Recycling raid content and always more mechanics

[GRRRR.3521]

So i came back to the game due to Chanta news and happened to get into a training raid and even beat some stuff (never attempted raiding since the first wing came out and my old guild kinda dissolved because we couldnt pass VG). Some observations which probably already have been made but here we go.

Theres alot of story content in there that 90% of players never gonna see and the other 10% who could see it wont give any bleep about to begin with probably.

At the start of the white mantle raid there was a tent with a book, i opened it and theres like 5 sub points with probably even more story behind it. I closed it because the raid leader was explaining stuff and i wasnt gonna read kitten while that was goin on. Id imagine in a normal raid nobody would want to wait while i read about lore either. Later there was some prison with loads of stuff and it looked like you could jump around there. I wasnt even gonna dare waste my training raid partners time by asking them to stand around while i look at stuff and frankly even for myself the priority was getting to the next boss. We barely missed to beat chessman a few times and then it was kinda late and we concluded. Aparently later theres a full FMV explaining what happened to Saul D'Alessio, but eh who wants to see that right (counterpoint was to watch stuff on youtube - suboptimal imo).

Just baffling. Either Anet overestimated the average player or theres just baffling design decisions goin on in regards to what player types enjoy what and how to spend dev time. Dungeons got it right - ez story mode, everybody can see it, more challenging stuff if you want it, nothing wasted. Same with strikes and there they even trimmed the fat where its straight to the boss.

So heres the solution and you dont even need to rebalance boss fights:

Make "aftermath" instances of the raids. Strip the bossfights and more complicated mechanics and just put trash mobs and "memory points" where you could view story relevant stuff in there. You could even put a short video of the fight in there (it wouldnt have to be a speedclear solo vid where someone soloes the boss in minus 5 minutes but that would be funny). Of course also strip all the rewards and titles/progressions. If the raiders get mad that the unworthy get to see this content there could be an npc calling everyone weak casuals at the start and all the player portraits could have suckers in their mouths. Yes im abit salty because why bury GW1 relevant story content behind this.

Originally that was gonna be it but it kinda hit on something else for me. The trend to more and more "mechanics" in every fight.

I get the dilemma. Put anything with just HP infront of a meta comp and it gets deleted. Breakbars was an attempt at solving this but didnt really help. So what do you do, you change the rules entirely. Used to be that catching a thing, or doing some special action was an open world diversion, now its almost the entire fight. Honk the clowns nose. The boss will turn every player a random color, now the players have to grab the hammer of the opposite color (wrong hammer means DEATH) and hit the hamster of the same color as them (wrong color means DEATH). Now the air raid happens, jump just once or DEATH. Now spin, grab the thingabob and put it in the watchamacallit. Honk the clowns nose twice, but not thrice or else DEATH.

Why am i doin all this kitten, where am i. Is this a Sierra adventure game? In a recent video Woodenpotatoes complained that the water phase of the sunqua boss was kinda boring because there was only one mechanic, if only youd need to do three more random weird things. He even strangely agressively kitten on some comment suggesting it was a nice breakpoint, a combat low before the final phase.

I think Cairn for example or the Strikes got the sweet spot, theyre also mostly consistent with what a creature actually would do during a fight instead of 10 different esoteric minigames happening at the same time while theres a boss in the background you hit occasionally. I dont like it, 4 mechanics max per fight or it gets a mess or just totally shatters my suspension of disbelief. Could be that im just stupid (u are lolo) but i dont like it.

Thanks for reading my essay.

EDIT : This got a few good replies but then the whole thing got taken down because of a word filter bypass violation and i actually spent some time on this so here we go again. Tried to do a discussion recap from memory but a) i got a bad memory and b) this would be even longer then so welp heres just the cleaned up OP

[Shadowmoon.7986]

@"GRRRR.3521" said:

Make "aftermath" instances of the raids.

This already exists, go into lfg and ask for any cleared wing and someone will probably open this aftermath version of the instance. Guess what, that book you wanted to read full of lore is still there. Th is is mych better system than saquin peak, I will never watch the entire "hand over letter" sequence because I will have 4 other party members ready to move on to the next fractal.

[Yggranya.5201]

Raids are not designed to be difficult, they are designed to kill the player, the easiest thing to do in the video game industry. Why? So someone can say "i did it!" as if it was some kind of achievement to just do the same thing over and over and over.

The fact that they put story in there is incredibly dumb, but since it has been like that in other games, of course it needs to be recycled as the same exact thing into this one as well. Can't entice people to come check your game if it isn't the same (for some reason). You know, the usual.

[Blocki.4931]

If you clear a raid, it becomes a cleared instance for you until next reset. Or well, each boss you cleared stays cleared until then.

[WindBlade.8749]

People that complain that any gamemode have exclusive story or rewards is dumb, even wvw/spvp that i don't play because i don't care of them, they should have their own reward.And raids are not that hard honestly, as long you know well how the game work you understand how to create a team that can easely do most of the boss (not SpeedClear comp, they are not meant to be to be play by newbie). (And most of raids reward are usless outside of the raids anyway).

A story mode will be nice yes, if you clear the instance to come back after, you will only have the final dialogs to replay at the npc, not everything.

Raids are probably the most engaging content of the game with pvp/wvw honestly, since in pvp/wvw, you will always have human nature of the ennemies, predict things and others. In raids you have your allies as your ennemy, and an always mentality to get better for a big part of this community (work for Fractals to).Theses three gamemode also have theory crafting and everything tide to it. Not for everyone but he, it's a MMO with various players, everyone should be able to get their own things, and openworld people get way more story/contents that the other.

Meta events are probably fun for the first times, but become the same thing without nothing news after and you only do the same thing again and again.

[Ayrilana.1396]

@"Yggranya.5201" said:Raids are not designed to be difficult, they are designed to kill the player, the easiest thing to do in the video game industry. Why? So someone can say "i did it!" as if it was some kind of achievement to just do the same thing over and over and over.

The fact that they put story in there is incredibly dumb, but since it has been like that in other games, of course it needs to be recycled as the same exact thing into this one as well. Can't entice people to come check your game if it isn't the same (for some reason). You know, the usual.

They are designed to be challenging. In order for something to be challenging, there has to be risk of failure. This is something very rarely encountered in PvE.

There's nothing wrong with various content having its own self-contained story.

[Danikat.8537]

I realise the main point has already been answered with the fact that cleared raid wings can be explored to find all the books and things, but I also wanted to point out that the difference between types of players isn't as clear-cut as the OP makes it sound. I've been in training or casual raids where the more experienced members would point out interesting bits of the area as we were passing through, or encourage anyone who was interested to have a look around during a break. (Casual raids - we'd make a few attempts at one boss, get to the next one then take a 5-10 minute break so everyone could get a drink, switch builds, or whatever else they needed before we started on another round of attempts.)

I completely understand not wanting to be the one person who leaves the group waiting, but I also don't think it's accurate to characterise everyone who is interested in raiding as uninterested in the story and unlikely to pay attention to story clues or lore in raids. I'm certain there are players like that, but it's by no means everyone who plays raids.

[mercury ranique.2170]

I would like to point out that there is a huge difference between those who just watch video's and books and those who aks politely. Specially in a guild when you have allready done it a few times it is a reasonable question to ask.Something like "Hey guys, I've done this raid a few times now, but never had the chance to watch the video's. Would it be ok if I watch them today or some other time?"

In my experience that a reaction to those who watch without asking is raging and flaming, but to those that ask politely is that nobody has an issue with it. Often people will also (re-)watch it