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Top 3 reasons why raids only attracted a small audience


Swagger.1459

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@maddoctor.2738 said:

@Swagger.1459 said:The devs do not want to make more raids because they currently only attract a small audience at the end of the day.

Key word: currently. How did we go from "population is fine" to "population is small", none of your 3 points address this.

I made my thread with the 3 main points as to why raids only attracted a small audience.

They didn't attract a small audience, they ended up with a small audience, the audience they "attracted" was fine. Until mistakes were made that led to the population drop. Mistakes that have very little to do with any of your points. I hope you can understand the difference.

I already stated the “why” in my op. Don’t need to cover it again. However, I’m glad we are on the same “RoI” page now!

There is nothing about it in your OP.Let's see step by step.

Was the Raid audience "small" at least until the release of Path of Fire? According to the developers it was both acceptable AND they promised more releases. So the answer to that is probably a no, unless they were lying or something.Did Raids back then have difficulty modes that were suddenly removed from the game to lead to the current small audience? No, I don't recall Raids having difficulty tiers that were suddenly removed.

So we have Raids with a fine audience without having any difficulty tiers, that then become a small audience for a variety of reasons and you claim that reason is difficulty tiers. See the fault in your OP? Your OP would make sense if difficulty tiers existed and then they were removed OR if Raids never had a proper audience. Both of these are false. So the argument of "raids have a small audience due to not having difficulty tiers" is flawed, and factually wrong.

edit: your "profession design" argument has the exact same flaws

Hold on ... an 'acceptable' level doesn't mean it wasn't small. It simply means it was just good enough to allow raid development to continue ... until the point where it wasn't.

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@Obtena.7952 said:

@Swagger.1459 said:The devs do not want to make more raids because they currently only attract a small audience at the end of the day.

Key word: currently. How did we go from "population is fine" to "population is small", none of your 3 points address this.

I made my thread with the 3 main points as to why raids only attracted a small audience.

They didn't attract a small audience, they ended up with a small audience, the audience they "attracted" was fine. Until mistakes were made that led to the population drop. Mistakes that have very little to do with any of your points. I hope you can understand the difference.

I already stated the “why” in my op. Don’t need to cover it again. However, I’m glad we are on the same “RoI” page now!

There is nothing about it in your OP.Let's see step by step.

Was the Raid audience "small" at least until the release of Path of Fire? According to the developers it was both acceptable AND they promised more releases. So the answer to that is probably a no, unless they were lying or something.Did Raids back then have difficulty modes that were suddenly removed from the game to lead to the current small audience? No, I don't recall Raids having difficulty tiers that were suddenly removed.

So we have Raids with a fine audience without having any difficulty tiers, that then become a small audience for a variety of reasons and you claim that reason is difficulty tiers. See the fault in your OP? Your OP would make sense if difficulty tiers existed and then they were removed OR if Raids never had a proper audience. Both of these are false. So the argument of "raids have a small audience due to not having difficulty tiers" is flawed, and factually wrong.

edit: your "profession design" argument has the exact same flaws

Hold on ... an 'acceptable' level doesn't mean it wasn't small. It simply means it was just good enough to allow raid development to continue ... until the point where it wasn't.

That doesn't change much, unless the company as a whole started having huge financial issues and had to cut here and there. But there is lots of evidence to suggest that Raids used to be way more popular in the past.

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@maddoctor.2738 said:

@Swagger.1459 said:The devs do not want to make more raids because they currently only attract a small audience at the end of the day.

Key word: currently. How did we go from "population is fine" to "population is small", none of your 3 points address this.

I made my thread with the 3 main points as to why raids only attracted a small audience.

They didn't attract a small audience, they ended up with a small audience, the audience they "attracted" was fine. Until mistakes were made that led to the population drop. Mistakes that have very little to do with any of your points. I hope you can understand the difference.

I already stated the “why” in my op. Don’t need to cover it again. However, I’m glad we are on the same “RoI” page now!

There is nothing about it in your OP.Let's see step by step.

Was the Raid audience "small" at least until the release of Path of Fire? According to the developers it was both acceptable AND they promised more releases. So the answer to that is probably a no, unless they were lying or something.Did Raids back then have difficulty modes that were suddenly removed from the game to lead to the current small audience? No, I don't recall Raids having difficulty tiers that were suddenly removed.

So we have Raids with a fine audience without having any difficulty tiers, that then become a small audience for a variety of reasons and you claim that reason is difficulty tiers. See the fault in your OP? Your OP would make sense if difficulty tiers existed and then they were removed OR if Raids never had a proper audience. Both of these are false. So the argument of "raids have a small audience due to not having difficulty tiers" is flawed, and factually wrong.

edit: your "profession design" argument has the exact same flaws

Hold on ... an 'acceptable' level doesn't mean it wasn't small. It simply means it was just good enough to allow raid development to continue ... until the point where it wasn't.

That doesn't change much, unless the company as a whole started having huge financial issues and had to cut here and there.And that could very well be the case. I mean, that would be something indicative of dropping revenues ... OOPS, there is that again.But there is lots of evidence to suggest that Raids used to be way more popular in the past.Sure, I don't think any reasonable person would deny that raids used to be more popular than they are now. That's really a moot point though ... popular stuff can become unpopular. I think it's also reasonable to believe that if raids were MORE popular to begin with more people when they were released (oh, there is that original audience appeal coming into play again) we could have more raid development than we do now.
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Raids in other games are pretty much just 10 player content. there is no thing that holds you back. good example is FF14. they banned dps meters and thereby limited the amount of elitists and tryhards. I for one wanted to do them a long time ago, but the requirements people have just to have a fun time are just too high. How can you expect people to use the highest gear available that just has like 4 statpoints more compared to exodic? Why does it matter when I don't follow the rotation I was supposed to do? Why like people kicking people for failing one input? It is as clear as day. this wouldn't happen in gw1, because builds were built around the maximum profit for the entire team. so you got stuff like deep skipway which makes use of a elite skill that is hardly used by anyone in pve. Now in gw1 the elite missions and dungeons don't really have a lot of high requirements. Know your role. Know why you got the skills you got. This is simply not possible for gw2, because skills are way more limited in variety and switching gear can take more time. The weirdest thing is that people expect you have cleared the raid before even attempting to first play it yourself. I am for one don't wanna deal with such people and that's why raids are dead to me.

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@Swagger.1459 said:Andrew Gray is saying that it's not worth the devs time and money to work on raids for a small audience period. Meaning PAID employees could be best used in other areas that generate a better RoI period. Not a new concept in business..I'll also be extra helpful.@Fire Attunement.9835 said:

  • Raids are a trickier beast. They're a unique experience and community that we want to find better ways to support , the biggest challenge in creating more is the small audience they attract. We gathered data to determine why, and the most common answer was that there is a giant leap in difficulty between raids and other endgame content, and there isn't anything to help players work their way up.
  • Regardless of if that succeeds or not, we understand the importance of balancing our efforts between accessible content with broad appeal, and content that appeals to the more hard core audience, and recognize that we need to do a better job of supporting the latter.Andrew Gray clearly stated that they are reinforcing their support to raid and the raid community rather than cutting it.
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@Vilin.8056 said:

@Swagger.1459 said:Andrew Gray is saying that it's not worth the devs time and money to work on raids for a small audience period. Meaning PAID employees could be best used in other areas that generate a better RoI period. Not a new concept in business..I'll also be extra helpful.@"Fire Attunement.9835" said:
  • Raids are a trickier beast.
    They're a unique experience and community that we want to find better ways to support
    , the biggest challenge in creating more is the small audience they attract. We gathered data to determine why, and the most common answer was that there is a giant leap in difficulty between raids and other endgame content, and there isn't anything to help players work their way up.
  • Regardless of if that succeeds or not, we understand the importance of balancing our efforts between accessible content with broad appeal, and
    content that appeals to the more hard core audience, and recognize that we need to do a better job of supporting the latter.
    Andrew Gray clearly stated that they are reinforcing their support to raid and the raid community rather than cutting it.

You- “Again, which also came out from nothing but biased personal interpretation of a developer comment with no actual evident to prove.Some people just confuse personal speculations as facts."

Facts...

Me- “The devs do not want to make more raids because they currently only attract a small audience at the end of the day.”

  • Andrew Gray- “the biggest challenge in creating more is the small audience they attract.”

Me- “The devs tried introducing strike missions as stepping stones to hopefully encourage more player to try raid content and build up the population for raids. This was their first attempt at finding a way to “support” the raid community without making more actual raids that currently only draw a “small audience”.

  • Andrew Gray- “Our intention was for Strike Missions to be that intermediary step into 10-person content.

Me- “I’m sure the devs will attempt other means to encourage more people to try raids and “support” that community by adding more bodies. But again, without creating more actual raids that currently only draw a “small audience”.”

  • Andrew Gray- “our hope is once that ramp is in place, the number of players participating in raids will go up.”

Me- “Instead of saying “we are completely abandoning any and all efforts”, they are trying something to support the raid community without making actual raids that currently only appeal to a “small audience”.”

  • Andrew Gray- “Regardless of if that succeeds or not, we understand the importance of balancing our efforts between accessible content with broad appeal, and content that appeals to the more hard core audience, and recognize that we need to do a better job of supporting the latter.”

...I got the facts right. Please read a bit more carefully before you accuse someone of “biased personal interpretation”.

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@Swagger.1459 said:Me- “The devs do not want to make more raids because they currently only attract a small audience at the end of the day.”

  • Andrew Gray- “the biggest challenge in creating more is the small audience they attract.”

Me- “The devs tried introducing strike missions as stepping stones to hopefully encourage more player to try raid content and build up the population for raids. This was their first attempt at finding a way to “support” the raid community without making more actual raids that currently only draw a “small audience”.

  • Andrew Gray- “Our intention was for Strike Missions to be that intermediary step into 10-person content.

Me- “I’m sure the devs will attempt other means to encourage more people to try raids and “support” that community by adding more bodies. But again, without creating more actual raids that currently only draw a “small audience”.”

  • Andrew Gray- “our hope is once that ramp is in place, the number of players participating in raids will go up.”

Me- “Instead of saying “we are completely abandoning any and all efforts”, they are trying something to support the raid community without making actual raids that currently only appeal to a “small audience”.”

  • Andrew Gray- “Regardless of if that succeeds or not, we understand the importance of balancing our efforts between accessible content with broad appeal, and content that appeals to the more hard core audience, and recognize that we need to do a better job of supporting the latter.”...I got the facts right. Please read a bit more carefully before you accuse someone of “biased personal interpretation”.

Again, “biased personal interpretation”, marked in bold italic. Mixing developer comment into your own interpretation doesn't make your interpretation facts.

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Ignoring the facts just so you can argue for the sake of arguing isn't a winning scenario for you, and frankly not productive. Plain words were written. Easy enough to understand. Especially side by side. Please read more carefully next time. It's on you, nobody else.

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@Swagger.1459 said:Ignoring the facts just so you can argue for the sake of arguing isn't a winning scenario for you, and frankly not productive. Plain words were written. Easy enough to understand. Especially side by side. Please read more carefully next time. It's on you, nobody else.Except that they aren't facts, so makes the whole argument irrelevant.

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@Vilin.8056 said:

@Swagger.1459 said:Me- “
The devs do not want to make more raids
because they currently only attract a small audience at the end of the day.”
  • Andrew Gray- “the biggest challenge in creating more is the small audience they attract.”Again, “biased personal interpretation”, marked in bold italic. Mixing developer comment into your own interpretation doesn't make your interpretation facts.

Hold on here ... Forget what the dev said. ... I've lost track of how long it's been since a raid was released ... is that a figment of imagination? Is that someone's biased personal interpretation? I don't actually think you have thought this through ... if the “the biggest challenge in creating more (raids) is the small audience they attract.” ... and we haven't had a new raid released for a long time ... that's not biased personal interpretation ... that's basis for factual statements about Anet's willingness to make more raids ... that appears to be at THIS point, NOT. Especially considering we have 'fresh' strike missions that are presumably the new focus.

So are you just going to hammer some pedantic point about specific wording to diminish the value of the argument because you haven't got any substance for a different line of reasoning? His whole argument is irrelevant because you don't like his 'facts'? That's a disingenuous approach to dismissing someone's line of thought don't you think?

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@Vilin.8056 said:

@Swagger.1459 said:Me- “
The devs do not want to make more raids
because they currently only attract a small audience at the end of the day.”
  • Andrew Gray- “the biggest challenge in creating more is the small audience they attract.”Again, “biased personal interpretation”, marked in bold italic. Mixing developer comment into your own interpretation doesn't make your interpretation facts.

Hold on here ... Forget what the dev said. ... I've lost track of how long it's been since a raid was released ... is that a figment of imagination? Is that someone's biased personal interpretation? I don't actually think you have thought this through ... if the “the biggest challenge in creating more (raids) is the small audience they attract.” ... and we haven't had a new raid released for a long time ... that's not biased personal interpretation ... that's basis for factual statements about Anet's willingness to make more raids ... that appears to be at THIS point, NOT. Especially considering we have 'fresh' strike missions that are presumably the new focus.

So care to try again or are you just going to hammer some pedantic point about specific wording like everyone else? His whole argument is irrelevant because you don't like his 'fact's? That's a disingenuous approach to dismissing someone's line of thought don't you think?So now you want me to forget what the developers said?For YOU? Yes, because you're much too distracted by it to understand the points that are being made to you. Despite what you think, hammering someone over a pedantic point doesn't make their argument any less valuable or irrelevant. That's a really dishonest approach to having a discussion with people.When you're wrong, you're wrong.

So .... no counter argument other than the opinion we are wrong? Thanks.

See the big problem in this thread is that some very reasonable and ideas and concepts are being presented as reasons for why we have the current situation ... and what is happening is that they are being dismissed as ridiculous. Why would anyone dismiss completely reasonable ideas and concepts to explain the current situation unless they had some agenda or didn't want to believe what they were being told?

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My position is simple and reasonable. How you decide to label that and try to diminish it with your wordsmithing is not very relevant to the substance of that position. The best part is that it still stands, despite your claim that businesses that use revenue as a factor to decide how to direct the game is a 'conspiracy theory' that can't explain why raids aren't being developed anymore. Why? because you can't bring yourself to challenge the ideas that support that position. The best you can do is challenge the person that brings those ideas forward. It's a flawed approach, because it doesn't make the position and it's support less true. /shrug.

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@Swagger.1459 said:@Vilin.8056 Those are the facts. You can choose to ignore those facts, but it doesn’t change the fact that the devs don’t want to make more raids because that content only attracts a small audience. And ignoring those facts doesn’t change the end result.Content cuts applies on both sides, we now going from 1 map per Episode, 1/2 map per Episode to no open map on the current episode, this is also the reality. In equal logic you can say Anet developers don't want to make more open map contents, which is also pointless at best.

There's no point to dictate your speculation as facts based on a narrow take of the current game status.

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@Obtena.7952 said:And that could very well be the case. I mean, that would be something indicative of dropping revenues ... OOPS, there is that again.

Indeed. For the entire game, which is outside Raid's control. And that's actually true because the total revenue did drop in the latest quarter, by quite a lot. If the total game's performance was low, it makes sense to start cutting on some parts of it, it's the unfortunate result.

Sure, I don't think any reasonable person would deny that raids used to be more popular than they are now. That's really a moot point though ... popular stuff can become unpopular. I think it's also reasonable to believe that if raids were MORE popular to begin with more people when they were released (oh, there is that original audience appeal coming into play again) we could have more raid development than we do now.

I think you misunderstood here. It's not simply that Raids were more popular than they are now, HOT Raids are -still- more popular than POF Raids to this day. Meaning, they did something different (and wrong) with POF Raids, something that didn't exist in HOT Raids, that caused the drop in popularity.

edit: which has nothing to do with any of the reasons posted by Swagger, because difficulty tiers didn't exist in HOT Raids, and professions remained the same.

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@maddoctor.2738 said:

@Obtena.7952 said:Yeah, I know ... I'm the one that speculated this in the first place and continue to repeat my position for you in hopes you start to understand it.

If you don't understand how revenue influences and drives business direction, then you don't have much to contribute to a discussion on it. There isn't any speculation about how that works.

So which is it? Do you speculate that revenue influenced that decision or not?In the case of dungeons, we
do
know that revenue influenced the decision, although from the other end. They flat out said that dungeons were so badly coded initially, that continuing to support them (which would necessitate recoding large part of them) required way more resources that they could affort to spend on them. At the same time they already had fractals, that were much cheaper to maintain. So, yes, dungeons in that old form were too costly to continue supporting, compared to concentrating on fractals they thought covered roughly the same target group, which means that this decision was definitely influenced by finances.

@"Swagger.1459" said:The devs do not want to make more raids because they currently only attract a small audience at the end of the day.

Key word: currently. How did we go from "population is fine" to "population is small", none of your 3 points address this.Simple: the initial wave coasted and receded, and only people really interested in the content remained. Turns out there were much less of them than Anet thought.Possibly also raids turned out to be more costly (and the community more demanding) that Anet expected as well. If we add to it the reduced financial resources (due to them siphoning out GW2 revenue into other, unrelated projects that then bombed)...There's also a "small" matter of w5 (see comment at the end of the post about it) that hurt raids immensely.

Notice also, that "population is fine" does not mean it was not small even then.

@maddoctor.2738 said:That doesn't change much, unless the company as a whole started having huge financial issues and had to cut here and there.Which actually almost certainly did happen.

@maddoctor.2738 said:I think you misunderstood here. It's not simply that Raids were more popular than they are now, HOT Raids are -still- more popular than POF Raids to this day. Meaning, they did something different (and wrong) with POF Raids, something that didn't exist in HOT Raids, that caused the drop in popularity.Yes. W5 was way more difficult than preceding raids, and that stopped a lot of group from progressing. Once they stopped once, at w5, they never continued past it.There are several groups i personally know that are still doing w1-w4 only, because they tried w5 a few times and decided that "raid progress" is not for them. And yes, before you ask, their opinion on w6 (beyond the first boss, which is easy) is not any better. Twin Largos may be easy for top tier groups, but they are a content stopper for less capable raiders (especially now, after the "easy mode" mirage party got nerfed hard from whait it was originally).I don't know about w7, because no group i was in even bothered with it.

Basically, when the small number of raiders was crying for more difficult and challenging fights, and how w4 was way too easy, majority of raiders at this time were completely fine with that level of difficulty. And when devs listened to the few, and released w5, a lot of players got really, really disappointed. That's when the drop in popularity started.(and no, it wasn't about w5 and beyond using Divinations instead of Insights, because this all started long before LDs were introduced, when w5 was still using LIs).

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@"Astralporing.1957" said:They flat out said that dungeons were so badly coded initially, that continuing to support them (which would necessitate recoding large part of them) required way more resources that they could affort to spend on them.

That's true even for not "badly coded" content, when the developers of said content (like the fractal/raid team for example) doesn't work for a company anymore. No matter how well written, in many cases it's better to make something new rather than work on code someone else wrote, this is a sad truth of coding.

Simple: the initial wave coasted and receded, and only people really interested in the content remained. Turns out there were much less of them than Anet thought.

But I'm not talking about the initial wave. Just this Monday alone there were far more listings and groups going for Heart of Thorns Raids than Path of Fire Raids. This was also true if you compared the gw2raidar listings when that website was still active. Heart of Thorns Raids had very more "confidence" in their dps reports because there were more reports to begin with.

There's also a "small" matter of w5 (see comment at the end of the post about it) that hurt raids immensely.

I know, w5 was terrible.

Notice also, that "population is fine" does not mean it was not small even then.

The amount of players running content is irrelevant. The question is if the number of players can justify continue content creation or not.

Which actually almost certainly did happen.

True. And when the game did start a nose dive, certain aspects of it took a hit, causing an even further nose dive. It was also very close to the time management silently changed. This can tell us a lot about what was going behind the scenes.

Yes. W5 was way more difficult than preceding raids, and that stopped a lot of group from progressing. Once they stopped once, at w5, they never continued past it.

Agreed completely. Adding the first requirements for the legendary collection in w5 was also an icing on the cake. Even if a player was still interested in Raids and wanted to like w6, they'd still need to finish w5 first. Really bad design.

There are several groups i personally know that are still doing w1-w4 only, because they tried w5 a few times and decided that "raid progress" is not for them. And yes, before you ask, their opinion on w6 (beyond the first boss, which is easy) is not any better. Twin Largos may be easy for top tier groups, but they are a content stopper for less capable raiders (especially now, after the "easy mode" mirage party got nerfed hard from whait it was originally).

I know and I personally know players that are doing w1-w4 only as well. But not always because they tried w5 and didn't like it, but also because getting legendary armor for newer guild members/squad members is far more important than a ring (or progression). Also the game is in a lot of flux lately and honestly I can't seem to find a proper team that will stick together for a while. Everyone is simply getting bored and is leaving.

I don't know about w7, because no group i was in even bothered with it.

It might sound surprising, but same here. Only tried w7 once, but my team was already heavily butchered at that time due to lack of interest in the game overall that we disbanded soon after.

Basically, when the small number of raiders was crying for more difficult and challenging fights, and how w4 was way too easy, majority of raiders at this time were completely fine with that level of difficulty. And when devs listened to the few, and released w5, a lot of players got really, really disappointed. That's when the drop in popularity started.

Do note however that at the same time they released w5, they promised faster releases. If, and that's a huge if, w6 was released much sooner, like 6-7 months after w5, then the "Damage" caused by w5 wouldn't be so extreme. Also, remember that release delays happened around June 2018 with Long Live the Lich, which caused extra delays for Raid releases and at the same time caused a lot of dissatisfaction with the entire playerbase. Meaning what could keep players active while waiting for the next Raid (episodes) was also delayed

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@maddoctor.2738

“The amount of players running content is irrelevant. The question is if the number of players can justify continue content creation or not.”

And those numbers don’t justify making more raids... “the biggest challenge in creating more is the small audience they attract.”. There are obviously better uses of the Anets time and money.

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@Vilin.8056 said:

@Swagger.1459 said:@Vilin.8056 Those are the facts. You can choose to ignore those facts, but it doesn’t change the fact that the devs don’t want to make more raids because that content only attracts a small audience. And ignoring those facts doesn’t change the end result.Content cuts applies on both sides, we now going from 1 map per Episode, 1/2 map per Episode to no open map on the current episode, this is also the reality. In equal logic you can say Anet developers don't want to make more open map contents, which is also pointless at best.

There's no point to dictate your speculation as facts based on a narrow take of the current game status.

None of that other stuff matters. Facts are devs don’t wanna make more raids for a small audience period. My thread highlights the top 3 facts of why we are here now. You can believe whatever you want to believe, but it won’t change these facts.

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@"Swagger.1459" said:And those numbers don’t justify making more raids... “the biggest challenge in creating more is the small audience they attract.”. There are obviously better uses of the Anets time and money.

The numbers they ended with yes. Based on their past release schedule there were a good use of Anet's time and money. The question is how we got from "good use of time and money" to "not good use of time and money". The answer can be found easily comparing the HOT Raids with POF Raids and seeing what went wrong, for example, as Astralporing pointed above, Wing 5 being a mistake. The release cadence, the bad rewards, the inconsistent difficulty are some other reasons for the decline of Raids.

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@maddoctor.2738 said:

@"Swagger.1459" said:And those numbers don’t justify making more raids... “the biggest challenge in creating more is the small audience they attract.”. There are obviously better uses of the Anets time and money.

The numbers they ended with yes. Based on their past release schedule there were a good use of Anet's time and money. The question is how we got from "good use of time and money" to "not good use of time and money". The answer can be found easily comparing the HOT Raids with POF Raids and seeing what went wrong, for example, as Astralporing pointed above, Wing 5 being a mistake. The release cadence, the bad rewards, the inconsistent difficulty are some other reasons for the decline of Raids.

Sure, by my op lays out the most important reasons why raids in GW2 went down the tubes. It’s easy to see, especially since GW2 ain’t my first online rodeo and I’ve seen other games do it better.

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@Swagger.1459 said:

@Swagger.1459 said:And those numbers don’t justify making more raids... “the biggest challenge in creating more is the small audience they attract.”. There are obviously better uses of the Anets time and money.

The numbers they ended with yes. Based on their past release schedule there were a good use of Anet's time and money. The question is how we got from "good use of time and money" to "not good use of time and money". The answer can be found easily comparing the HOT Raids with POF Raids and seeing what went wrong, for example, as Astralporing pointed above, Wing 5 being a mistake. The release cadence, the bad rewards, the inconsistent difficulty are some other reasons for the decline of Raids.

Sure, by my op lays out the most important reasons why raids in GW2 went down the tubes. It’s easy to see, especially since GW2 ain’t my first online rodeo and I’ve seen other games do it better.

Those reasons didn't exist as reasons when Raids were doing fine, so they aren't any kind of reason for the decline of Raids. I've given the actual reasons for the decline of Raids, and judging by the design of Strike Missions, the developers did acknowledge them.

Starting with the easiest instead of the hardest and then progressively go higher is one such evidence. Consistent difficulty is not needed in Strike Missions that are a single boss, so this problem of Raids (not only POF Raids) was also solved. The release cadence of Strike Missions seems to be more consistent and faster than the one used in Raids. So it does look like the developers understood what went wrong in their Raids and are "fixing" it with their Strike Missions. edit: a problem with POF Raids was the rewards, rewards were tweaked/increased for Strike Missions just recently, we'll see how that helps

Do notice that there is no "easy mode" for Strike Missions (Forging Steel does have ways to make it harder, but that's completely different than the previous Strike Missions) and the professions are mostly the same they've always been, so your given "reasons for failure" haven't been addressed. But my given reasons are being fixed/addressed, hopefully if/when they restart Raids they will remember them.

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@"maddoctor.2738" said:Do note however that at the same time they released w5, they promised faster releases. If, and that's a huge if, w6 was released much sooner, like 6-7 months after w5, then the "Damage" caused by w5 wouldn't be so extreme.In my case it might have actually been worse. A lot of my friends hoped that after w5 the next wing would be easier. And while in a way w6 was easier, it was visible only on the higher end of the raid spectrum. The fact that the difficulty of both Twins and Qadim was monofocused on completely opposite aspects (Twins being a dodge fest and stringent dps check, while Qadim being very mechanic heavy with multiple points of failure) which was guaranteed to stop the progress of groups that weren't good at everything only added to that. The disappointment here was heavy, so, in a way, it was good that it happened later, rather than earlier.

Also, remember that release delays happened around June 2018 with Long Live the Lich, which caused extra delays for Raid releases and at the same time caused a lot of dissatisfaction with the entire playerbase. Meaning what could keep players active while waiting for the next Raid (episodes) was also delayedWell, yeah, and the news of no expansion (or rather, just the persistent and emphatic silence about whether any expansion was forthcoming) certainly hurt the playerbase as a whole.

One of the points i was making several times to you is that, most likely, they never had resources to make raid releases much faster. Yes, the forced joining of raid and LS release schedules might have delayed some specific raid releases, but they really did not slow the raid development as a whole. Raid wing being released month lor two later did not mean raid team was not doing anything during those two months. Longterm, if the raids were being released every 9-10 months, it means it was how often on average they could affort to ship them.

So, perhaps when they initially said that they were satisfied with the raid population, they meant a raid population that could accept that kind of schedule. It did not mean there were enough raiders for Anet to justify the schedule raiders wanted, however.

So, basically, they probably in the beginning had the population that was justifying the resources they were initially spending, but those resources turned out to be way too small to sustain that population. And the population was way too small to justify increasing the resources to the necessary amount to keep the content afloat.

Which, by the way, would be completely consistent with the predictions a lot of players were making around the time HoT launched. Raids were always the kind of content that to thrive required some heavy resource investments, and couldn;t just make do with being a small side project. It's something that if you want to have, you really, really need to focus on (or find other ways - like easy mode - to integrate them into mainstream content). Anet wanted to draw in raiders to gw2, but get away with only minimal investments - and that was never going to work.

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@"Astralporing.1957" said:In my case it might have actually been worse. A lot of my friends hoped that after w5 the next wing would be easier. And while in a way w6 was easier, it was visible only on the higher end of the raid spectrum. The fact that the difficulty of both Twins and Qadim was monofocused on completely opposite aspects (Twins being a dodge fest and stringent dps check, while Qadim being very mechanic heavy with multiple points of failure) which was guaranteed to stop the progress of groups that weren't good at everything only added to that. The disappointment here was heavy, so, in a way, it was good that it happened later, rather than earlier.

The main thing about w6 (and w7) is the increased responsibility on every player of the squad. It's also the reason why w2 isn't as popular as the other HOT raid wings, it also requires a lot of personal responsibility. Personal responsibility means it's much harder for some players to carry their guild members/friends through the content and in many cases it's advisable for them to /gg at the start so as they don't ruin the run. In those cases running with 9 (or lower) is preferable over running with extra player(s) that can wipe the entire squad. It's another interesting design choice that can make Raid encounters better for organized groups, but far worse for anyone else. I think such mechanics should be used only on the hardest bosses, Whisper of Jormag having the chains mechanic is fine because it's the "last boss" of the Bjora Strike Missions. But I wouldn't want such mechanics to be used on early bosses (like I believe Slothasor is a terrible first boss for a wing)

One of the points i was making several times to you is that, most likely, they never had resources to make raid releases much faster. Yes, the forced joining of raid and LS release schedules might have delayed some specific raid releases, but they really did not slow the raid development as a whole. Raid wing being released month lor two later did not mean raid team was not doing anything during those two months. Longterm, if the raids were being released every 9-10 months, it means it was how often on average they could affort to ship them.

Both w6 and w7 were delayed due to reasons beyond their ability to "solve". w6 was ready to ship with Long Live the Lich but was delayed for an entire episode cycle (that was also delayed) and w7 was released during a very bad time for the company, layoffs, that proved to be more serious that initially thought. As for what the Raid team was doing, it was Fractals, remember that the same team was making Raids and Fractals. And Fractals were also delayed because they were also attached to the episodes. Raids released every 9-10 months wasn't how often they could afford to ship them, you are forgetting Fractals being there, also delayed.

So, perhaps when they initially said that they were satisfied with the raid population, they meant a raid population that could accept that kind of schedule. It did not mean there were enough raiders for Anet to justify the schedule raiders wanted, however.

This isn't entirely true. HOT Raids were still run (and even today groups still run them) despite the stop in releases. And even when POF raids were out, HOT raid popularity was still there. I don't think raiders wanted such a fast release schedule, at least not raiders that were also enjoying the rest of the game. For example between w4 and w5 there was a large delay, but I can easily justify it due to the expansion been released between them. I personally wouldn't want a Raid every month or anything like that because that would mean I had to play Raids exclusively and honestly I don't want that, I enjoy the entire game. Not sure how many "raiders" would feel the same and can't speak for everyone here but a 5-6 month schedule would've been enough, and it was the time frame given by the developers themselves. Not unreasonable.

So, basically, they probably in the beginning had the population that was justifying the resources they were initially spending, but those resources turned out to be way too small to sustain that population. And the population was way too small to justify increasing the resources to the necessary amount to keep the content afloat.

But it's not the job of Raids to sustain the population, at least not alone. If the rest of the releases weren't delayed too, or of questionable quality (Gandara?) then Raids wouldn't need a much faster schedule to begin with. You really treat those that enjoy Raids as players that like Raids exclusively and if there were no Raids in the game they'd quit. I'm sure many of those that run a lot of Raids are still in the game, like myself, running Strike Missions, the new episodes or doing PVP/WVW or anything else the game has to offer. And talking about sustainability, HOT Raids are more popular than S4 zones, in the long run they are the better investment of time and money, there are more players in squads killing Vale Guardian on a reset day, than play in Ember Bay the entire week.

Which, by the way, would be completely consistent with the predictions a lot of players were making around the time HoT launched. Raids were always the kind of content that to thrive required some heavy resource investments, and couldn;t just make do with being a small side project. It's something that if you want to have, you really, really need to focus on (or find other ways - like easy mode - to integrate them into mainstream content). Anet wanted to draw in raiders to gw2, but get away with only minimal investments - and that was never going to work.

We'll see how they treat Strike Missions moving forward.

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