Do raids need easy/normal/hard difficulty mode? [merged]

[STIHL.2489]

I was going to post something on topic, but figured it would be better to spout psychobabble about the people that disagree with me to debase them.. NAHH just kidding.

Back on topic.

So it begins.

So taking bets on how long it takes before Anet caves.

[Jora.5471]

I just want to experience raids not waiting simulator.

[flog.3485]

@STIHL.2489 said:

@FOX.3582 said:

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@FOX.3582 said:This game was bought and sold as very easy and very casual.

Actually it wasn't and for more than a year after release it didn't have open world farming content. Most of the content was inside instances with escalating difficulty, and it had the highest revenue possible. Then the game moved to easy/casual mode open world farming. We all see the results of that move.

You really think that do you?

As sad as it is, they do. They think back to a time when they had bad builds, bad gear, and were clueless noobs and remember fondly through rose colored glasses the challenge this game was for them. But I agree with you, No one came to GW2 looking for challenge.

Which is why open world content exists.

[STIHL.2489]

@flog.3485 said:

@"STIHL.2489" said:I was going to post something on topic, but figured it would be better to spout psychobabble about the people that disagree with me to debase them..

NAHH just kidding

.

Back on topic.

So it begins.

So taking bets on how long it takes before Anet caves.

Why would Anet cave ? Even in GW1 you never had a treadmill in terms of power.

• They made Ascended.
• They made Fracatls
• They made Raids
• They made HoT

I could go on.. but I hope my point has been made.

[Genesis.5169]

@STIHL.2489 said:

@flog.3485 said:

@STIHL.2489 said:I was going to post something on topic, but figured it would be better to spout psychobabble about the people that disagree with me to debase them..

NAHH just kidding

.

Back on topic.

So it begins.

So taking bets on how long it takes before Anet caves.

Why would Anet cave ? Even in GW1 you never had a treadmill in terms of power.

• They made Ascended.
• They made Fracatls
• They made Raids
• They made HoT

I could go on.. but I hope my point has been made.

All of which is casual content compared to the rest of the MMO genre as whole.Gw2 Does not exist in a vacuum it is currently competing with other mmo's and in every single category that you posted GW2 is the easiest in. If your going to debate difficulty of the content of the game you cannot compare it to the game itself you have to compare it to other similar games. This notion that Anet walked away from there philosophy is wrong.

Holy Trinity still optional.You can clear Raids with Sub optimal Specs.You can clear t4's with any spec.HoT was promptly nerfed out of any form of real difficulty it had very very quickly.Ascended is an a minor increases in stats not enough to make it mandatory for anything outside of fractal t4s.

In every category you have posted guildwars 2 is still VERY VERY forgiving compared to its competitors like FF14, WoW, Tera, Wildstar etc.

[STIHL.2489]

@Genesis.5169 said:

@STIHL.2489 said:

@flog.3485 said:

@STIHL.2489 said:I was going to post something on topic, but figured it would be better to spout psychobabble about the people that disagree with me to debase them..

NAHH just kidding

.

Back on topic.

So it begins.

So taking bets on how long it takes before Anet caves.

Why would Anet cave ? Even in GW1 you never had a treadmill in terms of power.

• They made Ascended.
• They made Fracatls
• They made Raids
• They made HoT

I could go on.. but I hope my point has been made.

All of which is casual content compared to the rest of the MMO genre as whole.Gw2 Does not exist in a vacuum it is currently competing with other mmo's and in every single category that you posted GW2 is the easiest in.

I have to agree with you.. which is why I cannot fathom anyone coming to GW2 to ask for challenge.. when it is waiting out there for you in abundance among an endlss legion of other MMO's , why that is about as stupid as asking for a deep end in the kiddie pool.

[Genesis.5169]

@STIHL.2489 said:

@Genesis.5169 said:

@STIHL.2489 said:

@flog.3485 said:

@STIHL.2489 said:I was going to post something on topic, but figured it would be better to spout psychobabble about the people that disagree with me to debase them..

NAHH just kidding

.

Back on topic.

So it begins.

So taking bets on how long it takes before Anet caves.

Why would Anet cave ? Even in GW1 you never had a treadmill in terms of power.

• They made Ascended.
• They made Fracatls
• They made Raids
• They made HoT

I could go on.. but I hope my point has been made.

All of which is casual content compared to the rest of the MMO genre as whole.Gw2 Does not exist in a vacuum it is currently competing with other mmo's and in every single category that you posted GW2 is the easiest in.

I have to agree with you.. which is why I cannot fathom anyone coming to GW2 to ask for challenge.. when it is waiting out there for you in abundance among an endlss legion of other MMO's , why that is about as stupid as asking for a deep end in the kiddie pool.

Its because the game engine is so nice.There are a lot "hardcore" players like my self here because of the engine alot, i love the combo fields, i love the classes, i love the class diversity in this game its something that more traditional mmos lack.

So ofcourse there will be guys like me asking for a little slice of the game to be catered to us and so far Anet has not caved, just just give us little carrots along the way like cms and legendaries and time gate the living hell out of them. But to be honest theres a lot room to add more difficulty because as of now i truely believe half the game doesn't know what a combo field is and how to utilize one, and when one a core game mechanics that you used to sell the game at launch is not being used often or known of we have issues.

[Vulf.3098]

No one really goes to an MMORPG for Challenge alone anymore because of the design direction most of them have taken.

[STIHL.2489]

@"Vulf.3098" said:No one really goes to an MMORPG for Challenge alone anymore because of the design direction most of them have taken.

Might want to look into Pantheon.

[flog.3485]

@STIHL.2489 said:

@flog.3485 said:

@STIHL.2489 said:I was going to post something on topic, but figured it would be better to spout psychobabble about the people that disagree with me to debase them..

NAHH just kidding

.

Back on topic.

So it begins.

So taking bets on how long it takes before Anet caves.

Why would Anet cave ? Even in GW1 you never had a treadmill in terms of power.

• They made Ascended.
• They made Fracatls
• They made Raids
• They made HoT

I could go on.. but I hope my point has been made.

So what ? Every fractals are accessible at tier one without requiring ascended.Ascended was introduced to the game like what, 3 months after the initial release of the game and hasn't received any upgrade ever since.HoT content (story wise and much more with how open world content is implemented in the game) can be beaten with full exotics.The only hard part is raids but guess what, you can get ready for it gear wise through open world.

I am sorry, my point still stands as well. If I were to take a break for one year, the gear that I have now would still be relevant next year. Good luck doing that in any other (in)famous MMO.

This game offers skill(ed) based content.

[Sykper.6583]

I'm still scratching my head on the initial premise the OP suggests that Raids aren't profitable, if I may steer the conversation to the topic once more.

I'm exceptionally dubious of their claims since there's still no true, final exact numbers. Just a whole lot of subjective speculation, hyperbole, inferences and so forth.

It's really quite simple, Arenanet makes changes when the numbers aren't hitting expectations. Even if their expectations for raid content are intentionally set to a fairly low percent of the whole playerbase due to difficulty and other factors, despite the feelings that there should be easier modes to raiding to facilitate more 'raiders', if they hit the expectations or are doing better than those numbers they will keep the course.

Doesn't matter what subjective input you have such as comparing to other MMO Raiding, or balance or so forth. If it gets played enough to be worthy content, there won't be anything done. They are listening to our feedback given some of the dev responses, and with the recent Hall of Chains showing off a much more impressive difficulty curve not seen in the game yet I believe the devs are working with the prospect of continuing to challenge the playerbase that is interested in raiding continued harder content.

[Astralporing.1957]

@maxwelgm.4315 said:If player mentality changed Anet has to adapt to that, don't they? We can say all day how better it was when people were doing dungeons as the one endgame content and most players actually cared about challenge but doesn't matter if most players that are here now disagree with it.I seriously doubt there was even a single moment where most players in gw2 wanted to have bigger challenge.

@"Vulf.3098" said:No one really goes to an MMORPG for Challenge alone anymore because of the design direction most of them have taken.If by "design decision" you mean "wanting to have big number of players" then you're right. People stopped going to MMOs for challenge about the same time people started going to MMOs.

@Sykper.6583 said:It's really quite simple, Arenanet makes changes when the numbers aren't hitting expectations. Even if their expectations for raid content are intentionally set to a fairly low percent of the whole playerbase due to difficulty and other factors, despite the feelings that there should be easier modes to raiding to facilitate more 'raiders', if they hit the expectations or are doing better than those numbers they will keep the course.Trying to introduce new shinies to bring new people in suggets that those numbers might not be as good as Anet wants.

[Vulf.3098]

@"Astralporing.1957" said:If by "design decision" you mean "wanting to have big number of players" then you're right. People stopped going to MMOs for challenge about the same time people started going to MMOs.

RuneScape, Final Fantasy 11, Everquest and Vanilla WoW were all pretty challenging with a decent populace while requiring a ton of time invested to do a lot of the content, but the whole "Been there done that" from the more hardcore crowd and the "I got 17 full time jobs and 37 kids" from casuals started to warp content design around 2006 -2008. It is also the reason the Moba Genre exploded about 2 years later.

I am not entirely sure what is even being discussed in this thread anymore. Raiding in this game compared to other MMO's is entirely optional and it should stay that way. Difficulty tiers already exist with the different wings thus making an easy mode which would equate to pretty much just instanced world boss mode is a waste of developer time.

Adding new content to keep people playing is nothing new in any game.

[Feanor.2358]

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@"Vulf.3098" said:No one really goes to an MMORPG for Challenge alone anymore because of the design direction most of them have taken.If by "design decision" you mean "wanting to have big number of players" then you're right. People stopped going to MMOs for challenge about the same time people

started

going to MMOs.

You can't really make such generalizations. First and foremost, because people are "going MMOs" for a number of reasons, not just one. Challenge being one of these reasons is certainly valid.

[maddoctor.2738]

@"Astralporing.1957" said:If by "design decision" you mean "wanting to have big number of players" then you're right. People stopped going to MMOs for challenge about the same time people started going to MMOs.

Absolutely nobody came to play Guild Wars 2 for the loot stick farm either, as it was all added to the game 1 year after release. Before that point everything they added to the open world was "let's press F to clear refugee signs and hit dragon pinatas", find some "mad king doors / gifts with toys / holograms of dragon minions" in the open world and chat/hit with some NPCs. And that's basically all it was, with the exception of the lost shores karka invasion which was a one time event.

Challenge can take many forms and is a huge part of playing an actual video game, I don't understand why anyone who wants to play a video game doesn't want a challenge at all, they can go watch movies instead. Rewarding players for overcoming ever increasing challenges within a video game is like the most basic rule of gaming.

[maddoctor.2738]

@Astralporing.1957 said:Trying to introduce new shinies to bring new people in suggets that those numbers might not be as good as Anet wants.

So you are saying that 1 ring and 3 weapon skins were added because the numbers were low.

By that logic, they added the 6 new weapon sets, 6 new armor sets, 18 unique specialization weapons + weapon parts, new elite specializations, 4 Mounts and many new mastery abilities because obviously the Open World part of the game didn't get high numbers right? If the numbers of open world players are so low that they need ALL those rewards to lure people in, then the Open World must be doing really badly.

[Astralporing.1957]

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@"Astralporing.1957" said:Trying to introduce new shinies to bring new people in suggets that those numbers might not be as good as Anet wants.

So you are saying that 1 ring and 3 weapon skins were added because the numbers were low.

By that logic, they added the 6 new weapon sets, 6 new armor sets, 18 unique specialization weapons + weapon parts, new elite specializations, 4 Mounts and many new mastery abilities because obviously the Open World part of the game didn't get high numbers right? If the numbers of open world players are so low that they need ALL those rewards to lure people in, then the Open World must be doing really badly.There's a difference between putting stuff in a mainstream content meant for everyone, and in a niche one meant for minority. And between "1 ring" and "the (currently) only one

legendary

ring".

[Sykper.6583]

@Astralporing.1957 said:Trying to introduce new shinies to bring new people in suggets that those numbers might not be as good as Anet wants.

That same logic can apply to essentially all other new content. The new Living Story Map wouldn't be as appealing to play on if none of the new weapon sets or skins were rewards on the map.

[maddoctor.2738]

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@Astralporing.1957 said:Trying to introduce new shinies to bring new people in suggets that those numbers might not be as good as Anet wants.

So you are saying that 1 ring and 3 weapon skins were added because the numbers were low.

By that logic, they added the 6 new weapon sets, 6 new armor sets, 18 unique specialization weapons + weapon parts, new elite specializations, 4 Mounts and many new mastery abilities because obviously the Open World part of the game didn't get high numbers right? If the numbers of open world players are so low that they need ALL those rewards to lure people in, then the Open World must be doing really badly.There's a difference between putting stuff in a mainstream content meant for everyone, and in a niche one meant for minority. And between "1 ring" and "the (currently) only one

legendary

ring".

No there is no difference. And if you believe there is one, how would you feel if the exclusive rewards between the "mainstream content" and the "niche content" were reversed? Put the only legendary ring in open world pve, and then put the only way to unlock elite specs and the only way to get mounts inside the raids.

Edit: plus the currently only legendary accessory is hidden behind Season 3 farm/grind and not available through any other kind of content

Also "meant for everyone" is a really weak argument.I'd rather wipe 100 times trying to figure out Dhuum than wait for meteors to drop to gather my brandstone.So I'll give you at least one person (I know there are loads of us) that the acquisition method of "farm excessively" isn't appealing to, yet the game gives us no alternative method to acquire the rewards we like. Just because everyone can do it, doesn't mean everyone will do it and put up with it.

[DutchRiders.2871]

@STIHL.2489 said:

@"Torolan.5816" said:While it is probably true what you wrote, that still does not explain why Anet sees the need to lure people into a content or just make said content. If the content was not weak on it´s own, that measure would not be necessary.

I work in the education sector, so I am often in the position of bringing the unwilling children together with their parents and their peer group.Motivations are intrinsic and extrinsic. Intrinsic motivation is multiple times stronger and more lasting than extrinsic because they arose from the person itself as a subconscious or sometimes conscious decision where the own abilites could be.Of course you can extrinsically motivate people to do something, like children who are forced to play piano because their parents heard that it is good for the hand-eye coordination. It is good for it, but it also produces a big share of people who hate the piano and play it only so long until they find the resolve to tell their parents that they still hate it like on day 1 and want out. I often ask parents if they think that this was worth it, and most can´t give me a concrete answer. If they had instead asked their children what they want to do and let them chose out of a few opportunities, they would have spared themselves all the drama and a child that has the same hand-eye coordination because it is a drummer and not a piano player.It is also not true that every children likes all other children or wants to play with them. Some are loners by hearth or just come to life when their friends are around.And the last but probably the most terrible education myth is that all children like to play finger games or get read out of a book. It is a majority, but not such a big majority that children who don´t like that are the odd man out.

So the question remains:Why produce an unwilling piano player when you could have a happy drummer?

Let me sum this up for. "Challenging" PvE content sucks for everyone, and NO ONE, would do it unless they were given some massive reward for doing it.

I do plenty of raids when I already got the clear. Plenty of my guildies do so as well. People do solo runs for the challenge. It is this audience that craves raids and we do not want raids turend into 10 man instanced RIBA. And yeah we do like cool rewards so wut?

[Feanor.2358]

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@Astralporing.1957 said:Trying to introduce new shinies to bring new people in suggets that those numbers might not be as good as Anet wants.

So you are saying that 1 ring and 3 weapon skins were added because the numbers were low.

By that logic, they added the 6 new weapon sets, 6 new armor sets, 18 unique specialization weapons + weapon parts, new elite specializations, 4 Mounts and many new mastery abilities because obviously the Open World part of the game didn't get high numbers right? If the numbers of open world players are so low that they need ALL those rewards to lure people in, then the Open World must be doing really badly.There's a difference between putting stuff in a mainstream content meant for everyone, and in a niche one meant for minority. And between "1 ring" and "the (currently) only one

legendary

ring".

So doing Ember Bay JP at least twice is meant for everyone? Right.

[Astralporing.1957]

@Feanor.2358 said:So doing Ember Bay JP at least twice is meant for everyone? Right.No, it wasn't. That requirement was indeed badly thought out (and in retrospect, Aurora was probably a little bit too restrictive in requirements in general).

Two wrongs don't make a right.

[Feanor.2358]

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@Feanor.2358 said:So doing Ember Bay JP at least twice is meant for everyone? Right.No, it wasn't. That requirement was indeed badly thought out (and in retrospect, Aurora was probably a little bit too restrictive in requirements in general).

Two wrongs don't make a right.

It just points out a flaw in your argument. Not everything has to be available to everyone.

[Astralporing.1957]

@Feanor.2358 said:

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@Feanor.2358 said:So doing Ember Bay JP at least twice is meant for everyone? Right.No, it wasn't. That requirement was indeed badly thought out (and in retrospect, Aurora was probably a little bit too restrictive in requirements in general).

Two wrongs don't make a right.

It just points out a flaw in your argument. Not everything has to be available to everyone.Not really. At best, it only points out another flaw

in the game

to fix.And legendary gear is not "everything".

[Feanor.2358]

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@Feanor.2358 said:

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@Feanor.2358 said:So doing Ember Bay JP at least twice is meant for everyone? Right.No, it wasn't. That requirement was indeed badly thought out (and in retrospect, Aurora was probably a little bit too restrictive in requirements in general).

Two wrongs don't make a right.

It just points out a flaw in your argument. Not everything has to be available to everyone.Not really. At best, it only points out another flaw

in the game

to fix.And legendary gear is not "everything".

Indeed it isn't. It's the ultimate tier of rewards. It only makes sense to reserve that for the most dedicated players. What else are you going to offer them? Peanuts?That's not a flaw in the game, that's simply correct game design.