Impossible for new players! RAIDS!

[Ayrilana.1396]

Considering that CMs add mechanics which teams can spend hours learning despite having done normal, I don’t see an easy mode doing all that much. If the mechanics aren’t threatening enough, players will do what they normally do and just ignore them.

[Linken.6345]

@chrispy.7182 said:This is the reason why I stopped playing. They need to make two versions of the raids in my opinion. One is the normal tier we have now, and the other is a beginners tier. The beginners tier will have the same mechanics but will be much more forgiving (less damage) so that people can pug and get to know the mechanics. The rewards from these would be less obviously. But it would just give new people space to practice until they know the raids and can then enter the higher tier when they know the mechanics.

If its to forgiving people will just out heal it and ignore the mechanics and learning nothing.

I say just make it the same nerf rewards and take away the timer.

People can go full defence and still learn nothing but complete it.But if they really want to learn they learn with the true severity of the mechanics.EditOfcourse no normal achievement progress, they could add other aps to it tho.

[Firebeard.1746]

@Linken.6345 said:

@chrispy.7182 said:This is the reason why I stopped playing. They need to make two versions of the raids in my opinion. One is the normal tier we have now, and the other is a beginners tier. The beginners tier will have the same mechanics but will be much more forgiving (less damage) so that people can pug and get to know the mechanics. The rewards from these would be less obviously. But it would just give new people space to practice until they know the raids and can then enter the higher tier when they know the mechanics.

If its to forgiving people will just out heal it and ignore the mechanics and learning nothing.

I say just make it the same nerf rewards and take away the timer.

People can go full defence and still learn nothing but complete it.But if they really want to learn they learn with the true severity of the mechanics.EditOfcourse no normal achievement progress, they could add other aps to it tho.

Once you take away AP/LIs, you might as well just do strikes instead.

[Ayrilana.1396]

@Firebeard.1746 said:

@Linken.6345 said:

@chrispy.7182 said:This is the reason why I stopped playing. They need to make two versions of the raids in my opinion. One is the normal tier we have now, and the other is a beginners tier. The beginners tier will have the same mechanics but will be much more forgiving (less damage) so that people can pug and get to know the mechanics. The rewards from these would be less obviously. But it would just give new people space to practice until they know the raids and can then enter the higher tier when they know the mechanics.

If its to forgiving people will just out heal it and ignore the mechanics and learning nothing.

I say just make it the same nerf rewards and take away the timer.

People can go full defence and still learn nothing but complete it.But if they really want to learn they learn with the true severity of the mechanics.EditOfcourse no normal achievement progress, they could add other aps to it tho.

Once you take away AP/LIs, you might as well just do strikes instead.

The reasons being given for training and story must all be BS then. Just an excuse to get the rewards easier.

[Epsilon Indi.2031]

@dani.5680 said:Impossible for new players to get in a new raid! All require 150+ LI

Those are experienced groups. They're allowed to have their own requirements. You also don't need to join them and can write up your own LFG to start your own groups. My static, when filling for one or more roles due to absentees, doesn't even lists requirements beyond 'know the fight'. If the LFG doesn't work for you, raid training discords tend to have many parties forming for the less experienced people to hop into and get clears.

and all training require ascended so you are in a farming space of over 3 months for ascended gear just to get in the training! Then 1 year to get those 150 LI! What the hell is going on?

Advanced trainings may actually require you to have a set build and full ascended as they entail more advanced strategies that require tighter DPS or healing checks. Normal trainings don't really require you but advise that you get trinkets+backpiece+weapons in ascended if DPS as this will give you the biggest boost to damage with the least amount of grinding. Now normal trainings don't really expect you to have anything but a cohesive meta build and the right gear in exotics.

Most of training guilds take you on weekends if they are free, if not, not!

That's just a problem of finding a correct guild that fits your needs.

So as a new player you have to farm 1year to be in a LFG? Thats stupid isn't it?

150 LI isn't a year. Let's say you only do wing 1-4 and skip out on 5-7. That leaves you 13 bosses to get LI from per week which is just under 12 weeks to get 150 LI. This does not include events that also award LI, if it did, you can get a maximum of 15 a week from just wings 1-4 which would knock this total time down to 10 weeks of full clears. Now if it takes you two months to get to the point of regularly clearing 1-4, you'll have it all in about 4-6 months and be able to join basically whatever LFG posting you want. This is about the same amount of time it'd take someone to get full ascended, infused, attuned, and from fractal level 1 to 100.

[Lucio.4190]

On one hand, it shouldn't take such time to be able to play any parts of the game and here seems to be us players setting the conditions. Still, it's us players setting the conditions and we can decide if/how we want to change this. It's been described here how some training guilds have raids for all and there are some people that like the casual play style. I believe the question now is how newly hatched Level 80's finds these training guilds and casual players, and join them?Is the information enough when adding "Casual" in the LFG? Will the elitists respect those conditions as they expect other players to respect the conditions for speed runs?Or am I simplifying the situation? Is it possible to make this work, or are there too few players using the LFG tool?

I haven't played many Fractals or Dungeons, but I discovered that I performed pretty okay with just Exotic gear. When I joined the fight, I contributed pretty okay. My biggest problem was that it was all new to me and I didn't know about any tactics against the bosses, I didn't know how to solve the puzzles. My group had a lot of patience, but we also had lots of fun. It may have taken about 30 minutes longer to complete the Dungeon, but we cleared it and I had a great time... when I realized that all my clones messed it all up for the team and I had to select another template, of course. ;)Doing the Fractals were more of a pain with all the jumping, but I never expected the fights to be that easy. Still, only equipped with Exotic gear. Will this get harder later?

I think speed runs are like grinding through the game, but that's how some people choose to play. I imagine that casual play offers more laughs along the way.

[Linken.6345]

@"Lucio.4190" said:On one hand, it shouldn't take such time to be able to play any parts of the game and here seems to be us players setting the conditions. Still, it's us players setting the conditions and we can decide if/how we want to change this. It's been described here how some training guilds have raids for all and there are some people that like the casual play style. I believe the question now is how newly hatched Level 80's finds these training guilds and casual players, and join them?Is the information enough when adding "Casual" in the LFG? Will the elitists respect those conditions as they expect other players to respect the conditions for speed runs?Or am I simplifying the situation? Is it possible to make this work, or are there too few players using the LFG tool?

I haven't played many Fractals or Dungeons, but I discovered that I performed pretty okay with just Exotic gear. When I joined the fight, I contributed pretty okay. My biggest problem was that it was all new to me and I didn't know about any tactics against the bosses, I didn't know how to solve the puzzles. My group had a lot of patience, but we also had lots of fun. It may have taken about 30 minutes longer to complete the Dungeon, but we cleared it and I had a great time... when I realized that all my clones messed it all up for the team and I had to select another template, of course. ;)Doing the Fractals were more of a pain with all the jumping, but I never expected the fights to be that easy. Still, only equipped with Exotic gear. Will this get harder later?

I think speed runs are like grinding through the game, but that's how some people choose to play. I imagine that casual play offers more laughs along the way.

Well sadly there are people who dont respect the experienced players expectation so Im sure there are people that dont respect chill or casual tagged parties as well.Glad you had fun in your dungeons/fractals and yes fractals get harder in higher tiers.Add the people you had fun with to you friend list with a nickname like cool dungeon girl/guy for example.They you can whisper them and see if they want to do more another day.

[chrispy.7182]

@Linken.6345 said:

@chrispy.7182 said:This is the reason why I stopped playing. They need to make two versions of the raids in my opinion. One is the normal tier we have now, and the other is a beginners tier. The beginners tier will have the same mechanics but will be much more forgiving (less damage) so that people can pug and get to know the mechanics. The rewards from these would be less obviously. But it would just give new people space to practice until they know the raids and can then enter the higher tier when they know the mechanics.

If its to forgiving people will just out heal it and ignore the mechanics and learning nothing.

I say just make it the same nerf rewards and take away the timer.

People can go full defence and still learn nothing but complete it.But if they really want to learn they learn with the true severity of the mechanics.EditOfcourse no normal achievement progress, they could add other aps to it tho.

I see your point. But you could remedy this by:

1) Severely nerfing the rewards. So in the normal Radi ti takes, what, 6 weeks is it to get 150 LI? So in the easy version it would take maybe 6 months or something. Frankly, all the people who play the easy version are the people who are never going to play the normal version because of the barrier to entry. So they will have no problem waiting 6 months to get their legendary armour.

2) I would imagine there will be two types of people. People who use want to face roll the easy mode raid and ignore mechanics. And then there would be people who genuinely want to follow the mechanics to learn the raid and then advance to the higher tier raid for Peter rewards. So in the Log there would be two types of groups for easy raids: the casuals who don't care about mechanics, and then the more serious types who would probably write something like 'LFM - WM'... 'WM' means 'With Mechanics' meaning that the group is for learning the mechanics and everyone must do them.

[Cyninja.2954]

@chrispy.7182 said:

@Linken.6345 said:

@chrispy.7182 said:This is the reason why I stopped playing. They need to make two versions of the raids in my opinion. One is the normal tier we have now, and the other is a beginners tier. The beginners tier will have the same mechanics but will be much more forgiving (less damage) so that people can pug and get to know the mechanics. The rewards from these would be less obviously. But it would just give new people space to practice until they know the raids and can then enter the higher tier when they know the mechanics.

If its to forgiving people will just out heal it and ignore the mechanics and learning nothing.

I say just make it the same nerf rewards and take away the timer.

People can go full defence and still learn nothing but complete it.But if they really want to learn they learn with the true severity of the mechanics.EditOfcourse no normal achievement progress, they could add other aps to it tho.

I see your point. But you could remedy this by:

1) Severely nerfing the rewards. So in the normal Radi ti takes, what, 6 weeks is it to get 150 LI? So in the easy version it would take maybe 6 months or something. Frankly, all the people who play the easy version are the people who are never going to play the normal version because of the barrier to entry. So they will have no problem waiting 6 months to get their legendary armour.

Then this layer of difficulty serves no purpose as gateway or training mechanism for raids. All it does is redistribute rewards to lower tiers and potentially allow reuse of assets.

@chrispy.7182 said:2) I would imagine there will be two types of people. People who use want to face roll the easy mode raid and ignore mechanics. And then there would be people who genuinely want to follow the mechanics to learn the raid and then advance to the higher tier raid for Peter rewards. So in the Log there would be two types of groups for easy raids: the casuals who don't care about mechanics, and then the more serious types who would probably write something like 'LFM - WM'... 'WM' means 'With Mechanics' meaning that the group is for learning the mechanics and everyone must do them.

and thus with players who have different approaches and goals for a mode there would again be tension. How is this an improvement over the current situation?

[maddoctor.2738]

@chrispy.7182 said:2) I would imagine there will be two types of people. People who use want to face roll the easy mode raid and ignore mechanics. And then there would be people who genuinely want to follow the mechanics to learn the raid and then advance to the higher tier raid for Peter rewards. So in the Log there would be two types of groups for easy raids: the casuals who don't care about mechanics, and then the more serious types who would probably write something like 'LFM - WM'... 'WM' means 'With Mechanics' meaning that the group is for learning the mechanics and everyone must do them.

To repeat myself from another thread that was on the same subject (got many of these), these are the gw2efficiency completion rates of some Strike Missions when adjusted with the population that completed the relevant episodes:Easy Strike: 73%Medium Strike: 62%Hard Strike: 55%

The first thing this new mode of yours is gonna do, is justify its existence. Anet can find the total population interested by looking at the completion rates of the easiest Strike possible, then subtract the number of players that run the harder ones to get the amount of players interested in easier instanced content. Of course they'd need to use regular runner data and not those that finished either only once. We obviously don't have that kind of data, but from what data we do have available it doesn't look this population interested in easier instanced content is any high. And you expect to split that tiny segment into further two groups.

[Murdock.6547]

Let me save you some headache from what I've experienced in the past:If someone wants Li / KP for a training run they're nuts. Ignore that party. If nobody is hosting a training run, go to youtube or something similar, learn the basic mechanics, and set up your own training party.It's iirc 300g for a commander tag? Which is really expensive for many, but it means you're the boss. You are the boss. You can host anything you want, in any way you want and nobody can stop you. 300g grind, at least in my opinion, is a lot easier than the ascended grind. Or at least your first ascended grind. For me it's been years, and I know they added a lot more ways to do it, so maybe it's not as bad?

But either way! The main thing to take from my post is: If you think the groups are unfair, stupid, or just outright unreasonable make your own. (a lot of the time, you're factually correct and the group in question is banana brains wanting ez clears and willing to wait hours to get them)

[Astralporing.1957]

@"Cyninja.2954" said:Then this layer of difficulty serves no purpose as gateway or training mechanism for raids.Yes. Indeed, the usefulness of such mode for training, while existing, should never be considered as an important factor. It would be less important, than, for example, segregating "players who have different approaches and goals for a mode", so they won't end meeting in the same group.

All it does is redistribute rewards to lower tiers and potentially allow reuse of assets."Redistribution" assumes raiders would lose something - which they wouldn't.

[Astralporing.1957]

@maddoctor.2738 said:To repeat myself from another thread that was on the same subject (got many of these), these are the gw2efficiency completion rates of some Strike Missions when adjusted with the population that completed the relevant episodes:Easy Strike: 73%Medium Strike: 62%Hard Strike: 55%

The first thing this new mode of yours is gonna do, is justify its existence. Anet can find the total population interested by looking at the completion rates of the easiest Strike possible, then subtract the number of players that run the harder ones to get the amount of players interested in easier instanced content. Of course they'd need to use regular runner data and not those that finished either only once. We obviously don't have that kind of data, but from what data we do have available it doesn't look this population interested in easier instanced content is any high. And you expect to split that tiny segment into further two groups.You should not be looking at variations within a tier, and trying to extrapolate this into different tiers. Raids already posess similar variation, with significant difference between Cairn at one side, and Dhuum on another.

Easy mode, if it were to exist, would likely not be at Cairn level. It would not be at Boneskinner level either. It would be lower.So, you should be rather comparing medium strikes to medium raid tier.Which would make it ~60 % to what? ~10% maybe?

[Katary.7096]

@chrispy.7182 said:

I see your point. But you could remedy this by:

1) Severely nerfing the rewards. So in the normal Radi ti takes, what, 6 weeks is it to get 150 LI? So in the easy version it would take maybe 6 months or something. Frankly, all the people who play the easy version are the people who are never going to play the normal version because of the barrier to entry. So they will have no problem waiting 6 months to get their legendary armour.Why make the reward nerf this complicated? Simply remove LI, LD, Minis, Skins and Achievements and call it a day.2) I would imagine there will be two types of people. People who use want to face roll the easy mode raid and ignore mechanics. And then there would be people who genuinely want to follow the mechanics to learn the raid and then advance to the higher tier raid for Peter rewards. So in the Log there would be two types of groups for easy raids: the casuals who don't care about mechanics, and then the more serious types who would probably write something like 'LFM - WM'... 'WM' means 'With Mechanics' meaning that the group is for learning the mechanics and everyone must do them.Since the people that actually care about learning the mechanics of each encounter can already do this by playing the raid content that is in the game right now, that really only leaves the group that wants to face roll the content.

[Westenev.5289]

I remember when wing 3 was released. I was silly enough to believe a commanderless "anyone welcome" squad would result in anything other than new commanders hijacking the party and kicking anyone without KP.

So, yeah. I imagine new players who don't have a commander tag will struggle to join pugs or make their own groups. The whole experience is trash unless you have a group of discord friends willing to play with you - and not all of us do.

Conversely, over time, PuG's have gotten better at bosses like Vale Guardian. Gone are the days when you'd have random test builds like settlers ele dealing negitive dps, or have your tank portaled across the map. If you're lucky, you can even clear it first time in a PuG 'anyone who fills xyz role welcome' party.

[Firebeard.1746]

@Ayrilana.1396 said:

@Firebeard.1746 said:

@Linken.6345 said:

@chrispy.7182 said:This is the reason why I stopped playing. They need to make two versions of the raids in my opinion. One is the normal tier we have now, and the other is a beginners tier. The beginners tier will have the same mechanics but will be much more forgiving (less damage) so that people can pug and get to know the mechanics. The rewards from these would be less obviously. But it would just give new people space to practice until they know the raids and can then enter the higher tier when they know the mechanics.

If its to forgiving people will just out heal it and ignore the mechanics and learning nothing.

I say just make it the same nerf rewards and take away the timer.

People can go full defence and still learn nothing but complete it.But if they really want to learn they learn with the true severity of the mechanics.EditOfcourse no normal achievement progress, they could add other aps to it tho.

Once you take away AP/LIs, you might as well just do strikes instead.

The reasons being given for training and story must all be BS then. Just an excuse to get the rewards easier.

Maybe not, but as others have stated, there's powerful enough defensive mechanisms that you're not really getting much in the way of training. Story you can just watch a youtube video. I mean rewards is what 90% of the player base are playing for. Otherwise why would PuGs and so many statics recruiting have such stringent KP requirements? People want rewards FAST. I can't read into the other's intentions. See my post below though because I feel like you're trying to say people don't deserve to earn those slots not doing the exact same thing as you.

[Firebeard.1746]

@Katary.7096 said:

@chrispy.7182 said:

I see your point. But you could remedy this by:

1) Severely nerfing the rewards. So in the normal Radi ti takes, what, 6 weeks is it to get 150 LI? So in the easy version it would take maybe 6 months or something. Frankly, all the people who play the easy version are the people who are never going to play the normal version because of the barrier to entry. So they will have no problem waiting 6 months to get their legendary armour.Why make the reward nerf this complicated? Simply remove LI, LD, Minis, Skins and Achievements and call it a day.

To give people an alternative to WvW for legendary armor/ring mats? Honestly no one needs to touch raids to cover every slot at this point. I can literally kill guards for hours on end roaming in WvW and the game will shove legendary crafting materials up my kitten. (sure I'll have to cap and/or kill another player every so often, but it's not that hard).

Why would you, if you love raiding, be opposed to more people experiencing the same content you do, and progress at a slower pace? If you love the game mode, you should want more involvement, even if it's not at your level because then GASP anet has a reason to develop more of your difficult content of choice. And heck, these people are also not trying to take anything from you by suggesting your more difficult method be more rewarding (as it should be). Hardcore players already whine the raids aren't difficult enough. There's no reason for people to complain about difficulty if there's an alternate method of getting the same rewards. And then you still get the CHALLENGING content you and the rest of the raid community claim you want (and you and anet don't have to worry about the haters if there's an easy mode and can go all-out). it's a win-win and legendary armor/ring isn't so special any more.

Did you know the 2 versions of conflux are unique? You can leggie every slot not stepping into a raid ONCE (and honestly, I think that's great given the state of the content and community atm, it's great if it's with people you know/aren't judgy & in a static), I've never been able to make the second part of that happen, probably never will (the one guild I have that does training runs is completely open so kills are too hit or miss to be worth doing it all the time, even fi I could get my schedule to cooperate consistently)).

Also, I don't know about FFXIV, but in WoW, you can just go back and solo all the bosses in old content (n-2 expac for weaker classes, n-1 expansion and beyond for ones with self-heals) if you want the old tier sets. If Anet doesn't fix raiding, I think they should add a mastery in EOD or IB that makes farming the bosses easier like this. It's old, mostly dead content, why not let players experience it/farm the cosmetics? WoW also changes the loot rules in this setting (usually to make it easier to get the transmogs, but in GW2 we have to consider breaking the economy), the same could be done in this scenario. maybe they wouldn't drop the 2g, the Exotic, anything that will break the economy, but relevant items for achievements etc still do. They can also disable special achievements that were intended for only high difficulty when the kill involved the mastery (just like AOTC in WoW).

Obviously they should have a way to disable this mastery so what few people are still raiding are still raiding & get the full rewards, but honestly the content, especially W1-W4 are so old, they deserve a deprecation path like this if we want GW2 comparable to other MMOs. I also believe the raiding community is getting weaker, not stronger right now, all I've seen is anecdotal but that's my impresson.

[Ayrilana.1396]

@Firebeard.1746 said:

@Ayrilana.1396 said:

@Firebeard.1746 said:

@Linken.6345 said:

@chrispy.7182 said:This is the reason why I stopped playing. They need to make two versions of the raids in my opinion. One is the normal tier we have now, and the other is a beginners tier. The beginners tier will have the same mechanics but will be much more forgiving (less damage) so that people can pug and get to know the mechanics. The rewards from these would be less obviously. But it would just give new people space to practice until they know the raids and can then enter the higher tier when they know the mechanics.

If its to forgiving people will just out heal it and ignore the mechanics and learning nothing.

I say just make it the same nerf rewards and take away the timer.

People can go full defence and still learn nothing but complete it.But if they really want to learn they learn with the true severity of the mechanics.EditOfcourse no normal achievement progress, they could add other aps to it tho.

Once you take away AP/LIs, you might as well just do strikes instead.

The reasons being given for training and story must all be BS then. Just an excuse to get the rewards easier.

Maybe not, but as others have stated, there's powerful enough defensive mechanisms that you're not really getting much in the way of training. Story you can just watch a youtube video. I mean rewards is what 90% of the player base are playing for. Otherwise why would PuGs and so many statics recruiting have such stringent KP requirements? People want rewards FAST. I can't read into the other's intentions. See my post below though because I feel like you're trying to say people don't deserve to earn those slots not doing the exact same thing as you.

I said nothing in regards to joining pugs/statics.

[maddoctor.2738]

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@"maddoctor.2738" said:To repeat myself from another thread that was on the same subject (got many of these), these are the gw2efficiency completion rates of some Strike Missions when adjusted with the population that completed the relevant episodes:Easy Strike: 73%Medium Strike: 62%Hard Strike: 55%

The first thing this new mode of yours is gonna do, is justify its existence. Anet can find the total population interested by looking at the completion rates of the easiest Strike possible, then subtract the number of players that run the harder ones to get the amount of players interested in easier instanced content. Of course they'd need to use regular runner data and not those that finished either only once. We obviously don't have that kind of data, but from what data we do have available it doesn't look this population interested in easier instanced content is any high. And you expect to split that tiny segment into further two groups.You should not be looking at variations within a tier, and trying to extrapolate this into different tiers. Raids already posess similar variation, with significant difference between Cairn at one side, and Dhuum on another.

Easy mode, if it were to exist, would likely

not

be at Cairn level. It would

not

be at Boneskinner level either. It would be lower.So, you should be rather comparing medium strikes to medium raid tier.Which would make it ~60 % to what? ~10% maybe?

Raid difficulty "begins" at hard Strike level which is why I'm comparing hard strikes with easy strikes, in order to compare easy strikes with Raids.

Heart of Thorns completed by 183,201, Vale Guardian by 83,873 so 46%Head of the Snake completed by 138,383, Cairn by 69,651 so 50%Some of the easiest Raids have results similar to the harder Strikes

Unless of course you are saying that easy Raids won't get a new tier then? It will only be for harder Raid bosses only?

[Ayrilana.1396]

@Firebeard.1746 said:

@Katary.7096 said:

@"chrispy.7182" said:

I see your point. But you could remedy this by:

1) Severely nerfing the rewards. So in the normal Radi ti takes, what, 6 weeks is it to get 150 LI? So in the easy version it would take maybe 6 months or something. Frankly, all the people who play the easy version are the people who are never going to play the normal version because of the barrier to entry. So they will have no problem waiting 6 months to get their legendary armour.Why make the reward nerf this complicated? Simply remove LI, LD, Minis, Skins and Achievements and call it a day.

To give people an alternative to WvW for legendary armor/ring mats? Honestly no one needs to touch raids to cover every slot at this point. I can literally kill guards for hours on end roaming in WvW and the game will shove legendary crafting materials up my kitten. (sure I'll have to cap and/or kill another player every so often, but it's not that hard).

There's sPvP or they can do the actual raids which we have now.

Why would you, if you love raiding, be opposed to more people experiencing the same content you do, and progress at a slower pace? If you love the game mode, you should want more involvement, even if it's not at your level because then GASP anet has a reason to develop more of your difficult content of choice. And heck, these people are also not trying to take anything from you by suggesting your more difficult method be more rewarding (as it should be). Hardcore players already whine the raids aren't difficult enough. There's no reason for people to complain about difficulty if there's an alternate method of getting the same rewards. And then you still get the CHALLENGING content you and the rest of the raid community claim you want (and you and anet don't have to worry about the haters if there's an easy mode and can go all-out). it's a win-win and legendary armor/ring isn't so special any more.

You're not accounting for these being UNIQUE rewards which are not available elsewhere in the game.

Obviously they should have a way to disable this mastery so what few people are still raiding are still raiding & get the full rewards, but honestly the content, especially W1-W4 are so old, they deserve a deprecation path like this if we want GW2 comparable to other MMOs. I also believe the raiding community is getting weaker, not stronger right now, all I've seen is anecdotal but that's my impresson.

This would go against their statement when raids first came out if they were to "depreciate" it.

[Firebeard.1746]

@Ayrilana.1396 said:You're not accounting for these being UNIQUE rewards which are not available elsewhere in the game.

IMO they're not. The mistforged variants of WvW and PVP armor have more up to date graphics and coalescence almost makes me gag with its graphic. Also, other MMOs deprecate old content making it easier to grab the unique things, which was my main point. Mythic Antorus is the only place you can earn the corresponding tier set. WoW DOES have a few rewards that go away, but they're clearly communicated and a 100% drop rate so even filthy casuals can just farm some gold and buy a run (a single boss kill actually) and they're done (doing the same thing in GW2 costs WAY more cash in real dollars if we're talking the leggies as you have to pay for 150-300 kills depending on your account and what exactly we're talking about).

updated for accuracy.

[Cyninja.2954]

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@"Cyninja.2954" said:Then this layer of difficulty serves no purpose as gateway or training mechanism for raids.Yes. Indeed, the usefulness of such mode for training, while existing, should never be considered as an important factor. It would be less important, than, for example, segregating "players who have different approaches and goals for a mode", so they won't end meeting in the same group.

You nicely skipped the second part of the response where I commented on what another poster suggested that even an easy mode might very well attract players with different goals, which makes the entire approach of segregation meaningless. Besides splitting the player base even further.

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@"Cyninja.2954" said:All it does is redistribute rewards to lower tiers and potentially allow reuse of assets."Redistribution" assumes raiders would lose something - which they wouldn't.

read:

redistribute verb

2: to spread to other areas

• https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/redistribute

English might not be my mother tongue, but to me it seems you are using only part of this words definition. For clarity's sake though, I could have also stated that access to rewards was being redistributed.

@Firebeard.1746 said:Why would you, if you love raiding, be opposed to more people experiencing the same content you do, and progress at a slower pace? If you love the game mode, you should want more involvement, even if it's not at your level because then GASP anet has a reason to develop more of your difficult content of choice. And heck, these people are also not trying to take anything from you by suggesting your more difficult method be more rewarding (as it should be). Hardcore players already whine the raids aren't difficult enough. There's no reason for people to complain about difficulty if there's an alternate method of getting the same rewards. And then you still get the CHALLENGING content you and the rest of the raid community claim you want (and you and anet don't have to worry about the haters if there's an easy mode and can go all-out). it's a win-win and legendary armor/ring isn't so special any more.

In the past there was already constraint on the resources devoted to raid content, which in some of our opinions is the ACTUAL reason for this content decline. Just like Spvp, WvW and fractals, which have seen similar decline due to lack of attention and content. Spreading the same amount of resources across multiple difficulties would have meant even less content in terms of actual raids OR requiring more developer attention, which in turn would have meant less content in other areas, most likely other PvE.

So no, it's not a win-win especially if we consider that as some have pointed out, easy raids might not even address some of the issues which players argue for: most notably a better way to enter the content.

If this is about only easier access to the rewards, everyone can have their own stance on it, but it is something far different than "we need easy raids for training purposes".

As far as the current situation and if there is no development resources allocated, then sure, any resources spent on any part of the mode might be in some way beneficial. That's a very different outset than the past though and again, requires resources be pulled from other content.

@Firebeard.1746 said:

@Ayrilana.1396 said:You're not accounting for these being

UNIQUE

rewards which are not available elsewhere in the game.

IMO they're not. The mistforged variants of WvW and PVP armor have more up to date graphics and coalescence almost makes me gag with its graphic. Also, other MMOs deprecate old content making it easier to grab the unique things, which was my main point. Mythic Antorus is the only place you can earn the corresponding tier set. WoW DOES have a few rewards that go away, but they're clearly communicated and a 100% drop rate so even filthy casuals can just farm some gold and buy a run (a single boss kill actually) and they're done (doing the same thing in GW2 costs WAY more cash in real dollars if we're talking the leggies as you have to pay for 150-300 kills depending on your account and what exactly we're talking about).

updated for accuracy.

The first part is subjective and if the other armor is more to your liking, what do you care if the inferior one is accessible to you or not.

If this is about the price of paying others to acquire something for you, aka buying runs or achievements in either game, I personally don't consider that a factor a developer should account for. WoW also has a subscription fee, depreciation in gear, a cash shop on top of the subscription fee (which is vastly more expensive than the one in GW2), and a ton of other things whic greatly distinguish the game from this one. As such the premium one has to pay for exclusive rewards hardly matters imo.

[Firebeard.1746]

@Cyninja.2954 said:

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@Cyninja.2954 said:Then this layer of difficulty serves no purpose as gateway or training mechanism for raids.Yes. Indeed, the usefulness of such mode for training, while existing, should never be considered as an important factor. It would be less important, than, for example, segregating "players who have different approaches and goals for a mode", so they won't end meeting in the same group.

You nicely skipped the second part of the response where I commented on what another poster suggested that even an easy mode might very well attract players with different goals, which makes the entire approach of segregation meaningless. Besides splitting the player base even further.

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@Cyninja.2954 said:All it does is redistribute rewards to lower tiers and potentially allow reuse of assets."Redistribution" assumes raiders would lose something - which they wouldn't.

read:

redistribute verb

2: to spread to other areas

• https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/redistribute

English might not be my mother tongue, but to me it seems you are using only part of this words definition. For clarity's sake though, I could have also stated that access to rewards was being redistributed.

@Firebeard.1746 said:Why would you, if you love raiding, be opposed to more people experiencing the same content you do, and progress at a slower pace? If you love the game mode, you should want more involvement, even if it's not at your level because then

GASP

anet has a reason to develop more of your difficult content of choice. And heck, these people are also not trying to take anything from you by suggesting your more difficult method be more rewarding (as it should be). Hardcore players already whine the raids aren't difficult enough. There's no reason for people to complain about difficulty if there's an alternate method of getting the same rewards. And then you still get the

CHALLENGING

content you and the rest of the raid community claim you want (and you and anet don't have to worry about the haters if there's an easy mode and can go all-out). it's a win-win and legendary armor/ring isn't so special any more.

In the past there was already constraint on the resources devoted to raid content, which in some of our opinions is the ACTUAL reason for this content decline. Just like Spvp, WvW and fractals, which have seen similar decline due to lack of attention and content. Spreading the same amount of resources across multiple difficulties would have meant even less content in terms of actual raids OR requiring more developer attention, which in turn would have meant less content in other areas, most likely other PvE.

So no, it's not a win-win especially if we consider that as some have pointed out, easy raids might not even address some of the issues which players argue for: most notably a better way to enter the content.

If this is about only easier access to the rewards, everyone can have their own stance on it, but it is something far different than "we need easy raids for training purposes".

As far as the current situation and if there is no development resources allocated, then sure, any resources spent on any part of the mode might be in some way beneficial. That's a very different outset than the past though and again, requires resources be pulled from other content.

@Firebeard.1746 said:

@Ayrilana.1396 said:You're not accounting for these being

UNIQUE

rewards which are not available elsewhere in the game.

IMO they're not. The mistforged variants of WvW and PVP armor have more up to date graphics and coalescence almost makes me gag with its graphic. Also, other MMOs deprecate old content making it easier to grab the unique things, which was my main point. Mythic Antorus is the only place you can earn the corresponding tier set. WoW DOES have a few rewards that go away, but they're clearly communicated and a 100% drop rate so even filthy casuals can just farm some gold and buy a run (a single boss kill actually) and they're done (doing the same thing in GW2 costs WAY more cash in real dollars if we're talking the leggies as you have to pay for 150-300 kills depending on your account and what exactly we're talking about).

updated for accuracy.

The first part is subjective and if the other armor is more to your liking, what do you care if the inferior one is accessible to you or not.

I actually don't, I just don't see it as that inconsistent with MMOs in general to make it more accessible as the content ages. If I find the right group, I'll gladly raid, if not I'll just keep my random poking at it every now and then, I think I'm more interested in completing the collections for envoy because OCD and that's it. I'm not crying at night or jealous of those skins. Even though I don't have my targeted WvW mistforged armor yet.

Also, the visuals are only partially subjective - they had more time to work on and improve visual techniques after the release of the Maguuma raid armors (the first truly legendarily visual armors), I'm sure you'll find some people who like the maguuma armors better, but I'm also sure most people will find the improved PVP/WvW legendary armors better (I'm specifically referring to the ones that require higher rank in both to craft).

[Astralporing.1957]

@"Ayrilana.1396" said:

Obviously they should have a way to disable this mastery so what few people are still raiding are still raiding & get the full rewards, but honestly the content, especially W1-W4 are so old, they deserve a deprecation path like this if we want GW2 comparable to other MMOs. I also believe the raiding community is getting weaker, not stronger right now, all I've seen is anecdotal but that's my impresson.

This would go against their statement when raids first came out if they were to "depreciate" it.

Yes. It would. So? It's clear their original approach did

not

work out. If they're going to keep to it, it means no new raids ever. Is that what you want?

@Cyninja.2954 said:

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@Cyninja.2954 said:Then this layer of difficulty serves no purpose as gateway or training mechanism for raids.Yes. Indeed, the usefulness of such mode for training, while existing, should never be considered as an important factor. It would be less important, than, for example, segregating "players who have different approaches and goals for a mode", so they won't end meeting in the same group.

You nicely skipped the second part of the response where I commented on what another poster suggested that even an easy mode might very well attract players with different goals, which makes the entire approach of segregation meaningless. Besides splitting the player base even further.Nah, currently this is a problem, because it's simply not possible for those two groups to play separately. One of those groups can indeed try to filter out the seccond, but the other cannot. That's because, in order to play separately from the first group, and still succeed, they would have to

become

first group first.

In easy mode those two types of groups could play alongside each other without too much interference. Most people would simply avoid the training runs that would try to do all mechanics - the same way most players ignored the speedclear dungeon runs in the past. And the same way speedclear runners ignored the "casual run" and "all welcome" dungeon LFGs.

And no, it would not split the playerbase further. That split already exists, no new splintering would happen. The "training" groups from easy mode would eventually go up to normal and join the main raider community (perhaps being more prepared for it now, and with lower chances of running face-first into some experience that woudl make them run away). The non-training players would still remain separate from raiding community. Nothing about this split would change.

@Cyninja.2954 said:In the past there was already constraint on the resources devoted to raid content, which in some of our opinions is the ACTUAL reason for this content decline. Just like Spvp, WvW and fractals, which have seen similar decline due to lack of attention and content. Spreading the same amount of resources across multiple difficulties would have meant even less content in terms of actual raids OR requiring more developer attention, which in turn would have meant less content in other areas, most likely other PvE.

So no, it's not a win-win especially if we consider that as some have pointed out, easy raids might not even address some of the issues which players argue for: most notably a better way to enter the content.

If this is about only easier access to the rewards, everyone can have their own stance on it, but it is something far different than "we need easy raids for training purposes".

As far as the current situation and if there is no development resources allocated, then sure, any resources spent on any part of the mode might be in some way beneficial. That's a very different outset than the past though and again, requires resources be pulled from other content.Well, yeah, now it's way too late for that probably, especially seeing as they seem to have some major resource problems at the moment. As for the past though - sure, we can't be sure that it would have worked. But we already know that jealously protecting those resources then didn't work. The way of thinking that was too afraid to use some of those resources to try something new in order to potentially save raids was the one that ensured that no attempt was ever made, and thus made raids' demise certain.

Yes, any attempt to fix raids would have required taking some risk. It's just that "playing it safe", and avoiding all the risk led to the path where all was lost.

[Cyninja.2954]

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@Cyninja.2954 said:

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@Cyninja.2954 said:Then this layer of difficulty serves no purpose as gateway or training mechanism for raids.Yes. Indeed, the usefulness of such mode for training, while existing, should never be considered as an important factor. It would be less important, than, for example, segregating "players who have different approaches and goals for a mode", so they won't end meeting in the same group.

You nicely skipped the second part of the response where I commented on what another poster suggested that even an easy mode might very well attract players with different goals, which makes the entire approach of segregation meaningless. Besides splitting the player base even further.Nah, currently this is a problem, because it's simply not possible for those two groups to play separately. One of those groups can indeed try to filter out the seccond, but the other cannot. That's because, in order to play separately from the first group, and still succeed, they would have to

become

first group first.

Which is the same as saying: in order to succeed at raids, one would have to adopt a raiding mindset and approach. Agreed.

@Astralporing.1957 said:In easy mode those two types of groups could play alongside each other without too much interference. Most people would simply avoid the training runs that would try to do all mechanics - the same way most players ignored the speedclear dungeon runs in the past. And the same way speedclear runners ignored the "casual run" and "all welcome" dungeon LFGs.

And no, it would not split the playerbase further. That split already exists, no new splintering would happen. The "training" groups from easy mode would eventually go up to normal and join the main raider community (perhaps being more prepared for it now, and with lower chances of running face-first into some experience that woudl make them run away). The non-training players would still remain separate from raiding community. Nothing about this split would change.

That's a lot of assumption on your part. I'm just going to say:

• assuming there is enough players who would play easy mode raids is just that: an assumption
• which ties strait into rewards, because easier content in this game often means less exclusive rewards, unless you want to syphon players away from the normal mode which would again be a detriment to regular raids
• I've seen just as toxic "non" raid players in open world content, more even because there is literally no reason to be toxic there. You yourself often bring the argument that there is this huge divide in player skill. No matter how easy content is, there will always be those who find it challenging in this game. Some of the most toxic individuals I have met in this game were semi competent players, some times strait up terrible, who assumed they were far better then they are.

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@Cyninja.2954 said:In the past there was already constraint on the resources devoted to raid content, which in some of our opinions is the ACTUAL reason for this content decline. Just like Spvp, WvW and fractals, which have seen similar decline due to lack of attention and content. Spreading the same amount of resources across multiple difficulties would have meant even less content in terms of actual raids OR requiring more developer attention, which in turn would have meant less content in other areas, most likely other PvE.

So no, it's not a win-win especially if we consider that as some have pointed out, easy raids might not even address some of the issues which players argue for: most notably a better way to enter the content.

If this is about only easier access to the rewards, everyone can have their own stance on it, but it is something far different than "we need easy raids for training purposes".

As far as the current situation and if there is no development resources allocated, then sure, any resources spent on any part of the mode might be in some way beneficial. That's a very different outset than the past though and again, requires resources be pulled from other content.Well, yeah, now it's way too late for that probably, especially seeing as they seem to have some major resource problems at the moment. As for the past though - sure, we can't be sure that it would have worked. But we already know that jealously protecting those resources then

didn't

work. The way of thinking that was too afraid to use some of those resources to try something new in order to potentially save raids was the one that ensured that no attempt was ever made, and thus made raids' demise

certain

.

Yes, any attempt to fix raids would have required taking some risk. It's just that "playing it safe", and avoiding all the risk led to the path where

all

was lost.

I find this entire argument so disingenuous (not you specifically but the entire argument that easy mode raids would have beneficially affected this situation almost as though it were guaranteed).

Where were the big demands to add more developers to raid content in the past? All I recall is players who enjoy and open world content constantly demanding more open world content, especially during the content drought which also hit raids, especially during that time. Why did no one make the argument then to delay open world and season content even more in favor of raid and easy mode raid development? Simple, no one dared make that demand because they would have been crucified by the open world zealots. As a matter of fact, I would have been against this redistribution of resources myself because I never wanted this game to become more raid centric, and I've stated as much in the past multiple times.

Why is it that the niche game modes, which already see far less developer attention, are supposed to give? The time frame between raid wings was close to 1 year towards the end. Delaying that content even more would have most likely lead to an even faster demise of the player base without additional resources devoted and that is an assumption which can actually be supported in things happening in this game and via basic logic. You can pretend as much as you want that the potential "more players" which this could have drawn might have halted that flow-off, but you have little in way of substantiating this assumption. What we know for certain, and this has been evident in ALL content in this game no matter the mode: lack of developer attention and new content leads to player loss for each and every area of the game. This has been and is visible in Spvp, WvW, fractals, raids, open world, living world, story, etc. EVERYWHERE!

This entire notion that something might have been different or better is just a baseless assumption based on the premise that more players might be interested in raid content or that the assets used could be reused. They could have just as well made single players story missions with the raid bosses and that would have likely been a wiser asset investment than easy mode raids IF asset share was of a major concern.

Players who want to raid in this game are raiding, or at least the vast majority is. If sharing assets with other content is of primary concern, there is a ton of stuff which could be done which would be more beneficial than easy mode raids. Harping on half truths from the past because the overall games population is in decline in order to prove some point or make some type of assumption of how things could have been is just baseless speculation, especially when unfounded in recent game developments.