Add dificulty options to every instanced content?

[yusayu.3629]

@neoteo.3975 said:

@yusayu.3629 said:Raids should have more difficulties and harder modes than just normal and CM. Rewards need to be appropriate, as well.

Fractals... I dunno, maybe there should be a T5 with CMs at the end, but giving more fractals an actual CM mode would probably be fine as well.

For the rest of the PvE content? No. That's supposed to be accessible for everyone, and dungeons have terrible design and are mostly dead anyways.

I did mention an easier mode than the current one, but ok, i think the message was sent, anet will think about it

What would you need an easier mode for? Most of the PvE content is very accessible if you're ready to put in some time. Raids are supposed to be the higher-difficulty content, an easy mode for raids makes no sense. If you don't want to learn to raid, then that's just not for you then.

[Mcintosh.8427]

@neoteo.3975 said:In order to be playable by everyone the current dificulty does not apeal to those more veteran players.

Adding a difuculty selection just before going in every instance, regardless if solo story content or multiplayer fractals / raids could indeed make everyone happy.

• easy mode
• normal mode (current mode)
• hard mode
• inferno mode

Give your options below on how many types of difficulty modes instanced content should have.

4 modes is a little much. 3 modes would be reasonable. Normal (as they are), Hard (the mobs and bosses are tougher and hit harder), Insanity (same as hard mode but, you're gimp-ed in some way). And could add achieves.

[Ashantara.8731]

I would be content with the first three modes. No need for a fourth one. Just like in GW1. :+1:

Then others who just want to experience the story will stop complaining about the difficulty of fights, and I will stop complaining about the lack thereof in certain instances. ;)

[Blinka.9078]

Yes

This game is in dire need of more difficult content. Have you all seen woodenpotatos completing the whole personal storyline without using 1 skill? If this doesn’t show the game needs to be fixed, I don’t know what will.

[Naxos.2503]

More choice couldn't hurt, might need reward balancing though, otherwise there would be little enthusiasm from a fair amount of players.

[trixantea.1230]

@KryTiKaL.3125 said:

@"trixantea.1230" said:The majority of players didn't get the chance to experiece the content of raids because of the elitist jerks who control the raid finder and suck alll the fun and motivation out of normal players. This can be fixed by giving these players a lower difficulty with a lower reward. Many elitists will start raging into the forums but in-game, this will give many casual players new content to enjoy.

As for the God forsaken dungeons, They are way too easy and unrewarding for experienced players. I suggest adding a higher difficulty with higher rewards. The rewards can be somewhat equivalent to high tier fractals. This will give experienced players more challenging and more rewarding daily content to grind.

I can understand the frustration with the elitist types, they are pretty rampant in GW2.

However while their attitudes are

wrong

I would argue that many of what you call "normal" players in the game also have a similarly wrong attitude. Its a give and take relationship that has resulted in this sort of drastically opposed coexistence where more casual players don't want to bother improving because the game caters to them so significantly so they literally see no point in doing so, and the more "hardcore" players becoming fed up with that mentality that has become so commonplace on this game when they want to be able to complete this "challenging" content.

Speaking as someone who has been on

both

sides of the spectrum I can tell you that it gets pretty frustrating dealing with the more casual types who want to participate in "higher end" content, yet they perpetually shun the idea of doing something outside of what they had already been doing. Not all behave like this, mind you, but it has definitely contributed to both sides becoming the enemy of the other in the way that they are today. I don't agree with how the "elitist" types handle players who are still learning in Raid content, but I understand

why

they behave that way same as I can understand

why

casual players would want an easier Raid mode so they can avoid dealing with such players. Believe me, just in PvP/WvW I've tried explaining to people how they should start to learn their class and improve, as everyone has to start somewhere, yet many times I was met with "I'm not a robot, I can do what I want" and this general "I know better than

everyone

else because I'm me so

duh

" mentality. Its cringey and frustrating to deal with.

As for the actual

challenge

of Raids, you're not missing much. Like I've repeated several times already, they aren't difficult. When the "top guilds" that Raid on GW2 clear the newest and latest Raid the

same day

that it releases then you know there isn't much challenge involved in the content when you compare it to literally any other MMORPG with Raid content.

Also yeah, Dungeons need a Hard Mode or Challenge mode, whatever they want to call it. Its legitimately dead content and something needs to be done with it.

Players who are able to access raids and "top guilds" are just a minority amongst the playerbase. The difficulty of the raid can vary from one player to another and the majority of players do not have the knowledge/skill/guilds to do this content. Many of these players aren't even given a chance to practice and tune their builds in a casual friendly way just as they do before accessing high level fractals or competitive PvP.

The current state of raids is depriving tons of players of the opportunity to explore this content and practice it in order to get skilled. Elitist who turned raids into their dictatorship are making things worse by forcing players to have specific build/gear/skill in order to play. This can only fixed by giving new players a lower difficulty (with of course lower rewards) so they can practice/explore/enjoy this PvE content without the need to feel pressured.

[Eekasqueak.7850]

It worked in 1, I wouldn't mind some kind of elite mode for some maps. Maybe even another layer of map completion with new rewards.

[Asum.4960]

Especially for Story instances, that would go a long way to make it more enjoyable for me.

Difficulty is an often overlooked aspect of story telling, and when Story missions are so easy that when I literally get stuck in terrain and can't do anything while the NPC's kill the big bad by themselves, it's quite deflating.

! I'm not kidding, in my first "All or Nothing" playthrough I got stuck in a wall and Aurene finished of Kralk without me ever getting a single hit in. The final cutscene triggered as I was downed stuck in a wall, trying to kill my Necro with corruption skills so I would be able to respawn.

It's the same issue I have with open world and meta events, just asking myself why am I even here? My contribution doesn't matter.Where is the fun in that?

Killing big story bads like Gods and ancient Liches shouldn't be possible while barely paying attention and managing my inventory on the side.

But as I said for years, what I wish Anet would do is turn selected story instances into repeatable, difficult 5 man instances that unlock after story completion.They could largely reuse the existing content with relatively little extra work required to add some new mechanics and beefing them up greatly, adding a massive amount of repeatable content to the game.

[maddoctor.2738]

@"Asum.4960" said:Especially for Story instances, that would go a long way to make it more enjoyable for me.

Difficulty is an often overlooked aspect of story telling, and when Story missions are so easy that when I literally get stuck in terrain and can't do anything while the NPC's kill the big bad by themselves, it's quite deflating.

! I'm not kidding, in my first "All or Nothing" playthrough I got stuck in a wall and Aurene finished of Kralk without me ever getting a single hit in. The final cutscene triggered as I was downed stuck in a wall, trying to kill my Necro with corruption skills so I would be able to respawn.

It's the same issue I have with open world and meta events, just asking myself why am I even here? My contribution doesn't matter.Where is the fun in that?

Killing big story bads like Gods and ancient Liches shouldn't be possible while barely paying attention and managing my inventory on the side.

But as I said for years, what I wish Anet would do is turn selected story instances into repeatable, difficult 5 man instances that unlock after story completion.They could largely reuse the existing content with relatively little extra work required to add some new mechanics and beefing them up greatly, adding a massive amount of repeatable content to the game.

Story instances of Path of Fire and beyond are impossible to fail because even if you die you get revived at the same spot and continue from where you left off. I think it's the way Arenanet decided to handle the difficulty of story instances, so all kinds of players can beat the story. Adding an "extra" version of the end instance with unique rewards and increased difficulty is the same as the Migraine situation. These harder versions of story instances need repeatable rewards in order to survive

[maddoctor.2738]

@"trixantea.1230" said:Players who are able to access raids and "top guilds" are just a minority amongst the playerbase. The difficulty of the raid can vary from one player to another and the majority of players do not have the knowledge/skill/guilds to do this content. Many of these players aren't even given a chance to practice and tune their builds in a casual friendly way just as they do before accessing high level fractals or competitive PvP.

Most Raid bosses already give this chance to practice the mechanics. Fighting Vale Guardian before he splits for the first time is like fighting an open world boss, can't get more casual friendly than that. Maybe if these players stopped thinking of Raids as binary, win/lose, and instead think of a Raid as a set of multiple encounters that need to be beaten in a row, then they'd figure all the casual friendly tools to train and practice raids are already in the game.

There are some bosses where this isn't working very well, meaning they don't have a clear difficulty progression, like for example Slothasor but most Raid bosses follow this escalating difficulty pattern. If you want to practice/train, get your 9 other casual friends and start practicing on the first part of each raid boss fight, once you manage to beat that without anyone getting downed and figuring out the mechanics you can move to the next phase, rinse and repeat.

But this whole difficulty discussion isn't about training isn't it?

[Asum.4960]

@"trixantea.1230" said:Players who are able to access raids and "top guilds" are just a minority amongst the playerbase. The difficulty of the raid can vary from one player to another and the majority of players do not have the knowledge/skill/guilds to do this content. Many of these players aren't even given a chance to practice and tune their builds in a casual friendly way just as they do before accessing high level fractals or competitive PvP.

The current state of raids is depriving tons of players of the opportunity to explore this content and practice it in order to get skilled. Elitist who turned raids into their dictatorship are making things worse by forcing players to have specific build/gear/skill in order to play. This can only fixed by giving new players a lower difficulty (with of course lower rewards) so they can practice/explore/enjoy this PvE content without the need to feel pressured.

I honestly don't quite get this attitude or conviction that you can't get into more difficult content because of the expectations of people who already have been doing that content for years on repeat.You can't join an experienced group with an existing strategy and expectations and expect to be able to just do your own thing with builds etc. and learn the content that way.

The best way to get into content like raids is to put in a bit of effort to form/look for a group of people at a similar skill/experience level, or people who expressly want to help new players, and then to start wiping on Raid bosses until the people in the group learn the mechanics and their roles until you don't wipe any more.

It's no wonder veterans of that content, who went through that same process once, get bitter when they constantly get slowed down by people who are more or less expecting to be carried, after they themselves put in the work to get good at the content.

Everybody can access Raids. Nobody is keeping anybody from doing so.The solution is to find like-minded casual players to experiment and practice in raids with, not to make content so easy that simply no one cares what anyone does because it doesn't matter and you will succeed anyway, and I'm not sure why people think that will prepare anyone to do actual Raids.

Initially wiping on a Raid boss is not a failure, it's part of the process of learning it.Casual GW2 players are so conditioned to be able to walk through any and all content without even trying that they proclaim raids to be impossible just because they tried once and wiped for an hour on a boss.Then they want to join experienced groups which are looking for other experienced players in order to get carried, and then call them toxic when they get kicked from those due to having no clue what to do.

You are not supposed to be given the opportunity to do Raids, you are supposed to make that opportunity yourself, and that is something that is available to everybody.

[neoteo.3975]

@Asum.4960 said:

@"trixantea.1230" said:Players who are able to access raids and "top guilds" are just a minority amongst the playerbase. The difficulty of the raid can vary from one player to another and the majority of players do not have the knowledge/skill/guilds to do this content. Many of these players aren't even given a chance to practice and tune their builds in a casual friendly way just as they do before accessing high level fractals or competitive PvP.

The current state of raids is depriving tons of players of the opportunity to explore this content and practice it in order to get skilled. Elitist who turned raids into their dictatorship are making things worse by forcing players to have specific build/gear/skill in order to play. This can only fixed by giving new players a lower difficulty (with of course lower rewards) so they can practice/explore/enjoy this PvE content without the need to feel pressured.

I honestly don't quite get this attitude or conviction that you can't get into more difficult content because of the expectations of people who already have been doing that content for years on repeat.You can't join an experienced group with an existing strategy and expectations and expect to be able to just do your own thing with builds etc. and learn the content that way.

The best way to get into content like raids is to put in a bit of effort to form/look for a group of people at a similar skill/experience level, or people who expressly want to help new players, and then to start wiping on Raid bosses until the people in the group learn the mechanics and their roles until you don't wipe any more.

It's no wonder veterans of that content, who went through that same process once, get bitter when they constantly get slowed down by people who are more or less expecting to be carried, after they themselves put in the work to get good at the content.

Everybody can access Raids. Nobody is keeping anybody from doing so.The solution is to find like-minded casual players to experiment and practice in raids with, not to make content so easy that simply no one cares what anyone does because it doesn't matter and you will succeed anyway, and I'm not sure why people think that will prepare anyone to do actual Raids.

Initially wiping on a Raid boss is not a failure, it's part of the process of learning it.Casual GW2 players are so conditioned to be able to walk through any and all content without even trying that they proclaim raids to be impossible just because they tried once and wiped for an hour on a boss.Then they want to join experienced groups which are looking for other experienced players in order to get carried, and then call them toxic when they get kicked from those due to having no clue what to do.

You are not supposed to be given the opportunity to do Raids, you are supposed to make that opportunity yourself, and that is something that is available to everybody.

I did domain of anguish since day 1 when it took 8 hours to complete foundry in gw1, I know exactly what you mean. Get on voice helps a lot and listen to those who have a plan.

[Ototo.3214]

There's already a variety of different difficulties across instanced content like others have said, and I'm perfectly fine with how it currently is. Challenge motes also already exist for some if you really want it to be harder. I really don't need or want some popup saying "how hard you want it?" every time I enter an instance.Someone also already brought up that rewards shouldn't be different by difficulty either, which I agree with. But if rewards aren't different then there's really no point. I guess you could just make the reward an achievement...But they already do that with CMs...

[KryTiKaL.3125]

@trixantea.1230 said:

@"KryTiKaL.3125" said:I can understand the frustration with the elitist types, they are pretty rampant in GW2.

However while their attitudes are

wrong

I would argue that many of what you call "normal" players in the game also have a similarly wrong attitude. Its a give and take relationship that has resulted in this sort of drastically opposed coexistence where more casual players don't want to bother improving because the game caters to them so significantly so they literally see no point in doing so, and the more "hardcore" players becoming fed up with that mentality that has become so commonplace on this game when they want to be able to complete this "challenging" content.

Speaking as someone who has been on

both

sides of the spectrum I can tell you that it gets pretty frustrating dealing with the more casual types who want to participate in "higher end" content, yet they perpetually shun the idea of doing something outside of what they had already been doing. Not all behave like this, mind you, but it has definitely contributed to both sides becoming the enemy of the other in the way that they are today. I don't agree with how the "elitist" types handle players who are still learning in Raid content, but I understand

why

they behave that way same as I can understand

why

casual players would want an easier Raid mode so they can avoid dealing with such players. Believe me, just in PvP/WvW I've tried explaining to people how they should start to learn their class and improve, as everyone has to start somewhere, yet many times I was met with "I'm not a robot, I can do what I want" and this general "I know better than

everyone

else because I'm me so

duh

" mentality. Its cringey and frustrating to deal with.

As for the actual

challenge

of Raids, you're not missing much. Like I've repeated several times already, they aren't difficult. When the "top guilds" that Raid on GW2 clear the newest and latest Raid the

same day

that it releases then you know there isn't much challenge involved in the content when you compare it to literally any other MMORPG with Raid content.

Also yeah, Dungeons need a Hard Mode or Challenge mode, whatever they want to call it. Its legitimately dead content and something needs to be done with it.

Players who are able to access raids and "top guilds" are just a minority amongst the playerbase. The difficulty of the raid can vary from one player to another and the majority of players do not have the knowledge/skill/guilds to do this content. Many of these players aren't even given a chance to practice and tune their builds in a casual friendly way just as they do before accessing high level fractals or competitive PvP.

The current state of raids is depriving tons of players of the opportunity to explore this content and practice it in order to get skilled. Elitist who turned raids into their dictatorship are making things worse by forcing players to have specific build/gear/skill in order to play. This can only fixed by giving new players a lower difficulty (with of course lower rewards) so they can practice/explore/enjoy this PvE content without the need to feel pressured.

"making things worse by forcing players to have specific build/gear/skill in order to play"

This is something that literally happens on any other MMORPG when it comes to this kind of content and the mentality you, and others, seem to have as to how you handle that information is to shun it. That is exactly what I was referencing in my post. It's that, for some reason, while you want to be included in this content, while you want to be able to experience it, you shun the idea that you should also be changing how you approach it.

I won't say that the "elitist" types are right in how they handle newer players with Raids, many players on this game can 100% be toxic in such crazy ways that I can't even begin to describe it. However that doesn't make the idea of needing a specific meta build to be able to properly contribute in a Raid such a radical or bad idea. It happens on every other MMORPG, and it seems to me that apparently the only reason that its such a horribly shunned idea by casual players, or players like yourself, is that ArenaNet advertised this idea of "play how you want" to the GW2 playerbase and many seemed to take that at such face value it has now lead to the current at odds relationship between the casual players and the "hardcore" players.

You need to keep in mind, these builds you say that players like you and others need to practice with and fine tune are irrelevant in the scenario. There are already builds and information made available on the internet that have gone through lots of use and testing that are tailored to the content. It is all already there and available for players to apply in-game and then practice with so that they can properly contribute in a Raid. Whether you do this is entirely up to you and if you end up not contributing to DPS or healing or anything else to such a capacity that you aren't, for lack of a better term, dead weight then that kind of falls on you. Speaking as someone who has been in situations like that, on both sides, its frustrating. It is frustrating because you are going to get called out almost specifically because of it and no one likes that and it is also frustrating for the rest of the Raid because it just feels like someone isn't pulling their weight. So this back and forth would likely ensue and both sides come out of it angry and more jaded and spiteful of the other.

At some point something has got to give and like I've said I've been on both sides of this issue. Both as a casual player and a hardcore player and I can tell you from experience making that shift...it was basically entirely my own mentality that kept me from moving forward. I thought I knew better, that I knew what would work and they were all just elitist and wanted to control everything and it had nothing to do with me, just that it was all them and they were these crazy elitists for wanting me to use a build that I did not create all on my own. That was not the case. Once I learned that it was my own fault for holding myself back like that I was able to finally participate in things, and this isn't even just on GW2, that I had not been able to participate in previously.

Like I said, I'm not saying these "elitist" players are right in the way that they handle it, but I'm also saying that the other side isn't entirely innocent when it comes to the current situation between these two "groups".

Also as Asum also pointed out, no one is keeping you from doing this content and you should try to seek out like-minded players to practice content with. And to also figure out what the experienced raid players have already figured out in terms of builds.

[Ashen.2907]

@trixantea.1230 said:

@KryTiKaL.3125 said:

@trixantea.1230 said:The majority of players didn't get the chance to experiece the content of raids because of the elitist jerks who control the raid finder and suck alll the fun and motivation out of normal players. This can be fixed by giving these players a lower difficulty with a lower reward. Many elitists will start raging into the forums but in-game, this will give many casual players new content to enjoy.

As for the God forsaken dungeons, They are way too easy and unrewarding for experienced players. I suggest adding a higher difficulty with higher rewards. The rewards can be somewhat equivalent to high tier fractals. This will give experienced players more challenging and more rewarding daily content to grind.

I can understand the frustration with the elitist types, they are pretty rampant in GW2.

However while their attitudes are

wrong

I would argue that many of what you call "normal" players in the game also have a similarly wrong attitude. Its a give and take relationship that has resulted in this sort of drastically opposed coexistence where more casual players don't want to bother improving because the game caters to them so significantly so they literally see no point in doing so, and the more "hardcore" players becoming fed up with that mentality that has become so commonplace on this game when they want to be able to complete this "challenging" content.

Speaking as someone who has been on

both

sides of the spectrum I can tell you that it gets pretty frustrating dealing with the more casual types who want to participate in "higher end" content, yet they perpetually shun the idea of doing something outside of what they had already been doing. Not all behave like this, mind you, but it has definitely contributed to both sides becoming the enemy of the other in the way that they are today. I don't agree with how the "elitist" types handle players who are still learning in Raid content, but I understand

why

they behave that way same as I can understand

why

casual players would want an easier Raid mode so they can avoid dealing with such players. Believe me, just in PvP/WvW I've tried explaining to people how they should start to learn their class and improve, as everyone has to start somewhere, yet many times I was met with "I'm not a robot, I can do what I want" and this general "I know better than

everyone

else because I'm me so

duh

" mentality. Its cringey and frustrating to deal with.

As for the actual

challenge

of Raids, you're not missing much. Like I've repeated several times already, they aren't difficult. When the "top guilds" that Raid on GW2 clear the newest and latest Raid the

same day

that it releases then you know there isn't much challenge involved in the content when you compare it to literally any other MMORPG with Raid content.

Also yeah, Dungeons need a Hard Mode or Challenge mode, whatever they want to call it. Its legitimately dead content and something needs to be done with it.

Players who are able to access raids and "top guilds" are just a minority amongst the playerbase. The difficulty of the raid can vary from one player to another and the majority of players do not have the knowledge/skill/guilds to do this content. Many of these players aren't even given a chance to practice and tune their builds in a casual friendly way just as they do before accessing high level fractals or competitive PvP.

The current state of raids is depriving tons of players of the opportunity to explore this content and practice it in order to get skilled. Elitist who turned raids into their dictatorship are making things worse by forcing players to have specific build/gear/skill in order to play. This can only fixed by giving new players a lower difficulty (with of course lower rewards) so they can practice/explore/enjoy this PvE content without the need to feel pressured.

Weird, everyone currently playing the existing difficulty level of raids were new to the content. A lower difficulty was not a necessity then, any more than it is now.

That said, I am not opposed to multiple difficulty levels for instanced content, including raids.

[Shikaru.7618]

@KryTiKaL.3125 said:

@trixantea.1230 said:

@KryTiKaL.3125 said:I can understand the frustration with the elitist types, they are pretty rampant in GW2.

However while their attitudes are

wrong

I would argue that many of what you call "normal" players in the game also have a similarly wrong attitude. Its a give and take relationship that has resulted in this sort of drastically opposed coexistence where more casual players don't want to bother improving because the game caters to them so significantly so they literally see no point in doing so, and the more "hardcore" players becoming fed up with that mentality that has become so commonplace on this game when they want to be able to complete this "challenging" content.

Speaking as someone who has been on

both

sides of the spectrum I can tell you that it gets pretty frustrating dealing with the more casual types who want to participate in "higher end" content, yet they perpetually shun the idea of doing something outside of what they had already been doing. Not all behave like this, mind you, but it has definitely contributed to both sides becoming the enemy of the other in the way that they are today. I don't agree with how the "elitist" types handle players who are still learning in Raid content, but I understand

why

they behave that way same as I can understand

why

casual players would want an easier Raid mode so they can avoid dealing with such players. Believe me, just in PvP/WvW I've tried explaining to people how they should start to learn their class and improve, as everyone has to start somewhere, yet many times I was met with "I'm not a robot, I can do what I want" and this general "I know better than

everyone

else because I'm me so

duh

" mentality. Its cringey and frustrating to deal with.

As for the actual

challenge

of Raids, you're not missing much. Like I've repeated several times already, they aren't difficult. When the "top guilds" that Raid on GW2 clear the newest and latest Raid the

same day

that it releases then you know there isn't much challenge involved in the content when you compare it to literally any other MMORPG with Raid content.

Also yeah, Dungeons need a Hard Mode or Challenge mode, whatever they want to call it. Its legitimately dead content and something needs to be done with it.

Players who are able to access raids and "top guilds" are just a minority amongst the playerbase. The difficulty of the raid can vary from one player to another and the majority of players do not have the knowledge/skill/guilds to do this content. Many of these players aren't even given a chance to practice and tune their builds in a casual friendly way just as they do before accessing high level fractals or competitive PvP.

The current state of raids is depriving tons of players of the opportunity to explore this content and practice it in order to get skilled. Elitist who turned raids into their dictatorship are making things worse by forcing players to have specific build/gear/skill in order to play. This can only fixed by giving new players a lower difficulty (with of course lower rewards) so they can practice/explore/enjoy this PvE content without the need to feel pressured.

"making things worse by forcing players to have specific build/gear/skill in order to play"

This is something that literally happens on any other MMORPG when it comes to this kind of content and the mentality you, and others, seem to have as to how you handle that information is to shun it. That is exactly what I was referencing in my post. It's that, for some reason, while you want to be included in this content, while you want to be able to experience it, you shun the idea that

you

should also be changing how you approach it.

I won't say that the "elitist" types are right in how they handle newer players with Raids, many players on this game can 100% be toxic in such crazy ways that I can't even begin to describe it. However that doesn't make the idea of needing a specific meta build to be able to properly contribute in a Raid such a radical or bad idea. It happens on every other MMORPG, and it seems to me that apparently the only reason that its such a horribly shunned idea by casual players, or players like yourself, is that ArenaNet advertised this idea of "play how you want" to the GW2 playerbase and many seemed to take that at such face value it has now lead to the current at odds relationship between the casual players and the "hardcore" players.

You need to keep in mind, these builds you say that players like you and others need to practice with and fine tune are irrelevant in the scenario. There are already builds and information made available on the internet that have gone through lots of use and testing that are tailored to the content. It is all already there and available for players to apply in-game and then practice with so that they can properly contribute in a Raid. Whether you do this is entirely up to you and if you end up not contributing to DPS or healing or anything else to such a capacity that you aren't, for lack of a better term, dead weight then that kind of falls on you. Speaking as someone who has been in situations like that, on both sides, its frustrating. It is frustrating because you are going to get called out almost specifically because of it and no one likes that and it is also frustrating for the rest of the Raid because it just feels like someone isn't pulling their weight. So this back and forth would likely ensue and both sides come out of it angry and more jaded and spiteful of the other.

At some point something has got to give and like I've said I've been on both sides of this issue. Both as a casual player and a hardcore player and I can tell you from experience making that shift...it was basically entirely my own mentality that kept me from moving forward. I thought I knew better, that I knew what would work and they were all just elitist and wanted to control everything and it had nothing to do with me, just that it was all them and they were these crazy elitists for wanting me to use a build that

I

did not create all on my own. That was not the case. Once I learned that it was my own fault for holding myself back like that I was able to finally participate in things, and this isn't even just on GW2, that I had not been able to participate in previously.

Like I said, I'm not saying these "elitist" players are right in the way that they handle it, but I'm also saying that the other side isn't entirely innocent when it comes to the current situation between these two "groups".

Also as Asum also pointed out, no one is keeping you from doing this content and you should try to seek out like-minded players to practice content with. And to also figure out what the experienced raid players have already figured out in terms of builds.

They should just rebrand "play how you want" to "fail how you want." Just do it with other players that also want to fail the same way you do.> @trixantea.1230 said:

@KryTiKaL.3125 said:

@trixantea.1230 said:The majority of players didn't get the chance to experiece the content of raids because of the elitist jerks who control the raid finder and suck alll the fun and motivation out of normal players. This can be fixed by giving these players a lower difficulty with a lower reward. Many elitists will start raging into the forums but in-game, this will give many casual players new content to enjoy.

As for the God forsaken dungeons, They are way too easy and unrewarding for experienced players. I suggest adding a higher difficulty with higher rewards. The rewards can be somewhat equivalent to high tier fractals. This will give experienced players more challenging and more rewarding daily content to grind.

I can understand the frustration with the elitist types, they are pretty rampant in GW2.

However while their attitudes are

wrong

I would argue that many of what you call "normal" players in the game also have a similarly wrong attitude. Its a give and take relationship that has resulted in this sort of drastically opposed coexistence where more casual players don't want to bother improving because the game caters to them so significantly so they literally see no point in doing so, and the more "hardcore" players becoming fed up with that mentality that has become so commonplace on this game when they want to be able to complete this "challenging" content.

Speaking as someone who has been on

both

sides of the spectrum I can tell you that it gets pretty frustrating dealing with the more casual types who want to participate in "higher end" content, yet they perpetually shun the idea of doing something outside of what they had already been doing. Not all behave like this, mind you, but it has definitely contributed to both sides becoming the enemy of the other in the way that they are today. I don't agree with how the "elitist" types handle players who are still learning in Raid content, but I understand

why

they behave that way same as I can understand

why

casual players would want an easier Raid mode so they can avoid dealing with such players. Believe me, just in PvP/WvW I've tried explaining to people how they should start to learn their class and improve, as everyone has to start somewhere, yet many times I was met with "I'm not a robot, I can do what I want" and this general "I know better than

everyone

else because I'm me so

duh

" mentality. Its cringey and frustrating to deal with.

As for the actual

challenge

of Raids, you're not missing much. Like I've repeated several times already, they aren't difficult. When the "top guilds" that Raid on GW2 clear the newest and latest Raid the

same day

that it releases then you know there isn't much challenge involved in the content when you compare it to literally any other MMORPG with Raid content.

Also yeah, Dungeons need a Hard Mode or Challenge mode, whatever they want to call it. Its legitimately dead content and something needs to be done with it.

Players who are able to access raids and "top guilds" are just a minority amongst the playerbase. The difficulty of the raid can vary from one player to another and the majority of players do not have the knowledge/skill/guilds to do this content. Many of these players aren't even given a chance to practice and tune their builds in a casual friendly way just as they do before accessing high level fractals or competitive PvP.

The current state of raids is depriving tons of players of the opportunity to explore this content and practice it in order to get skilled. Elitist who turned raids into their dictatorship are making things worse by forcing players to have specific build/gear/skill in order to play. This can only fixed by giving new players a lower difficulty (with of course lower rewards) so they can practice/explore/enjoy this PvE content without the need to feel pressured.

Theres literally nothing stopping you from making a squad and entering the raid instance. Your squad your rules your builds. I'll even bring my nomads longbow ranger to help out. Just dont be toxic and ask me to change my build.

[KryTiKaL.3125]

@"Ototo.3214" said:There's already a variety of different difficulties across instanced content like others have said, and I'm perfectly fine with how it currently is. Challenge motes also already exist for some if you really want it to be harder. I really don't need or want some popup saying "how hard you want it?" every time I enter an instance.Someone also already brought up that rewards shouldn't be different by difficulty either, which I agree with. But if rewards aren't different then there's really no point. I guess you could just make the reward an achievement...But they already do that with CMs...

Except these "different difficulties" don't provide nearly the kind of challenge that appeals to players, especially not the hardcore ones.

I've repeated multiple times in this thread already the excessive difference in the speed in which just new Raid content is 100% cleared in comparison to MMORPGs with Raids as well. That is very telling as to how difficult, or how not difficult, in general the PvE content is in GW2. When your "toughest PvE challenge" has a new release and it gets 100% cleared that very same day and lacks difficulty scaling it prevents that content from having appropriate longevity and also clearly doesn't challenge these players nearly enough.

[IndigoSundown.5419]

@KryTiKaL.3125 said:

@"Ototo.3214" said:There's already a variety of different difficulties across instanced content like others have said, and I'm perfectly fine with how it currently is. Challenge motes also already exist for some if you really want it to be harder. I really don't need or want some popup saying "how hard you want it?" every time I enter an instance.Someone also already brought up that rewards shouldn't be different by difficulty either, which I agree with. But if rewards aren't different then there's really no point. I guess you could just make the reward an achievement...But they already do that with CMs...

Except these "different difficulties" don't provide nearly the kind of challenge that appeals to players, especially not the hardcore ones.

I've repeated multiple times in this thread already the excessive difference in the speed in which just new

Raid

content is 100% cleared in comparison to MMORPGs with Raids as well. That is very telling as to how difficult, or how not difficult, in general the PvE content is in GW2. When your "toughest PvE challenge" has a new release and it gets 100% cleared

that very same day

and lacks difficulty scaling it prevents that content from having appropriate longevity and also clearly doesn't challenge these players nearly enough.

That may be the nature of the GW2 content beast.

Challenge in PvE across MMO's comes via either behind-the-scenes numbers or execution in game. Other MMO raids (when I did them, anyway) involved greater AI numbers and new mechanics. Each time a new raid released, players had to not only learn mechanics, but also re-gear a piece at a time in order to mitigate the numbers advantage later boss encounters at least partially relied on. Most of the longevity came from the gear farm cycle. In fact, most if not all MMO PvE longevity comes from rewards.

Meanwhile, GW2 challenge cannot rely on numbers. Player capabilities are already capped. That's going to remain as is until a hypothetical next E-Spec leads to more power creep.

That means that GW2 has to rely on execution. However, player skill exists on a continuum. After multiple raid wings, the only new execution needed is whatever mechanical gimmick needs to be circumvented for a new encounter. Players who raid already have character rotation, group coordination, buff, CC and burn cycles down. Those aspects of execution needed revision at PoF release, but not anything substantial since. So, the new gimmicks are the only new challenge. How long does it take to figure those out?

Raids already exclude a large percentage of the population. In order to justify continued hard content development, that content has to appeal to enough players to make developing it worthwhile. I suspect that if we had access to the real numbers of players who access raids, especially the harder bosses or the CM's, we'd see that the percentage of the total population accessing that hardest content is quite low.

That seems a perfect argument for tiered difficulty. The question with that is where do the resources to produce tiered content come from? They would come at the expense of even greater wait times for new raids or at the expense of majority-aimed content. Neither seems like a good thing.

[Tumult.2578]

I don't want to see it happen because of the slowdown in play. If it happens, rewards should be decreased for selecting a harder instance or event mode.Seriously, if your that great a player, and you want a harder mode, you should have to do more for the same reward.Frankly, I don't see how it would work. My enemy dies in easy mode and is laying on the ground or de-spawned, yet yours is still there to keep fighting in harder mode?Short of making it a group choice, I don't get it. If many of the instances become harder due to groups selections, what will that do to player population, or lack there of?No thanks.

[KryTiKaL.3125]

@IndigoSundown.5419 said:

@KryTiKaL.3125 said:

@"Ototo.3214" said:There's already a variety of different difficulties across instanced content like others have said, and I'm perfectly fine with how it currently is. Challenge motes also already exist for some if you really want it to be harder. I really don't need or want some popup saying "how hard you want it?" every time I enter an instance.Someone also already brought up that rewards shouldn't be different by difficulty either, which I agree with. But if rewards aren't different then there's really no point. I guess you could just make the reward an achievement...But they already do that with CMs...

Except these "different difficulties" don't provide nearly the kind of challenge that appeals to players, especially not the hardcore ones.

I've repeated multiple times in this thread already the excessive difference in the speed in which just new

Raid

content is 100% cleared in comparison to MMORPGs with Raids as well. That is very telling as to how difficult, or how not difficult, in general the PvE content is in GW2. When your "toughest PvE challenge" has a new release and it gets 100% cleared

that very same day

and lacks difficulty scaling it prevents that content from having appropriate longevity and also clearly doesn't challenge these players nearly enough.

That may be the nature of the GW2 content beast.

Challenge in PvE across MMO's comes via either behind-the-scenes numbers or execution in game. Other MMO raids (when I did them, anyway) involved greater AI numbers and new mechanics. Each time a new raid released, players had to not only learn mechanics, but also re-gear a piece at a time in order to mitigate the numbers advantage later boss encounters at least partially relied on. Most of the longevity came from the gear farm cycle. In fact, most if not all MMO PvE longevity comes from rewards.

Meanwhile, GW2 challenge cannot rely on numbers. Player capabilities are already capped. That's going to remain as is until a hypothetical next E-Spec leads to more power creep.

That means that GW2 has to rely on execution. However, player

skill

exists on a continuum. After multiple raid wings, the only new execution needed is whatever mechanical gimmick needs to be circumvented for a new encounter. Players who raid already have character rotation, group coordination, buff, CC and burn cycles down. Those aspects of execution needed revision at PoF release, but not anything substantial since. So, the new gimmicks are the only new challenge. How long does it take to figure those out?

Raids already exclude a large percentage of the population. In order to justify continued hard content development, that content has to appeal to enough players to make developing it worthwhile. I suspect that if we had access to the real numbers of players who access raids, especially the harder bosses or the CM's, we'd see that the percentage of the total population accessing that hardest content is quite low.

That seems a perfect argument for tiered difficulty. The question with that is where do the resources to produce tiered content come from? They would come at the expense of even greater wait times for new raids or at the expense of majority-aimed content. Neither seems like a good thing.

I would agree that the players actually accessing raids is low but I would argue that we have this dynamic in the GW2 population that has been showcased a little bit here that is the real factor in why it would be low, not anything to do with the actual difficulty of the content.

We have numerous players believing that harder difficulty content will keep them excluded from accessing it, yet those same players say they already feel excluded from Raids as they are. One chief reason they have expressed as to "why" that is happening is apparently because the Raid players are "elitist" almost purely because they want these "normal" players to use builds appropriate to the content. Someone in this thread already expressed that they have this idea that they shouldn't be forced to use specific builds when running the Raid, that they should be allowed to practice their off-shoot or very personal build within the Raid itself so that they can "fine tune it and adjust it". Yet the argument was made that there are literally already builds that have been fine tuned and adjusted for this content yet these players are shunning that idea as "elitist" and getting angry when they are being told their build isn't cutting it. We then get this inevitably angry back and forth between the casual players and the hardcore players. The casual players not wanting to change how they approach the content despite being newer to it or less experienced and the hardcore players becoming increasingly frustrated at these players because they are refusing to listen and adjust accordingly to the content.

It all sort of leads to a snowball effect where those casual players who run into this scenario spread word around "these players are elitist" and then the hardcore players encounter more of it and begin to start treating every newer player to Raiding as the same as these individuals, and its just a vicious cycle.

So I don't think Raids themselves exclude a large percentage of the population, I think the population does that to itself. There needs to be a change in mentality with these players that perceive needing to bring an appropriate build for Raids as "elitist". It isn't. There is a META (Most Effective Tactics Available) that players follow in basically every single MMORPG with Raids or difficult instanced content. Even ESO has some semblance of a meta attributed to its more difficult PvE content.

@"Tumult.2578" said:I don't want to see it happen because of the slowdown in play. If it happens, rewards should be decreased for selecting a harder instance or event mode.Seriously, if your that great a player, and you want a harder mode, you should have to do more for the same reward.Frankly, I don't see how it would work. My enemy dies in easy mode and is laying on the ground or de-spawned, yet yours is still there to keep fighting in harder mode?Short of making it a group choice, I don't get it. If many of the instances become harder due to groups selections, what will that do to player population, or lack there of?No thanks.

What you just described doesn't make sense. Are you assuming that if one player in your group selects "hard mode" yet you, in the same group, selects "easy mode" and you would have two different difficulty scale enemies in the same instance? That wouldn't be how that worked at all.

Its a group decision, same as forming a group for literally any other kind of the instanced content (dungeons, fractals, raids, etc). The request is that, as an example, ArenaNet would add a Hard Mode option for Dungeons that every player in the group would need to "turn on" and as such they would then be able to access the Dungeon but it has increased difficulty.

No one is saying to have some option you select for open world PvE that would then present two different kinds of mobs depending on the difficulty you select. This is for instanced content, just like the title says.

[Dreams.3128]

@trixantea.1230 said:

@KryTiKaL.3125 said:

@trixantea.1230 said:The majority of players didn't get the chance to experiece the content of raids because of the elitist jerks who control the raid finder and suck alll the fun and motivation out of normal players. This can be fixed by giving these players a lower difficulty with a lower reward. Many elitists will start raging into the forums but in-game, this will give many casual players new content to enjoy.

As for the God forsaken dungeons, They are way too easy and unrewarding for experienced players. I suggest adding a higher difficulty with higher rewards. The rewards can be somewhat equivalent to high tier fractals. This will give experienced players more challenging and more rewarding daily content to grind.

I can understand the frustration with the elitist types, they are pretty rampant in GW2.

However while their attitudes are

wrong

I would argue that many of what you call "normal" players in the game also have a similarly wrong attitude. Its a give and take relationship that has resulted in this sort of drastically opposed coexistence where more casual players don't want to bother improving because the game caters to them so significantly so they literally see no point in doing so, and the more "hardcore" players becoming fed up with that mentality that has become so commonplace on this game when they want to be able to complete this "challenging" content.

Speaking as someone who has been on

both

sides of the spectrum I can tell you that it gets pretty frustrating dealing with the more casual types who want to participate in "higher end" content, yet they perpetually shun the idea of doing something outside of what they had already been doing. Not all behave like this, mind you, but it has definitely contributed to both sides becoming the enemy of the other in the way that they are today. I don't agree with how the "elitist" types handle players who are still learning in Raid content, but I understand

why

they behave that way same as I can understand

why

casual players would want an easier Raid mode so they can avoid dealing with such players. Believe me, just in PvP/WvW I've tried explaining to people how they should start to learn their class and improve, as everyone has to start somewhere, yet many times I was met with "I'm not a robot, I can do what I want" and this general "I know better than

everyone

else because I'm me so

duh

" mentality. Its cringey and frustrating to deal with.

As for the actual

challenge

of Raids, you're not missing much. Like I've repeated several times already, they aren't difficult. When the "top guilds" that Raid on GW2 clear the newest and latest Raid the

same day

that it releases then you know there isn't much challenge involved in the content when you compare it to literally any other MMORPG with Raid content.

Also yeah, Dungeons need a Hard Mode or Challenge mode, whatever they want to call it. Its legitimately dead content and something needs to be done with it.

Players who are able to access raids and "top guilds" are just a minority amongst the playerbase. The difficulty of the raid can vary from one player to another and the majority of players do not have the knowledge/skill/guilds to do this content. Many of these players aren't even given a chance to practice and tune their builds in a casual friendly way just as they do before accessing high level fractals or competitive PvP.

The current state of raids is depriving tons of players of the opportunity to explore this content and practice it in order to get skilled. Elitist who turned raids into their dictatorship are making things worse by forcing players to have specific build/gear/skill in order to play. This can only fixed by giving new players a lower difficulty (with of course lower rewards) so they can practice/explore/enjoy this PvE content without the need to feel pressured.

The current state of this game is depriving players. There is such thing as catering to casuals, but there is also literally crippling players of their skill. It is shocking how SO many players know so little of their class. I have NEVER seen this in any MMO I have played. To press 1? To not know about combo fields? People do not even want to READ anymore to know about their class. They just smack traits on and go. Like, come on, Anet wants to have a casual friendly, but even THAT is pushing it. No game should have THAT many players be so absent about skills, mechanics, and over gameplay experience. That's not welcoming for any new player, at all

Raids have been a high skill expression event since the dawn of MMOs. Why would you want to take that away. That's not depriving anything. People can still play the game. People can still do decently high content without ever touching raids. They are tedious, boring, but you guys are LITERALLY missing out on nothing. You can't even make good gold there either.

Anyways. Difficulties are needed. The game is stale. It's dull. It will always be dull because of the overall below average state of the game, of difficulty, of skill expression, everything. If even tweaking something just a smidge helps players LEARN their class, so this constant fuss of filthy casual and high tier veterans can end then I am all for it.

You don't need to spend ten hours a day to learn. You just need content that FORCES the player to understand these mechanics are crucial for gameplay. To better your experience of the game, so Anet doesn't feel the need to hold our hand and giving is stale, lackluster content.

[amnessa.6154]

Don't touch mah hardcore content!!! :angry: . It is already piece of cake. Some BugFix would be better like Samarog getting stuck behind pikes. w5 bugs. And some fractal bugs.

[KryTiKaL.3125]

@"amnessa.6154" said:Don't touch mah hardcore content!!! :angry: . It is already piece of cake. Some BugFix would be better like Samarog getting stuck behind pikes. w5 bugs. And some fractal bugs.

The idea isn't explicitly for adding an "easy mode" to the content. Actually it isn't about that at all, thats just what some people, for some reason, want it to be. The content we have is basically already an "easy mode".

What this poll is about is adding higher tiers of difficulty.

[derd.6413]

@neoteo.3975 said:So everyone that is saying no is happy with the current dificulty?

no, raids are too easy

[KryTiKaL.3125]

@derd.6413 said:

@neoteo.3975 said:So everyone that is saying no is happy with the current dificulty?

no, raids are too easy

Then why are you voting no for them adding more difficulty options?

The poll is about adding higher difficulty tiers, aka harder raids and dungeons.