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

[Astralporing.1957]

@nia.4725 said:

@Astralporing.1957 said:Like it happens with fractals?...oh, wait.

I understand your idea but I find an issue here. The devs already said that their main concern about hard mode (repeatable) is splitting the playerbase between the difficulty tiers. If we got a fractal-like system, wouldn't it do that? Split the playerbase.The main difference is that the devs were talking about hard mode. This only splits playerbase. Easy mode, however, also adds to that playerbase, so it's not really the same.

@nia.4725 said:Current raiders would never do easy mode, so new raiders would never get help from experienced people. Easy mode raiders would progress to normal mode just for the rewards, since normal mode would give more shinies -and no game designer wants rewards to be the only reason why people play certain content. Because that leads to the player stopping playing when they get the reward.Some players do the content for rewards even now, so it would change nothing. And if Anet didn't want people to play raids for rewards, they wouldn't have made those rewards both highly desirable

and

exclusive. merely by placing envoy armor there they guaranteed that there will be people going into raids just for that.

@nia.4725 said:So, I think, easy mode would gradually lose players , those that move to normal mode. But will easy mode keep getting new players? I'm not quite sure. Are raids appealing to enough players for easy mode to never get depopulated? I'm not quite sure.If there's no new players, it won't be just easy mode that'd be in danger. Besides, notice, that Fractal t1's are doing mostly fine even now, after many years. In fact, there are players that could move to higher tiers but simply do not want to and stay in t1's because they feel the lower tiers match them better.

Again, fractals show an example of this working in practice.

[nia.4725]

@Dreddo.9865 said:

@"nia.4725" said:I understand your idea but I find an issue here. The devs already said that their main concern about hard mode (repeatable) is splitting the playerbase between the difficulty tiers. If we got a fractal-like system, wouldn't it do that? Split the playerbase. Current raiders would never do easy mode, so new raiders would never get help from experienced people. Easy mode raiders would progress to normal mode just for the rewards, since normal mode would give more shinies -and no game designer wants rewards to be the only reason why people play certain content. Because that leads to the player stopping playing when they get the reward.

On the contrary. If you check the Fractals LFG they are 'alive and kicking' 24/7 just because of the fact there are tiers, people have the ability to train themselves without the absolute need to be trained or carried by more experienced people. That is why Fractals is a very successful game feature in terms of participation.

If you check the Raids LFG you can always find a 'selling' group while a decent training one where you 're not just going to waste your time is a rare thing.

That being said I don't agree in giving exclusive raid rewards in an easier raids tier. If such a mode should ever be introduced, its purpose should be only to attract more people into the content and not for giving rewards.

When I check fractals LFG I see this:

T1 - few groups, mostly people trying to get players to do achievements (mostly legendary collections), 2 or 3 daily fractalsT2, T3 - more groups but still a lot less than T4, mostly dailiesT4 - dailies & CMs full of 29874902750825KP requirements

How is that different from raids, and how is that 'alive and kicking'? Only t4 could be considered 'alive and kicking'.

This is how my fractals LFG looks right now: t1 t2 t3 t4

[maddoctor.2738]

@nia.4725 said:

@Dreddo.9865 said:

@nia.4725 said:I understand your idea but I find an issue here. The devs already said that their main concern about hard mode (repeatable) is splitting the playerbase between the difficulty tiers. If we got a fractal-like system, wouldn't it do that? Split the playerbase. Current raiders would never do easy mode, so new raiders would never get help from experienced people. Easy mode raiders would progress to normal mode just for the rewards, since normal mode would give more shinies -and no game designer wants rewards to be the only reason why people play certain content. Because that leads to the player stopping playing when they get the reward.

On the contrary. If you check the Fractals LFG they are 'alive and kicking' 24/7 just because of the fact there are tiers, people have the ability to train themselves without the absolute need to be trained or carried by more experienced people. That is why Fractals is a very successful game feature in terms of participation.

If you check the Raids LFG you can always find a 'selling' group while a decent training one where you 're not just going to waste your time is a rare thing.

That being said I don't agree in giving exclusive raid rewards in an easier raids tier. If such a mode should ever be introduced, its purpose should be only to attract more people into the content and not for giving rewards.

When I check fractals LFG I see this:

T1 - few groups, mostly people trying to get players to do achievements (mostly legendary collections), 2 or 3 daily fractalsT2, T3 - more groups but still a lot less than T4, mostly dailiesT4 - dailies & CMs full of 29874902750825KP requirements

How is that different from raids, and how is that 'alive and kicking'? Only t4 could be considered 'alive and kicking'.

This is how my fractals LFG looks right now:

t1

t2

t3

t4

There are more T4 entries than T1+T2+T3 combined! Talk about "alive and kicking" lol

[maddoctor.2738]

@Astralporing.1957 said:If there's no new players, it won't be just easy mode that'd be in danger. Besides, notice, that Fractal t1's are doing mostly fine even now, after many years. In fact, there are players that could move to higher tiers but simply do not want to and stay in t1's because they feel the lower tiers match them better.

Again, fractals show an example of this working in practice.

So you are saying that if the Legendary precursor collections were only available in T4 Fractals and there was no Daily recommended available in T1, T1 Fractals would still be full of life?

[Astralporing.1957]

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@Astralporing.1957 said:If there's no new players, it won't be just easy mode that'd be in danger. Besides, notice, that Fractal t1's are doing mostly fine even now, after many years. In fact, there are players that could move to higher tiers but simply do not want to and stay in t1's because they feel the lower tiers match them better.

Again, fractals show an example of this working in practice.

So you are saying that if the Legendary precursor collections were only available in T4 Fractals and there was no Daily recommended available in T1, T1 Fractals would still be full of life?I'm pretty sure most people doing t1 do not do that for legendaries. The players

sticking

to lower tiers definitely don't do that for legendary, because you simply can't get Ad Infinitum without playing higher tiers.Of course i can't be sure, but at least all the people i know that stick to lower tiers do not do that due to precursor collections. Although that of course is hardly any proof.

[Tyson.5160]

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@nia.4725 said:

@"Astralporing.1957" said:Like it happens with fractals?...oh, wait.

I understand your idea but I find an issue here. The devs already said that their main concern about hard mode (repeatable) is splitting the playerbase between the difficulty tiers. If we got a fractal-like system, wouldn't it do that? Split the playerbase. Current raiders would never do easy mode, so new raiders would never get help from experienced people. Easy mode raiders would progress to normal mode just for the rewards, since normal mode would give more shinies -and no game designer wants rewards to be the only reason why people play certain content. Because that leads to the player stopping playing when they get the reward.

So, I think, easy mode would gradually lose players , those that move to normal mode. But will easy mode keep getting new players? I'm not quite sure. Are raids appealing to enough players for easy mode to never get depopulated? I'm not quite sure. Will those who just like easy mode and are not interested in normal mode be enough to keep easy mode alive? I'm not quite sure.

If the "Easy mode" provides access to the same rewards as normal mode then normal mode players WILL play the easy mode. If we don't want to affect the normal mode players at all, then the "Easy mode" needs to have separate rewards. The fantasy that an "easy mode" would bring more players to "normal mode" is just that, a fantasy, the opposite is what is bound to happen, normal mode losing players.

If the "Easy mode" doesn't provide access to the same rewards and the rewards it does provide are terrible then we go to Arah Story Mode problem. T1 Fractals are essential for all Legendary Weapon Precursor collections and I strongly believe that's the reason T1 Fractals even have people running them. In a sense they offer a unique reward that although it's also available in higher tiers, it IS much easier to get on T1.

So you would need a reward that would be unique to the easy mode for example a stat swap armor that doesn’t use the perfected Envoy armor skin. That way you keep the integrity of the normal mode raid intact.

[nia.4725]

@Tyson.5160 said:

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@nia.4725 said:

@"Astralporing.1957" said:Like it happens with fractals?...oh, wait.

I understand your idea but I find an issue here. The devs already said that their main concern about hard mode (repeatable) is splitting the playerbase between the difficulty tiers. If we got a fractal-like system, wouldn't it do that? Split the playerbase. Current raiders would never do easy mode, so new raiders would never get help from experienced people. Easy mode raiders would progress to normal mode just for the rewards, since normal mode would give more shinies -and no game designer wants rewards to be the only reason why people play certain content. Because that leads to the player stopping playing when they get the reward.

So, I think, easy mode would gradually lose players , those that move to normal mode. But will easy mode keep getting new players? I'm not quite sure. Are raids appealing to enough players for easy mode to never get depopulated? I'm not quite sure. Will those who just like easy mode and are not interested in normal mode be enough to keep easy mode alive? I'm not quite sure.

If the "Easy mode" provides access to the same rewards as normal mode then normal mode players WILL play the easy mode. If we don't want to affect the normal mode players at all, then the "Easy mode" needs to have separate rewards. The fantasy that an "easy mode" would bring more players to "normal mode" is just that, a fantasy, the opposite is what is bound to happen, normal mode losing players.

If the "Easy mode" doesn't provide access to the same rewards and the rewards it does provide are terrible then we go to Arah Story Mode problem. T1 Fractals are essential for all Legendary Weapon Precursor collections and I strongly believe that's the reason T1 Fractals even have people running them. In a sense they offer a unique reward that although it's also available in higher tiers, it IS much easier to get on T1.

So you would need a reward that would be unique to the easy mode for example a stat swap armor that doesn’t use the perfected Envoy armor skin. That way you keep the integrity of the normal mode raid intact.

But this does not make sense. I mean, a different skin? And then what we'd expect the current raiders to do, easy mode for the skin then go back to normal mode? No, easy mode should give a lower tier Envoy armor, just like lower fractals give blue fractal weapons and higher tier give golden fractals weapons. As game designers we'd want people to progress from easy mode into normal mode, and a different skin would accomplish this much less than a lower tier of the Envoy. I could even imagine easy mode giving an ascended armor and normal mode being required to get the legendary.

[Tyson.5160]

@nia.4725 said:

@Tyson.5160 said:

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@nia.4725 said:

@"Astralporing.1957" said:Like it happens with fractals?...oh, wait.

I understand your idea but I find an issue here. The devs already said that their main concern about hard mode (repeatable) is splitting the playerbase between the difficulty tiers. If we got a fractal-like system, wouldn't it do that? Split the playerbase. Current raiders would never do easy mode, so new raiders would never get help from experienced people. Easy mode raiders would progress to normal mode just for the rewards, since normal mode would give more shinies -and no game designer wants rewards to be the only reason why people play certain content. Because that leads to the player stopping playing when they get the reward.

So, I think, easy mode would gradually lose players , those that move to normal mode. But will easy mode keep getting new players? I'm not quite sure. Are raids appealing to enough players for easy mode to never get depopulated? I'm not quite sure. Will those who just like easy mode and are not interested in normal mode be enough to keep easy mode alive? I'm not quite sure.

If the "Easy mode" provides access to the same rewards as normal mode then normal mode players WILL play the easy mode. If we don't want to affect the normal mode players at all, then the "Easy mode" needs to have separate rewards. The fantasy that an "easy mode" would bring more players to "normal mode" is just that, a fantasy, the opposite is what is bound to happen, normal mode losing players.

If the "Easy mode" doesn't provide access to the same rewards and the rewards it does provide are terrible then we go to Arah Story Mode problem. T1 Fractals are essential for all Legendary Weapon Precursor collections and I strongly believe that's the reason T1 Fractals even have people running them. In a sense they offer a unique reward that although it's also available in higher tiers, it IS much easier to get on T1.

So you would need a reward that would be unique to the easy mode for example a stat swap armor that doesn’t use the perfected Envoy armor skin. That way you keep the integrity of the normal mode raid intact.

But this does not make sense. I mean, a different skin? And then what we'd expect the current raiders to do, easy mode for the skin then go back to normal mode? No, easy mode should give a lower tier Envoy armor, just like lower fractals give blue fractal weapons and higher tier give golden fractals weapons. As game designers we'd want people to progress from easy mode into normal mode, and a different skin would accomplish this much less than a lower tier of the Envoy. I could even imagine easy mode giving an ascended armor and normal mode being required to get the legendary.

Nah it could use the refined armor skin and kinda follow the example the PvP and WvW does.

[Dreddo.9865]

@"nia.4725" said:When I check fractals LFG I see this:

T1 - few groups, mostly people trying to get players to do achievements (mostly legendary collections), 2 or 3 daily fractalsT2, T3 - more groups but still a lot less than T4, mostly dailiesT4 - dailies & CMs full of 29874902750825KP requirements

How is that different from raids, and how is that 'alive and kicking'? Only t4 could be considered 'alive and kicking'.

This is how my fractals LFG looks right now: t1 t2 t3 t4

@"maddoctor.2738" said:There are more T4 entries than T1+T2+T3 combined! Talk about "alive and kicking" lol

Of course because most people have progressed to the higher tiers. That is the benefit of having a "scaled difficulty" content, people progress fast. It's no rocket science.Next time post the equivalent Raid LFG. It would be fun to compare the sellers and the guild recruiters to the actual number of Raid parties. :)

[nia.4725]

@Dreddo.9865 said:

@"nia.4725" said:When I check fractals LFG I see this:

T1 - few groups, mostly people trying to get players to do achievements (mostly legendary collections), 2 or 3 daily fractalsT2, T3 - more groups but still a lot less than T4, mostly dailiesT4 - dailies & CMs full of 29874902750825KP requirements

How is that different from raids, and how is that 'alive and kicking'? Only t4 could be considered 'alive and kicking'.

This is how my fractals LFG looks right now:

t1

t2

t3

t4

@"maddoctor.2738" said:There are more T4 entries than T1+T2+T3 combined! Talk about "alive and kicking" lol

Of course because most people have progressed to the higher tiers. That is the benefit of having a "scaled difficulty" content, people progress fast. It's no rocket science.Next time post the equivalent Raid LFG. It would be fun to compare the sellers and the guild recruiters to the actual number of Raid parties. :)

And you think that LFG is "alive and kicking"? Precisely, the only part of the fractals LFG that is really alive is the T4 one.

I cannot post the "equivalent" LFG -there's only 1 raid LFG. But okay, here is the raid LFG.

[Dreddo.9865]

@"nia.4725" said:And you think that LFG is "alive and kicking"? Precisely, the only part of the fractals LFG that is really alive is the T4 one.

I cannot post the "equivalent" LFG -there's only 1 raid LFG. But okay, here is the raid LFG.As I wrote people doing fractals have the option to train themselves. There are no LI or KP requirements blocking them from doing the content. Plus they have the option to go from an easy mode to the hardest to their liking. So that's why they progress to the top tier faster hence the lower tiers have less LFG requests. What's difficult to understand? :)

Then take a look of the Raids LFG as I took a screenshot right now:https://imgur.com/a/2BTJaJkandhttps://imgur.com/a/IfyaNXb

Out of 16 LFG squads, 7 (44%) are Sellers and Recruiters. And we are talking Prime time.

[Hume.2876]

Of course because most people have progressed to the higher tiers. That is the benefit of having a "scaled difficulty" content, people progress fast. It's no rocket science.Next time post the equivalent Raid LFG. It would be fun to compare the sellers and the guild recruiters to the actual number of Raid parties. :)

it's not going to work, bro.

Run through the scenarios -

1) They rebalance the content for ez and hard. They implement crap rewards for ez. Results - most people play hard - but some play ez for practice. No one really stays or joins the game under this scenario. A very small percentage would practice sure. But because the practice would be easy - it wouldn't be a huge benefit..

2) Rebalance again - but this time with great rewards for ez - equivalent to hard. Everyone runs the easy for a bit. They all get the fancy previously gated skins. The hard people have trouble recruiting enough for their raids. The 'hard' mode raids disappear. The ez mode runners quit after getting their fancy skins. Significant loss of player base under this scenario. Significant loss of the best most enthusiastic players. This is the WoW approach. That is what happened in WoW. Great for FFXIV though..

So why spend the development time doing this? It's just a poor use of development man hours. Is this really a checkbox you can sell the game with? Of course not. They have raiding for the hardcore PvErs. They have fractals dungeons for the casual PvErs. They have WvW and PvP for other players. What they should spend their development time on is making these modes more compelling - not blurring the lines..

When you are talking about 1000's of man hours of very expensive labor - you have to think things through. Your plan sucks. Leave the game design to game designers..

[Astralporing.1957]

@"Hume.2876" said:

Of course because most people have progressed to the higher tiers. That is the benefit of having a "scaled difficulty" content, people progress fast. It's no rocket science.Next time post the equivalent Raid LFG. It would be fun to compare the sellers and the guild recruiters to the actual number of Raid parties. :)

it's not going to work, bro.

Run through the scenarios -

1) They rebalance the content for ez and hard. They implement crap rewards for ez. Results - most people play hard - but some play ez for practice. No one really stays or joins the game under this scenario. A very small percentage would practice sure. But because the practice would be easy - it wouldn't be a huge benefit..

2) Rebalance again - but this time with great rewards for ez - equivalent to hard. Everyone runs the easy for a bit. They all get the fancy previously gated skins. The hard people have trouble recruiting enough for their raids. The 'hard' mode raids disappear. The ez mode runners quit after getting their fancy skins. Significant loss of player base under this scenario. Significant loss of the best most enthusiastic players. This is the WoW approach. That is what happened in WoW. Great for FFXIV though..Yes, because there's nothing between crap rewards and equal ones.[/sarcasm](I won't even touch the WoW argument, beyond reminding you, again, that what you think has happened there may be not so accurate as you think)

@"Hume.2876" said:When you are talking about 1000's of man hours of very expensive labor - you have to think things through. Your plan sucks.Obviously, if you make bad assumptions about "the plan", you will end up with bad results. It's your plan that is flawed, not what has actually been proposed.

Again, fractals are a good example that it can work, and that your theoretical worries are grossly exagerrated, if not completely misplaced.

[Chris McSwag.4683]

@Jahroots.6791 said:

@"Chris McSwag.4683" said:If people spent 10% of the time they spend whining about raids being too hard on training instead, they would be able to do raids just fine.

If getting into training groups was as easy as making forum posts, this topic probably wouldn't exist.

Anyone capable of using a search engine can get into training groups. Anyone claiming the opposite has not tried :)

But since I'm a nice guy, here you go:https://rti.enjin.com/https://snowcrows.com/newtoraids/

[maddoctor.2738]

@"Dreddo.9865" said:Of course because most people have progressed to the higher tiers. That is the benefit of having a "scaled difficulty" content, people progress fast. It's no rocket science.

Before the November 21, 2016 update nobody was running T3 Fractals, it was a ghost town.What happened on that day? A Crack in the Ice happened, which included this little update:

A new daily recommended achievement for tier-3 fractals has been added. Completing this achievement awards a Fractal Expert's Research Chest.

Now that a reason was added to run T3 Fractals, we finally see entries for it, from 0 entries to about a similar number as T2 with a little change like that. Funny how out of this entire community, nobody found the T3 difficulty to their liking and skill level, nor used it for training before that daily was added. Players just went there when they added that extra carrot.

Btw adding a T3 Fractal recommended was a request by the community to allow players to finish the 50-75 achievements and finally make T3 playable. It was an old request that was finally fulfilled with Crack in the Ice.

[Dreddo.9865]

@"Hume.2876" said:So why spend the development time doing this? It's just a poor use of development man hours. Is this really a checkbox you can sell the game with? Of course not. They have raiding for the hardcore PvErs. They have fractals dungeons for the casual PvErs. They have WvW and PvP for other players. What they should spend their development time on is making these modes more compelling - not blurring the lines..

When you are talking about 1000's of man hours of very expensive labor - you have to think things through. Your plan sucks. Leave the game design to game designers..I don't support "exclusive content rewards' in easy modes. You want that go for the real deal. But I support an easy mode for introductory purposes so that people won't have to withstand toxicity or rejection simply because they want to try and complete game content. That should work and in fact would benefit raids as a whole, because in time the available raiders pool will grow substantially.

I think you look at it the wrong way. Did you buy GW2 for raids? Or anyone else? I doubt. We all bought it for the whole of the content it offered. The majority of the players are involved in almost all the game modes and IMHO that's the nice thing about GW2. It keeps you motivated in various ways. There is no need for barriers in the game content.

@maddoctor.2738 said:Before the November 21, 2016 update nobody was running T3 Fractals, it was a ghost town.Now that a reason was added to run T3 Fractals, we finally see entries for it, from 0 entries to about a similar number as T2 with a little change like that. Funny how out of this entire community, nobody found the T3 difficulty to their liking and skill level, nor used it for training before that daily was added. Players just went there when they added that extra carrot.Dude we are doing recs and advertising in T4 LFG for ages. What are you talking about? ^^

[maddoctor.2738]

@"Dreddo.9865" said:Dude we are doing recs and advertising in T4 LFG for ages. What are you talking about? ^^

It's T3... not T4. I guess all those that wanted to train waited for that daily reward, and only train for the current daily, while those that find the difficulty of T3 the most comfortable also only play now that the daily exists. Your entire argument of using tiers for training is flawed. It's not really rocket science.

Btw there is even a developer response on the subject:https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/5e6uxb/a_crack_in_the_ice_devs_here_ask_us_anything/daa6ym9/

The daily recommended Tier 3 was added to solve a couple problems. We wanted to get more players back into Tier 3 fractals, and we also wanted to speed up the timegate portion of obtaining ascended gear from Fractals.

Honestly, if the amount of players using T3 for training, or playing it because it's their comfortable level then the first part of that reason wouldn't exist. I don't see how anyone can believe that T3 fractals was "fine" before A Crack in the Ice.

And even after that change T2 and T3 have the same amount of listings. Tells us something right?

[Feanor.2358]

@Ohoni.6057 said:

@Feanor.2358 said:

@Astralporing.1957 said:Raids are a repeated content as well, just for a different group of players. Let's be honest, most of the current raiders do have most of the raid encounters on farm mode and are doing them on autopilot.

It's not the same thing. Raid encounters still require some focus. Messing up on a raid boss isn't the same as messing up a world boss, or a dungeon boss, or a low-tier fractal. Recovery is harder, and failing to recover incurs a time penalty, simply because the raid bosses take non-trivial time to kill for everyone except the absolute top teams. And that makes a difference.

This is why proponents of easy mode do not want to play the normal mode.

It's an entirely valid position. But it is hardly a reason to blame others, or the game itself, for their own choices.

[perilisk.1874]

I voted for both. I don't think Easy Mode needs to have much in the way of rewards; something on the order of what you would get for dungeon story mode or a world boss or a story instance. It shouldn't enable completing achievements or anything similar (other than unlocking the mastery track, maybe).

The main point of such a mode would be:

1. A less-punishing, PUG-friendly way of teaching mechanics for eventually doing normal mode raids, and
2. A way for less elite players to experience and stay up to date on the story by playing it, rather than reading a summary or watching a video.

[maddoctor.2738]

@"Astralporing.1957" said:I'm pretty sure most people doing t1 do not do that for legendaries. The players sticking to lower tiers definitely don't do that for legendary, because you simply can't get Ad Infinitum without playing higher tiers.Of course i can't be sure, but at least all the people i know that stick to lower tiers do not do that due to precursor collections. Although that of course is hardly any proof.

Well, when I'm done with the T3 argument next step is to go back pre-Heart of Thorns to find out exactly how significant was the part of the community that was playing T1 fractals. you know when there was no daily recommended and no precursor collections. But that "project" might take a while.

[Ohoni.6057]

@maddoctor.2738 said:It's T3... not T4. I guess all those that wanted to train waited for that daily reward, and only train for the current daily, while those that find the difficulty of T3 the most comfortable also only play now that the daily exists. Your entire argument of using tiers for training is flawed. It's not really rocket science.

I'm not really sure what point you're making about Fractals, but, if people don't actually want to do T3 Fractals, then wouldn't the best solution be to not have T3 Fractals?

@"Feanor.2358" said:It's an entirely valid position. But it is hardly a reason to blame others, or the game itself, for their own choices.

Who is? Speaking for myself, I only blame the game for not offering me any of the choices that I would want to pick (much like I would blame McDonalds for only offering Coke, Sprite, and Dr. Pepper but no root beers), and I blame other players who choose to fight against them offering those options, rather than to help their fellow players achieve what they want to achieve.

My choices are my own, but when the only choices available are "bad," and "worse," it's only reasonable to ask for better options to choose from.

[Dreddo.9865]

@"maddoctor.2738" said:

The daily recommended Tier 3 was added to solve a couple problems. We wanted to get more players back into Tier 3 fractals, and we also wanted to speed up the timegate portion of obtaining ascended gear from Fractals.

Honestly, if the amount of players using T3 for training, or playing it because it's their comfortable level then the first part of that reason wouldn't exist. I don't see how anyone can believe that T3 fractals was "fine" before A Crack in the Ice.

And even after that change T2 and T3 have the same amount of listings. Tells us something right?

You quoted me a dev post in reddit dated November 2016 while we are on ...May 2018.

The daily recommended T3 is not advertised in the T3 LFG. People often create groups that advertise "t4+recs" or simply "recs" in T4 LFG. It's been like that for ages.

Then you don't see many people in T3 nowadays simply because they have advanced in T4. Only newcomers past briefly through first two tiers then having a short break in T3 to either adapt to the more complex mechanics or accumulate Agony Resistance (and an Ascended Armor Set / Trinkets). You will always have a number of people entering the game and advancing through fractal tiers. Some even prefer to do T3 to avoid the hassle in some cases, so every tier has available parties.

Frankly, If you are really into fractals you should already know all these.

[Astralporing.1957]

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@"Astralporing.1957" said:I'm pretty sure most people doing t1 do not do that for legendaries. The players

sticking

to lower tiers definitely don't do that for legendary, because you simply can't get Ad Infinitum without playing higher tiers.Of course i can't be sure, but at least all the people i know that stick to lower tiers do not do that due to precursor collections. Although that of course is hardly any proof.

Well, when I'm done with the T3 argument next step is to go back pre-Heart of Thorns to find out exactly how significant was the part of the community that was playing T1 fractals. you know when there was no daily recommended and no precursor collections. But that "project" might take a while.Not very, but then the number of people doing top tier fractals wasn't all that good either. Most of the instance people were running

dungeons

then (fwhich for the most part were easier than hardest difficulty fractals, by the way). If you were to go even further however, to the old "tiering" (1-10, 11-20, 21-30, 31-40, 40-49, 50) you'd find that at that time there was a lot more people doing lower tiers than higher ones.

And as for t3, it was always a problematic tier. The people that have problem with difficulty keep sticking to t1/t2, and t3 is (and always was) filled only with those that can't do t4s yet. It's because the difficulty jump between t3 and t4 is much smaller than between t2 and t3, but the reward jump from t3 to t4 is really, really significant. Basically, if you can do t3 and feel ok there, there's no real reason not to move up to t4. At worst you'd just be skipping some of the most difficult fractals. But if you have problems with t4 difficulty, t3 willl likely be equally unfun to you.

[Hume.2876]

Obviously, if you make bad assumptions about "the plan", you will end up with bad results. It's your plan that is flawed, not what has actually been proposed.

Again, fractals are a good example that it can work, and that your theoretical worries are grossly exagerrated, if not completely misplaced.

It's not theoretical - i was around in WoW for the advent of LFR. Absolutely murdered the game.. Some of the worst content you have every experienced. People sign up - spam some buttons in a 'raid'. They got loot with the same skins as the raids. Established raiders quit - but here is the thing - the free loot got boring for the people that clamored for it. So the player base cratered. Lots of people were thrust into 'crappy raids' to go after the best PvE loot and it was not a fun experience for them.

Ask your self - how is a 'practice mode' fun without good loot. And if does have good loot - are people going to do the hard mode?

You have to think about the player experience not just the loot tables. Is it a good experience to roll through raids? Is it somehow different then they get with world bosses?Raiding is designed to bring a DIFFERENT experience for the raiders. High level - difficulty gated content.. Mission accomplished.

Why you want to change that to mimic world bosses is not really a mystery - you want the skins. But raiding is more fun then world bosses - precisely because you can fail. loot is the carrot the gets your player to engage in fun content...

[Jahroots.6791]

@"Chris McSwag.4683" said:Anyone capable of using a search engine can get into training groups. Anyone claiming the opposite has not tried :)

But since I'm a nice guy, here you go:https://rti.enjin.com/https://snowcrows.com/newtoraids/

I actually did get some decent training done in an organized guild, but the runs were rostered and I've always been a 'PUG stuff when I feel like it' kinda guy so it didn't work for me. Thanks for the suggestions though, when I run out of other content I might try again with one of these guilds.