Guys, don't be afraid to try Raids

[ClickToKill.8473]

I think one of the obstacles when getting into raiding is the idea that "you have to play profession X in order to raid".  To some people, Firebrand or Scourge isn't fun to play.  But it does seem that these builds are very necessary for raiding, according to the raiding community.  In the end, if you are not going to have fun doing something, why would you do it?

[Sparrowspoo.8209]

Maybe there are people who just don't want to get into raiding the same as pve and wvw. I like to just wonder around sometimes without any plan or purpose. I don't get a lot of free time so I don't join groups very often. The way I see it is simple, I play the way I want with the build I want because it's my time to relax. 

 

If you enjoy other game modes good for you but I like open world and enjoy roaming around. Sometimes I need help and like to help others but I use this game to relax.

[Erise.5614]

10 hours ago, Sobx.1758 said:

Nice attempt at unsubstantiated personal remarks, but I've started raiding LONG after the raids were introduced, I wasn't dedicated to any hardcore endgame content, didn't and do not participate in organized guild gameplay, nor I am -or ever was- a part of any "static" group to help me get into any type of content. Nothing here makes me "detached from the rest of the community", just because you've painted some made up image of me in your mind and you think players that want to learn somehow can't. Apparently I was "the rest of the community", until I've decided to start learning and completing raids, so I fail to see how I can be detatched from what I clearly once was.

Are Raids a perfect content to get into? Not really. EoD SMs are doing much better job at that. But it doesn't mean solo players can't start learning the game if only they wish to and complete endgame content solely through the use of lfg. You might dislike these facts, but they remain being facts.

Right. And nobody just happens to have that knowledge. I didn't have that knowledge and then... I did. Through what, magic? Just because I've decided to learn makes me "detatched from the community"? Apparently if you learn something, you're no longer part of the rest of the community and you never were -what a convenient (but also wrong) take.

Oh and with time you clearly can. But there's a difference between "I can't learn" and "I don't want to learn". That's the difference that was already presented in the past on this forum, when someone complained about PoF story boss, got help from multiple people on multiple classes, with multiple solutions, even on severly undergeared characters (to prove the complaint about "needing expensive gear to even play through the story"). The response OP of that thread gave those people? "I don't want you to help me, I want it to be easier".

People can learn. Some of them faster, some of them slower, but if they want to -vast majority of them will. But then there are also people that don't want to learn, but want to have. In that case... They're making their own choice and it's not the game's or the community's fault.

 

So people refuse to learn basic mechanics of the game, then try to jump right into ""endgame"" content and it's somehow the game's fault? If people want to learn, they should stop trying to rush the game.

Again. I'm not saying it's impossible but to recognize how steep the curve is when you come in with no knowledge or only a bit of knowledge about the holy trinity from a different game. 

Like, most of what you say is true. But the thing I'm talking about is that you have been part of the hardcore community for so long that 90%+ of the stuff that needs to be learned, you don't even think about anymore. It's become muscle memory or intuitive and obvious. This makes it seem everything is much easier and just a bit of learning. While from the other perspective it's a huge amount and very intimidating indeed. It's this comic.

Portraying it as "just doesn't want to learn" frames them as very lazy and bad. Something to distance yourself from. And something that is read and understood exactly like that. Like not being unwanted. But the issue is simply that without guidance the amount of resources and information necessary to learn is extremely overwhelming. It is intimidating. Pushing people away from that kind of content.

Like, ok. Just one example. People join one of these raid communities. They are linked to snow crows or metabattle and told to get one of those builds before registering for a training build. The average snowcrows build costs >500 gold and several weeks of grinding. No one took the time to explain that it's the best possible version of the build but to get started you can totally use unnamed exotics which run at like 5 gold. Infusions are unnecessary too. Especially considering how strong the focus on meta builds is and how that's "easy preparation" everyone "should have done before starting out".

Like, just as one personal anecdote. I played for about 3000 hours. Including fractals before trying to move into raids for the legendary armor. And my experience was not good. It was hitting a lot of these points I'm pointing out. Calling that rushing is a bit of a stretch, no?

Yes, someone who is absolutely determined to play raids will be able to do exactly that. Though the simple fact is, but an extremely tiny part of the player base is playing raids. Everyone else is deterred for one reason or another. Whether it be intimidation, the time investment necessary into playing a raid, simply not enjoying instanced group content or plenty of others. Maybe sometimes due to myths but often enough for real negative experiences. Like, these myths come from somewhere. And it's not just from other games. The raid format and the raid community spawned a significant part of those.

You can only have it one way or the other. You can either blame the players and keep raids as your small content island which is rightfully abandoned. Or need to find and solve the reasons for why next to no one is playing raids in the grand scheme of things. The reasons other than "they are just too lazy and bad".

Edit: Just keeping everything as is and expecting any change is naive. SM may be a better entry point but I still think they made some big mistakes by introducing too many mechanics that kill you too quickly while making it possible for the rest to finish. Which feels like getting carried and can mean 20 minutes of being down where you might as well afk. Not really an experience that's gonna rope people in. The transition from not playing that kind of content to being pushed into it by the turtle is still quite unpleasant. While it's also long enough that most experienced players gatekeep in order to finish the strike in 10 minutes rather than risking players with suboptimal builds and having to spend 30 minutes instead. 

The first experience people have with that kind of content should be filled with awe and excitement. Not feeling like a failure and like it's really hard. Not this. 

I have hope for that kind of content. But I don't think it was a good introduction. The first strike people should have been directed to should have had a similar risk of dying as the Shiverpeaks strike. Replacing most of the stuff that deals a lot of damage with things that stun / knock you down you for an extended period of time. Or, hey. A gimmick mechanic that petrifies you until another player presses F near you. Functioning similar to downing but without the limited time window to pick you up and without the duration to pick someone up. 

Something more along those lines. Teaching but keeping a lot of room for failure, for retrying and simply for learning.

Edited March 28, 2022 by Erise.5614

[eyelogix.1654]

13 hours ago, NorthernRedStar.3054 said:

Introduce raid guild missions, and reward those handsomely. 

No

[firedragon.8953]

Thanks OP! I believe you made your post with helpful intentions. I remember when I first came across a post (on Reddit) about Raid Academy. I was interested in raiding and RA really is a great place to learn. I definitely recommend their Discord if you're interested in stepping into raiding as the instructors and community are very supportive. 

[Mickey.4207]

17 hours ago, jcH.7109 said:

I've seen too many people here who think raids are full of unfriendly and rude elitists who think they're part of an exclusive circle. This view is NOT aligned with reality. There are good communities who are more than willing to accept new people and form Raid Training groups to teach them. For example, Raid Academy is a perfect place to start. Just join the discord, follow the rules, and join a raid training group where you can learn the mechanics and such. https://discord.com/invite/gw2ra

 

I want raids to become popular so that Anet will make more new raids. Cantha raids would be dope.

EDIT:

Raid Academy is for NA.

Raid training community for EU: The Crossroads Inn https://discord.com/invite/nDcv395

Who says we are afraid of raids? Maybe we have done enough raiding in other games and got tired of it. And decided to play GW2 because it was not raid focused and offered something different. 

Edited March 28, 2022 by Mickey.4207

[chronometria.3708]

I remember when raids first arrived in the game. My guild waded on in and soon we were figuring out the Vale guardian. Initial attempts were fails but we soon got the mechanics and we were enjoying the challenge, getting further each time.

Then the number of guild members making those attempts dwindled. Those still interested started to seek out their colleagues from other guilds and the raiding community was born. Guilds crumbled left and right and raid dedicated guilds appeared. The content divided players and the damage from that shift Is still with us today.

 

Everyone tried back then, nobody was "afraid" of raids. The content just wasn't for everyone and it divided players along lines of skill, free time and willingness. Its a great shame that it came to this and I think the communities can no longer bridge the gap without arenanets help. A better lfg system would be a good start.

[Astralporing.1957]

9 hours ago, Sarius.9285 said:

then you had an extremely unlucky bad experience. Cause those people are absolutely the minority 

Notice, how you only need those people to form as little as 10% of the raiding community, and on average you will be seeing one each run. 5% and you will be seeing one every other run. And since the vast majority of raiders, while not being toxic themselves, silently supports that toxicity simply by not speaking up about it even when it happens right in front of their faces, the chances of a new player trying to get into raiding having a nice experience becomes very, very low.

 

[Hollowhisper.1093]

Raiding usually has a lot of "homework" attached to it in addition to the time you spend inside the Raid instance itself. Sometimes it will also involve raising a completely new profession just because you played Mesmer or Ranger and someone says they're not good in Raids. It customarily also includes beating poor golems to pulp while maintaining a utopian 100% uptime, which is another useless time sink because this kind of laboratory setup will only rarely happen outside of Lion's Arch. We had a guy on Voice once complaining like "I'm not getting xx Might stacks!" and someone else said "Yeah, this is not the Golem, dude."

It's usually also the death sentence for any casual guild (with a two digit amount of members) when some of its members get their "git gud" attitude. I witnessed four guild break ups over the years in a variety of MMOs.

[Mithrilos.8036]

I never did any Raid before, and its not something planned. That kind of content isn't for me.

I prioritise liberty of identity/build over meta stuff. 

 

The simple fact that I have to adapt my character into something I don't want because without it, I wouldn't be able to do the Raid is a no go.

 

I prefere Infinite Pve Arena thingy, like a survival or a pve wvw instead of Raids.

[Raknar.4735]

19 hours ago, jcH.7109 said:

I want raids to become popular so that Anet will make more new raids. Cantha raids would be dope.

GL with that.
I somehow doubt people being “afraid of raids” is the main cause for raids being unpopular though. I’d even go as far as saying that bringing in all of the actual “afraid of raiding” people into raiding wouldn’t be enough.

[Sarius.9285]

1 hour ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

Notice, how you only need those people to form as little as 10% of the raiding community, and on average you will be seeing one each run. 5% and you will be seeing one every other run. And since the vast majority of raiders, while not being toxic themselves, silently supports that toxicity simply by not speaking up about it even when it happens right in front of their faces, the chances of a new player trying to get into raiding having a nice experience becomes very, very low.

 

lol what? Guess what there is at least 10% toxic players in pvp, wvw and open world as well...how is that exclusive to raids?

[Aridon.8362]

I joined this group with a guy who I told I had 100 pulls on W3 and even linked all my LIs and crystalline heart, but this guy rude as hell only gave me a minute to kick me out of the group and told me I don't have enough experience and told me I need to go to raid academy. I've cleared this wing many many times. Even had the god kitten mini drop.

 

So it's pretty naive don't you think to say that there's not an abundant toxic mindset that persists in raiding in guild wars. I don't disagree with your attempt to get more people to do it, I just disagree with your mentality that the space isn't toxic. The player just getting into it should understand that it is toxic if not in a guild.

 

Even in a guild raid leads will kick people from attempting other bosses just because they don't "do enough damage". I can attest that in the 100 dhuum pulls I have damage is almost the last issue.

 

[Sarius.9285]

2 minutes ago, Aridon.8362 said:

I joined this group with a guy who I told I had 100 pulls on W3 and even linked all my LIs and crystalline heart, but this guy rude as hell only gave me a minute to kick me out of the group and told me I don't have enough experience and told me I need to go to raid academy. I've cleared this wing many many times. Even had the god kitten mini drop.

 

So it's pretty naive don't you think to say that there's not an abundant toxic mindset that persists in raiding in guild wars. I don't disagree with your attempt to get more people to do it, I just disagree with your mentality that the space isn't toxic. The player just getting into it should understand that it is toxic if not in a guild.

 

Even in a guild raid leads will kick people from attempting other bosses just because they don't "do enough damage". I can attest that in the 100 dhuum pulls I have damage is almost the last issue.

 

1 guy is an kitten and kicks you. Your conclusion: Raiding is inherently toxic and everyone needs to know that everyone is toxic....

[Erise.5614]

7 minutes ago, Sarius.9285 said:

1 guy is an kitten and kicks you. Your conclusion: Raiding is inherently toxic and everyone needs to know that everyone is toxic....

But that's true. These aren't just terrible people. Anyone who wants to enjoy their own raiding experience or just wants the rewards is pushed to think this way. The difference may be how they show and share it. But inherently that's what the format fosters. What even strikes foster. 

It's not that the people are inherently toxic people. But they are incentivized to implement gatekeeping into their everyday routine and to not favor beginners. 

That experience isn't rare. The further you progressed your account (by earning LI & co) the less common it gets. But especially to beginners it happens all the time in LFG.

Edited March 28, 2022 by Erise.5614

[Aridon.8362]

4 minutes ago, Sarius.9285 said:

1 guy is an kitten and kicks you. Your conclusion: Raiding is inherently toxic and everyone needs to know that everyone is toxic....

yeah man it's super toxic, I would say it's even more toxic than WoW raiding, like 10x more. I've been raiding for a while so I know what I'm talking about, even seen leads who kick specific class for "not being a good class"; atm the dps benchmarks are spread by like a 2k difference between meta builds.

[Astralporing.1957]

20 minutes ago, Sarius.9285 said:

lol what? Guess what there is at least 10% toxic players in pvp, wvw and open world as well...how is that exclusive to raids?

In WvW and non-instanced PvE i can just ignore them (it's not like they can kick me off map after all, so it is not an issue a blacklist would not solve). As for SPvP.. well, there are reasons why i don't play that content, and higher level of toxicity of PvP players is one of them. But it's still not as important, because (again), they can't kick me, and i can blacklist them.

Raids etc however do not have that option. Communication is the key there, so there's no avoiding toxicity when it inevitably happens.

Also, while it's true that toxicity is everywhere, it's also true that toxic behavious often gets enhanced by specific environments. When everything is chill and calm, toxic players have much less reasons to get triggered and spew their toxicity around. On the other hand, extremely demanding and stressful environment (like higher-tiered competitive modes, and instanced content) can make even the usually nicest person eventually lose their beans.

Most toxic behaviour is not a result of someone intentionally being a kitten (although those cases do happen, they are quite rare). It's usually caused by situations that go not to someone's liking. Some do not like to "waste time", while others just want to "win". When the desired result does not materialize, a lot of players start trying to find a "solution" (read: guilty party), and remove it.

Edited March 28, 2022 by Astralporing.1957

[Vayne.8563]

16 minutes ago, Sarius.9285 said:

lol what? Guess what there is at least 10% toxic players in pvp, wvw and open world as well...how is that exclusive to raids?

I actually don't think 10% of open world players are toxic, though I agree about PvP at the very least.  And I don't know the number, but the assumption would be the more competitive the thing you're doing, the more likely it is someone will get angry.

Raids can fail. You can lose at PvP. Therefore people get mad or feel like they're wasting their time.  It's much rarer to fail at TD meta or the AB meta, and most people aren't even trying to do the VB meta, they just kill a boss for their reward, since the meta reward isn't actually much greater.

I haven't failed Dragon Stand, or Drizzlewood for a really long time.  Can't remember the last time I failed Teq.

 

Competitive players are more likely drawn to harder content. More competition. More testosterone. More cutthroat. More chance of failing means more people getting angry more often.

Open world PvEers are a more casual bunch because the price of failure is often just running back from a waypoint, and someone can rez you. As opposed to a raid where if you die, you can't be rezzed, you can't use a revive orb, you're simple done until the party wipes.

This makes raiders and SPvPers in general more competitive and thus more likely to be toxic.

[Aridon.8362]

2 minutes ago, Vayne.8563 said:

This makes raiders and SPvPers in general more competitive and thus more likely to be toxic.

I would say spvpers are less toxic than raiders just my personal experience.

[Astralporing.1957]

3 minutes ago, Aridon.8362 said:

I would say spvpers are less toxic than raiders just my personal experience.

It would probably depend on the competitive tier you're playing on.

[The Boz.2038]

20 hours ago, Erise.5614 said:

The issue isn't that everyone is rude.

But that most raid players are extremely detached from the general player base. Very much including training communities. 

Learning curves are extremely steep and the general expectation when getting into a training run is to know everything relevant about your class (relevant for raids), a full meta build (or similarly effective in raids) and ideally watched a guide on the encounter. Meaning it only needs a few quick pointers by the commander / community. 

I started raiding six months ago. Went through a lot of trainings from several different groups, both organized on Discord, and walk-ins on LFG. 
Your take on how things are is wrong. 

There are two levels of "not knowing".
There is a level of "not knowing" that is "I've played fractals, do T4s a few times a month, know kinda what my build does". This is an "advanced" level of "not knowing". This type of player can easily just approach a raid training and learn how to raid.
There is a deeper level of "not knowing", and that deeper level is where most of the playerbase is at. This is the "hammer/longbow spellbreaker is a great PvE spec with a lot of damage and flexibility" zone. This is the "I play group support soulbeast by virtue of taking the trap heal while wearing soldier gear" zone.

Raid trainings exist for the first level, the "Advanced Don't Know". They can jump up to a raid level, but can't quite reach it, and just need a step-ladder. The other type of Don't Knows is why there is a "have a meta build" and other similar stipulations exist. These players don't need a raid training, they need a "this is how the game actually works" training. 

Do I wish there were more of these type of trainings in the game? Theoretically yeah, but... actually, no. Because nobody ever applies to them. It takes a level of reflection to go "I don't know things, and I want to learn things". Raid training here short-circuits the thought process into "I don't know this one specific thing that I've never touched, so I'm free to seek training in that one aspect of the game, and maybe learn something else along the way, too". Most trainers (and trainees! don't forget that in a training run, you typically are one of half a dozen other people looking to learn) really don't have the time to train a "Basic Don't Know" and teach them the value of multiplicative stats, boons, stacking, etc. 

To join a raid training, you should have a "vague notion" of how your build works. The build that works should be one that makes sense. The trainer really doesn't want to spend ten minutes walking through your build just to make sure this is the case, and then do the same for six to eight other trainees. Do your off-line prep before you take on time with others.

[Aridon.8362]

Just piggybacking on my earlier story after that guy did that crap I started ranting about how he needs mental help from a therapist on map chat and then another dude came in and started excusing the crap that guy pulled on me. I noped tf outta the game in a fury and went to do something else irl.

 

I swear once I get what I need out of raiding namely any insights and the leg armor, I'm done with it for good, maybe ill do a new raid once and never again.

[Erise.5614]

7 minutes ago, The Boz.2038 said:

I started raiding six months ago. Went through a lot of trainings from several different groups, both organized on Discord, and walk-ins on LFG. 
Your take on how things are is wrong. 

There are two levels of "not knowing".
There is a level of "not knowing" that is "I've played fractals, do T4s a few times a month, know kinda what my build does". This is an "advanced" level of "not knowing". This type of player can easily just approach a raid training and learn how to raid.
There is a deeper level of "not knowing", and that deeper level is where most of the playerbase is at. This is the "hammer/longbow spellbreaker is a great PvE spec with a lot of damage and flexibility" zone. This is the "I play group support soulbeast by virtue of taking the trap heal while wearing soldier gear" zone.

Raid trainings exist for the first level, the "Advanced Don't Know". They can jump up to a raid level, but can't quite reach it, and just need a step-ladder. The other type of Don't Knows is why there is a "have a meta build" and other similar stipulations exist. These players don't need a raid training, they need a "this is how the game actually works" training. 

Do I wish there were more of these type of trainings in the game? Theoretically yeah, but... actually, no. Because nobody ever applies to them. It takes a level of reflection to go "I don't know things, and I want to learn things". Raid training here short-circuits the thought process into "I don't know this one specific thing that I've never touched, so I'm free to seek training in that one aspect of the game, and maybe learn something else along the way, too". Most trainers (and trainees! don't forget that in a training run, you typically are one of half a dozen other people looking to learn) really don't have the time to train a "Basic Don't Know" and teach them the value of multiplicative stats, boons, stacking, etc. 

To join a raid training, you should have a "vague notion" of how your build works. The build that works should be one that makes sense. The trainer really doesn't want to spend ten minutes walking through your build just to make sure this is the case, and then do the same for six to eight other trainees. Do your off-line prep before you take on time with others.

That is exactly my point. Yes, that is exactly the purpose of raid training. That gap exists regardless. Heck, even playing T4s I was pretty bad and didn't fully understand the combat system. Not by a long shot. So it was still a quite steep learning curve for me.

But without even just that context you're entirely fish out of water. Overcoming that is virtually impossible and any interaction with the community will be negative. They don't want to spend the time teaching that. They are here to teach raids. Nothing else.

There exists no reasonable path from new, casual, inexperienced open world player to raids. The game doesn't offer anything sensible and communities or guilds don't either. Either you dive fully into the deep end, invest massive amounts of time in out of game resources and prep to then run head first into that wall over and over. Or it's just not reasonably possible. 

Edited March 28, 2022 by Erise.5614

[Astralporing.1957]

1 minute ago, The Boz.2038 said:

I started raiding six months ago. Went through a lot of trainings from several different groups, both organized on Discord, and walk-ins on LFG. 
Your take on how things are is wrong. 

There are two levels of "not knowing".
There is a level of "not knowing" that is "I've played fractals, do T4s a few times a month, know kinda what my build does". This is an "advanced" level of "not knowing". This type of player can easily just approach a raid training and learn how to raid.
There is a deeper level of "not knowing", and that deeper level is where most of the playerbase is at. This is the "hammer/longbow spellbreaker is a great PvE spec with a lot of damage and flexibility" zone. This is the "I play group support soulbeast by virtue of taking the trap heal while wearing soldier gear" zone.

Raid trainings exist for the first level, the "Advanced Don't Know". They can jump up to a raid level, but can't quite reach it, and just need a step-ladder.

You've just pretty much agreed with the point you tried to challenge.

The people at the "first level" of "not knowing" are already past the most impotant hurdle - for example, they already have working builds, and know where to find information on those. And probably on raids as well. In reality, all raid training offers to them is organizing a group for them for long enough so they can get on-hand knowledge on raid bosses (because watching the guide will never be as good as trying it on your own). Ultimately, the only things that might stop those players from raiding is either lack of a group, or dislike of the content itself. Lack of knowledge is never the problem here.

Most players are not in that group. Thus, trainings done this way is not going to help them.

 

[Sarius.9285]

44 minutes ago, Aridon.8362 said:

yeah man it's super toxic, I would say it's even more toxic than WoW raiding, like 10x more. I've been raiding for a while so I know what I'm talking about, even seen leads who kick specific class for "not being a good class"; atm the dps benchmarks are spread by like a 2k difference between meta builds.

you have to be joking....honestly I should probably stop wasting time on the forums, it's always such a mood kill