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


Lonami.2987

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@Shadowmoon.7986 said:Can we just let this topic die. Over 6 month old, has an dev responce saying that it would remove too many resources from raid/fractal devolopement. At this point we are beating a dead horse.

Honestly, Raids are having a hard enough time to make just a normal mode, let alone different modes. There will only be one raid release for this year and hard to say how many next year, maybe 2. With that cadence it’s not looking good, however what do you expect from just side content.

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What arguments can be made against the idea of enabling content to wider playerbase while keeping the original and providing increased difficulty?I don't think there are any. The idea is perfectly reasonable.

Just like with Fractals, people don't go straight to 99/100CM. They first get familiar with normal modes.If by default level 99 and 100 had only CMs, far fewer people would play them.

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@Nick.6972 said:What arguments can be made against the idea of enabling content to wider playerbase while keeping the original and providing increased difficulty?I don't think there are any. The idea is perfectly reasonable.

Just like with Fractals, people don't go straight to 99/100CM. They first get familiar with normal modes.If by default level 99 and 100 had only CMs, far fewer people would play them.

Gee it's kinda like we already have Normal modes and CM's for raids too.....

So what you mean is you want lower than normal because ???

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So the more casual player can test the raids out, see the mechanics, get familiar with them and maybe make a transition to normal mode.

Literally nothing would change for the crowd already doing normal modes. They wouldn't lose anything. Their loot wouldn't be taken away. Their "prestige" would remain.

The only valid argument to be made here is that designing an easy mode would take resources away from other game modes.
Other than that, there are absolutely no downsides in enabling content to much wider audience.

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@Nick.6972 said:

The only valid argument to be made here is that designing an easy mode would take resources away from other game modes.

Current state of affairs:

  • Instanced content (raids/fractals) players unhappy with release cadence
  • Open world players unhappy with release cadence
  • WvW players unhappy with mode neglect
  • sPvP players unhappy with mode neglect

Yeah, you're right. The only valid argument to be made here is that designing an easy mode would take resources away from one or more aspects of ongoing development, and there are plenty of players in all of those areas already unhappy with how infrequent they see anything new. That's a pretty large downside.

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@"Nick.6972" said:So the more casual player can test the raids out, see the mechanics, get familiar with them and maybe make a transition to normal mode.

Literally nothing would change for the crowd already doing normal modes. They wouldn't lose anything. Their loot wouldn't be taken away. Their "prestige" would remain.

The only valid argument to be made here is that designing an easy mode would take resources away from other game modes.

Other than that, there are absolutely no downsides in enabling content to much wider audience.

There's no validity to uniformly keeping hard content hard ? I respectfully disagree.

There's plenty of valid reasons for maintaining the status quo. Meanwhile the easy mode arguments pretty much all boil down to the same thing, rewards.Why can i say this with extreme certainty ? How many of the easy mode people have done the Sloth Event in Ember bay and found it easy enough and fun enough to repeat ? Same can be said of the Anomaly in Bloodstone fen.

Your easy mode already exist and i don't see you guys praising it, let alone playing it.

But it's okay there will be some response about how it's not raids despite using the same assets and same attack patterns because those bosses aren't in their respective raid zones. To which there's only one thing to say...Go raid then.

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@Shadowmoon.7986 said:Can we just let this topic die.

When raid population continues to decline past the point of sustainability, and those who play them move on to newer and better things because raids aren't being released fast enough (there's already not enough people playing them for ANet to justify dedicating a whole team to it), then it will.

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@InkTide.1908 said:

@Shadowmoon.7986 said:Can we just let this topic die.

When raid population continues to decline past the point of sustainability, and those who play them move on to newer and better things because raids aren't being released fast enough (there's already not enough people playing them for ANet to justify dedicating a whole team to it), then it will.

Once upon time, I agreed with an easy mode, however seeing how incredibly low resources there are for Raids, we should all just be happy that there are any raids at all, because like others have said, they are certainly heading to the realm that dungeons are in.

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@Vinceman.4572 said:

@InkTide.1908 said:there's already not enough people playing them for ANet to justify dedicating a whole team to it

How do you know? Internal insights or just wild guesses?

The fractal and raid teams used to be separate, and have now merged into a singular team that is most likely skewed towards fractals, as fractal releases reach more players according to GW2efficiency statistics (which themselves are almost always assumed to be skewed more towards the 'hardcore' portion of the playerbase, given the effort involved in setting up GW2efficiency and the lack of any official news or ingame resources mentioning it). It's also likely the merged team is smaller than the original total number of devs for the discrete fractal and raid teams - generally some positions become redundant and people get moved around when team mergers like that happen.

According to everyone I've seen speak about the issue, the raid population is hemorrhaging players at a rate it can't replace them. Content that's being played by fewer and fewer people is not the kind of content you put more resources into, if other content reaches more players.

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@"InkTide.1908" said:According to everyone I've seen speak about the issue, the raid population is hemorrhaging players at a rate it can't replace them. Content that's being played by fewer and fewer people is not the kind of content you put more resources into, if other content reaches more players.

See, I don't have any data on the raid population except my own experience pugging. Which I've been doing again lately, for one reason or another. And here's the thing - I don't see that decline you speak of. There are always plenty of players looking to raid and groups fill up quickly. And that's despite the existence of "raid LFG" discord communities used by many people to more conveniently find groups or desired roles for their group. Which would naturally pull some players away from the more limited in-game LFG. But groups on it fill quickly regardless.

Like it or not, this kind of content has been a success. We've been told as much by devs directly. The merger of the teams isn't really surprising - they're doing the same type of content anyway. It's all team-based instances, the difference in size is irrelevant. It also makes sense to prioritize fractals over raids, however for entirely different reason - raids take much longer to get their content exhausted because they're generally much harder. Like I said in another thread, my guild team only recently scored their first Dhuum kill. Compare this to Deepstone, which gets exhausted after a couple of playthroughs. You know all the mechanics, there's zero chance to fail anything, it's just farm. Most raid bosses never even reach this stage of routine for the majority of groups. Plus, there's the issue with raid releases progressively increasing the time a team needs to do their full weekly clear. An issue which does not exist with fractals, due to their daily rotation system. So yeah. It's only normal raids are released less frequently.

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@Feanor.2358 said:

@"InkTide.1908" said:According to everyone I've seen speak about the issue, the raid population is hemorrhaging players at a rate it can't replace them. Content that's being played by fewer and fewer people is not the kind of content you put
more
resources into, if other content reaches more players.

See, I don't have any data on the raid population except my own experience pugging. Which I've been doing again lately, for one reason or another. And here's the thing - I don't see that decline you speak of. There are always plenty of players looking to raid and groups fill up quickly. And that's despite the existence of "raid LFG" discord communities used by many people to more conveniently find groups or desired roles for their group. Which would naturally pull some players away from the more limited in-game LFG. But groups on it fill quickly regardless.

Like it or not, this kind of content has been a success. We've been told as much by devs directly. The merger of the teams isn't really surprising - they're doing the same type of content anyway. It's all team-based instances, the difference in size is irrelevant. It also makes sense to prioritize fractals over raids, however for entirely different reason - raids take much longer to get their content exhausted because they're generally much harder. Like I said in another thread, my guild team only recently scored their first Dhuum kill. Compare this to Deepstone, which gets exhausted after a couple of playthroughs. You know all the mechanics, there's zero chance to fail anything, it's just farm. Most raid bosses never even reach this stage of routine for the majority of groups. Plus, there's the issue with raid releases progressively increasing the time a team needs to do their full weekly clear. An issue which does not exist with fractals, due to their daily rotation system. So yeah. It's only normal raids are released less frequently.

Anet have all the statistics, and if moving raid development team to the fractal duty and one raid wing release per year is not clear enough sign for you, then idk what else is needed.

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@Rednik.3809 said:

@"InkTide.1908" said:According to everyone I've seen speak about the issue, the raid population is hemorrhaging players at a rate it can't replace them. Content that's being played by fewer and fewer people is not the kind of content you put
more
resources into, if other content reaches more players.

See, I don't have any data on the raid population except my own experience pugging. Which I've been doing again lately, for one reason or another. And here's the thing - I don't see that decline you speak of. There are always plenty of players looking to raid and groups fill up quickly. And that's despite the existence of "raid LFG" discord communities used by many people to more conveniently find groups or desired roles for their group. Which would naturally pull some players away from the more limited in-game LFG. But groups on it fill quickly regardless.

Like it or not, this kind of content has been a success. We've been told as much by devs directly. The merger of the teams isn't really surprising - they're doing the same type of content anyway. It's all team-based instances, the difference in size is irrelevant. It also makes sense to prioritize fractals over raids, however for entirely different reason - raids take much longer to get their content exhausted because they're generally much harder. Like I said in another thread, my guild team only recently scored their first Dhuum kill. Compare this to Deepstone, which gets exhausted after a couple of playthroughs. You know all the mechanics, there's zero chance to fail anything, it's just farm. Most raid bosses never even reach this stage of routine for the majority of groups. Plus, there's the issue with raid releases progressively increasing the time a team needs to do their full weekly clear. An issue which does not exist with fractals, due to their daily rotation system. So yeah. It's only normal raids are released less frequently.

Anet have all the statistics, and if moving raid development team to the fractal duty and one raid wing release per year is not clear enough sign for you, then idk what else is needed.

A statement which can be turned around easily. You can also say they merged both teams together sicne they helped out each others often already, so to improve workprogress they merged both team for better coordination so both get their content faster. Instead of wild guessing maybe stay to facts:Anet is the only one who has actual numbers and knows if a mode is succesful or not.

So let this thread die already. They have stated there wont be a change, and just cause some players in the forum cant let it die they will not start to change that. Like others said, you can see more groups in the lfg on a daily basis then in most other lfg parts unless there is a metaevent, then they get up to the same scale. Does this mean raids are more played then open world? Dont know, ask anet. But dont sell what you believe as facts.

I would love if they bring a fractallikesystem to raids, making a easy mode as t1, the actual mode as t2 and cms (though bosses who didnt have a cm yet would need them) as t3, making the loot automaticly earned from lower tiers if you do t3 directly. JKust like fracs. But they wont.

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@Rednik.3809 said:

@"InkTide.1908" said:According to everyone I've seen speak about the issue, the raid population is hemorrhaging players at a rate it can't replace them. Content that's being played by fewer and fewer people is not the kind of content you put
more
resources into, if other content reaches more players.

See, I don't have any data on the raid population except my own experience pugging. Which I've been doing again lately, for one reason or another. And here's the thing - I don't see that decline you speak of. There are always plenty of players looking to raid and groups fill up quickly. And that's despite the existence of "raid LFG" discord communities used by many people to more conveniently find groups or desired roles for their group. Which would naturally pull some players away from the more limited in-game LFG. But groups on it fill quickly regardless.

Like it or not, this kind of content has been a success. We've been told as much by devs directly. The merger of the teams isn't really surprising - they're doing the same type of content anyway. It's all team-based instances, the difference in size is irrelevant. It also makes sense to prioritize fractals over raids, however for entirely different reason - raids take much longer to get their content exhausted because they're generally much harder. Like I said in another thread, my guild team only recently scored their first Dhuum kill. Compare this to Deepstone, which gets exhausted after a couple of playthroughs. You know all the mechanics, there's zero chance to fail anything, it's just farm. Most raid bosses never even reach this stage of routine for the majority of groups. Plus, there's the issue with raid releases progressively increasing the time a team needs to do their full weekly clear. An issue which does not exist with fractals, due to their daily rotation system. So yeah. It's only normal raids are released less frequently.

Anet have all the statistics, and if moving raid development team to the fractal duty and one raid wing release per year is not clear enough sign for you, then idk what else is needed.

Except they didn't move anything. They stated the teams have been merged for "well over an year". Let's assume this happened right after W4 was released in Feb '17. It means we'll be seeing 2 raid wings in 1.5 years from the merged team, as they clearly stated the next raid will be launching with the next episode. This is pretty much the same pace we had from the raid-only team after W3 (Jun '16 - Feb '17). I really fail to see all the doom and gloom preached here.

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@Feanor.2358 said:

@"InkTide.1908" said:According to everyone I've seen speak about the issue, the raid population is hemorrhaging players at a rate it can't replace them. Content that's being played by fewer and fewer people is not the kind of content you put
more
resources into, if other content reaches more players.

See, I don't have any data on the raid population except my own experience pugging. Which I've been doing again lately, for one reason or another. And here's the thing - I don't see that decline you speak of. There are always plenty of players looking to raid and groups fill up quickly. And that's despite the existence of "raid LFG" discord communities used by many people to more conveniently find groups or desired roles for their group. Which would naturally pull some players away from the more limited in-game LFG. But groups on it fill quickly regardless.

Like it or not, this kind of content has been a success. We've been told as much by devs directly. The merger of the teams isn't really surprising - they're doing the same type of content anyway. It's all team-based instances, the difference in size is irrelevant. It also makes sense to prioritize fractals over raids, however for entirely different reason - raids take much longer to get their content exhausted because they're generally much harder. Like I said in another thread, my guild team only recently scored their first Dhuum kill. Compare this to Deepstone, which gets exhausted after a couple of playthroughs. You know all the mechanics, there's zero chance to fail anything, it's just farm. Most raid bosses never even reach this stage of routine for the majority of groups. Plus, there's the issue with raid releases progressively increasing the time a team needs to do their full weekly clear. An issue which does not exist with fractals, due to their daily rotation system. So yeah. It's only normal raids are released less frequently.

Anet have all the statistics, and if moving raid development team to the fractal duty and one raid wing release per year is not clear enough sign for you, then idk what else is needed.

Except they didn't move anything. They stated the teams have been merged for "well over an year". Let's assume this happened right after W4 was released in Feb '17. It means we'll be seeing 2 raid wings in 1.5 years from the merged team, as they clearly stated the next raid will be launching with the next episode. This is pretty much the same pace we had from the raid-only team after W3 (Jun '16 - Feb '17). I really fail to see all the doom and gloom preached here.

Even if they wanted to do more easy mode for Raids judging by the last 3 years of content, they just don’t have the time or the resources to do it, when there is only one raid release for 2018, and possibly two for 2019 giving there pacing and with that expectation, they will probably only be able to ship a single raid wing for 2020.

Edit: Roughly 4 Raids in the next two years, which depending on where you stand can be a good or bad thing.

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@InkTide.1908 said:

@InkTide.1908 said:there's already not enough people playing them for ANet to justify dedicating a whole team to it

How do you know? Internal insights or just wild guesses?

The fractal and raid teams used to be separate, and have now merged into a singular team that is most likely skewed towards fractals, as fractal releases reach more players according to GW2efficiency statistics (which themselves are almost always assumed to be skewed more towards the 'hardcore' portion of the playerbase, given the effort involved in setting up GW2efficiency and the lack of any official news or ingame resources mentioning it). It's also likely the merged team is smaller than the original total number of devs for the discrete fractal and raid teams - generally some positions become redundant and people get moved around when team mergers like that happen.

According to everyone I've seen speak about the issue, the raid population is hemorrhaging players at a rate it can't replace them. Content that's being played by fewer and fewer people is not the kind of content you put
more
resources into, if other content reaches more players.

It's probably so they can Coordinate new mechanics between content easily. There have been tons of new mechanics like Fixate, and Special Action skills that were developed by the raid teams that the fractal team only gogot their hands on after the raids introducing them were released. The two teams probably want to be able to coordinate creating and implementing new mechanics with some degree of awareness for what they're both doing.

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@IndigoSundown.5419 said:

@"Nick.6972" said:

The only valid argument to be made here is that designing an easy mode would take resources away from other game modes.

Current state of affairs:
  • Instanced content (raids/fractals) players unhappy with release cadence
  • Open world players unhappy with release cadence
  • WvW players unhappy with mode neglect
  • sPvP players unhappy with mode neglect

Yeah, you're right. The only valid argument to be made here is that designing an easy mode would take resources away from
one or more aspects of ongoing development
, and there are plenty of players in all of those areas already unhappy with how infrequent they see anything new. That's a pretty large downside.

Correct. IMO the only valid opinion for not doing something like this is that it would require resources from other areas (i.e. Living World) to be moved to raids. It's been 2.5 years of discussion about the validity of easy mode content.

We're at the point where the folks who want easy mode the request needs to change from "I want easy mode because of XYZ reasons" to "I want easy mode because of XYZ reasons and I want it at the expense of living world content". If that isn't something folks are willing to sacrifice, then there will be no change.

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@ButterPeanut.9746 said:

@"Nick.6972" said:

The only valid argument to be made here is that designing an easy mode would take resources away from other game modes.

Current state of affairs:
  • Instanced content (raids/fractals) players unhappy with release cadence
  • Open world players unhappy with release cadence
  • WvW players unhappy with mode neglect
  • sPvP players unhappy with mode neglect

Yeah, you're right. The only valid argument to be made here is that designing an easy mode would take resources away from
one or more aspects of ongoing development
, and there are plenty of players in all of those areas already unhappy with how infrequent they see anything new. That's a pretty large downside.

Correct. IMO the only valid opinion for not doing something like this is that it would require resources from other areas (i.e. Living World) to be moved to raids. It's been 2.5 years of discussion about the validity of easy mode content.

We're at the people where the folks who want easy mode the request needs to change from "I want easy mode because of XYZ reasons" to "I want easy mode because of XYZ reasons and I want it at the expense of living world content". If that isn't something folks are willing to sacrifice, then there will be no change.

I have been one of the most vocal advocates of easy mode, and I agree with what you are saying here.

Raids are in a classic Catch-22 situation. Right now, the niche nature of raids means they have to take a back seat to the rest of the game. It doesn't make sense to dedicate new resources to a mode that is, by their own admission, designed for a smaller percentage of players. At the same time, raiders are not happy with the release cadence. But, to justify adding the resources needed to improve that cadence, they would need to make raids appealing to more players - which would mean a lower barrier to entry for more casual players.

I've said it before. Raids in their current form are unsustainable long term in the game. Without compromises that hardcore raiders are dead set against, they cannot justify the resources needed for a release schedule short enough to keep the attention of hardcore raiders the way that raid focused MMOs can - meaning the raiding community in the game will get smaller and smaller over time (which will, in turn, mean fewer resources and longer wait times).

Meanwhile, the living world is suffering from all of this. We are getting incomplete maps and metas that were obviously rushed out the door and (again) by their own admission, later than planned. If anything, they need to move current resources from raids to living story. That part of the game is too deeply tied to the identity and success of the game.

I want raids to succeed and be a part of the game, but I don't see how that can happen long term given the resources they currently have available to them.

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@Blaeys.3102 said:

@"Nick.6972" said:

The only valid argument to be made here is that designing an easy mode would take resources away from other game modes.

Current state of affairs:
  • Instanced content (raids/fractals) players unhappy with release cadence
  • Open world players unhappy with release cadence
  • WvW players unhappy with mode neglect
  • sPvP players unhappy with mode neglect

Yeah, you're right. The only valid argument to be made here is that designing an easy mode would take resources away from
one or more aspects of ongoing development
, and there are plenty of players in all of those areas already unhappy with how infrequent they see anything new. That's a pretty large downside.

Correct. IMO the only valid opinion for not doing something like this is that it would require resources from other areas (i.e. Living World) to be moved to raids. It's been 2.5 years of discussion about the validity of easy mode content.

We're at the people where the folks who want easy mode the request needs to change from "I want easy mode because of XYZ reasons" to "I want easy mode because of XYZ reasons and I want it at the expense of living world content". If that isn't something folks are willing to sacrifice, then there will be no change.

I've said it before. Raids in their current form are unsustainable long term in the game. Without compromises that hardcore raiders are dead set against, they cannot justify the resources needed for a release schedule short enough to keep the attention of hardcore raiders the way that raid focused MMOs can - meaning the raiding community in the game will get smaller and smaller over time (which will, in turn, mean fewer resources and longer wait times).

I agree with pretty much everything you said as well, but i think this statement is putting the "problem" on the hardcore community. IMO, the opposition that you have received in your easy mode suggestions by the raiding community over the past 2.5 years is WAY less than the outbreak that would be fewer living world release for more raid resources.

IMO it isn't a "hard core players complaining won't let easy mode happen" problem...its a "there's no way the community, the $$$, and ANET's vision align with taking resources away from living world world and put them on raids" problem.

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@ButterPeanut.9746 said:

@"Nick.6972" said:

The only valid argument to be made here is that designing an easy mode would take resources away from other game modes.

Current state of affairs:
  • Instanced content (raids/fractals) players unhappy with release cadence
  • Open world players unhappy with release cadence
  • WvW players unhappy with mode neglect
  • sPvP players unhappy with mode neglect

Yeah, you're right. The only valid argument to be made here is that designing an easy mode would take resources away from
one or more aspects of ongoing development
, and there are plenty of players in all of those areas already unhappy with how infrequent they see anything new. That's a pretty large downside.

Correct. IMO the only valid opinion for not doing something like this is that it would require resources from other areas (i.e. Living World) to be moved to raids. It's been 2.5 years of discussion about the validity of easy mode content.

We're at the people where the folks who want easy mode the request needs to change from "I want easy mode because of XYZ reasons" to "I want easy mode because of XYZ reasons and I want it at the expense of living world content". If that isn't something folks are willing to sacrifice, then there will be no change.

I've said it before. Raids in their current form are unsustainable long term in the game. Without compromises that hardcore raiders are dead set against, they cannot justify the resources needed for a release schedule short enough to keep the attention of hardcore raiders the way that raid focused MMOs can - meaning the raiding community in the game will get smaller and smaller over time (which will, in turn, mean fewer resources and longer wait times).

I agree with pretty much everything you said as well, but i think this statement is putting the "problem" on the hardcore community. IMO, the opposition that you have received in your easy mode suggestions by the raiding community over the past 2.5 years is WAY less than the outbreak that would be fewer living world release for more raid resources.

IMO it isn't a "hard core players complaining won't let easy mode happen" problem...its a "there's no way the community, the $$$, and ANET's vision align with taking resources away from living world world and put them on raids" problem.

The problem isn't on any specific group. The problem is simple mathematics.

Basically, the only way to change anything about the current model for raids (which, again, I think is unsustainable long term) would be for them to hire new resources. They can't take them from the already shorthanded LS team. To bring in new resources for raids, they would have to up the appeal of raids in some way. Shortening the release time from 7 to even as low as 5 months wouldn't accomplish that (hardcore raiders churn through the content in, at most, 2 months). Tweaking old raids to add lower difficulties would bring in more players by lowering the difficulty barrier to entry. With that in mind, should they ever add new resources, it makes sense - from a fiduciary perspective - that the first step would be to use them to expand the target playerbase for raids. Once that is done, they could look at shortening the development cycle.

Im not saying that will happen. As we both point out, it unlikely that they will add new resources either way - and, if they do, the logical place to do so is on LS, not raids.

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@Blaeys.3102 said:

Meanwhile, the living world is suffering from all of this. We are getting incomplete maps and metas that were obviously rushed out the door and (again) by their own admission, later than planned. If anything, they need to move current resources from raids to living story. That part of the game is too deeply tied to the identity and success of the game.

You can't argue that raids are getting to little attention and at the same time make a statement that the limited resources and developers devoted to raids and fractals would make a meaningful change to the Living World development. This is just you wanting to blame raids for something which they are in almost no connection to. There certainly is things one could blame raids for, lack of Living Story at the current size of the team is most likely not among them. On the contrary, so far the raid development team was always praised how they managed to bring such quality content with such a small team.

That said, yes the rest is accurate. Instanced content is suffering when viewed from a hardcore raiders perspective. I don't think GW2 will ever be the game which will keep hardcore raiders entertained. For me personally I see raids as an extension and content for people who enjoy the base game and just want an occasional fix of difficult and fun content. Same goes for fractals. I'm not even sure a highly increased release window would benefit the mode that much. People would just burn through the content at an even faster pace (let's face it, a new fractal stays entertaining for maybe 1 day. A new raid for maybe 2 weeks at most for the hardcore crowd).

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@Blaeys.3102 said:

@"Nick.6972" said:

The only valid argument to be made here is that designing an easy mode would take resources away from other game modes.

Current state of affairs:
  • Instanced content (raids/fractals) players unhappy with release cadence
  • Open world players unhappy with release cadence
  • WvW players unhappy with mode neglect
  • sPvP players unhappy with mode neglect

Yeah, you're right. The only valid argument to be made here is that designing an easy mode would take resources away from
one or more aspects of ongoing development
, and there are plenty of players in all of those areas already unhappy with how infrequent they see anything new. That's a pretty large downside.

Correct. IMO the only valid opinion for not doing something like this is that it would require resources from other areas (i.e. Living World) to be moved to raids. It's been 2.5 years of discussion about the validity of easy mode content.

We're at the people where the folks who want easy mode the request needs to change from "I want easy mode because of XYZ reasons" to "I want easy mode because of XYZ reasons and I want it at the expense of living world content". If that isn't something folks are willing to sacrifice, then there will be no change.

I've said it before. Raids in their current form are unsustainable long term in the game. Without compromises that hardcore raiders are dead set against, they cannot justify the resources needed for a release schedule short enough to keep the attention of hardcore raiders the way that raid focused MMOs can - meaning the raiding community in the game will get smaller and smaller over time (which will, in turn, mean fewer resources and longer wait times).

I agree with pretty much everything you said as well, but i think this statement is putting the "problem" on the hardcore community. IMO, the opposition that you have received in your easy mode suggestions by the raiding community over the past 2.5 years is WAY less than the outbreak that would be fewer living world release for more raid resources.

IMO it isn't a "hard core players complaining won't let easy mode happen" problem...its a "there's no way the community, the $$$, and ANET's vision align with taking resources away from living world world and put them on raids" problem.

The problem isn't on any specific group. The problem is simple mathematics.

Basically, the only way to change anything about the current model for raids (which, again, I think is unsustainable long term) would be for them to hire new resources. They can't take them from the already shorthanded LS team. To bring in new resources for raids, they would have to up the appeal of raids in some way. Shortening the release time from 7 to even as low as 5 months wouldn't accomplish that (hardcore raiders churn through the content in, at most, 2 months). Tweaking old raids to add lower difficulties would bring in more players by lowering the difficulty barrier to entry. With that in mind, should they ever add new resources, it makes sense - from a fiduciary perspective - that the first step would be to use them to expand the target playerbase for raids. Once that is done, they could look at shortening the development cycle.

Im not saying that will happen. As we both point out, it unlikely that they will add new resources either way - and, if they do, the logical place to do so is on LS, not raids.

You said it better than me. That is effectively what I meant, just worded a bit incorrectly.

I'm genuinely happy that after all of the discussion after the past few years that we've come to the same ideology/solution/insert other words here.

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@ButterPeanut.9746 said:

@"Nick.6972" said:

The only valid argument to be made here is that designing an easy mode would take resources away from other game modes.

Current state of affairs:
  • Instanced content (raids/fractals) players unhappy with release cadence
  • Open world players unhappy with release cadence
  • WvW players unhappy with mode neglect
  • sPvP players unhappy with mode neglect

Yeah, you're right. The only valid argument to be made here is that designing an easy mode would take resources away from
one or more aspects of ongoing development
, and there are plenty of players in all of those areas already unhappy with how infrequent they see anything new. That's a pretty large downside.

Correct. IMO the only valid opinion for not doing something like this is that it would require resources from other areas (i.e. Living World) to be moved to raids. It's been 2.5 years of discussion about the validity of easy mode content.

We're at the people where the folks who want easy mode the request needs to change from "I want easy mode because of XYZ reasons" to "I want easy mode because of XYZ reasons and I want it at the expense of living world content". If that isn't something folks are willing to sacrifice, then there will be no change.

I've said it before. Raids in their current form are unsustainable long term in the game. Without compromises that hardcore raiders are dead set against, they cannot justify the resources needed for a release schedule short enough to keep the attention of hardcore raiders the way that raid focused MMOs can - meaning the raiding community in the game will get smaller and smaller over time (which will, in turn, mean fewer resources and longer wait times).

I agree with pretty much everything you said as well, but i think this statement is putting the "problem" on the hardcore community. IMO, the opposition that you have received in your easy mode suggestions by the raiding community over the past 2.5 years is WAY less than the outbreak that would be fewer living world release for more raid resources.

IMO it isn't a "hard core players complaining won't let easy mode happen" problem...its a "there's no way the community, the $$$, and ANET's vision align with taking resources away from living world world and put them on raids" problem.

The problem isn't on any specific group. The problem is simple mathematics.

Basically, the only way to change anything about the current model for raids (which, again, I think is unsustainable long term) would be for them to hire new resources. They can't take them from the already shorthanded LS team. To bring in new resources for raids, they would have to up the appeal of raids in some way. Shortening the release time from 7 to even as low as 5 months wouldn't accomplish that (hardcore raiders churn through the content in, at most, 2 months). Tweaking old raids to add lower difficulties would bring in more players by lowering the difficulty barrier to entry. With that in mind, should they ever add new resources, it makes sense - from a fiduciary perspective - that the first step would be to use them to expand the target playerbase for raids. Once that is done, they could look at shortening the development cycle.

Im not saying that will happen. As we both point out, it unlikely that they will add new resources either way - and, if they do, the logical place to do so is on LS, not raids.

You said it better than me. That is effectively what I meant, just worded a bit incorrectly.

I'm genuinely happy that after all of the discussion after the past few years that we've come to the same ideology/solution/insert other words here.

We more or less do at this point, but for the record, I still believe that raids as they stand now are not sustainable - and will probably not stand the test of time in the game. I would like to see raids as part of the game, but I simply do not see how they can keep hardcore raiders engaged long term. It isn't really a change of heart on my part - just a realization that they simply do not have the resources at ANet to do them in a way that will keep enough players in them long term.

And, with that in mind, I do strongly believe that any new developmental resources dedicated to raids (which again, should come after any additions to the LS teams who obviously need it right now) would need to first and foremost be used to add easy modes to existing raids - to widen the pool of raiders and justify any future work.

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