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Bobby Stein (dev) comment on Raid


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I repost this here for those who don't check reddit :https://old.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/hnokw2/ive_been_enjoying_raids_a_lot_has_arenanet/fxft1wk/

"raid team as you knew it before doesnt exist anymore, they were either laid off or catapulted to other companies"

To clarify: The original raid team members did move into new positions on various teams (management, lead, LW, or expac). Some are still at the studio but a few have moved on to other opportunities. This is pretty normal industry stuff.

GW2 has a vibrant community and we're always looking at ways to keep the game engaging for people. Raids, like Living World, fractals, etc. are constantly being evaluated. Right now we're focused on finishing the Icebrood Saga and the expansion (among other things) but please continue sharing your ideas and letting us know the kinds of things you want in the game. I can't guarantee a particular outcome but it's important that we know your thoughts as they help us weigh decisions. Thanks.

At least it gives us some answers (even if we don't like them). Thanks to Bobby Stein!

EDIT : another answerhttps://dd.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/hoauzq/bobby_stein_on_the_future_of_raids_a_reddit/fxhecio/

Responding to the OP: I never said raids were "abandoned" or what the future holds for that gametype or any other. I merely said, "We're working on LW and expac right now" and kept it vague because that's pretty much all I can talk about. Titling this thread "Bobby Stein on the future of raids" is a big exaggeration. Serves me right for posting, I guess. ;)

But let's focus this discussion on the players for a sec. This is purely to spur discussion and not to set false expectations, BTW. I just want to read your thoughts. This is not an official poll or anything like that. Just a chat among players.

What is it that you like about raids in general? Why do you play raids (in any game) in the first place? If we were to build another raid, what would you like to see? Any story you'd like experience?

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Honestly, I'd really rather them just say directly what we already know deep down - that raids are done and no longer being developed. Feels like they're on the same status as dungeons, and it won't be long for strikes to go the same way.

Would just feel better to be put out of our misery rather than waiting for another year or two with even the smallest twinge of hope. Bobby more or less said it here without really stating it outright, though, I guess. Just for that little bit of wriggle-room to not speak in absolutes.

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What did they expect by releasing 1 raid per year?People tried their best to keep the raid community alive, lots of training guilds, raid tournaments that have collected +10k viewers, creation of raid guilds etc etc. The community have done everything they could.

However ANet didnt, people begged for easy modes, no information. People asked for better and repeatable rewards for CMs, no information. People asked for more raids, no information. People asked for even harder modes, no information. But saying "GW2 has a vibrant community and we're always looking at ways to keep the game engaging for people." and "please continue sharing your ideas and letting us know the kinds of things you want in the game" just sounds SO lame when people have been sharing their thoughts and ideas for years and years but never received a feedback or response from ANet. What about story episodes that are done only once and the new map that you have put hours of work into dies in 2 months?

Result? "Raids are being done by very few people so we are abandoning". Oh I wonder why...

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Responding to the OP: I never said raids were "abandoned" or what the future holds for that gametype or any other. I merely said, "We're working on LW and expac right now" and kept it vague because that's pretty much all I can talk about. Titling this thread "Bobby Stein on the future of raids" is a big exaggeration. Serves me right for posting, I guess. ;)

But let's focus this discussion on the players for a sec. This is purely to spur discussion and not to set false expectations, BTW. I just want to read your thoughts. This is not an official poll or anything like that. Just a chat among players.

What is it that you like about raids in general? Why do you play raids (in any game) in the first place? If we were to build another raid, what would you like to see? Any story you'd like experience?

Was a reply from the dev(Bobby) somewhere lower in the comment. But yes, most players anticipated and have a general idea on what's said more or less. Eg.Shortage of resources, previous raid dev working on other stuff etc. Not surprised or new_s.

Even for a (many said popular) short instance content like fractals hardly gets an addition. Somewhat can draw a picture there's not enough resources for Raids; a bigger instance content or any other contents(at least no plans and resources to spare for now sadly :anguished:).

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I can't guarantee a particular outcome but it's important that we know your thoughts as they help us weigh decisions. Thanks.

Interesting, these forums were telling us that they have all the data they need to make decisions. Why would they need to know our thoughts if they already have all the metrics?

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please continue sharing your ideas and letting us know the kinds of things you want in the game. I can't guarantee a particular outcome but it's important that we know your thoughts as they help us weigh decisionsDon't be fooled, this is pure corporate speech. If they really wanted to collect player feedback for their decision making they would have just opened a thread asking for general ideas on topic X and open another thread with a poll after narrowing their options down (not to mention that there is already more than enough feedback out there). This however is generally not how they proceed when it comes to addressing issues / developing new content which tells you everything you need to know.

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I really hope that raids don't get permanently forgotten. I think it's definitely realistic to have releases very far apart since it's a game type with a much smaller playerbase, but there are still people who play them and this game doesn't need any more abandoned mechanics or game modes.

It's already frustrating that we have things like the entire dungeon system, stronghold in PvP, and other aspects of the game that are pretty much abandoned. Guild Halls are pretty much there as well except for the occasional decoration release.

I get that developer resources are limited and need to be prioritized to what pays the bills and what has the most player participation, but I hope that devs also consider the impact of having parts of the game abandoned so frequently.

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@Dahkeus.8243 said:I really hope that raids don't get permanently forgotten. I think it's definitely realistic to have releases very far apart since it's a game type with a much smaller playerbase, but there are still people who play them and this game doesn't need any more abandoned mechanics or game modes.

It's already frustrating that we have things like the entire dungeon system, stronghold in PvP, and other aspects of the game that are pretty much abandoned. Guild Halls are pretty much there as well except for the occasional decoration release.

I get that developer resources are limited and need to be prioritized to what pays the bills and what has the most player participation, but I hope that devs also consider the impact of having parts of the game abandoned so frequently.

Honestly guild halls are decent since they get something each expansion. I really want to see more guild missions, I very quickly became bored with the weekly events we were running. Even the same content like tracking down wanted npcs and finding hidden areas would be amazing, just in more maps, put some stuff in the living world and expansion maps

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@Dahkeus.8243 said:I get that developer resources are limited and need to be prioritized to what pays the bills and what has the most player participation, but I hope that devs also consider the impact of having parts of the game abandoned so frequently.

I'm a big supporter of making sure this idea gets heard. I also understand the need to set priorities, and that not everything can be done at once. But ANet's great willingness to completely abandon content (instead of gathering feedback and reworking it) will extract a mounting cost over time. As time goes on, Tyria will get littered with ever increasing piles of systems and projects that have potential, but were left to die. In contrast, games that stick to their guns, reiterate, and improve systems have the opposite: the number of non-working systems shrinks over time, and more and more of the game systems become relevant. It's hard to watch this happen to GW2, because the devs have some pretty interesting ideas and obviously care about constructing a consistent game world, but just abandon things so quickly.

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I think the issue is not the statement itself (although abandoning content never strikes me as a wise idea), but that there's the asking for ideas and feedback. The forums are replete with this for raids and other like minded content. They have all the info and more they could ever desire... if only they engaged, read and acknowledged it

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@maddoctor.2738 said:

I can't guarantee a particular outcome but it's important that we know your thoughts as they help us weigh decisions. Thanks.

Interesting, these forums were telling us that they have all the data they need to make decisions. Why would they need to know our thoughts if they already have all the metrics?Because, like i always kept bringing up whenever someone mentioned metrics, those can only tell you what is happening, but they usually don't tell you
why
is it happening.They may have all the metrics, but they still lack enough info to be able to properly
interpret
them.

Notice, by the way, that he didn't say that knowing our thoughts or not has any impact on what they're doing. Also, they are clearly only asking raiders for their thoughts in there, and they've already admitted there's not enough players in that group to influence dev priorities anymore.

They just don't like to make any more definite statements about future content, and commit themselves too strongly to certain design directions. Especially when talking about things that they aren;t doing. After all, almost everything is on the table somewhere. Even if some things are gathering dust somewhere near the edges.

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@"Astralporing.1957" said:Also, they are clearly only asking raiders for their thoughts in thereYes and no, he was asking "Why do you play raids (in any game) in the first place?" and there are many players who raid in other games but avoid doing so in GW2.

Also, notice how many answers players give don't actually require raids but they (and the devs for that matter) seem to falsely equate raids (and at least in regards to the devs I'd assume also instanced content in general) with a higher level of difficulty which is why raids in GW2 will always be niche content and also why stuff like OW content will always be rather bland.

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@Fenom.9457 said:

@Dahkeus.8243 said:I really hope that raids don't get permanently forgotten. I think it's definitely realistic to have releases very far apart since it's a game type with a much smaller playerbase, but there are still people who play them and this game doesn't need any more abandoned mechanics or game modes.

It's already frustrating that we have things like the entire dungeon system, stronghold in PvP, and other aspects of the game that are pretty much abandoned. Guild Halls are pretty much there as well except for the occasional decoration release.

I get that developer resources are limited and need to be prioritized to what pays the bills and what has the most player participation, but I hope that devs also consider the impact of having parts of the game abandoned so frequently.

Honestly guild halls are decent since they get something each expansion. I really want to see more guild missions, I very quickly became bored with the weekly events we were running. Even the same content like tracking down wanted npcs and finding hidden areas would be amazing, just in more maps, put some stuff in the living world and expansion maps

Great point. Guild missions are a much better example than guild halls and I say that as someone that still runs guild missions relatively regularly with my guild. It can be a great activity for guild members who are newer to the game, but it's tough to garner interest from more veteran members because the commendations are nigh pointless to them and many of them are simply burnt out from doing it so much.

@voltaicbore.8012 said:

@Dahkeus.8243 said:I get that developer resources are limited and need to be prioritized to what pays the bills and what has the most player participation, but I hope that devs also consider the impact of having parts of the game abandoned so frequently.

I'm a big supporter of making sure this idea gets heard. I also understand the need to set priorities, and that not everything can be done at once. But ANet's great willingness to completely abandon content (instead of gathering feedback and reworking it) will extract a mounting cost over time. As time goes on, Tyria will get littered with ever increasing piles of systems and projects that have potential, but were left to die. In contrast, games that stick to their guns, reiterate, and improve systems have the opposite: the number of non-working systems shrinks over time, and more and more of the game systems become relevant. It's hard to watch this happen to GW2, because the devs have some pretty interesting ideas and obviously care about constructing a consistent game world, but just abandon things so quickly.

Also a good point. I feel like the devs actually do a commendable job on handling tons of maps and currencies from older content in ways that prevents them from being totally irrelevant, but when it comes to entire systems like Stronghold and dungeons, I just can't imagine that that this is a good experience to new players who are curious about these game types that are likely pretty inaccessible due to lack of interest from the playerbase which is a direct result from lack of support from the game itself.

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Raids are a waste of development time. All focus should be on 5 mans(no more fractals), WvW, PvP, new elite specs, better balance, and probably a completely new tier of materials for something because everything on the TP is losing all value except mystic coins(which are gated, but that's good as this item always retains value).

Also, strike missions were a massive failure and should be abandoned. Just add LFR raids from WoW/24 man raids from FF14 as the big 10 man content and make it queueable with randoms like PvP where you can only queue with 2 people at most and can't full premade it. Any other 10 man content is dead on arrival and will be gate keeped by this games raiding community and thus fail.

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@"Astralporing.1957" said:Because, like i always kept bringing up whenever someone mentioned metrics, those can only tell you what is happening, but they usually don't tell you why is it happening.

No argument from me here. I completely agree, it's some other people that don't seem to understand it.

Notice, by the way, that he didn't say that knowing our thoughts or not has any impact on what they're doing.

"help us weigh decisions." If knowing our thoughts helps them "weigh decisions" then it should have an impact on what they will do in the future. It was clear that Living World and Expansion is all they care about, but that can change. Remember that "Raids, like Living World, fractals, etc. are constantly being evaluated."The only weird thing here is that he asked for thoughts on a reddit comment, instead of making a forum thread instead. Not that there aren't many threads discussing Raids anyway, with tons of "thoughts" on the subject

After all, almost everything is on the table somewhere.

True, that table is rather huge.

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@Astralporing.1957 said:This still tells them only a reason why people that do play raids play them. It doesn't tell them why the number of those people is too small to warrant supporting them, because they were not asking about why someone might not be doing them.

We'll yes and no. If the numbers they saw at the beginning warranted further production then it might tell them why the decrease happened.

It might just be more effecient to get raiders back into raids then it is to get non raiders into it.

Ofcourse this is just speculation though.

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@"Shiyo.3578" said:Raids are a waste of development time. All focus should be on 5 mans(no more fractals), WvW, PvP, new elite specs, better balance, and probably a completely new tier of materials for something because everything on the TP is losing all value except mystic coins(which are gated, but that's good as this item always retains value).

Also, strike missions were a massive failure and should be abandoned. Just add LFR raids from WoW/24 man raids from FF14 as the big 10 man content and make it queueable with randoms like PvP where you can only queue with 2 people at most and can't full premade it. Any other 10 man content is dead on arrival and will be gate keeped by this games raiding community and thus fail.

The appeal of Raids for many is being able to build up a community and have a weekly event together as friends as well as the difficulty, overcoming challenges together and having engaging gameplay.

This queue only content you describe caters to neither. It wouldn't allow you to play together with friends and due to throwing people of wildly differing skill levels randomly together it could not be difficult either.Last thing GW2 needs is more "play alone together" non community driven low effort content with no longevity.

How unpopular the random queue in Strike option is (see, dead) compared to LFG'ing for it should give a hint.

Raids and Fractals etc. were doing just fine (up to 30% community engagement for W1 for example) before Anet squandered resources on other projects, choosing to pull the plug on anything but the lowest common denominator content in LW, hoping to keep people engaged with the gemstore while using those funds for other (failed) game projects, instead of reinvesting it into GW2 and all of it's content avenues.

If content feels like it doesn't have a future and maybe gets an update once a year or less, ofc it's community is going to die. That doesn't reflect badly on the content through, nor player interest in it.

@yann.1946 said:

@Astralporing.1957 said:This still tells them only a reason why people that do play raids play them. It doesn't tell them why the number of those people is too small to warrant supporting them, because they were not asking about why someone might
not
be doing them.

We'll yes and no. If the numbers they saw at the beginning warranted further production then it might tell them why the decrease happened.

It might just be more effecient to get raiders back into raids then it is to get non raiders into it.

Ofcourse this is just speculation though.

It seems early Raids were completed by more people than LW at this point is. The drastic decrease in player population came with Wing 4, which was when content production first slow down to taking double the time, while at the same time being disappointingly easy to many, not warranting such wait times.

One Raid Wing a year just wasn't enough to sustain a community and especially not to get many new people in by making them feel like it's content with a future which they can sink their teeth into and get invested. That's not a problem with the content in of itself.

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@"Asum.4960" said:It seems early Raids were completed by more people than LW at this point is. The drastic decrease in player population came with Wing 4, which was when content production first slow down to taking double the time, while at the same time being disappointingly easy to many, not warranting such wait times.

I think the major disappointment of Wing 4 was the lack of good rewards, the fact that it was the Underworld from GW1 but was really small (it should've been 3 Raid wings), 2 bosses and some in-between events. Other than that I believe W4 was more difficult than it should be for the first Raid in a new line, something that was made worse when players realized they had to beat the hardest content first before moving to the next parts of the legendary collection which is in every way or form completely backwards. Finally the promise of "faster releases" that led to the slowest release cadence for Raids was the final nail in the coffin of this content.

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@maddoctor.2738 said:

@"Asum.4960" said:It seems early Raids were completed by more people than LW at this point is. The drastic decrease in player population came with Wing 4, which was when content production first slow down to taking double the time, while at the same time being disappointingly easy to many, not warranting such wait times.

I think the major disappointment of Wing 4 was the lack of good rewards, the fact that it was the Underworld from GW1 but was really small (it should've been 3 Raid wings), 2 bosses and some in-between events. Other than that I believe W4 was more difficult than it should be for the first Raid in a new line, something that was made worse when players realized they had to beat the hardest content first before moving to the next parts of the legendary collection which is in every way or form completely backwards. Finally the promise of "faster releases" that led to the slowest release cadence for Raids was the final nail in the coffin of this content.

I believe you are referring to W5, which yes, took even longer along with a myriad of other issues, leading to drastic further decline.At that point, having to wait for so long, many (as it turns out rightfully) just didn't think the content had a future and left and the resulting low population from lack of content is now used to justify the lack of content/cancellation.

How many people would still be excited/coming back for LW patches if they only happened every 9+ months over the last 3 years, or any other content for that matter?Of course most of the people who mainly play for that content, any content, are going to leave eventually with that cadence.

If anything, the fact that Fractal CM's and Raids are still played to the degree that they are in the sea of abandoned and dead content that is GW2 by now is a testament to their quality and longevity. Maintaining a community/dedicated daily players after 3+ years of no new content in the case of Fractal CM's is downright impressive.

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