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

[Walhalla.5473]

@zealex.9410 said:

@"Eramonster.2718" said:? Actually... this will go alot faster if a Boss/encounter is being put up for discussion. Why is it hard? What needs to be balanced? Feedbacks on what went wrong/ fix. The discussion will be productive and a sense of direction.

Base gw2 went wrong.

Not just in difficulty alone but also in its "ability" to teach players certain mechanics that are important later on.

Also remember when dungeons, which were expected to be tough as nails, got rekt quite hard in Vanilla? Even before that power creep? ( Don't get me started on the quality there as well )

And GW2 still isn't teaching us today on certain mechanics. Just look at breabars.

@Grogba.6204 said:But an easier option exists. It is impossible to design a boss easier than Mursaat Overseer or Cairn without the encounter turning into a copy of the testgolem. Creating easy modes for the other bosses would also completely break their design patterns. What would you even want to change about them?

Agreed. If an easy mode is applied to every boss then some bosses need a complete overhaul. I mean, who wants an easy mode of MO? Or Escort?

Also doing Easy mode costs time and ressources, which either would slow down the development of new raid-wings or other content that Anet is working on. Especially if Anet want to make sure that Easy mode isn't gonna be infantile mode.

[Ohoni.6057]

@"Hume.2876" said:Leave the crappy design to WoW. We have easy raids in this game - its called bounties, and world bosses? Crappier rewards? Yup. Easier Yup.

They are completely different content.

If you go with hard/easy raids you end up with players bored of the content. They feel compelled to do both and they get bored to hell.

Players shouldn't be encouraged to do both. There should probably be some sort of mutual lockout, where if you beat a given boss in one mode in a given week, you don't get the reward for beating him in the other mode (unless it's a one-time thing like an achievement).

I know. I played WoW extensively. They had this anti-elitist idea and it hurt their game. You want aspirational content. You want people who want to raid 'someday' but don't get around to it.. When they do a pickup raid or something with the guild - some raid training or whatever it will feel 'special'.

No, that works for some players, but not for every player. One size doesn't fit all, it's like arguing that they should only make jeans in sizes under a 28 inch waistline, so that people can "aspire" to someday be able to fit into them.

Be careful what you wish for. Players are not game designers - when designers let them act like one - their game goes to crap.

We wouldn't have to id the developers would have taken care of this already.

@"Sephylon.4938" said:Back on topic; how exactly would easy mode of these bosses look like then with these bosses given what I've said? Are those bosses that now lack 1 shot mechanics supposed to just be dps golems?

Their mechanics would still exist and still do damage you'd want to avoid, the results would just be less catastrophic if you failed to avoid them. Again, these encounters definitely would be easier, but they are intended to be easier, so that shouldn't come as any sort of "shock."

How would the new mechanics function with the intent of teaching them how to do normal mode?

Because they would still exist to play off of. Fail to avoid them, take damage. Succeed at avoiding them, don't take damage. In a normal raid encounter, you fail to avoid the mechanics, you die, the party wipes, you have to restart the whole thing. In an easy mode encounter, you fail to avoid the mechanics, you take some damage, the encounter continues, and you beat it, but you know that you missed a few steps and can do better the next time until you can get through the encounter perfectly. Once you can manage that, you'll have picked up some skills that would apply to hard mode.

I feel the need to repeat, however, that it will ONLY function as a training mode IF the players involved CHOOSE to engage with it as a training exercise, in that they choose to behave as if the mechanics have serious consequences and do their best to avoid them. If players choose to lean in to the mode as it stands, and just complete it as easily as possible, then they are not likely to learn skills that would be useful in hard mode. This is fine. This is working as intended. It presents two options and allows the players to choose which they prefer, to "get better so they can eventually move to hard mode" OR "to just enjoy easy mode for what it is and never aspire to anything more." Either is a perfectly valid choice on their part, and I'm sure that LFG would constantly be filling parties of both, "easy mode speed clear" and "easy mode training run."

What rewards would it give and how much, would the bosses that are now essentially dps golems that hit back (with the intensity of a wet noodle) still give 2g per kill+random exotics+asc weapons, acc, and armor+magnatites+etc?

The rewards would obviously not be as high as existing raids (and from what raiders have said, it might involve raising the base rewards of existing raids). The content would still be at least as challenging as a lot of other content in the game, like World Bosses and most dungeons, so the rewards you'd get would be scaled against that, enough that spending the time in the raid is worthwhile when compared to the time you'd spend doing other tasks, but obviously it should not be as much as you'd get from clearing hard mode, which should take more time and with higher risk of failure.

Would killing easy mode bosses count towards the leg armor achievements? Would they drop the collection items for said achievements?

Obviously, although in lesser amounts, like reduced LI amounts, and requiring multiple clears to unlock the same achievements that clear first-time on the normal mode bosses.

@Walhalla.5473 said:Agreed. If an easy mode is applied to every boss then some bosses need a complete overhaul. I mean, who wants an easy mode of MO? Or Escort?

Perhaps so. Part of creating easy mode may be that certain existing encounters would be left alone or at most minor tweaks for easy mode, and perhaps opening up some slightly harder mechanics to be added to the normal mode versions of them.

The point is though, having a few raid encounters that are easier than others does nothing to reduce the need for ALL raid encounters to be available at an easier difficulty.

Also doing Easy mode costs time and ressources, which either would slow down the development of new raid-wings or other content that Anet is working on.

Everything takes time, including making raids in the first place. That doesn't mean it's not time well spent.

[Sephylon.4938]

@Ohoni.6057 said:

@"Sephylon.4938" said:Back on topic; how exactly would easy mode of these bosses look like then with these bosses given what I've said? Are those bosses that now lack 1 shot mechanics supposed to just be dps golems?

Their mechanics would still exist and still do damage you'd

want

to avoid, the results would just be less catastrophic if you failed to avoid them. Again, these encounters definitely would be easier, but they are

intended

to be easier, so that shouldn't come as any sort of "shock."

But wouldn't the presence of healers nullify that, especially if these players are playing in soldiers gear or something to that effect?

How would the new mechanics function with the intent of teaching them how to do normal mode?

Because they would still exist to play off of. Fail to avoid them, take damage. Succeed at avoiding them, don't take damage. In a normal raid encounter, you fail to avoid the mechanics, you die, the party wipes, you have to restart the whole thing. In an easy mode encounter, you fail to avoid the mechanics, you take some damage, the encounter continues, and you beat it, but you know that you missed a few steps and can do better the next time until you can get through the encounter perfectly. Once you can manage that, you'll have picked up some skills that would apply to hard mode.

Wouldn't healers and tanky builds also negate what you're trying to achieve here?

I feel the need to repeat, however, that it will ONLY function as a training mode IF the players involved CHOOSE to engage with it as a training exercise, in that they choose to behave as if the mechanics have serious consequences and do their best to avoid them. If players choose to lean in to the mode as it stands, and just complete it as easily as possible, then they are not likely to learn skills that would be useful in hard mode. This is fine. This is working as intended. It presents two options and allows the players to choose which they prefer, to "get better so they can eventually move to hard mode" OR "to just enjoy easy mode for what it is and never aspire to anything more." Either is a perfectly valid choice on their part, and I'm sure that LFG would constantly be filling parties of both, "easy mode speed clear" and "easy mode training run."

Fair enough, but how exactly would easy mode help them "get better" if there is no threat or punishment of failure especially if the group just goes full on soldier/minstrel gear? Also what would there be to enjoy in easy mode since there is no challenge due to the lack of any real consequences of failure, and the story of each boss fight, at best, is "hey commander there's a bad guy over there, could you go kill it"?

What rewards would it give and how much, would the bosses that are now essentially dps golems that hit back (with the intensity of a wet noodle) still give 2g per kill+random exotics+asc weapons, acc, and armor+magnatites+etc?

The rewards would obviously not be as high as existing raids (and from what raiders have said, it might involve

raising

the base rewards of existing raids). The content would still be at least as challenging as a lot of other content in the game, like World Bosses and most dungeons, so the rewards you'd get would be scaled against that, enough that spending the time in the raid is worthwhile when compared to the time you'd spend doing other tasks, but obviously it should not be as much as you'd get from clearing hard mode, which should take more time and with higher risk of failure.

So how much is enough?

Would killing easy mode bosses count towards the leg armor achievements? Would they drop the collection items for said achievements?

Obviously, although in lesser amounts, like reduced LI amounts, and requiring multiple clears to unlock the same achievements that clear first-time on the normal mode bosses.

Then what's the incentive for doing normal mode when you can farm easy mode with no risk and with less time?

[Sephylon.4938]

also, can we get on to the nitty gritty of it, how/what changes would you make to each boss to qualify as an "easy mode"

[Ohoni.6057]

@"Sephylon.4938" said:But wouldn't the presence of healers nullify that, especially if these players are playing in soldiers gear or something to that effect?

If that's how people choose to play it, yes. Again, the point is NOT to make it likely for the encounter to fail. The goal is for the encounter to be likely to succeed, most of the time. The goal is to present players with negative feedback when they do something wrong, so that they have an opportunity to improve in future.

Wouldn't healers and tanky builds also negate what you're trying to achieve here?

No. They would make it less likely that the party would wipe, but making the party wipe is the furthest thing from what we're trying to achieve here.

Fair enough, but how exactly would easy mode help them "get better" if there is no threat or punishment of failure especially if the group just goes full on soldier/minstrel gear?

"I feel the need to repeat, however, that it will ONLY function as a training mode IF the players involved CHOOSE to engage with it as a training exercise, in that they choose to behave as if the mechanics have serious consequences and do their best to avoid them. If players choose to lean in to the mode as it stands, and just complete it as easily as possible, then they are not likely to learn skills that would be useful in hard mode. This is fine. This is working as intended. "

Also what would there be to enjoy in easy mode since there is no challenge due to the lack of any real consequences of failure, and the story of each boss fight, at best, is "hey commander there's a bad guy over there, could you go kill it"?

If you do not already know the answer to that question, then easy mode is not likely something you would enjoy. Stick to hard mode and you should be fine.

So how much is enough?

Enough that it would be balanced against other content. Enough that a player would say "I could be doing X or Y right now, but raiding would also be worth doing," rather than "I'd like to do an easy mode raid, but I could get so much better loot out of X or Y." It's kind of impossible to get overly specific here until we have some data on how much time and effort the eventual easy mode takes. They can start out a bit lower than they think it's worth, and raise it later if necessary.

Then what's the incentive for doing normal mode when you can farm easy mode with no risk and with less time?

Well, 1. Because you enjoy normal mode more, and 2. because if you are any good at normal mode it would take less time, because you'd get more of these resources per unit of time. What might take a month to acquire in normal mode would take 2-3 times that from easy.

also, can we get on to the nitty gritty of it, how/what changes would you make to each boss to qualify as an "easy mode"

Again, there are a lot of ways to do that, and there really isn't a lot of point to getting into the weeds until we decide that the goal is worth achieving. The basic design philosophy would be "take any element that makes it likely for the party to wipe and/or the encounter to fail and require a reset, and make that element less likely to cause a wipe/reset."

[Astralporing.1957]

@zealex.9410 said:Well anet from the start wanted challenging content.Are you sure? Yeah, they claimed the dungeons were to require some challenge, but they nerfed them very fast once they've noticed they were a bit too difficult for an average player then. The same pattern repeated with fractals, by the way.

@zealex.9410 said:Dungeons flopped and the instead turned the attention into raids which are endgame and could be made from the ground up as hard content.The difficulty was not why they abandoned dungeons. They did it simply because dungeons were badly coded and extremely hard to bugfix properly. And i'd hardly call a high dungeon popularity a "flop".

@zealex.9410 said:Its not like they came out of the blue both devs and players wanted challenging content and at least in the player's side i know alot of ppl who are glad that anet didnt drop it.It did come out of the blue. For the long time devs were mostly adamant that the challeng levels offered by dungeons and then-fractals was what they've been aiming for. They were also adamant at not wanting larger than 5-man parties (some people were asking about 8-man gw1-style groups in the beginning, but anet kept responding that their research and data shows 5-man size is ideal, as 8-man and bigger offer too much problems at the group creation level. Which was something they said they specifically didn't want.

And as for players wanting more challenging content and asking for raids? Yes, there was a small group of players asking for that, but that was it. Most players were content with the current (then) difficulty levels, and either didn't care, or didn't want more challenge. What they wanted was more content. Accessible content.

@Assic.2746 said:So once again it just boils down to the shinies.You're saying it as if it was any different for raiders.Notice, that the raiders aren't exactly against easy mode. Many are okay with it. What they protest (and protest very strongly) is the easymode with rewards, and alternate paths for raid rewards.It's just the standard story. Those that don't have, want to share. Those that do have, don't want to share. Even if (as in this case) sharing wouldn't actually take anything away from them.

@Feanor.2358 said:Except it doesn't. The last we've heard of ANet was they have no plans of doing it. Must be reasons for that, don't you think?There was a time when we were saying the very same thing about Raids. And then Anet implemented them.

@Sephylon.4938 said:

@Ohoni.6057 said:

@Sephylon.4938 said:Would killing easy mode bosses count towards the leg armor achievements? Would they drop the collection items for said achievements?

Obviously, although in lesser amounts, like reduced LI amounts, and requiring multiple clears to unlock the same achievements that clear first-time on the normal mode bosses.

Then what's the incentive for doing normal mode when you can farm easy mode with no risk and with less time?How did "multiple clears" turn into "less time"? You do remember that there's that tiny little mechanic called "weekly lockout", right?

[Sephylon.4938]

@Ohoni.6057 said:

@"Sephylon.4938" said:But wouldn't the presence of healers nullify that, especially if these players are playing in soldiers gear or something to that effect?

If that's how people choose to play it, yes. Again, the point is NOT to make it likely for the encounter to fail. The

goal

is for the encounter to be likely to

succeed,

most of the time. The goal is to present players with negative feedback when they do something wrong, so that they have an opportunity to improve in future.

What negative feedback would there be if anything wrong they do would instantly be corrected by a healer? How much of a cushion should be given?

Wouldn't healers and tanky builds also negate what you're trying to achieve here?

No. They would make it less likely that the party would wipe, but making the party wipe is the furthest thing from what we're trying to achieve here.

Wouldn't that just make the boss a dps golem?

Fair enough, but how exactly would easy mode help them "get better" if there is no threat or punishment of failure especially if the group just goes full on soldier/minstrel gear?

"I feel the need to repeat, however, that it will ONLY function as a training mode IF the players involved CHOOSE to engage with it as a training exercise, in that they choose to behave as if the mechanics have serious consequences and do their best to avoid them. If players choose to lean in to the mode as it stands, and just complete it as easily as possible, then they are not likely to learn skills that would be useful in hard mode. This is fine. This is working as intended. "

But what would they learn if there is no sense of urgency? Why would they choose to treat it as such?

Also what would there be to enjoy in easy mode since there is no challenge due to the lack of any real consequences of failure, and the story of each boss fight, at best, is "hey commander there's a bad guy over there, could you go kill it"?

If you do not already know the answer to that question, then easy mode is not likely something you would enjoy. Stick to hard mode and you should be fine.

rather dismissive of you.

So how much is enough?

Enough that it would be balanced against other content. Enough that a player would say "I could be doing X or Y right now, but raiding would also be worth doing," rather than "I'd like to do an easy mode raid, but I could get so much better loot out of X or Y." It's kind of impossible to get overly specific here until we have some data on how much time and effort the eventual easy mode takes. They can start out a bit lower than they think it's worth, and raise it later if necessary.How would they achieve that? What metrics should be used?

Then what's the incentive for doing normal mode when you can farm easy mode with no risk and with less time?

Well, 1. Because you enjoy normal mode more, and 2. because if you are any good at normal mode it would take less time, because you'd get more of these resources per unit of time. What might take a month to acquire in normal mode would take 2-3 times that from easy.

1 is subjective so I'll try to address 2.2 magnetite shards are capped per week at 150. Each raid boss gives 10 per kill. Even if the reward was reduced to 5 per successful kill, what's stopping people from buying openers and doing the same boss all over again to reach the cap, or using alt accounts? Wouldn't the hassle of that be less than the hassle of normal mode? Additionally, each boss kill rewards 1 li per kill, how much li would easy mode give? If the rewards for normal was buffed, what incentive would there be to do easy?editFollow up question. For experienced players, how exactly would doing normal mode take less time than easy mode?

also, can we get on to the nitty gritty of it, how/what changes would you make to each boss to qualify as an "easy mode"

Again, there are a lot of ways to do that, and there really isn't a lot of point to getting into the weeds until we decide that the

goal

is worth achieving. The basic design philosophy would be "take any element that makes it likely for the party to wipe and/or the encounter to fail and require a reset, and make that element less likely to cause a wipe/reset."

This discussion has been around for months and this has still never been addressed. We may as well do it now if such a thing badly needed. Let's start with the 1st Vale guardian:What mechanics changes in vg easy mode vs vg normal? Is is just the green circles? What about the teleport circles, would those be the same? What about the seekers? Would the rbg guardians be the same minus some hp and damage? How much hp and damage will they be missing? What if the group doesn't want to play/couldn't find condis, would ref have to be readjusted for such?

[Lord Of The Tree.5249]

Easy mode would help those of us with disabilities do raids. Not all of us have hands that can move fast enough to keep up with everything going on in raids. I like the idea of doing it like fractals also. I don't do high end fractals but sometimes go into the lower level ones. Do miss the old Lvl 40. Would also let more casual players a chance to get into raids.

[zealex.9410]

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@zealex.9410 said:Well anet from the start wanted challenging content.Are you sure? Yeah, they claimed the dungeons were to require some challenge, but they nerfed them very fast once they've noticed they were a bit too difficult for an average player then. The same pattern repeated with fractals, by the way.

@zealex.9410 said:Dungeons flopped and the instead turned the attention into raids which are endgame and could be made from the ground up as hard content.The difficulty was not why they abandoned dungeons. They did it simply because dungeons were badly coded and extremely hard to bugfix properly. And i'd hardly call a high dungeon popularity a "flop".

@zealex.9410 said:Its not like they came out of the blue both devs and players wanted challenging content and at least in the player's side i know alot of ppl who are glad that anet didnt drop it.It

did

come out of the blue. For the long time devs were mostly adamant that the challeng levels offered by dungeons and then-fractals was what they've been aiming for. They were also adamant at not wanting larger than 5-man parties (some people were asking about 8-man gw1-style groups in the beginning, but anet kept responding that their research and data shows 5-man size is ideal, as 8-man and bigger offer too much problems at the group creation level. Which was something they said they specifically

didn't

want.

And as for players wanting more challenging content and asking for raids? Yes, there was a small group of players asking for that, but that was it. Most players were content with the current (then) difficulty levels, and either didn't care, or didn't want more challenge. What they wanted was more content.

Accessible

content.

@Assic.2746 said:So once again it just boils down to the shinies.You're saying it as if it was any different for raiders.Notice, that the raiders aren't exactly against easy mode. Many are okay with it. What they protest (and protest very strongly) is the easymode

with rewards

, and alternate paths for raid rewards.It's just the standard story. Those that don't have, want to share. Those that

do

have, don't want to share. Even if (as in this case) sharing wouldn't actually take anything away from them.

@Feanor.2358 said:Except it doesn't. The last we've heard of ANet was they have no plans of doing it. Must be reasons for that, don't you think?There was a time when we were saying the very same thing about Raids. And then Anet implemented them.

@Sephylon.4938 said:

@Ohoni.6057 said:

@Sephylon.4938 said:Would killing easy mode bosses count towards the leg armor achievements? Would they drop the collection items for said achievements?

Obviously, although in lesser amounts, like reduced LI amounts, and requiring multiple clears to unlock the same achievements that clear first-time on the normal mode bosses.

Then what's the incentive for doing normal mode when you can farm easy mode with no risk and with less time?How did "multiple clears" turn into "less time"? You do remember that there's that tiny little mechanic called "weekly lockout", right?

We dont have numbers to say wether the group tht wanted hardcontent was small or not we just have the request for it. Also since hot the devs have been reworking fractals making them harder due to adding actual mechanics to them. Also the adition of cms and the stance on not nerfing them shows the same.

The steady increase in dificulty shows that the devs werent happy with the prehot experience.

[Jahroots.6791]

@"Sephylon.4938" said:also, can we get on to the nitty gritty of it, how/what changes would you make to each boss to qualify as an "easy mode"

Agreed.

I can appreciate that raids need to be significantly harder than everything else. I'd propose a simple solution - add a raid equivalent of the mistlock singularities and fractal potions. Basically a set of training wheels to help ease people into raiding, as the learning curve is pretty steep.

The mechanics, HP and damage remain the same but players would get one 'extra life', as well as a modest boost to help those who suck at rotations and avoiding damage. I think a reasonable cap for the DPS and damage reduction would be around 20 or 25% rather than the 15% we get in fractals.

Utilizing these options would cost a bit of coin and raid currency, to be subtracted from the player's loot after beating the boss. Maybe also negate the possibility of earning titles, but other achievements and drops should remain unaffected.

[Sephylon.4938]

@Jahroots.6791 said:

@"Sephylon.4938" said:also, can we get on to the nitty gritty of it, how/what changes would you make to each boss to qualify as an "easy mode"

Agreed.

I can appreciate that raids need to be significantly harder than everything else. I'd propose a simple solution - add a raid equivalent of the mistlock singularities and fractal potions. Basically a set of training wheels to help ease people into raiding, as the learning curve is pretty steep.

The mechanics, HP and damage remain the same but players would get one 'extra life', as well as a modest boost to help those who suck at rotations and avoiding damage. I think a reasonable cap for the DPS and damage reduction would be around 20 or 25% rather than the 15% we get in fractals.

Utilizing these options would cost a bit of coin and raid currency, to be subtracted from the player's loot after beating the boss. Maybe also negate the possibility of earning titles, but other achievements and drops should remain unaffected.

An interesting idea and it could be a mastery, though I wonder about how helpful such a thing would be especially vs bosses with 1 shot mechanics.

EditI gave this some more though and I think it could work. Certain masteries in the raid tree are rather lack luster (explosive launch, forsaken thicket waters, and forsaken magic). Why not add a raid version of mistlock singularity to explosive launch, and forsaken thicket waters+magic would allow you to hold an additional stack of it up to 3/5? We can use the leyrifts as the singularities.

[Ohoni.6057]

@"Sephylon.4938" said:What negative feedback would there be if anything wrong they do would instantly be corrected by a healer? How much of a cushion should be given?

Ok, sorry, I was working under the assumption that you'd played Guild Wars 2 already. Ok, so in GW2, when an enemy makes an attack against you, it reduces the level of your HP. A healer might then restore that HP, but if you're paying attention, you'll notice that your HP was reduced. In some cases, you might even be downed, which isn't a huge problem so long as other players are still up and able to rez you. The point is, if you get hit by an attacks, and take damage, then you know that you could have done something to avoid that. You can work to do better the next time so that this damage does not occur. This is true whether or not that failure leads to you being defeated or the party wiping.

Wouldn't that just make the boss a dps golem?

I don't know, what you choose to call it is irrelevant to me. The boss would still have the mechanics they currently have, they would just be mechanics that would not likely lead to a full party wipe before the end of the fight. The point is, it's meant to be an encounter in which a pug with a decent understanding of the mechanics and minimal direct coordination could manage a victory most of the time.

But what would they learn if there is no sense of urgency? Why would they choose to treat it as such?

They would learn what they choose to learn. If they intend to treat it as a "training experience," if they treat it as if it were the hard mode, then they would be attempting to circumvent every possible mechanic, would recognize each time they failed to do so, and could check their progress week to week based on how successfully they managed to circumvent those mechanics. If they have no interest in using it as a training experience, if all they want is to clear the mode as quickly as possible and collect their rewards, then they wouldn't learn much at all, and that's fine too, that's a perfectly valid way to engage the encounter.

rather dismissive of you.

Do you disagree?

How would they achieve that? What metrics should be used?

The same way they do any other content in the game. It's unreasonable to hold easy mode raids to any different standard than other content.

2 magnetite shards are capped per week at 150. Each raid boss gives 10 per kill. Even if the reward was reduced to 5 per successful kill, what's stopping people from buying openers and doing the same boss all over again to reach the cap, or using alt accounts? Wouldn't the hassle of that be less than the hassle of normal mode? Additionally, each boss kill rewards 1 li per kill, how much li would easy mode give? If the rewards for normal was buffed, what incentive would there be to do easy?

It's good to ask these questions, but not because they're impossible to solve. What if rewards were capped in such a way that you couldn't abuse them like this? Maybe you only get ONE easy mode reward per week, whether or not you kill the boss multiple times. Maybe instead of awarding Magnetite Shards and Legendary Insights, the easy mode would award Magnetite Splinters and Legendary Fragments, which would have their own caps, and could be converted into Shards and Insights. just as a starting point, perhaps each easy boss could award ten Magnetite Splinters and one Legendary Fragment per kill, each of which could be combined 3:1 for the higher tier, each capped at the same weekly amount as they currently offer.

This is all negotiable to arrive at a result that makes sense to both sides, of course, but too often they are posed without any interest in solving the question, but more in just saying "this is a problem, so obviously there can never be an easy mode."

Follow up question. For experienced players, how exactly would doing normal mode take less time than easy mode?

Because the time to complete a single easy mod boss would be about on par with the time to complete a normal mode boss for a "farming" raid team, and yet would provide a fraction of the reward, so if the goal is to make the best use of your time, same time spent, more reward, it seems like a no-brainer.

This discussion has been around for months and this has still never been addressed. We may as well do it now if such a thing badly needed. Let's start with the 1st Vale guardian:What mechanics changes in vg easy mode vs vg normal? Is is just the green circles? What about the teleport circles, would those be the same? What about the seekers? Would the rbg guardians be the same minus some hp and damage? How much hp and damage will they be missing? What if the group doesn't want to play/couldn't find condis, would ref have to be readjusted for such?

I actually have answered it several times, but I'd like to try something different first. I'm not dodging this one, I will answer it next time, but first I'd like to hear your answer. How would you change the VG encounter with the target being that they players could do all the same tactics that an experienced raid team would use, and that would result in a clean win, but also make it so that a relatively casual pug of random classes, random gearing, no limitations, like you might find in a casual clear dungeon pug, would be capable of clearing it on the first or second try, so long as at least a couple of them knew the basic mechanics and could explain it in chat ahead of time.

Give a serious, good faith answer to that, and I'll give you mine.

[Sephylon.4938]

@Ohoni.6057 said:

@"Sephylon.4938" said:What negative feedback would there be if anything wrong they do would instantly be corrected by a healer? How much of a cushion should be given?

Ok, sorry, I was working under the assumption that you'd played Guild Wars 2 already. Ok, so in GW2, when an enemy makes an attack against you, it reduces the level of your HP. A healer might then restore that HP, but if you're paying attention, you'll notice that your HP was reduced. In some cases, you might even be downed, which isn't a huge problem so long as other players are still up and able to rez you. The point is, if you get hit by an attacks, and take damage, then you know that you could have done something to avoid that. You can work to do better the next time so that this damage does not occur. This is true whether or not that failure leads to you being defeated or the party wiping.

but from what you're saying, easy mode raids be so that the boss' damage be a non factor, even more so if you have a healer, or am I misunderstanding something? Also, I've personally found that a not full hp bar to be a non factor, as long as it is not 0. From my favorite card game: You can win a yugioh match with 1 lp.

Wouldn't that just make the boss a dps golem?

I don't know, what you choose to call it is irrelevant to me. The boss would still have the mechanics they currently have, they would just be mechanics that would not likely lead to a full party wipe before the end of the fight. The point is, it's meant to be an encounter in which a pug with a decent understanding of the mechanics and minimal direct coordination could manage a victory most of the time.

Doesn't that take away the urgency from having to do the mechanic though, especially if the group has a healer or are taking tanky gear?

But what would they learn if there is no sense of urgency? Why would they choose to treat it as such?

They would learn what they choose to learn. If they

intend

to treat it as a "training experience," if they treat it as if it were the hard mode, then they would be attempting to circumvent every possible mechanic, would recognize each time they failed to do so, and could check their progress week to week based on how successfully they managed to circumvent those mechanics. If they have no interest in using it as a training experience, if all they want is to clear the mode as quickly as possible and collect their rewards, then they wouldn't learn much at all, and that's fine too, that's a perfectly valid way to engage the encounter.

But why would they want to treat it as hard mode, especially if it offers the same rewards but slightly toned down, and offers an escape from the so called "toxic elitists" that would gravitate on normal/hard? This seems to be something we can't find common ground on =/

rather dismissive of you.

Do you disagree?

yes, especially since the purpose of this exchange is to get specifics of how an easy mode raid should look, play, and feel like. What you've essentially told me is that I am unworthy of being in easy mode because I don't understand your point of view.

How would they achieve that? What metrics should be used?

The same way they do any other content in the game. It's unreasonable to hold easy mode raids to any different standard than other content.

Considering that it hold the item that anet believes holds the highest prestige in the game, is it though?

2 magnetite shards are capped per week at 150. Each raid boss gives 10 per kill. Even if the reward was reduced to 5 per successful kill, what's stopping people from buying openers and doing the same boss all over again to reach the cap, or using alt accounts? Wouldn't the hassle of that be less than the hassle of normal mode? Additionally, each boss kill rewards 1 li per kill, how much li would easy mode give? If the rewards for normal was buffed, what incentive would there be to do easy?

It's good to ask these questions, but not because they're impossible to solve. What if rewards were capped in such a way that you couldn't abuse them like this? Maybe you only get ONE easy mode reward per week, whether or not you kill the boss multiple times. Maybe instead of awarding Magnetite Shards and Legendary Insights, the easy mode would award Magnetite Splinters and Legendary Fragments, which would have their own caps, and could be converted into Shards and Insights. just as a starting point, perhaps each easy boss could award ten Magnetite Splinters and one Legendary Fragment per kill, each of which could be combined 3:1 for the higher tier, each capped at the same weekly amount as they currently offer.

That would be an interesting way to handle that.

This is all negotiable to arrive at a result that makes sense to both sides, of course, but too often they are posed without any interest in

solving

the question, but more in just saying "this is a problem, so obviously there can never be an easy mode."

Follow up question. For experienced players, how exactly would doing normal mode take less time than easy mode?

Because the time to complete a single easy mod boss would be about on par with the time to complete a normal mode boss for a "farming" raid team, and yet would provide a fraction of the reward, so if the goal is to make the best use of your time, same time spent, more reward, it seems like a no-brainer.

So the hp of the bosses wouldn't be changed? My statement was made under the presumption that they would be lowered. If that is not the case then I withdraw my objection.

This discussion has been around for months and this has still never been addressed. We may as well do it now if such a thing badly needed. Let's start with the 1st Vale guardian:What mechanics changes in vg easy mode vs vg normal? Is is just the green circles? What about the teleport circles, would those be the same? What about the seekers? Would the rbg guardians be the same minus some hp and damage? How much hp and damage will they be missing? What if the group doesn't want to play/couldn't find condis, would ref have to be readjusted for such?

I actually have answered it several times, but I'd like to try something different first. I'm not dodging this one, I will answer it next time, but first I'd like to hear

your

answer. How would

you

change the VG encounter with the target being that they players

could

do all the same tactics that an experienced raid team would use, and that would result in a clean win, but

also

make it so that a relatively casual pug of random classes, random gearing, no limitations, like you might find in a casual clear dungeon pug, would be capable of clearing it on the first or second try, so long as at least a couple of them knew the basic mechanics and could explain it in chat ahead of time.

Personally, I would double the time it takes for the green circles to explode, increase its radius, and reduce the number of people required from 5-3 or 2. The damage would still be a wipe if the mechanic is missed, and thus necessitates that at least 2 people be aware and do this mechanic. I would also remove the teleport portion of the blue circles but greatly increase their damage to the point that they will down anyone hit by them to teach them to not stand on them. Additionally, the time it would take for the circles to explode would be doubled. There have been complaints about people not being able to see them, so perhaps, make them have an effect similar to cairn's or allow us to reduce the visual clutter of our skills. As for the splits, I would not touch them as they teach the importance of different types of damage in my oppinion, if anything I would make it so that the green guardian can only die if you heal it lol. Next would be the seeker orbs. I would reduce the number of them that spawned, and reduce their radius. Their damage would remain the same. And finally, the platforms. I would increase the time it takes for a new platform to light up after the previous one has turned off, damage would stay the same. Other things to consider would be the bullet hell and the aura damage. Personally, I've found that the presence of healers make those a non factor so I'm not sure I want to touch them. At best, reduce the damage they do by 10% I guess?

Give a serious, good faith answer to that, and I'll give you mine.

I look forward to hearing from you again in that case. Hopefully we can get a proper proposal on the way for easy mode raids that go into detail as to what and how it will play out, from the mechanics, to the boss itself, and how players can actually go through it.

[Eramonster.2718]

Stack up, heal and dps. Ignore all mechanics, just like vg, gorse, etc. The current ignore the mechanics method (instead of dropping to 10%hp when the players screw up, you will have a healthy % hp remaining). The only thing to practice is rotations :lol: . Prefer not to nerf the rewards if that's to happen, would like to get the remaining items in raid and be done with it.

As of now, players still get rewarded for failing to kill the bosses :sweat_smile: . It's just that players that are not interested in raid, just don't. Just like WvW, there's karma train, afk stations, etc for easy shinnies yet it's not getting the players interest as it should be. There might be a surge of players if there's an easier mode made but it will die out, dragging the current mode players with it.

I just accept the fact some things is not for everyone. Not because I don't care, but it's because they don't.

[Ohoni.6057]

@"Sephylon.4938" said:but from what you're saying, easy mode raids be so that the boss' damage be a non factor, even more so if you have a healer, or am I misunderstanding something? Also, I've personally found that a not full hp bar to be a non factor, as long as it is not 0. From my favorite card game: You can win a yugioh match with 1 lp.

The boss's damage would be no less of a factor than 99% of the content in the game. I know that raiders tend to give that content a lot of side-eye, but it seems to satisfy most of the game's players, and that's the target audience of this mode. And if you don't notice having chunks of health missing if you aren't actually downed, that's fine, you do you, but to a player who's looking to maximize his efficiency, taking damage, even nonlethal damage, is an indicator that he's missed a trick.

Doesn't that take away the urgency from having to do the mechanic though, especially if the group has a healer or are taking tanky gear?

Definitely, and that's intended. It's not meant to be an "urgent" mode. If you want urgency, you play hard mode. This is a mode for people who don't want urgency.

But why would they want to treat it as hard mode, especially if it offers the same rewards but slightly toned down, and offers an escape from the so called "toxic elitists" that would gravitate on normal/hard? This seems to be something we can't find common ground on =/

Yeah, and I really can't understand why, because it seems like common sense to me. There would just be two different groups of people running this content. Group A has no interest in ever playing hard mode, will make no attempt to "train" for hard mode, and will just play easy mode for what it is. That's fine. Good for them. Group B wants to play hard mode eventually, but does not enjoy wiping constantly, they do not embrace the raider training method of constantly losing encounters until eventually they win, and prefer to train in a "lower urgency" environment, in which they might screw things up this week, or one of their teammates might, but it's not going to ruin the run for everyone else, the encounter will continue and everyone will go home happy, but with lessons learned on how they could improve for next time. Eventually they hope to get it down enough that they can shift to a hard mode team and not be a burden to it. Easy mode provides opportunities for players of both Groups A and B, but it's up to the player to decide what to do with those opportunities.

yes, especially since the purpose of this exchange is to get specifics of how an easy mode raid should look, play, and feel like. What you've essentially told me is that I am unworthy of being in easy mode because I don't understand your point of view.

Not "unworthy," exactly, just that you don't seem to understand the point of it, and it's really not something that would be easy to explain. All you need to understand is that others do understand the need for it, and just accept that as a fact and move forward with that knowledge. It's kind of like how some people's taste buds are different than others, and certain foods are exceptionally bitter to them. That doesn't make other people wrong for enjoying foods with that ingredient, it just means that they should be aware of that difference and plan food choices accordingly.

Considering that it hold the item that anet believes holds the highest prestige in the game, is it though?

Of course. There's no reason why raiding should have exclusive access to those skins in the first place, it's a purely arbitrary decision on ANet's part. It's all a part of the same game.

So the hp of the bosses wouldn't be changed? My statement was made under the presumption that they would be lowered. If that is not the case then I withdraw my objection.

It might be lowered, it really depends on how big a change the mechanics changes would make. The kill times would be a bit lower for the easy modes, but they certainly wouldn't be like two minutes or anything, the balance goal would be for a standard team to take about the same time per boss, maybe one of the teams that can speedrun the existing bosses could halve their times, but that wouldn't be the average player experience. Besides, with weekly lockouts, you'd have to wait a week to do it again anyway, so which would you prefer, 40Mag and 4 LI per month per boss, or 13Mag 1.3 LI per month per boss? Up to you, I guess. Really if they removed the enrage timers and other similar "time limits" on the boss fights, I wouldn't mind if they balanced the easy mode to take longer on average, like 15-20 minutes on VG. That might be a fair compromise. Lowered chance of a wipe, but it takes longer to wear them down (or at least just as long in terms of balance, longer due to less Zerk gear).

Personally, I would double the time it takes for the green circles to explode, increase its radius, and reduce the number of people required from 5-3 or 2. The damage would still be a wipe if the mechanic is missed, and thus necessitates that at least 2 people be aware and do this mechanic. I would also remove the teleport portion of the blue circles but greatly increase their damage to the point that they will down anyone hit by them to teach them to not stand on them. Additionally, the time it would take for the circles to explode would be doubled. There have been complaints about people not being able to see them, so perhaps, make them have an effect similar to cairn's or allow us to reduce the visual clutter of our skills. As for the splits, I would not touch them as they teach the importance of different types of damage in my oppinion, if anything I would make it so that the green guardian can only die if you heal it lol. Next would be the seeker orbs. I would reduce the number of them that spawned, and reduce their radius. Their damage would remain the same. And finally, the platforms. I would increase the time it takes for a new platform to light up after the previous one has turned off, damage would stay the same. Other things to consider would be the bullet hell and the aura damage. Personally, I've found that the presence of healers make those a non factor so I'm not sure I want to touch them. At best, reduce the damage they do by 10% I guess?

Ok, that's a way to do it, but personally I feel that it would still be too complicated to function as a "casual" mode, and also the mechanics changes would limit its ability as a "training" mode, since if you attempted to master the tactics and timings that would work for that mode, it would be completely different in the final mode. It still requires that players act in coordination, which is one of the issues that a "just wanna have fun pug would struggle with. One of the primary goals with easy mode would be to allow players to act with planning and coordination, and reward them for doing so with faster and more direct cleartimes, but to not require that thing of players that don't have the time or coordination to get it right every time.

As for my version, leave every UI, AI, and timing thing intact (although you raised some points where they could improve both easy and hard versions). Everything that currently happens would continue to happen, and if you used macros to record a team "doing it perfectly" on the hard mode (setting aside that RNG would change things in between), those same moves would work in the easy mode and achieve identical results. It would only diverge if mistakes started to be made. Green circles would take the same time, and take the same players, the difference would be that if you missed one, they would do significantly less damage. They might still down already low HP characters, but chances are most of the party would be up and able to rez others. The "spewing orbs" phase would deal less damage, but he would be tankier during it, so you'd want to cut that out quick to speed up the fight. The "pie slices" phase would work the same, but the floor damage would be reduced, to the point where it is noticeable, but low risk of killing a healthy character. You obviously wouldn't want to fight him in the fire, but you could be in there for a little while without it being disastrous. I think those changes might be enough, I'd hesitate to do more without at least trying that out, but other options would include reducing the red orb damage, removing the enrage timer, potentially adjusting his HP, potentially allowing rez from defeated.

[sigur.9453]

Even if i try to read of your wall of texts, i stop reading when you call it "hard mode". it´s NORMAL, the BASE difficulty.

[Ohoni.6057]

@"sigur.9453" said:Even if i try to read of your wall of texts, i stop reading when you call it "hard mode". it´s NORMAL, the BASE difficulty.

Ok.

[Feanor.2358]

@zealex.9410 said:

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@zealex.9410 said:Well anet from the start wanted challenging content.Are you sure? Yeah, they claimed the dungeons were to require some challenge, but they nerfed them very fast once they've noticed they were a bit too difficult for an average player then. The same pattern repeated with fractals, by the way.

@zealex.9410 said:Dungeons flopped and the instead turned the attention into raids which are endgame and could be made from the ground up as hard content.The difficulty was not why they abandoned dungeons. They did it simply because dungeons were badly coded and extremely hard to bugfix properly. And i'd hardly call a high dungeon popularity a "flop".

@zealex.9410 said:Its not like they came out of the blue both devs and players wanted challenging content and at least in the player's side i know alot of ppl who are glad that anet didnt drop it.It

did

come out of the blue. For the long time devs were mostly adamant that the challeng levels offered by dungeons and then-fractals was what they've been aiming for. They were also adamant at not wanting larger than 5-man parties (some people were asking about 8-man gw1-style groups in the beginning, but anet kept responding that their research and data shows 5-man size is ideal, as 8-man and bigger offer too much problems at the group creation level. Which was something they said they specifically

didn't

want.

And as for players wanting more challenging content and asking for raids? Yes, there was a small group of players asking for that, but that was it. Most players were content with the current (then) difficulty levels, and either didn't care, or didn't want more challenge. What they wanted was more content.

Accessible

content.

@Assic.2746 said:So once again it just boils down to the shinies.You're saying it as if it was any different for raiders.Notice, that the raiders aren't exactly against easy mode. Many are okay with it. What they protest (and protest very strongly) is the easymode

with rewards

, and alternate paths for raid rewards.It's just the standard story. Those that don't have, want to share. Those that

do

have, don't want to share. Even if (as in this case) sharing wouldn't actually take anything away from them.

@Feanor.2358 said:Except it doesn't. The last we've heard of ANet was they have no plans of doing it. Must be reasons for that, don't you think?There was a time when we were saying the very same thing about Raids. And then Anet implemented them.

@Sephylon.4938 said:

@Ohoni.6057 said:

@Sephylon.4938 said:Would killing easy mode bosses count towards the leg armor achievements? Would they drop the collection items for said achievements?

Obviously, although in lesser amounts, like reduced LI amounts, and requiring multiple clears to unlock the same achievements that clear first-time on the normal mode bosses.

Then what's the incentive for doing normal mode when you can farm easy mode with no risk and with less time?How did "multiple clears" turn into "less time"? You do remember that there's that tiny little mechanic called "weekly lockout", right?

We dont have numbers to say wether the group tht wanted hardcontent was small or not

It's not even important if it is small or not. Adding the harder content was just this - adding a type of gameplay which didn't exist before, giving a particular group of players something to do. As opposed to adding more easy content in a game where 90% of the content is already easy.

[belognom.3685]

@"Grogba.6204" said:"I don't need the loot. I already have what i need and even more. Thanks to SW and Istan yes. If i need something else I will swipe the card, I can afford that."

Nothing stopping you to buy a clear from a selling guild then.

I'm gamer, I farm for my gear and clear the dungeons. Do you see the difference between swiping card for convenience items and raid clearance at all?

I don't don't need the gear from raid drops as i already have 6 crafting professions and 3 chars packed in ascended with arsenal of weapons. Anything else my chars need i can craft/farm easily.Don't try to play that card with me.You are missing my point. If I needed raid clearance I would buy it like ummmh, when i need my place cleaned I hire a cleaner, that agrees to do that job for me for that time and that money.I don't need raid clearance. I want to clear a raid.

[Astralporing.1957]

@Sephylon.4938 said:2 magnetite shards are capped per week at 150. Each raid boss gives 10 per kill. Even if the reward was reduced to 5 per successful kill, what's stopping people from buying openers and doing the same boss all over again to reach the cap, or using alt accounts? Wouldn't the hassle of that be less than the hassle of normal mode?For people that are already clearing the normal mode? No, it would be greater. Remember, that you can do it already, by consistently wiping on the very forst encounter. Nobody does that exactly because it's way too much of a hassle compared to just doing it right and moving to the next encounter on the line.Besides, you might want to change the cap in such a way, that the easy mode would stop giving magnetites once you reached 100. or 50. If you wanted to get more (up to the usual cap of 150), you'd need to go to normal.

@Sephylon.4938 said:Additionally, each boss kill rewards 1 li per kill, how much li would easy mode give?Would have to be decided, but the often-cited example was 1/3 (or, more specifically, enough "partials" that a whole wing would give one LI).

@Sephylon.4938 said:If the rewards for normal was buffed, what incentive would there be to do easy?If the buff was only about quantity, not quality of rewards, incentive of the easy mode would be to be able to get the rewards at all (even if in lessened quantity). Remember, the default assumption is that if you could do the normal mode, and liked it, you should be doing it over the easy one.

@Sephylon.4938 said:Follow up question. For experienced players, how exactly would doing normal mode take less time than easy mode?They'd receive more time-gated resources per week.

[Sephylon.4938]

Ok, that's a way to do it, but personally I feel that it would still be too complicated to function as a "casual" mode, and also the mechanics changes would limit its ability as a "training" mode, since if you attempted to master the tactics and timings that would work for that mode, it would be completely different in the final mode. It still requires that players act in coordination, which is one of the issues that a "just wanna have fun pug would struggle with. One of the primary goals with easy mode would be to allow players to act with planning and coordination, and reward them for doing so with faster and more direct cleartimes, but to not require that thing of players that don't have the time or coordination to get it right every time.

That's a fair assessment, but I believe that this way would teach the basics with a wider margin of error, while still having fangs sharp enough to punish people should they fail. I also believe that once the basics are down, people would be able to adopt them to any changes that would be present in normal.

As for my version, leave every UI, AI, and timing thing intact (although you raised some points where they could improve both easy and hard versions). Everything that currently happens would continue to happen, and if you used macros to record a team "doing it perfectly" on the hard mode (setting aside that RNG would change things in between), those same moves would work in the easy mode and achieve identical results. It would only diverge if mistakes started to be made. Green circles would take the same time, and take the same players, the difference would be that if you missed one, they would do significantly less damage. They might still down already low HP characters, but chances are most of the party would be up and able to rez others. The "spewing orbs" phase would deal less damage, but he would be tankier during it, so you'd want to cut that out quick to speed up the fight. The "pie slices" phase would work the same, but the floor damage would be reduced, to the point where it is noticeable, but low risk of killing a healthy character. You obviously wouldn't want to fight him in the fire, but you could be in there for a little while without it being disastrous. I think those changes might be enough, I'd hesitate to do more without at least trying that out, but other options would include reducing the red orb damage, >removing the enrage timer, potentially adjusting his HP, potentially allowing rez from defeated.

I do not believe that damage in and of itself is enough of a deterrent for people since you do not need to have full hp all the time. Also, I personally believe that it is impossible to avoid damage even if you are playing at 100% efficiency, as there are several factors in the game that come into play. Finally, I feel that if damage is too low, then the presence of healers, and to that extent people who like to play them, would not be needed as all classes already have multiple ways to sustain themselves. The green circles being as they are may be too hard for some people with low spacial awareness, which is why I wanted to increase its radius while reducing the number of required people. That way, the green would become more noticeable, even to those who get tunnel-visioned into dpsing the boss. Additionally, the larger radius and longer detonation time would allow for a wider margin of error by offering a smaller distance to travel, and a longer time to get there before failure, which would still result in a wipe. This would allow for people to learn that they have to do it and give them personal responsibility.

For the orb phase, please correct me if I misunderstand, but you want it to deal less damage, and last shorter? The phrasing is a bit weird for me, I apologize. Also who is "he" that you refer to, the players, vg, or the orb, I did not want to assume.

I feel that if the damage of the pie slices would be lowered, that any 2 healers would be more than enough to allow people to just power through it. Again, I do not believe that damage with no risk of downing is enough of a threat to people.

[Feanor.2358]

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@Sephylon.4938 said:Follow up question. For experienced players, how exactly would doing normal mode take less time than easy mode?They'd receive more time-gated resources per week.

You realize these are already irrelevant for active raiders, don't you? I have over 10k magnetite shards and no real use for them. What difference does it make if I get more or less of them?

[Catchyfx.5768]

IT Will be the same like fractals. Ppl not learning mechanics because they can Survive this And that. If EZ mode only without rewards And achievements. What i wanna see Is CM raids(with instabilities or something) with no rewards but scoreboard +1

[Astralporing.1957]

@Feanor.2358 said:

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@"Sephylon.4938" said:Follow up question. For experienced players, how exactly would doing normal mode take less time than easy mode?They'd receive more time-gated resources per week.

You realize these are already irrelevant for active raiders, don't you? I have over 10k magnetite shards and no real use for them. What difference does it make if I get more or less of them?In that case, if the rewards aren't a factor to you, there won't be a point to do easy mode at all, right? If you don't care easy mode gives rewards in less quantities (because you already have too much of them), then why would you want to do easy mode encounters at all, unless you simply didn't want to experience the normal mode?(remember, the "less time" question was about reward acquisition speed, not boss kill speed)

[Feanor.2358]

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@Feanor.2358 said:

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@"Sephylon.4938" said:Follow up question. For experienced players, how exactly would doing normal mode take less time than easy mode?They'd receive more time-gated resources per week.

You realize these are already irrelevant for active raiders, don't you? I have over 10k magnetite shards and no real use for them. What difference does it make if I get more or less of them?In that case, if the rewards aren't a factor to you, there won't be a point to do easy mode at all, right? If you don't care easy mode gives rewards in less quantities (because you already have too much of them), then why would you want to do easy mode encounters at all, unless you simply didn't want to experience the normal mode?(remember, the "less time" question was about reward acquisition speed, not boss kill speed)

Because there are other rewards too - exotics, ascended, gold, etc.