A Message from Andrew Gray

[kamikharzeeh.8016]

@Katary.7096 said:

@Super Hayes.6890 said:Fact is, the small percent of the player base that raids is not going to get a big population boost from strikes. If you want to bring more players to raid content, especially casuals, you must create an easy, medium and hard difficulty with scaling rewards. This allows the mechanics to be learned on an easier setting which will increase the player pool and close the gap to the higher difficulties. Strikes will not accomplish this.

According to that logic Fractals of the Mists would have to be really popular in the Guild Wars 2 playerbase, since every fractal has at least four difficulty settings to play it on and the rewards scale up the higher you go. But is FotM really that successful? Why does the game mode not receive more support from the developers if it has a large fan base?

@wrathmagik.3518 said:Or they could just stop trying to be WoW, which is a raid centric mmo. GW2 never had and never will have a big raid community. If you want raiding this isn't the mmo you goto. You goto wow or FF14. Instead of doing what they're good at (pve exploration/puzzles/dynamic events)

Even in WoW raid content is not that widely played. That is the reason why they created LFR, because not enough people were playing raid content.

some of us just don't endtier pvE overall. but yeah, i would do raids some few times, if there'd be a mode like t1-t2 fractals. i could do higher tier fractals gearwise, but i don't just want to swap to the infusions necessary all them time, nor buy them :P to be honest tho, i only did fractals when i needed money, since their gold output is pretty solid. i barely to never do strikes. too casual teams are not going to make them in time, and i cannot bother to search for a pve guild.

my main thing is Wvw, i play that most of my logged in time. compared to any other mode it rather gets drowned in s***, it got 1 new map during HoT release.yes, first DLC. no map for PoF,which we all still own as well for the mount comfiness in pve movement (warclaw is rather a big failure) and the elite specs bc some of them are great.

[Juan.6124]

@Aridon.8362 said:In regards to the raids I just wish there was a raid guide in game, also some backstory as to what's going going on and why. And a small strategy guide on boss mechanics, I mean you know it's senseless for heroes to go fight a boss without a plan.

I still to this day do not know why we kill the things we do in them. WvW just needs to stop trying so hard to be an RTS and more about warfare/pvp.

For wing 1 lore enter the Spirit Vale and talk to the guy with the orange icon on his head at ground level. He will brief you.

[Ikya.2469]

Can I just pipe in and say IMHO the real barrier to raids is not that "there is a giant leap in difficulty between raids and other endgame content". While this may be true, the average casual gamer is usually competent enough to figure things out. The real barrier is time. A lot of people just dont have the time or desire to group with 10 other people for the duration of a raid. If you want to understand why people dont raid, ask a sample from the whole population of gw2 and dont just talk it out amongst yourselves and the players that want more raids. Thats a biased bubble.

[Svarty.8019]

@"Ikya.2469" said:The real barrier is time. A lot of people just dont have the time or desire

• You just said it's time, but then you hit the REAL reason ... DESIRE.
• If I desire raids, I'll play "That Blizzard Game". That's the raid game. They specialise in raids, they've done them for over 15 years.
• I don't want to raid, that's one reason I'm here and not there.
• How hard is this to understand?
• This game has OTHER unique features that attract me. I get it, it's easier/less risky/cheaper to be a follower than a leader, but you don't become a business owner if you're not into gambling. I guess this is what happens when the business owner isn't anywhere near their end product.

[Ikya.2469]

Although I'm sure there are some that like to raid here I suspect the majority of people dont. The game industry is filled with the corpses of studio's that tried to copy "That Blizzard Game".I just read an article about their [bliz's] CEO getting 35 mil p/a, firing staff and increasing prices. Frankly their product isnt worth the value and I suspect gw2 is about to start getting an influx of new players ;)

PS: I dont blame them [gw2] for "wanting to have a go" at attracting more people to raid, its just that it most likely wont work and will detract from resources better spent on their core model.

[AliamRationem.5172]

@Svarty.8019 said:

@"Ikya.2469" said:The real barrier is time. A lot of people just dont have the time or desire

• You just said it's time, but then you hit the REAL reason ... DESIRE.
• If I desire raids, I'll play "That Blizzard Game". That's the raid game. They specialise in raids, they've done them for over 15 years.
• I don't want to raid, that's one reason I'm here and not there.
• How hard is this to understand?
• This game has OTHER unique features that attract me. I get it, it's easier/less risky/cheaper to be a follower than a leader, but you don't become a business owner if you're not into gambling. I guess this is what happens when the business
  owner
  isn't anywhere near their end product.

I happen to agree that WoW is a better game for group PvE content, in particular raiding. However, I also agree that time is a factor for a lot of people. But more than that there is an implicit obligation when you must rely on 9 other players also committing their time. One thing that defines "hardcore" play for me is not so much time spent playing, but that obligation.

Current and former raiders from any MMO can probably relate, but sometimes it can begin to feel like a job. Ever been in a guild that has the latest content on farm, you're equipping alts you never play, and you show up for hours each week basically just so the guild doesn't kick you before the next big raid release? Would casual players ever tolerate anything like that?

[Touchme.1097]

Hi Andrew, thank you for choosing to communicate with us gamers, I hope this will be the beginning of a regular communication between the studio and the players. We are all committed to make GW2 a better game as much as the studio does, the only things we can do, however, is writing feedbacks and discussions. I am glad to know you are very interested in delivering a good raiding experience, this is one of my favourite modes at the moment but it feels very hard for new and casual players and because there is no difficulty scaling in raid like in other MMORPGs I can see a lot of improvements you can do to make it more popular. Fractal scaling could go up forever like mythic dungeons work in WoW for example with slightly better rewards and a challenge worth for the very experienced gamers who like hard challenges. Have a good day and I hope to read more from you.Take care

[Randulf.7614]

@Touchme.1097 said:Hi Andrew, thank you for choosing to communicate with us gamers, I hope this will be the beginning of a regular communication between the studio and the players.

Just in case you hadn't seen it, Andrew's post was dated almost exactly 12 months ago.

[Touchme.1097]

@Randulf.7614 said:

@Touchme.1097 said:Hi Andrew, thank you for choosing to communicate with us gamers, I hope this will be the beginning of a regular communication between the studio and the players.

Just in case you hadn't seen it, Andrew's post was dated almost exactly 12 months ago.

Thank you for pointing that out. I am a man who can't live without good hopes. So hopefully someone from the studio reads my message and can spread the love.