mmos/

“Brianna Royce (@nbrianna, blog): Fun fact: I still remember when “holy trinity” meant tank, healer, and mezzer – the DPS players were a given, the warm bodies that filled out the rest of the group, and not part of the trinity back in the early pre-WoW days of MMO group content. The fact that this shifted over time really says all you need to know about how MMO class and combat design have changed, and not necessarily for the better.

Don’t mistake me; I no longer believe we need or must respect a trinity of either type. But what I truly resent is the loss of class variation and combat flow that naturally accompanied the demise of the classic trinity, specifically the fact that crowd control, buffing, and debuffing classes have all but disappeared in the modern rush to make nearly everyone a damage-dealer, even the healers and tanks.

As an example, I can still think of none better than City of Heroes, which offered all of the old trinity and new trinity class types (and then some) but made none of them actually mandatory to clear content. Yes, tanks and healers and CCers and buffers and debuffers and damage dealers all existed, but it was completely possible to get through the game with no healers, or all healers. With a scrapper tanking ahead of a fleet of corruptors. With a stalker and four controllers. With three bubblers and three tankers. Whatever. I don’t want to see strict trinity MMOs, but I’m even grumpier about the “everyone deeps” MMOs even more, especially when the end result is cluster**** combat where nobody ever has control over the fight. It didn’t have to be that way, but modernish devs keep reinventing the wheel, convinced they can do better. Maybe someday, they will, but so far, nah.”

Note- that "cluster" comment was a link to the GW2 section on MOP.

3- Combining number 1 + 2 ultimately created a toxic environment for instanced content that most people don't want to be part of.

Or maybe people are not interested? or maybe they dont have or dont want to use discord, skype etc etc cause they have a weak PC and they'll LAG if they use? or maybe there is not enough people even asking guild(one of my guilds 'VIP' has more than 2k members, usually 100+ on but when you ask 'help' or let's run t1, t2, etc noone answer)? or maybe when you are running a dungeon with random players 90% of them just GO RUSHING direct to the objective, no communication like ''every man for himself'' and we have to figure out what to do?

^perhaps.

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@maddoctor.2738 said:

@"Teratus.2859" said:They won't have the wrong experience, they'll have exactly the same experience only with higher stakes for mistakes.

So a completely different experience. When the stakes are different, the experience is different, the way you deal with the mechanics is different and even the mentality towards the content is different. In the Sabetha example, if it doesn't kill you but does 70% of your health as damage, there would be zero reason to move and lose your dps while moving. Since the flamethrower only does the damage once, you can face tank it (on any build), expect to be healed (or get downed and get revived) and just dps.

What part of same mechanics, same experince, exclusively learning based purpose are you defining as completely different experience?I can't make it any more clear that it's the same content it just doesn't obliterate you for making a single mistake with one shot mechanics.. ergo showing you what you did wrong and what you need to learn how to avoid without wiping your party and having them rage at you for it.Even the most casual of players knows that attacks that wipe out most of your life bar are something to be avoided even if you can survive them.

But those who want to raid properly will be playing to learn the mechanics, fully aware that the real thing is going to mess them up hard if they screw them up.

Those who want to raid properly will join a training discord or a training guild and practice with them.

If that were true raids would be significantly more popular than they currently are.Clearly this process doesnt work for most people.

Also, this type of easy mode is a recipe for disaster as having players with fundamentally different expectations doing the same content can have very bad results. In the Sabetha example again, in this "easy mode" where the flamethrower isn't an instant kill anymore the meta mechanic would be to stand still, out heal it, and not use potential dps due to moving around. The player that wants to "train as if it's the real thing" will rotate around, going away of the stack. Now in this example, he'll still be in buff range (unless messing up completely) but you can see how having different expectations can create all kinds of problems.

You're assuming people will do that despite knowing that they won't be able to in the real raid, and despite playing the easy mode for the sole purpose of learning those mechanics in the first place.They would get nothing out of the experience if they did that and most people would definitely know that before they went in.

How do you fit in this easy mode version both a player that is there for the rewards/efficiency AND a player that wants to train for the real thing? "Hey guys, I will do the mechanics as if they are real, you can ignore them since they aren't punishing" isn't going to work very well.

I already said the easy mode would give you no rewards, not even exp.. absolutely nothing would be rewarded upon success.It's purely for training purposes to give people hands on experience with the mechanics, map, bosses etc, rather than being a burden on a raid group who's trying to actually beat the content and failing because of you.. that scenario being a big reason why so many players give up and don't come back to this content.It won't matter in easy what the rest of the group does, you only need to focus on what you are doing and what the boss is doing the vast majority of the time.It's that experience that you take into normal raids where everyone else will be doing the same thing and expecting you to do the same.

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@Teratus.2859 said:I already said the easy mode would give you no rewards, not even exp.. absolutely nothing would be rewarded upon success.

It wasn't in the post I quoted so I guess I missed that part, it was a bit higher. The drawbacks of joining in a discussion in progress. Good luck with asking for the implementation of content without rewards.

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@Teratus.2859 said:

@"maddoctor.2738" said:

But those who want to raid properly will be playing to learn the mechanics, fully aware that the real thing is going to mess them up hard if they screw them up.

Those who want to raid properly will join a training discord or a training guild and practice with them.

If that were true raids would be significantly more popular than they currently are.Clearly this process doesnt work for most people.It doesn't work for most people, because, surprise surprise, most people do
not
actually want to "raid properly". They are asking for easy raids specifically in order to be able to "raid improperly".

@Teratus.2859 said:You're assuming people will do that despite knowing that they won't be able to in the real raid, and despite playing the easy mode for the sole purpose of learning those mechanics in the first place.No, i assume that most people would not play easy mode raids "for the sole purpose of learning". In fact, if the easy mode was designed in such a way that learning was the only thing players could obtain from it, it would end up way deader than normal mode is.

I already said the easy mode would give you no rewards, not even exp.. absolutely nothing would be rewarded upon success.Then it would end a dead mode within a week. And i am being generous here.
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@maddoctor.2738 said:

@"Teratus.2859" said:They won't have the wrong experience, they'll have exactly the same experience only with higher stakes for mistakes.

So a completely different experience. When the stakes are different, the experience is different, the way you deal with the mechanics is different and even the mentality towards the content is different. In the Sabetha example, if it doesn't kill you but does 70% of your health as damage, there would be zero reason to move and lose your dps while moving. Since the flamethrower only does the damage once, you can face tank it (on any build), expect to be healed (or get downed and get revived) and just dps.

But those who want to raid properly will be playing to learn the mechanics, fully aware that the real thing is going to mess them up hard if they screw them up.

Those who want to raid properly will join a training discord or a training guild and practice with them. Also, this type of easy mode is a recipe for disaster as having players with fundamentally different expectations doing the same content can have very bad results. In the Sabetha example again, in this "easy mode" where the flamethrower isn't an instant kill anymore the meta mechanic would be to stand still, out heal it, and not use potential dps due to moving around. The player that wants to "train as if it's the real thing" will rotate around, going away of the stack. Now in this example, he'll still be in buff range (unless messing up completely) but you can see how having different expectations can create all kinds of problems.

How do you fit in this easy mode version both a player that is there for the rewards/efficiency AND a player that wants to train for the real thing? "Hey guys, I will do the mechanics as if they are real, you can ignore them since they aren't punishing" isn't going to work very well.

You dont, you simply introduce harder content than the easy mdoe elsewhere for said player to get the gist of it (either fractal cms or strike cms could be harder than the easy mode raid).

Its far more realistic and easy imo to simply build an easy mode for those that want juet that, an easy mode amd a hard mode for those that want just that, a hard mode.

At first someone might think that you should do the nm to get the idea of the hm encounter but thats not necessarily the case in either ff14 or wow,the 2 biggest mmos for raiding rn. Its all about giving ppl the content the want whethet thats easy content or hard content.

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There is also a 4th reason - Only a small audience asked for them (which is another reason why they shouldn't have come to fruition). With regards to the toxicity, long before the raids even came out hoards of players already foretold what was going to happen. Even those who never said a peep about them knew what was going to happen.. so again, why did they ever even bother coming to fruition.

Raids implementation is one of the biggest reasons why we have such a "balance" problem.

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@"Henry.5713" said:

Do we actually need to be told about these "reasons"? Niche content attracts a niche crowd. Introducing multiple difficulty tiers might slightly increase the size of said crowd but raids would continue to be niche content no matter what.You either decide to have niche content in your game for very specific crowds or you do not. Trying to make all content appeal to most players is never going to work. Some people simply do not enjoy PvP. No amount of carebearing will ever change that. Many players are never going to enjoy competitive PvE. And again, no amount of babysteps to introduce them to raiding will change that fact.

The great majority of the players who wanted try raids already did do so. They went through long phases of active raiding and they eventually quit due to a lack of new content. The number of people who have been actively raiding since day is getting closer to zero by the day. Everyone is moving on or at least going on an hiatus for a while.

Feels like we have a said this a thousand times already... The only way to maintain a sizeable raid community is a good rate of new raid content. No amount of new incoming players who might or might not even like raids are going to make up for those who already quit.

Sums most of it imo. Be it time constrained or etc, it's impossible to get 100% audience participation for it in GW2. It's possible only if the game mainly focus on it, whereby it will only attract players specifically for raids.

Players are given free will, nothing is forced. As much as I want PvP skins, I just dislike PvP. Not going to find excuses for myself eg. Toxicity, just dislike the whole flipping capture points idea which all PvP is based on. I'm fine with WvW.

Strike Mission is just a stepping stone to raids; a platform. It won't force players into raids if they're not interested. I do believe there are players trying out raids after doing strike, but couldn't find a "proper" group to fit in (same problem as before, and those who are interested will find a way). Players who are not interested in raids, will still not raid even though they're doing Strikes regularly. Nor keep in touch with anyone they met in Strike to organize something.

@"DeadlySynz.3471" said:

There is also a 4th reason - Only a small audience asked for them (which is another reason why they shouldn't have come to fruition). With regards to the toxicity, long before the raids even came out hoards of players already foretold what was going to happen. Even those who never said a peep about them knew what was going to happen.. so again, why did they ever even bother coming to fruition.

Raids implementation is one of the biggest reasons why we have such a "balance" problem.

Enough for it to be considered and implemented and attract a big crowd for HoT. Why the number didn't maintained till today is debateable. Not sure what "balance" is referring and related to raids (condi was nerfed during HoT, Might stats was lower compared to when the game was launched etc(?) Wasn't things more powerful back then?

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@Astralporing.1957 said:

@"maddoctor.2738" said:

But those who want to raid properly will be playing to learn the mechanics, fully aware that the real thing is going to mess them up hard if they screw them up.

Those who want to raid properly will join a training discord or a training guild and practice with them.

If that were true raids would be significantly more popular than they currently are.Clearly this process doesnt work for most people.It doesn't work for most people, because, surprise surprise, most people do
not
actually want to "raid properly". They are asking for easy raids specifically in order to be able to "raid improperly".

If that were true then Anet would/should just cater raids to the majority instead and stop wasting precious time and resources making content exclusively for a very small and shrinking minority of players.

If they want more people getting into raiding then they need to implement better ways of teaching people how to do them.Strikes were a fine idea in theory but to call them easy raids would be inaccurate, they do not teach you the same mechanics or prepare you for raiding what so ever.

Now if there were a harder variant of Strike missions that had exactly the same bosses and mechancis but introduced one shot mechanics for failing certain tasks... that would be a very different thing entirely.

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@"DeadlySynz.3471" said:Raids implementation is one of the biggest reasons why we have such a "balance" problem.Nah. Raids didn't cause balance problems. They may have made those problems more visible, but the main cause is the core game design - so, something that has been in GW2 since the very beginning.

@Teratus.2859 said:If that were true then Anet would/should just cater raids to the majority instead and stop wasting precious time and resources making content exclusively for a very small and shrinking minority of players.Possibly. Or go for multi-tiered design model, making the creation of content for hardcore players a byproduct of making a content for the mainstream players (and thus far easier to justify resourcewise).One thing that is not going to work is trying to create a content for a small minority of players, knowing putting resources in it is not justifiable, but hoping that somehow, against all indications up to this point, you will be able to push more players in that content so you can no longer feel all that efford you have done so far was wasted.

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@"Astralporing.1957" said:Nah. Raids didn't cause balance problems. They may have made those problems more visible, but the main cause is the core game design - so, something that has been in GW2 since the very beginning.

Nah, the game design worked fine for what it was designed for, which was PvP.

The original "vision" for this game was PvP was the serious bit, PvE / WvW were casual, to the point 'no raids' was used as a selling point for fun, casual, friendly PvE with no toxic raids. So the attitude was PvP was the only bit that really mattered for combat design/balance, the other two casual modes did not matter as long as PvE was faceroll enough that pretty much any group of classes could do dungeons and WvW was just a mode beyond help as far as balance is concerned.

Which is why in Alpha you had players like Sacrx ("famous" WvW player) making videos about how WvW/PvE were basically being ignored in regard to class/combat design and balance, and that all the devs were bothered about was feedback from Teldo and co in PvP. And why for the first 2 and half years of the game balance was nearly entirely around PvP.

So raids did in fact cause problems for balance in PvP, (and even WvW), the game was not designed to have "healers" like Druid, nor tanks like Chrono that virtually broke PvP, nor for condition damage to be buffed as it was because PvE players complained about zerker or nothing, nor for endless boon uptime to give players something to do in raids, etc.

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@Sylosi.6503 said:

@"Astralporing.1957" said:Nah. Raids didn't cause balance problems. They may have made those problems more visible, but the main cause is the core game design - so, something that has been in GW2 since the very beginning.

Nah, the game design worked fine for what it was designed for, which was PvP.

The original "vision" for this game was PvP was the serious bit, PvE / WvW were casual, to the point 'no raids' was used as a selling point for fun, casual, friendly PvE with no toxic raids. So the attitude was PvP was the only bit that really mattered for balance, the other two casual modes did not matter as long as PvE was faceroll enough that pretty much any group of classes could do dungeons and WvW was just a mode beyond help as far as balance is concerned.Yes, the PvP game with PvE lobby was indeed the original intention for this game. It didn't last through beta however - and i mean
GW1
beta. Frankly, most of the players never cared about PvP in the first place. And the PvE/WvW didn't matter only to those that weren't playing it. Sure, the attitude of PvP being the only thing that matter for balance was present initially, but some people thinking that way never made it true, and the game has still not recovered from all the problems it caused.

Which is why in Alpha you had players like Sacrx ("famous" WvW player) making videos about how WvW/PvE were basically being ignored in regard to class/combat design and balance, and that all the devs were bothered about was feedback from Teldo and co in PvP. And why for the first 2 and half years of the game balance was nearly entirely around PvP.Partially true. Most of the balance was indeed meant for pvp, and it caused a ton of problems throughout the rest of the game. Because it did keep causing a ton of problems, way before HoT was even mentioned. And no, you not considering pve "serious bit" didn't mean those problems were not felt by the pve community. The attitude of "it's pve, so it doesn't matter" was never actually something most people agreed with - it was mostly non-pve players that thought that, and they were, even then, a small minority. Frankly, it was always bullkitten. Unfortunately it was bullkitten Anet listened to, at least to some degree.

So raids did in fact cause problems for balance in PvP, (and even WvW), the game was not designed to have "healers" like Druids, Firebrands, etc, nor tanks like Chrono that literally broke PvP, nor for condition damage to be buffed as it was because PvE players complained about zerker or nothing, nor for endless boon uptime to give players something to do in raids, etc.Raids caused about as much problems in PvP as PvP caused in PvE, perhaps less. I mean, it was PvP that was to blame for 25% of the classes getting releged to uselessness in PvE with no chance of ever getting better. Until HoT happened, that is.The truth is that the game is designed in such a way that it's simply impossible to balance well for all the gamemodes - not without some major balance splits between those modes.

And all of that still doesn't change the fact, that it's the core game design, not raids, that cause the current balance problems. Too many stat/trait/skill combinations for the devs to be able to predict all the possible consequences of even small changes? Too many options to ever balance them properly? Massive dps disparity between builds? That's not raids - all of those things were here well before HoT. In fact, they were present in PvP as well, and to the same degree. It's just that the most vocal pvp players were not concerned about them, because those didn't affect them personally. Or at least they thought so - because i am sure that some of those things were among factors that ultimately caused SPvP's demise.

Tl/DR;

  1. Each mode requires a separate balance, that is different than those for other modes. That's not fault of raids, that's due to some core differences in gameplay between modes.
  2. each mode requires a balance. No, we can't just say that some modes do not matter (hey, let's ignore huge majority of this game's players. What could go wrong). And PvE desperately needed more attention to balance long before Raids appeared.
  3. core game design makes it very hard for devs to balance even within a single gamemode
  4. core game design causes a vast disparity between options within each gamemode.
  5. None of those things are a result of raids.

In summary, all of the reasons that make the balance of this game so problematic were there since the very beginning. It's the core design that is at fault here. Not raids.

There are a ton of things you could possibly blame raids for, but balance is not one of those.

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