What about a story and easy mode for the Raids?

[Fueki.4753]

@Sigmoid.7082 said:And how many times would you go to do this? Said regardless mode just for story.That depends heavily on whether Arenanet would put them into the dailies rotation and how many of the people I know ask me to come with them,as well as how fun the raids would be to me.

And it definitely is not regardless of mode, as I wouldn't touch the current hard mode with a ten meter pole.

[Astralporing.1957]

@Linken.6345 said:Yea and the devs would totaly not go oh we have 80% doing easy mode so thats popular why waste time doing normal mode at all.It's not like you have anything to lose, seeing as raids are already abandoned by devs.

I thought story mode was for people to see the story you do that once or twice.Yes, which is why it's generally pointless if what you want is to increase longterm participation. Generally, story mode has a quite bad return compared to effort put into it, so it is only worth it if it's extremely cheap to make, and/or if it's done by a really large amount of players. I doubt story mode raids would be worth the effort if they were to be done only one or twice.

@battledrone.8315 said:if anet truly makes them worth while, then a portion of the REAL raider are just gonna farm the easy mode instead too.Then they were probably not really interested in current raids in the first place.

@"Sobx.1758" said:Sure it is. But providing same rewards for an easier, faster and way less punishing (IF punishing at all, considering what some people would apparently want to play through in place of raids -or even story mode bosses) content effectively takes away the reason to go through any effort to play through the harder oneOh, that depends on two things. First is whether you are raiding because you like the content, or only because you're in it for the rewards. If it's the latter, i don't think the rewards should hold you hostage in order to force you into participating in the content you don't like, just so some players can find someone to play with them, because the number of them is too low they cannot support the content on their own. Second is whether the rate of obtaining rewards would be the same in both modes - and it most certainly would not be. So, for the players that are okay with higher tier difficulty level, doing it would still be more effective than doing easy mode.

, so stop pretending that making an easy/introductory/tutoria/story-mode-like copy of raids giving the same rewards as regular raids (or even anywhere close to them)I never said anything about "same rewards". I was talking about easy mode having "good rewards" (and yes, probably at least some of the same type of rewards as normal mode as well, although it definitely should not be at the same rate as in normal mode) . No, 2 blues and a green do not qualify.

[Kaliwenda.3428]

Yes, I would love this! I don't need a reward, even...just want to get the story :)

[Sobx.1758]

@Ashen.2907 said:

@Sobx.1758 said:

@Ashen.2907 said:

@Sobx.1758 said:

@Ashen.2907 said:

@Sobx.1758 said:

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@Ashen.2907 said:

@"battledrone.8315" said:

it will only become like wow, the LFRs arent REAL raiders, and most will never become one either. those resources would be better spend on some actualcasual content. they should never had made raids in the first place.

If easy or story mode for raids were to be accessible to casual players then they would be casual content. I doubt many easy/story mode players would move on to normal raiding, but the point of story/easy mode would not be to encourage that. It would exist to increase the number of people playing the instance in any form. I guarantee that it would.As long as you wouldn't listen to the voices saying that easymode should have no/minimal rewards.I know why some people try to push that narrative, but in the long run it would

hurt

raids, not help them.

If you turn the raids to be basically a shorter story mode then you've already "hurt the raids" by essentially removing them from the game, not sure why some people try to pretend that's not what it would be. What is the "easy raid" anyways? Removing the mechanics? Making mechanics so forgiving that they can be easly outsustained, so they might as well not exist? Not requiring understanding of how your class/build works or not having a semi-coherent build (because you already don't need the ones that are considered "best", they just make it easier in the first place)? Then what's the point? Free rewards? Stop pretending you want raiding when you don't want raiding, but some kind of story-mode extension with better rewards o ntop of it.

Easy mode in the long run doesn't do anything for raids and if someone wants an introductory/training mode for it (if we pretend the between-the-boss content isn't pretty much just that), then there should probably be no rewards so there's an actual reason to move up into regular raiding content. Stop pretending you want "easy/story mode" to help the regular raids. You don't.

Easy mode means that when ANet is deciding whether or not to spend a bunch of money developing a new instanced piece of content they can expect it to entertain a larger number of players, potentially paying players, than without. How many people will use a given product is a huge determining factor in whether or not to spend resources developing it...in any industry. Adding a second difficulty tier might increase the cost by 10% while increasing the user count by 100-1000%.

Sure it is. But providing same rewards for an easier, faster and way less punishing (IF punishing at all, considering what some people would apparently want to play through in place of raids -or even story mode bosses) content effectively takes away the reason to go through any effort to play through the harder one, so stop pretending that making an easy/introductory/tutoria/story-mode-like copy of raids giving the same rewards as regular raids (or even anywhere close to them) would somehow save the content for raiders. It wouldn't. At this point you're scrapping it anyways.

I said nothing about the same rewards.

Then you've answered out-of-context to my post you've quoted, because what I answered to was this:"

As long as you wouldn't listen to the voices saying that easymode should have no/minimal rewards.

"

I think that's something I said in this thread mutliple times including the latest posts, I thought my point is pretty clear by now. The very post you answered to included:

Easy mode in the long run doesn't do anything for raids and if someone wants an introductory/training mode for it (if we pretend the between-the-boss content isn't pretty much just that), then there should probably be no rewards so there's an actual reason to move up into regular raiding content. Stop pretending you want "easy/story mode" to help the regular raids. You don't

So if you don't have a problem with minimal/no rewards, then I'm not sure what was the point of your answer at all and why you think I needed the explaination you gave me in your response about content popularity and helping current raids when I keep saying that the players would need a reason (like, you know, the rewards) to move to actual raiding at currently available level for that idea to even be relevant. Otherwise, as I wrote in last post, you're just scrapping raids anyways and introduce second story mode that seems to be pretty pointless.

You quoted me but I am not the one who said, "

As long as you wouldn't listen to the voices saying that easymode should have no/minimal rewards.

"

Read what my post -that you've initially responded to- was answering and hopefully you'll understand what I say (click "show previous quotes" within the quote). I don't know how else to explain to you it's important to follow the context of the posts. I can just repeat that if you don't disagree about minimal/no rewards then I don't know what you were arguing (or explaining) in that post in the first place, as I keep saying that easy/story-mode would need to be uncomparable to the current raid rewards in order for people to have a reason to move up.

[Sobx.1758]

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@"Sobx.1758" said:Sure it is. But providing same rewards for an easier, faster and way less punishing (IF punishing at all, considering what some people would apparently want to play through in place of raids -or even story mode bosses) content effectively takes away the reason to go through any effort to play through the harder oneOh, that depends on two things. First is whether you are raiding because you like the content, or only because you're in it for the rewards. If it's the latter, i don't think the rewards should hold you hostage in order to force you into participating in the content you don't like, just so some players can find someone to play with them, because the number of them is too low they cannot support the content on their own. Second is whether the

rate

of obtaining rewards would be the same in both modes - and it most certainly would not be. So, for the players that are okay with higher tier difficulty level, doing it would still be more effective than doing easy mode.

Of course it can, this is what happens in a lot of games, especially in mmorpgs. Well-rewarding content is probably the most replayed one, how can you say anything about "not being held hostage by rewards" ("held hostage" being an exaggeration anyways) when this is clearly a huge motivating element for a lot of players? You think people ask for efficient gph farms and grind away to "enjoy the content"? I think in case of the content like raids it can, should and probably is a mixture of two (rewards+enjoyment). It doesn't need to be "an efficient gph farm" to grind it, but it needs some worthy rewards on top of being a new/different game mode to encourage replayablity.And if that's not about rewards, then why are you so opposed the minimal/no rewards, seeing as the main argument of people wanting easy/story-mode raids is "I just want to see the story"?

[Astralporing.1957]

@"Sobx.1758" said:Of course it can, this is what happens in a lot of games, especially in mmorpgs. Well-rewarding content is probably the most replayed one, how can you say anything about "not being held hostage by rewards" ("held hostage" being an exaggeration anyways) when this is clearly a huge motivating element for a lot of players? You think people ask for efficient gph farms and grind away to "enjoy the content"? I think in case of the content like raids it can, should and probably is a mixture of two (rewards+enjoyment). It doesn't need to be "an efficient gph farm" to grind it, but it needs some worthy rewards on top of being a new/different game mode to encourage replayablity.I never said normal mode should not have "worthy" rewards. Nor did i ever said i think that easy mode should be equally rewarding as normal mode. What i said is the same as the last part of your quote - easy mode " needs some worthy rewards on top of being a new/different game mode to encourage replayablity". It needs to be able to stand alone, instead of being just an intermediary content everyone is expected to graduate from.

And if that's not about rewards, then why are you so opposed the minimal/no rewards, seeing as the main argument of people wanting easy/story-mode raids is "I just want to see the story"?Rewards are obviously important, for longevity of any content. I just don't think rewards should ever be a primary concern - you should be able to do the content types you like, and those content types should be rewarding to the point where you think you are not losing out by doing them in preference to other types of content.

So, again, to sum it up: i think, that normal mode should be better-rewarding than easy mode, but i also think that easy mode should be well-rewarding. If that would require increasing rewards for normal mode, then that's fine with me.I also think, that the main difference in rewards should be in acquisition rate, not in quality/uniqueness. Someone doing easy mode should be losing out compared to doing normal mode, but should not be completely excluded from some categories of rewards or, even more, have their content be so unrewarding it would significantly reduce replayability.

...also, if you haven't noticed, some of your questions i have already answered before in those parts of my post you didn't quote.

[Sobx.1758]

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@"Sobx.1758" said:Of course it can, this is what happens in a lot of games, especially in mmorpgs. Well-rewarding content is probably the most replayed one, how can you say anything about "not being held hostage by rewards" ("held hostage" being an exaggeration anyways) when this is clearly a huge motivating element for a lot of players? You think people ask for efficient gph farms and grind away to "enjoy the content"? I think in case of the content like raids it can, should and probably is a mixture of two (rewards+enjoyment). It doesn't need to be "an efficient gph farm" to grind it, but it needs some worthy rewards on top of being a new/different game mode to encourage replayablity.I never said normal mode should not have "worthy" rewards.

Neither did I? But it was the answer about "being held hostage by rewards".

Nor did i ever said i think that easy mode should be equally rewarding as normal mode.

So it should have minimal rewards that can't compete with regular mode so the players have a reason to go for the harder content, yup.

What i said is the same as the last part of your quote - easy mode " needs some worthy rewards on top of being a new/different game mode to encourage replayablity". It needs to be able to stand alone, instead of being just an intermediary content everyone is expected to graduate from.

That's the thing: it doesn't. As much as you try to highjack what I've said, the whole point here is that the easy mode would have probably 2 roles:1) "I want to see the story" -ok, so play through it to see the story and that's it. Apparently you don't need raiding rewards or this type of content at all, it's just about the story.2) tutorial/introduction to raiding mode -at which point it doesn't need "worthy rewards to encourage replayability" ("worthy" is subjective, so might be a bit of miscommunication I guess), because its role is to introduce people scared of raiding content; the rewards+replayability is needed for the actual "regular" version of that content to give people a push forward.

Now this COULD help current raiding. It still doesn't mean it definitely would help it, but if we're here about somehow saving the mode ("I would like to have a story and easy mode for raids so that the population has the chance to grow and we can finally have more raids." is what OP claims he wants and what multiple people tried to claim in this thread as well) then that's why this is the important differentiation between value of the rewards. If it's not about saving the mode then, again, this thread is pointless, easy mode is irrelevant and nothing really matters, because people might just as well replay their regular story-mode content or zerg OW bosses if that's the level of content they want.

And if that's not about rewards, then why are you so opposed the minimal/no rewards, seeing as the main argument of people wanting easy/story-mode raids is "I just want to see the story"?Rewards are obviously important, for longevity of any content. I just don't think rewards should ever be a primary concern - you should be able to do the content types you like, and those content types should be rewarding to the point where you think you are not losing out by doing them in preference to other types of content.

I'm awaiting your crusaide to even out the gph between every type of mode and content then. Until then: no, not really. What you say you want just doesn't exist at the moment and that one easy mode isn't changing that.

So, again, to sum it up: i think, that normal mode should be better-rewarding than easy mode, but i also think that easy mode should be well-rewarding. If that would require increasing rewards for normal mode, then that's fine with me.

Do you think "normal mode" needs increase of the rewards? I don't really think so, which is why imo the tutorial/easy/story-mode would need to have minimal rewards instead of increasing the rewards of regular raids.

I also think, that the main difference in rewards should be in acquisition rate, not in quality/uniqueness. Someone doing easy mode should be losing out compared to doing normal mode, but should not be completely excluded from some categories of rewards or, even more, have their content be so unrewarding it would significantly reduce replayability.

...also, if you haven't noticed, some of your questions i have already answered before in those parts of my post you didn't quote.

I didn't notice, not sure which questions you're referring to tbh (really, I don't know which ones you're talking about), but pretty sure you avoided some questions entirely like the ones in this post:https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/comment/1362990/#Comment_1362990

[Astralporing.1957]

@"Sobx.1758" said:Neither did I? But it was the answer about "being held hostage by rewards".Learn to read with understanding. The full explanation is in the summary of the very same post. You even mentioned it in this one.In short - having content be well-rewarding for those that want to play it, so they can continue to play it without thinking they are losing out is completely fine. What is not fine is making a content that is so unpopular the people interested in it would noit be able to keep it afloat, and putting enough unique rewards there in order to make a lot of people not interested in said content go in, so the few "true" content players would have someone to play with.Rewards should never be the primary reason for picking a content you play.

Nor did i ever said i think that easy mode should be equally rewarding as normal mode.

So it should have minimal rewards that can't compete with regular mode so the players have a reason to go for the harder content, yup.Normal mode having better rewards does

not

automatically equal to easy mode having minimal one. Not unless normal mode rewards would be minimal as well. WHich is not something i have proposed.All that is needed for the players to have a reason to try normal mode (if they can, and like it) is it having

better

rewards. Easy mode having bad rewards is on no way required for this.

What i said is the same as the last part of your quote - easy mode " needs some worthy rewards on top of being a new/different game mode to encourage replayablity". It needs to be able to stand alone, instead of being just an intermediary content everyone is expected to graduate from.

That's the thing: it doesn't. As much as you try to highjack what I've said, the whole point here is that the easy mode would have probably 2 roles:1) "I want to see the story" -ok, so play through it to see the story and that's it. Apparently you don't need raiding rewards or this type of content at all, it's just about the story.2) tutorial/introduction to raiding mode -at which point it doesn't need "worthy rewards to encourage replayability" ("worthy" is subjective, so might be a bit of miscommunication I guess), because its role is to introduce people

scared

of raiding content; the rewards+replayability is needed for the actual "regular" version of that content to give people a push forward.No, that's what

you

think it should be for. But if it was that, it is bound to fail, and there's no point in introducting it at all, seeing as they would be dead on arrival. There's no lasting interest in those kind of modes at all. Even the people that ask for them on forums would not play them more than once-twice.

Now this COULD help current raiding. It still doesn't mean it definitely would help it, but if we're here about somehow saving the mode ("

I would like to have a story and easy mode for raids so that the population has the chance to grow and we can finally have more raids.

" is what OP claims he wants and what multiple people tried to claim in this thread as well) then that's why this is the important differentiation between value of the rewards. If it's not about saving the mode then, again, this thread is pointless, easy mode is irrelevant and nothing really matters, because people might just as well replay their regular story-mode content or zerg OW bosses if that's the level of content they want.

We already know that the flow from one mode to another would be minimal. The impact of story mode and training mode on normal raids would be minimal, and almost certainly would not be worth the resources needed. We've had several years since Anet first came up with the "stepping stones to raids" idea to understand, that it's something that simply does not work.

And if that's not about rewards, then why are you so opposed the minimal/no rewards, seeing as the main argument of people wanting easy/story-mode raids is "I just want to see the story"?Rewards are obviously important, for longevity of any content. I just don't think rewards should ever be a primary concern - you should be able to do the content types you like, and those content types should be rewarding to the point where you think you are not losing out by doing them in preference to other types of content.

I'm awaiting your crusaide to even out the gph between every type of mode and content then. Until then: no, not really. What you say you want just doesn't exist at the moment and that one easy mode isn't changing that.There's no need for that. The rewards do not need to be equal. In fact, i have already said, that they should not be equal. They just have to not be too bad compared to other options.

So, again, to sum it up: i think, that normal mode should be better-rewarding than easy mode, but i also think that easy mode should be well-rewarding. If that would require increasing rewards for normal mode, then that's fine with me.

Do you think "normal mode" needs increase of the rewards?I don't know, i don't care. I only said i would be fine with it if it turned out it became necessary in order for easy mode to have good enough rewards to retain its replayability.

I don't really think so, which is why imo the tutorial/easy/story-mode would need to have minimal rewards instead of increasing the rewards of regular raids.Minimal rewards hurt replayability. As such, they are a bad idea.

I didn't notice, not sure which questions you're referring to tbhI referred to all the questions i have answered in my previous post - all the answers to them were in my even earlier post - the very post you quoted when asking those questions.(really, I don't know which ones you're talking about), but pretty sure you avoided some questions entirely like the ones in this post:

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/comment/1362990/#Comment_1362990

Yes, i did avoid the questions about mechanics, because i didn't want to derail the current discussion. I'd rather have that one in a separate thread. Notice though, that i did not call you out on ignoring my questions. I was calling you on responding to my post with questions that were answered in the very post you were responding to. I do not remember doing anything of that sort myself.

[Sobx.1758]

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@"Sobx.1758" said:Neither did I? But it was the answer about "being held hostage by rewards".Learn to read with understanding. The full explanation is in the summary of the very same post. You even mentioned it in this one.In short - having content be well-rewarding for those that want to play it, so they can continue to play it without thinking they are losing out is completely fine. What is not fine is making a content that is so unpopular the people interested in it would noit be able to keep it afloat, and putting enough unique rewards there in order to make a lot of people

not

interested in said content go in, so the few "true" content players would have someone to play with.

Right back at you about "learning to read with understanding" -this is already happening, people that don't grind away top gph content in a specific way are already "losing out" and as I already wrote I don't see the reason why suddenly you'd need to equate this content to anything when it doesn't happen for other game modes and their content. What you describe here for the most part is not a thing in gw2. Maybe it would help if you/we didn't operate in objective terms, because what I say isn't lack of ability to understand what I read, it's what I perceive to be "minimal/worthy" vs what you perceive as such. Example: 4th of the regular amount of shards/crystals, no LI/LD, no ascended drops or a heavily reduced chance on the level of world boss asc drop. Is this reduced for you? Is this minimal? What do you understand by those words in this context? Do you understand now that they're subjective, so your "learn to read with understanding" remarks are pretty cheap and irrelevant here?

Rewards should never be the primary reason for picking a content you play.

And yet, in a lot of cases, for a lot of players they are -in this very game. If that's what you want to "battle" then you probably should start at broader content than unexisting story-mode raids.

Nor did i ever said i think that easy mode should be equally rewarding as normal mode.

So it should have minimal rewards that can't compete with regular mode so the players have a reason to go for the harder content, yup.Normal mode having better rewards does

not

automatically equal to easy mode having minimal one. Not unless normal mode rewards would be minimal as well. WHich is not something i have proposed.All that is needed for the players to have a reason to try normal mode (if they can, and like it) is it having

better

rewards. Easy mode having bad rewards is on no way required for this.

I think my answer to that is similar/same as the one I gave above to the first quote in this post. Might be just the case of varying interpretation of the same words.

What i said is the same as the last part of your quote - easy mode " needs some worthy rewards on top of being a new/different game mode to encourage replayablity". It needs to be able to stand alone, instead of being just an intermediary content everyone is expected to graduate from.

That's the thing: it doesn't. As much as you try to highjack what I've said, the whole point here is that the easy mode would have probably 2 roles:1) "I want to see the story" -ok, so play through it to see the story and that's it. Apparently you don't need raiding rewards or this type of content at all, it's just about the story.2) tutorial/introduction to raiding mode -at which point it doesn't need "worthy rewards to encourage replayability" ("worthy" is subjective, so might be a bit of miscommunication I guess), because its role is to introduce people

scared

of raiding content; the rewards+replayability is needed for the actual "regular" version of that content to give people a push forward.No, that's what

you

think it should be for. But if it was that, it is bound to fail, and there's no point in introducting it at all, seeing as they would be dead on arrival. There's no lasting interest in those kind of modes at all. Even the people that ask for them on forums would not play them more than once-twice.

Yes, that is what I think it should be, but I think I also specifically explained the reasoning behind that opinion, I'm not just throwing some kind of "do it because i said so" bit.I don't think they would be "dead on arrival". There's lower level/lower reward content in the game at this very moment and people still can complete it without much of a problem. It would also be a better introductory area for the training guilds, but also for people that could gather randoms from lfg to learn raids at their own pace without ""queing"" in specific guilds at reserved times.

Now this COULD help current raiding. It still doesn't mean it definitely would help it, but if we're here about somehow saving the mode ("

I would like to have a story and easy mode for raids so that the population has the chance to grow and we can finally have more raids.

" is what OP claims he wants and what multiple people tried to claim in this thread as well) then that's why this is the important differentiation between value of the rewards. If it's not about saving the mode then, again, this thread is pointless, easy mode is irrelevant and nothing really matters, because people might just as well replay their regular story-mode content or zerg OW bosses if that's the level of content they want.

We already know that the flow from one mode to another would be minimal. The impact of story mode and training mode on normal raids would be minimal, and almost certainly would not be worth the resources needed. We've had several years since Anet first came up with the "stepping stones to raids" idea to understand, that it's something that simply does not work.

How exactly do we know that?And nope, strike missions is not that. It was supposed to be that, but strike missions have barely anything to do with actual raiding encounters, people can learn strike missions, go into raiding and need to learn from the ground up anyways. This is not the same and as an introductory/training mode specifically for raids, it was a weak idea where a lot of players can just keep getting carried. Do the same with "introductory raiding" that gives enough rewards and they'll do the same: just keep getting carried. Which is exactly why the rewards shouldn't be comparable, so there's a drive to understand the mechanics and be a meaningful part of the squad while being able to learn in consistently friendly/easy environment.If that doesn't work, then don't save the raids and just scrap them, who cares -but then OP has no actual point for his thread.

And if that's not about rewards, then why are you so opposed the minimal/no rewards, seeing as the main argument of people wanting easy/story-mode raids is "I just want to see the story"?Rewards are obviously important, for longevity of any content. I just don't think rewards should ever be a primary concern - you should be able to do the content types you like, and those content types should be rewarding to the point where you think you are not losing out by doing them in preference to other types of content.

I'm awaiting your crusaide to even out the gph between every type of mode and content then. Until then: no, not really. What you say you want just doesn't exist at the moment and that one easy mode isn't changing that.There's no need for that. The rewards do not need to be equal. In fact, i have already said, that they should not be equal. They just have to not be too bad compared to other options.

Ok, so they wouldn't be bad because there would be no real alternative. You can't complete the harder content? So you wouldn't get the rewards anyways. You complete the training one? Ok, have your minimal raid-related rewards that otherwise you can't get anywhere else. Familiarize yourself (not exactly directed at you, but to the "hypotethical new player") to the basics of the content and move up for actual rewards, np.

So, again, to sum it up: i think, that normal mode should be better-rewarding than easy mode, but i also think that easy mode should be well-rewarding. If that would require increasing rewards for normal mode, then that's fine with me.

Do you think "normal mode" needs increase of the rewards?I don't know, i don't care. I only said i would be fine with it if it turned out it became necessary in order for easy mode to have good enough rewards to retain its replayability.

Ah, so you're just operating in aboslutely pure hypotheticals. That's what I meant by the answer at the top of this post -if you don't know what exactly you meanthen how am I supposed to know what exactly you mean?

I don't really think so, which is why imo the tutorial/easy/story-mode would need to have minimal rewards instead of increasing the rewards of regular raids.Minimal rewards hurt replayability. As such, they are a bad idea.

No, they don't, especially when the point is "saving content" and not "replacing content" as OP and many other people claimed in this thread.And still pure hypothetical without any approximated numbers, so I guess i'm supposed to keep guessing what you mean.

I didn't notice, not sure which questions you're referring to tbhI referred to all the questions i have answered in my previous post - all the answers to them were in my even earlier post - the very post you quoted when asking those questions.(really, I don't know which ones you're talking about), but pretty sure you avoided some questions entirely like the ones in this post:

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/comment/1362990/#Comment_1362990

Yes, i did avoid the questions about mechanics, because i didn't want to derail the current discussion. I'd rather have that one in a separate thread. Notice though, that i was not responding to any of your posts with questions that were answered in the very post i was responding to, like you did previously.

Asking about the form of "easy/story-mode" in the thread that proposes those difficulties seems very much on-topic to me. I need to understand what you/OP/anyone else want so I can tell you if I agree or not. And that's because just like "minimal/reduced" rewards, these are subjective. If you have no idea what you mean by easy/story-mode then I'll keep talking about what I think you mean within my own understanding and then you can keep repeating that I can't understand what I read just because you never specified anything and maybe never will. I don't see the point of discussing it in hugely theoretical and broad terms where apparently we keep talking about different things dressed up in same/similar words.

I really don't know which questions you're talking about, I think it would be easier if you just quoted them (or link the post maybe?), so I can understand what this is about. Unless it's not exactly changing anything, then I can move on, w/e.

---

Anyways, if you don't have any specifics in regards to how said easy/story-mode would look like and what rewards you treat as "minimal" as opposed to them being "lower" then I think we'll just keep going in circles and I'm kind of getting bored of it already.

[HotDelirium.7984]

Raids should have been tierd like fractals with T1 being Storymode, T3 being the regular difficulty and T4 being challenge mode.

[EdwinLi.1284]

I think the story mode of a Raid should not be a simple easier copy of the normal raid but more of a cinematic version of the raid storyline. Have it provide more story events that is not in the Normal Raid version of the Raid due to being a far more story focused and solo version of the Raid Storyline.

Maybe even going far as introducing new NPCs for these Story mode versions of the Raid Story mode to add on to the events and to act as the characters that provide tutorials to what to do with X and Y mechanics. It may provide a interesting new group of characters that the "commander" may develop bonds with outside of the Main storyline for these Raid storylines.

This way they can separate the experience of the Raid between a more Story focused version that has story style events before each boss fights and dialogues between the Player character and NPCs while a Normal Raid focused on large group battles against each raid boss using real players.

[Astralporing.1957]

@"Sobx.1758" said:Right back at you about "learning to read with understanding" -this is already happening, people that don't grind away top gph content in a specific way are already "losing out"There are degrees of this though. Someone doing fractals, for example, may do worse than if they were doing SW, but they're still doing relatively well, and they have fun doing it, so they have no reason to complain or feel they lose out by playing fractals.Yes, there are still probably some parts of the game that could be better than this and might be in need of reward fix (from what i understand, WvW players still do feel like that, for example). Them existing doesn't mean we should make more of them, though. Two wrongs don't make a right.

Maybe it would help if you/we didn't operate in objective terms, because what I say isn't lack of ability to understand what I read, it's what I perceive to be "minimal/worthy" vs what you perceive as such.Maybe. The "no/minimal rewards" term i used originally was referring to the often seen approach to easy mode rewards that is often used in easy mode threads by people that treat them as intermediary content - the assumption that the rewards should be so low that no player is going to stay in the mode, but instead will feel compelled to move to normal, or leave the raids altogether. I am against that approach.Notice, by the way, that "two blues and a green" is the commonly used example of how those rewards should look like. And "no rewards" was something you used in the very first response to my post, so i assumed that you're also one of people supporting that approach. Seeing as you don't seem to think easy mode should be allowed to be anything but an intermediary/training content people will use only to move to normal, i probably wasn;t too far from the truth.

Example: 4th of the regular amount of shards/crystals, no LI/LD, no ascended drops or a heavily reduced chance on the level of world boss asc drop. Is this reduced for you?That's really low. I doubt the mode would survive with just it. I mean, fractals have better drops than that. And i don't mean t4/cm. T2 has it better.I'd say that 5 magnetites/gaetings per boss kill (with no shards for partial success), reduced (but not massively reduced - perhaps 1/2 of normal mode chance) generic ascended drop chances, and even more reduced (say, 1/4 of normal mode) chances for boss specific ascended drops, as well as, say "mysterious" insights/divinations that can be exchanged to legendary ones at the 4-5 to 1 rate would be better. And some reduction to liquid gold rewards as well, i guess (not that those are good even in normal, considering the rewards have a weekly lockout).

Rewards should never be the primary reason for picking a content you play.

And yet, in a lot of cases, for a lot of players they are -in this very game.And that causes a lot of problems (like burnout, diminishing player enjoyment of the game, or a mode collapsing as soon as the first wave of players get what they wanted from it and get out, because they couldn't stand the content itself). It also makes it much harder for the devs to see what players actually like and what should be corrected.

If that's what you want to "battle" then you probably should start at broader content than unexisting story-mode raids.I am waging that battle since launch of this game. In many ways the game looks better now in that regard than it looked then. In others, unfortunately, it looks worse (and raids are one of the primary villains here)

No, that's what

you

think it should be for. But if it was that, it is bound to fail, and there's no point in introducting it at all, seeing as they would be dead on arrival. There's no lasting interest in those kind of modes at all. Even the people that ask for them on forums would not play them more than once-twice.

I don't think they would be "dead on arrival". There's lower level/lower reward content in the game at this very moment and people still can complete it without much of a problem.They can, but they don't. For example, dungeon story paths were practically a failure from the start, even at the time when explorable paths were all the rage. You could have had a ton of players doing explorables, but almost noone wanted to do story, and a lot of time, if you wanted to do it on your character, you needed to ask friends, because trying to find pugs was an exercise in futility.Lower tier fractals are also pretty much empty nowadays (although they are far, far better than dungeon story paths)

It would also be a better introductory area for the training guilds, but also for people that could gather randoms from lfg to learn raids at their own pace without ""queing"" in specific guilds at reserved times.That's extremely unlikely to happen. People that really want to do normal mode can already train for that, they don't need intermediate content for it. The people that ask for easy mode are, for the most part, people that

do not

want to play in normal, or don't want to play

with the players that want to play in normal

.

We already know that the flow from one mode to another would be minimal. The impact of story mode and training mode on normal raids would be minimal, and almost certainly would not be worth the resources needed. We've had several years since Anet first came up with the "stepping stones to raids" idea to understand, that it's something that simply does not work.

How exactly do we know that?From many places, like other games for example (like WoW). Or from failure of things like strikes to generate any increased interest in raids. But mostly due to the fact that the people that aren't raiding don't do that because they lack the intermediary mode. They don't play normal mode

because they don't like the type of content normal mode is

.Honestly, if you really want to raid, getting into raiding community and actual raiding is not that hard. But it requires you to play in a specific way - a way many players are not comfortable with. Easy mode would not change that.

And nope, strike missions is not that. It was supposed to be that, but strike missions have barely anything to do with actual raiding encounters, people can learn strike missions, go into raiding and need to learn from the ground up anyways.The same would be with easy mode. Unless the difficulty would be very, very close to normal mode, in which case it would have practically all the same problems normal mode already has. And it would end up being either ignored (by those that now don't raid) or skipped straight to normal by those really interested in normal.

This is not the same and as an introductory/training mode specifically for raids, it was a weak idea where a lot of players can just keep getting carried. Do the same with "introductory raiding" that gives enough rewards and they'll do the same: just keep getting carried. Which is exactly why the rewards shouldn't be comparable, so there's a drive to understand the mechanics and be a meaningful part of the squad while being able to learn in consistently friendly/easy environment.Those with the drive are already training in normal. The potential target group for easy mode would be mostly people

without

that drive.

If that doesn't work, then don't save the raids and just scrap them, who caresWell, yeah, leaving raids abandoned is what is most likely to happen. That's also a solution, i guess. Bit of a waste, though.

but then OP has no actual point for his thread.OP didn;t try to make any point. They just gave some options without any deeper analysis behind them. This doesn't mean those options are bad or pointless however. You just ignore all the approaches that do have a point, and concentrate only on those that are indeed pointless. That's because you think about easy mode as only some "support" type of content to normal mode, ignoring all other possibilities and interactions.Specifically, you keep ignoring the main way easy mode could benefit normal mode - probably because it would make the

normal

mode to be a subordinate/less important one.

Ok, so they wouldn't be bad because there would be no real alternative. You can't complete the harder content? So you wouldn't get the rewards anyways. You complete the training one? Ok, have your minimal raid-related rewards that otherwise you can't get anywhere else. Familiarize yourself (not exactly directed at you, but to the "hypotethical new player") to the basics of the content and move up for actual rewards, np.Yes, as i see it that's actually bad. In fact, that's one of the reasons behind the current raid problems now. Anet didn't see the potential problems with raid population and sustainability, because they haven't noticed that a lot of players were doing them only for rewards. And by the time those players got those rewards and left, it was already too late to try and correct the situation.Basically, raid population was artificially inflated, but devs didn't see that and assumed everything was fine when it wasn't.

I don't really think so, which is why imo the tutorial/easy/story-mode would need to have minimal rewards instead of increasing the rewards of regular raids.Minimal rewards hurt replayability. As such, they are a bad idea.

No, they don't, especially when the point is "saving content" and not "replacing content" as OP and many other people claimed in this thread.And still pure hypothetical without any approximated numbers, so I guess i'm supposed to keep guessing what you mean.Anything that has a potential of getting any dev attention to raids would be "saving content". Even if normal raids lost the position of main raid content to easy mode, they would still benefit from getting more resources they get now (which iz zero, btw).

You think of easy mode only as a way to increase popularity of normal mode to (or above) the level where devs might consider investing in them again. That's a wrong approach. What you should think of is that if easy mode gets popular enough, it can pull normal mode up behind it. Yes, that would probably mean easy mode would become the raid content of primary interest for devs, but normal mode would still keep getting developed that way, and this might stop community decay, or even bring more players into it. This would be good for normal mode.Unless of course the pride of raiders would never accept that kind of solution, and they would rather prefer to have their content end up dead that go along with it. Although i wouldn't be surprised if, after raid population gets low enough, Anet decided to just nerf all encounters and thus get some second life out of that content. In this case, all that would remain would be the easy mode, and normal mode would still get nothing.

I didn't notice, not sure which questions you're referring to tbhI referred to all the questions i have answered in my previous post - all the answers to them were in my even earlier post - the very post you quoted when asking those questions.(really, I don't know which ones you're talking about), but pretty sure you avoided some questions entirely like the ones in this post:

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/comment/1362990/#Comment_1362990

Yes, i did avoid the questions about mechanics, because i didn't want to derail the current discussion. I'd rather have that one in a separate thread. Notice though, that i was not responding to any of your posts with questions that were answered in the very post i was responding to, like you did previously.

Asking about the form of "easy/story-mode" in the thread that proposes those difficulties seems very much on-topic to me.Oh, it is on topic, i just don't like to discuss two (or more) different, and not necessarily directly related things in the same post. This tends to make the discussion on all of them more confusing and ultimately always ends up derailing the thread. I prefer to discuss different topics separately.

[Astralporing.1957]

@"Sobx.1758" said:Anyways, if you don't have any specifics in regards to how said easy/story-mode would look like and what rewards you treat as "minimal" as opposed to them being "lower" then I think we'll just keep going in circles and I'm kind of getting bored of it already.Rewards i mentioned already in my previous post above, but about mechanics, while i don't have any specific suggestions now, my overall view is that they should be somewhere around the mid level of Strikes (specifically, around Kodans, Fraenir, and Voice difficulty, below Boneskinner and definitely above Shiverpeaks, seeing as this one is a joke). Freezie level is probably also okay. The relative difficulty should probably remain similar as in normal mode (so, with w4 being the easiest, and dhuum at the top). There's obviously no need for CMs in easy mode, though.

[Linken.6345]

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@"Sobx.1758" said:Anyways, if you don't have any specifics in regards to how said easy/story-mode would look like and what rewards you treat as "minimal" as opposed to them being "lower" then I think we'll just keep going in circles and I'm kind of getting bored of it already.Rewards i mentioned already in my previous post above, but about mechanics, while i don't have any specific suggestions now, my overall view is that they should be somewhere around the mid level of Strikes (specifically, around Kodans, Fraenir, and Voice difficulty,

below

Boneskinner and definitely above Shiverpeaks, seeing as this one is a joke). Freezie level is probably also okay. The relative difficulty should probably remain similar as in normal mode (so, with w4 being the easiest, and dhuum at the top). There's obviously no need for CMs in easy mode, though.

Arent there people who have trouble with even shiverpeaks tho?

[Astralporing.1957]

@Linken.6345 said:Arent there people who have trouble with even shiverpeaks tho?Well, yes, although:

• most of them have problem mainly with the real difficulty of that encounter - snowball and jumping puzzle
• it's not really possible to help the rest. I mean, shiverpeaks is below t1 and dungeons level difficulty.

[Delita Silverburg.8632]

I'd be OK with this if the story mode did not provide any rewards, the easy mode only provided mag shards/ gaeting crystals (which leads to ascended gear), and the LI/LD & Gold were still gated behind the normal mode as it is now, which would be your so called "hard mode". Killing easy mode is fine, but the players who want to get legendary gear should have to work for it by playing the game as it's intended. It's a challenge, sure, but an easy mode would at the very least prepare them for the actual challenge by getting them properly geared up for the fight. Then it's just a matter of learning the rotation for their given profession.

[Laila Lightness.8742]

@kharmin.7683 said:

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@battledrone.8315 said:they should never had made raids in the first place.Maybe, but they did, and it's not possible to turn back the clock on this.They could always abandon raids. Like they abandoned dungeons. However, I doubt that would happen unless they abandon raids for strikes.

Havent they already done that but strikes is problu gonna end like dungeons and raids

[Ashen.2907]

@"Sobx.1758" said:

That's the thing: it doesn't. As much as you try to highjack what I've said, the whole point here is that the easy mode would have probably 2 roles:1) "I want to see the story" -ok, so play through it to see the story and that's it. Apparently you don't need raiding rewards or this type of content at all, it's just about the story.2) tutorial/introduction to raiding mode -at which point it doesn't need "worthy rewards to encourage replayability" ("worthy" is subjective, so might be a bit of miscommunication I guess), because its role is to introduce people scared of raiding content; the rewards+replayability is needed for the actual "regular" version of that content to give people a push forward.

I think that you are missing a role:

3) There are players who would enjoy instanced content that is tuned for lower levels of skill, availability, or dedication. Casual players, some at least, do enjoy instanced content. I prefer instanced content, for example, over open world. I like feeling as if my individual contribution matters to the success or failure of a mission, something that I do not get from the group content available in the open world.

[battledrone.8315]

@"EdwinLi.1284" said:I think the story mode of a Raid should not be a simple easier copy of the normal raid but more of a cinematic version of the raid storyline. Have it provide more story events that is not in the Normal Raid version of the Raid due to being a far more story focused and solo version of the Raid Storyline.

Maybe even going far as introducing new NPCs for these Story mode versions of the Raid Story mode to add on to the events and to act as the characters that provide tutorials to what to do with X and Y mechanics. It may provide a interesting new group of characters that the "commander" may develop bonds with outside of the Main storyline for these Raid storylines.

This way they can separate the experience of the Raid between a more Story focused version that has story style events before each boss fights and dialogues between the Player character and NPCs while a Normal Raid focused on large group battles against each raid boss using real players.

that would mean twice the resources for a very small audience. not totally impossible, but very unlikely.they have stated, that their goal is replayability. AKA farming and grinding.

[Sobx.1758]

@Ashen.2907 said:

@"Sobx.1758" said:

That's the thing: it doesn't. As much as you try to highjack what I've said, the whole point here is that the easy mode would have probably 2 roles:1) "I want to see the story" -ok, so play through it to see the story and that's it. Apparently you don't need raiding rewards or this type of content at all, it's just about the story.2) tutorial/introduction to raiding mode -at which point it doesn't need "worthy rewards to encourage replayability" ("worthy" is subjective, so might be a bit of miscommunication I guess), because its role is to introduce people

scared

of raiding content; the rewards+replayability is needed for the actual "regular" version of that content to give people a push forward.

I think that you are missing a role:

3) There are players who would enjoy instanced content that is tuned for lower levels of skill, availability, or dedication. Casual players, some at least, do enjoy instanced content. I prefer instanced content, for example, over open world. I like feeling as if my individual contribution matters to the success or failure of a mission, something that I do not get from the group content available in the open world.

Nope, I don't think I'm really missing the role, this thread is a suggestion that uses an argument for introducing easy/story-mode as a way to "save raids and get new ones". Your "3rd point" is already available in other content types, at the very least it's just regular story mode. It already exists in the game and saying "but I want second one next to the first one" isn't the point here. Not including this one was intended as people that want it aren't really interested in raids. If raids are unsavable then they are unsavable and that's it. I don't know why some people need to pretend they want "raids" when in reality all they want is a "secondary/separate story mode" (...with better rewards, I assume), just like what it appears to me you wrote above.