kurtosis.9526

One thing I wish ANet would explore for raids is making instanced versions of world maps for 40-60 man raid squads, with roughly the same world boss meta but more difficult mechanics requiring more skill, coordination, and max level gear. For example, imagine a super-difficult instanced version of Dragon's Stand, tuned for a full-Ascended, 60-person raid group (eg, no scaling but specifically tuned difficulty). The group divides into three 20-person squads to fight down each lane, kill the towers, and then finally Mordremoth. Each encounter, from trash, to bosses, to final boss, can have more difficult mechanics than the open world version, and more coordination required between the three squads. Mechanics would be tuned for the dps and survivability of every player in full Ascended gear. No Agony, just encounters that pose a challenge to the aggregate dps, armor, health and healing of Ascended stats on every player. Tanky and healy roles also necessary, as with current 10-man raids. I suggest this b/c it solves the problem expressed above of difficulty gaps, since the open world version would be the preparation for the harder instanced version, it enables multiple difficulty levels for the instanced version, similar to WoW's raids with LFG, Normal, Heroic, and Mythic difficulties, where each difficulty level also serves as prep for the next, and rewards improve up the difficulty levels,it saves developer man-hours by reusing ANet's best content - expansive, multi-layered, intricate, and replayable world maps and map metas (hat tip to HoT maps especially, which people still do) - in new and interesting ways that still support large player base engagement, many of GW2's meta map events are already epic in scope and feel half-way to raids anyway, probably less work to get them all the way there than to make all-new raid content, enabling more dev hours on mechanics and rewards,it brings back 40+ man raids from the early days of MMORPGs, but perhaps in a more accessible way, which would be both fun and a differentiator from other mmorpg's and useful marketing tool (which GW2 needs more of in the absence of actual expansions), and it would give guilds renewed purpose and challenge, since the organizational requirements are a step up from open-world content.One of the most fun things about HoT's four meta maps is a massive "raid" group dividing into ~10-20 person squads roaming around defeating various bosses and events, all while coordinating across map chat with the other squads and prioritizing and adjusting on the fly. For example, timing Octovine and Blighting Towers are a simple but fun map-wide coordination requirements. Lots of space for creativity on that kind of thing in instanced versions. VB for example, where all the bosses are on the map and attackable at any time in any order, is dynamic in a way that WoW's scripted, railroaded, sequential trash-boss-trash-boss-trash-boss-etc raids aren't. It feels like a real battle, a great feeling of teamwork and large-scale coordination, which could be recreated even better in an instanced version. Especially if various events could be even lightly randomized, and the enemies could respond to player tactics by switching up the order of events, or having two mini-bosses attack one group instead of just staying in their lane in an attempt to surprise and overwhelm one group before others can rush across the map to reinforce it, etc. There are all sorts of ways to get creative with the mechanics here, and reusing major assets like GW2's amazing world maps frees up more time and creativity for mechanics and rewards. GW2 originally tried to do things differently and more creatively than other MMORPGs, and this would be a step back in that direction.