Anet, you should focus on raids again, you're losing your best opportunity for expanding lore/remembering old lore

[Renegated.4132]

I know that we, the raiders, have been bothering a lot asking for new raids and similars, but let's face the fact, strikes are not the same. Strikes may be hard, but raids have something strikes don't have, lore. It's impossible to compare a simple hard battle with the feeling the first 4 raid wings give you, start fighting a bunch of bandits to suddenly, because noone knows why you find the white mantle, and because of that you end up slicing up one of the heads of the White Mantle (well, the only head, because the other one...) and later on, you end up discovering that Saul D'Alessio was not bad at it's core like everyone thinks, it was just a man on a bad situation and how he ended up being tortured by it's own guilt and by "the gods" he once revered. You can't get that kind of things from the strikes, yeah, you can take down a hard challenge, but the feeling of "Wow... I wasn't expecting that" doesn't come in the pack.

 

IIRC the Inquest it's still active, it would be a good moment, if we take in consideration the new expansion and how Cantha is right now to give them a little push when it comes to lore and a good smack in the face. I mean, after all, they are the White Mantle, but for the Asura, a group that wants to use a power they don't understand to claim superiority on the other races.

 

And when it comes to remembering old lore, you can create a "fractal entrance" on the Aerodrome that connects to an instance similar to the fractal one, but that allows people to get into raids of the past (aka, GW1 raids).

 

PD: If you want the raids to ressurect, start by spanking the community, you had the raids plagued with elitists from min 1 and instead of punishing this kind of behaviour, you left them to keep up the "good work", result? The new players ended up leaving because people was asking the moon on a glass just to take down bosses like Cairn, that's basically a training golem that moves and gives rewards.

[Wolfshade.9251]

I don't know how many raiders would agree with me, but I have a feeling that a lot of us care more for challenging encounters than lore. After you clear something 50 times you stop caring about the dialogue.

 

As for the "toxic elitist" comment, I recommend you join a few "all welcome" groups for either strikes or raids. Perspective on gatekeeping changes a lot when you're doing over 20% of your team's damage on a support build while your "dpsers" press 111 from the other side of the arena.

[Renegated.4132]

25 minutes ago, Wolfshade.9251 said:

I don't know how many raiders would agree with me, but I have a feeling that a lot of us care more for challenging encounters than lore. After you clear something 50 times you stop caring about the dialogue.

 

As for the "toxic elitist" comment, I recommend you join a few "all welcome" groups for either strikes or raids. Perspective on gatekeeping changes a lot when you're doing over 20% of your team's damage on a support build while your "dpsers" press 111 from the other side of the arena.

 

I was here when the raids where born, so i can agree about the thing of stop caring about the dialog, but still, the fact of being with friends and suddenly find something that shouldn't be there and have to pick your jaw from the floor because of the shock it's something that strikes don't give you xD

 

Also, "all welcome" 99% of the time is jumping to a pool without knowing if the pool has water or not, that happens on all games xD

 

When I refer to elitism i talk about things that happened back in the day, that comms would kick you for doing 1K less of damage on the boss even if you took down the boss with 3+ mins of time remaining, kicking someone for using things that where not in the metabible despite of working well (my minstrel temp saved a lot of tries just for the fact of being able to tank while healing) or refusing to use resources of the fight because "it's for noobs", like Gorseval's updrafts on phase 3.

Edited May 20, 2022 by Renegated.4132

[Shaogin.2679]

These new strikes seem to be well implemented though. The story and lore is already there when the player does the fight in their personal story. Then you do the strike for a more challenging version of that fight, and then the CM for even more challenge. I feel like this is a great method for appeasing to all GW2 players. No one misses out on story content, and the players seeking more challenge get access to it.

14 minutes ago, Renegated.4132 said:

When I refer to elitism i talk about things that happened back in the day, that comms would kick you for doing 1K less of damage on the boss even if you took down the boss with 3+ mins of time remaining, kicking someone for using things that where not in the metabible despite of working well (my minstrel temp saved a lot of tries just for the fact of being able to tank while healing) or refusing to use resources of the fight because "it's for noobs", like Gorseval's updrafts on phase 3

As for this, that is up to those groups. If that is how they want to play let them. Joining an "All are welcome" group is a good suggestion, but that isn't all that is out there. You also have your "Casual/Chill" and "Semi-Exp" groups. That is the beauty of our LFG system, you can find or form a group that is looking for the exact same thing as you. This actually goes a long way into cutting down toxicity. I feel like a lot of the "elitism" people face comes from them trying to join groups that they shouldn't be joining.

Edited May 20, 2022 by Shaogin.2679

[Renegated.4132]

13 minutes ago, Shaogin.2679 said:

These new strikes seem to be well implemented though. The story and lore is already there when the player does the fight in their personal story. Then you do the strike for a more challenging version of that fight, and then the CM for even more challenge. I feel like this is a great method for appeasing to all GW2 players. No one misses out on story content, and the players seeking more challenge get access to it.

As for this, that is up to those groups. If that is how they want to play let them. Joining an "All are welcome" group is a good suggestion, but that isn't all that is out there. You also have your "Casual/Chill" and "Semi-Exp" groups. That is the beauty of our LFG system, you can find or form a group that is looking for the exact same thing as you. This actually goes a long way into cutting down toxicity. I feel like a lot of the "elitism" people face comes from them trying to join groups that they shouldn't be joining.

 

I used to join normal groups on raids, and believe me, I've seen things... xDD

 

I've seen normal squads disband on bosses that are extremely easy when you use certain resources, like Deimos, that you range it and basically becomes a practice golem that gives rewards or Gorseval, that the tank refused to move the boss to a wall every time and every time we ended up going boum because the damage was not enough to phase it.

 

Now I basically pass the time creating training squads so people can take down bosses without many issues, mostly because I don't give a fu about "pro strats", i'm happy just by making my teammates obtain the KP. Another problem it's that some parties don't tell if they are semi-exp, full tryhard, chill, they just write "WX  <roles needed>" and go with it, and maybe it's a chill squad or maybe are full tryhards that want to take down the boss in 2 mins of 7 that has the boss.

 

And when it comes to the strikes, I'm fine with them, having "easier" bosses that seem like the raid ones so people can get into matter it's a good idea, but as I said, it's not the same. Compare Minister Li with Sabetha for example, yes, Li has A LOTTA DAMAGE, but it doesn't put as much difficulty as Sabetha or Dhuum do. 

Edited May 20, 2022 by Renegated.4132

[Shaogin.2679]

1 minute ago, Renegated.4132 said:

Another problem it's that some parties don't tell if they are semi-exp, full tryhard, chill, they just write "WX  <roles needed>" and go with it, and maybe it's a chill squad or maybe are full tryhards that want to take down the boss in 2 mins of 7 that has the boss.

Yeah, for those I just ask when I join to get a feel for the group. Not going to waste my time with a group that I'm not going to enjoy.

[Nash.2681]

Well, I somewhat agree that raids > strikes, though for different reasons. Lore is in both and as others have mentioned before, after x amounts of boss kills, I couldn't care less.

What's more important to me is, when doing a raid wing, I know I'm going to commit some time now and I'm going to spend it with my squad. That alone creates a feeling of commradeship I really like. Fight together, win together, lose together. If for whatever reason I have to quit early or we don't succeed the whole wing, my progression for the week is still saved. Beating a raid wing still triggers a feeling of achievement, even after beating the same boss a gazillion time already. Visually, the wings themselves feel as if they were made with much more love and dedication.

Strikes on the other hand to me fail in all of the before mentioned aspects. They just feel like a fast paced grindy farm. Hop in a rather generic arena, gather 9 others, beat the boss, collect the (rather laughable) rewards, disband. I don't feel like I have achieved anything, it's just a fast farm. 

That's probably the reason why in my experience people in (EOD) strikes tend to have a shorter fuse than in raids, even though they're not challenging at all on normal mode.

And yes, I'm aware that that's the purpose of strikes- fast, easy to access, low time commitment. Yet my personal preferences are different. It's like food. Sometimes it's ok to just go to your local fast food restaurant or call the delivery service for some junk food. But most of the time I prefer a well prepared meal and take my time to enjoy it with others.

[Renegated.4132]

11 minutes ago, Nash.2681 said:

Well, I somewhat agree that raids > strikes, though for different reasons. Lore is in both and as others have mentioned before, after x amounts of boss kills, I couldn't care less.

What's more important to me is, when doing a raid wing, I know I'm going to commit some time now and I'm going to spend it with my squad. That alone creates a feeling of commradeship I really like. Fight together, win together, lose together. If for whatever reason I have to quit early or we don't succeed the whole wing, my progression for the week is still saved. Beating a raid wing still triggers a feeling of achievement, even after beating the same boss a gazillion time already. Visually, the wings themselves feel as if they were made with much more love and dedication.

Strikes on the other hand to me fail in all of the before mentioned aspects. They just feel like a fast paced grindy farm. Hop in a rather generic arena, gather 9 others, beat the boss, collect the (rather laughable) rewards, disband. I don't feel like I have achieved anything, it's just a fast farm. 

That's probably the reason why in my experience people in (EOD) strikes tend to have a shorter fuse than in raids, even though they're not challenging at all on normal mode.

And yes, I'm aware that that's the purpose of strikes- fast, easy to access, low time commitment. Yet my personal preferences are different. It's like food. Sometimes it's ok to just go to your local fast food restaurant or call the delivery service for some junk food. But most of the time I prefer a well prepared meal and take my time to enjoy it with others.

 

You can see that the raids are created with more love and dedication just by what they represent, on the first 4 wings you end up taking down the leader of the most hideous band of the humanity, the White Mantle and give it's founder the rest he deserves after knowing how the White Mantle was born and how everything it happened was not what he wanted to happen, on W5 you end up sealing the former god of death on his prison again and on wing 6 and 7 you see how a djinn finds his demise when he tries to harness a power he is not able to control, if we compare it to fight a drunk aetherblade, an asura on a junkyard or a corrupt kitten on a rooftop, well... xDDD

 

The only strike that's equal to a raid in terms of epicity it's the Harvest Temple, you're literally fighting the chaos itself, the force that threats of taking down Tyria. Surpassing that it's hard, not impossible, but hard.

 

We can't deny that the EoD strikes are good content and that they represent a challenge, but they don't feel the same.

[Krzysztof.5973]

Raids are dead. Let's move on. 
Raids were discontinued for a reason. With strikes, Anet has more leeway to put less effort into single strike than to create a full raid wing. Strikes don't have stigma following their name, pushing away the 'less hardcore' crowd. Strike already are expanded on story bosses, again - less work to be done. They don't have to add any flavor to the encounters, like post-kill dialogues with npcs or something to interact with. 
Raids died because target audience has changed. All the drama that came from DE meta is a perfect example. GW2 players are simply too spoiled to put enough effort into raiding. Anywhere outside this community, anyone you ask - GW2 is perceived as a game for casuals. 

Following release of DRMs everything lost quality. With EoD we took it a step further,  all the features are simply lackluster. No reason to believe that they will ever again release new raid wings. 

[Fueki.4753]

If Arenanet ever focussed on raids again, I'd prefer that they add normal versions to the current raids, so that raids will be more than just content for the minority at the top end.

If they were to create new raids with the same player capability requirements, it'd be a waste of resources, since they wouldn't gain enough player participation.

Edited May 20, 2022 by Fueki.4753

[Renegated.4132]

1 hour ago, Krzysztof.5973 said:

Raids are dead. Let's move on. 
Raids were discontinued for a reason. With strikes, Anet has more leeway to put less effort into single strike than to create a full raid wing. Strikes don't have stigma following their name, pushing away the 'less hardcore' crowd. Strike already are expanded on story bosses, again - less work to be done. They don't have to add any flavor to the encounters, like post-kill dialogues with npcs or something to interact with. 
Raids died because target audience has changed. All the drama that came from DE meta is a perfect example. GW2 players are simply too spoiled to put enough effort into raiding. Anywhere outside this community, anyone you ask - GW2 is perceived as a game for casuals. 

Following release of DRMs everything lost quality. With EoD we took it a step further,  all the features are simply lackluster. No reason to believe that they will ever again release new raid wings. 

 

Raids are not dead, raids got killed, that it's different.

 

First of all, due to the elitism that populated raids when those entered the game, where people was being kicked from parties for not following the metabible even when they proved to be and do better than the commander or by doing 1K less of damage than people that had the rotation calculated to the milimeter. They though everyone was SC or qT.

 

Second due to ANet not doing anything against this type of people, they allowed them to roam free how the wanted, and the result was people getting tired of finding morons and therefore, leaving.

 

And last, but not least, not having something like the strikes prior to the release of the raids, that allowed you to go from fractals to that and then from the that to the raids. Unless you where used to learn the hard way, entering raids was extremely hard, and on top of that, the community was not helping due to the first point of the murder.

 

NOW is when they have to create the raids, now that they have something that can act as bridge to enter the hard content. And more important, it's the reason why the strikes are there, to act as that, as a bridge, by words of ANet. Why TF would they make a bridge to something they don't plan on touching or updating anymore? xD

[Krzysztof.5973]

3 minutes ago, Renegated.4132 said:

First of all, due to the elitism that populated raids when those entered the game, where people was being kicked from parties for not following the metabible even when they proved to be and do better than the commander or by doing 1K less of damage than people that had the rotation calculated to the milimeter. They though everyone was SC or qT.

What's the percentage of entire raid population that did that? Is it small? Did this tiny portion of raiders drove everybody away from raids? Did they take their ability to create their own LFGs away? 

 

5 minutes ago, Renegated.4132 said:

Second due to ANet not doing anything against this type of people, they allowed them to roam free how the wanted, and the result was people getting tired of finding morons and therefore, leaving.

What do you expect them to do? "Here, you have to let everybody in, into your own LFG that you created and you command"? 

 

6 minutes ago, Renegated.4132 said:

NOW is when they have to create the raids, now that they have something that can act as bridge to enter the hard content. And more important, it's the reason why the strikes are there, to act as that, as a bridge, by words of ANet. Why TF would they make a bridge to something they don't plan on touching or updating anymore? xD

They don't have to do anything. They've only stated that it's a bridge to existing raid content. No reason to believe they are going to create new raids. 

If they really wanted to actually make strikes a bridge to raids, we would have all of them in Aerodrome - where all the raiders are. Why didn't they do that? Because they do not want strike and raid community to clash. 

[Renegated.4132]

44 minutes ago, Krzysztof.5973 said:

What's the percentage of entire raid population that did that? Is it small? Did this tiny portion of raiders drove everybody away from raids? Did they take their ability to create their own LFGs away? 

 

What do you expect them to do? "Here, you have to let everybody in, into your own LFG that you created and you command"? 

 

They don't have to do anything. They've only stated that it's a bridge to existing raid content. No reason to believe they are going to create new raids. 

If they really wanted to actually make strikes a bridge to raids, we would have all of them in Aerodrome - where all the raiders are. Why didn't they do that? Because they do not want strike and raid community to clash. 

 

Believe me, when the first raid was added to the game, all the parties had an elitist as leader that would kick you for doing 1K less of damage or by not having EXACTLY what qT said they used in that time. It was trully exagerated.

 

The fact that you've created the squad doesn't give you the right to be a jerk. Plain as that, the same applies if you're in Lion's Arch or in Maguuma. One thing is having expectations and the other one is what happened in the earlys of the W1, that 80% of the comms acted like a dictator, and that drove a lot of people out of raids due to the fact that the closest thing to a raid we had was fractals, so you can imagine how the jump from one thing to the other was. Too much freedom ends up becoming anarchy, and not punishing people for acting how they acted ended up in that, unless you had a guild, going solo was a horror.

 

 

[Krzysztof.5973]

14 minutes ago, Renegated.4132 said:

 

Believe me, when the first raid was added to the game, all the parties had an elitist as leader that would kick you for doing 1K less of damage or by not having EXACTLY what qT said they used in that time. It was trully exagerated.

 

The fact that you've created the squad doesn't give you the right to be a jerk. Plain as that, the same applies if you're in Lion's Arch or in Maguuma. One thing is having expectations and the other one is what happened in the earlys of the W1, that 80% of the comms acted like a dictator, and that drove a lot of people out of raids due to the fact that the closest thing to a raid we had was fractals, so you can imagine how the jump from one thing to the other was. Too much freedom ends up becoming anarchy, and not punishing people for acting how they acted ended up in that, unless you had a guild, going solo was a horror.

 

 

I don't have to believe you. I was there when raids were first released. I have like 6-7 thousands of hours in raids alone. Saying all the 'parties' had an elitist leader is just lying. 
I have no idea who wronged you, but that is just not how things were. 

Having commander tag gives you all the right to kick whoever you deem unworthy. It's commander's squad and his LFG. If someone is underperforming, he's going to get kicked if that's what commander decides. I have zero obligation to suffer through a raid with anyone playing badly. It also doesn't prevent anyone from completing any type of content. Play with people you prefer. 

[Ombras.2853]

I wonder if they were doing 1k or 10k less than the norm to be kicked out. Well.

[Renegated.4132]

25 minutes ago, Krzysztof.5973 said:

I don't have to believe you. I was there when raids were first released. I have like 6-7 thousands of hours in raids alone. Saying all the 'parties' had an elitist leader is just lying. 
I have no idea who wronged you, but that is just not how things were. 

Having commander tag gives you all the right to kick whoever you deem unworthy. It's commander's squad and his LFG. If someone is underperforming, he's going to get kicked if that's what commander decides. I have zero obligation to suffer through a raid with anyone playing badly. It also doesn't prevent anyone from completing any type of content. Play with people you prefer. 

 

The thing is that there's A TREMENDOUS DIFFERENCE between doing 1K less of damage and kicking someone that plays bad. And no, being commander doesn't give you the right to kick someone because your mordremoth desires it, you have to give a good reason, otherwise it can be considered abuse of the group system. Kicking someone because it's trolling it's legit, he is not playing seriously and it's a boulder for the rest, kicking someone because it's doing a bit less of damage than people that has been hours doing the same rotation over and over again to the point of having it body memorized it's not. Not everyone belongs to SC and qT.

 

And y, I went a bit high saying all parties, mea culpa, yet the problem remains the same, the comms were asking for things that were impossible to achieve, as I said, it's impossible that someone that has practiced a rotation for maybe, 5 hours, deals the same damage that someone that practiced it 50.

[Renegated.4132]

Just now, Ombras.2853 said:

I wonder if they were doing 1k or 10k less than the norm to be kicked out. Well.

 

there was a huge amount of comms that acted like that, probably all those came from other games where doing damage it's probably easier and thought  that here was the same... And it's not xD

 

And obviously, 10K less it's a legit reason to tell someone "Hey, go back to practice and come later", 1K no xD

[Linken.6345]

25 minutes ago, Renegated.4132 said:

 

The thing is that there's A TREMENDOUS DIFFERENCE between doing 1K less of damage and kicking someone that plays bad. And no, being commander doesn't give you the right to kick someone because your mordremoth desires it, you have to give a good reason, otherwise it can be considered abuse of the group system. Kicking someone because it's trolling it's legit, he is not playing seriously and it's a boulder for the rest, kicking someone because it's doing a bit less of damage than people that has been hours doing the same rotation over and over again to the point of having it body memorized it's not. Not everyone belongs to SC and qT.

 

And y, I went a bit high saying all parties, mea culpa, yet the problem remains the same, the comms were asking for things that were impossible to achieve, as I said, it's impossible that someone that has practiced a rotation for maybe, 5 hours, deals the same damage that someone that practiced it 50.

You are wrong there were no dps meters back when raids released.

It was commander looking who is not playing tempest dps kick that one and see if the new dps let us finish encounter.

The dps meters actualy made it equal commander could then see who preformed and who did not and squad got rid of alot of useless tempest that was the right class build but did not preform at all.

[Renegated.4132]

3 minutes ago, Linken.6345 said:

You are wrong there were no dps meters back when raids released.

It was commander looking who is not playing tempest dps kick that one and see if the new dps let us finish encounter.

The dps meters actualy made it equal commander could then see who preformed and who did not and squad got rid of alot of useless tempest that was the right class build but did not preform at all.

 I recall seeing a lot commanders kicking people because of that, doing low DPS, maybe yeah, it was later on, when arc made his dpsmeter.

[BumboJumbo.1308]

Yeah, it sucks that anet made raids where the story within them is gated behind hard content that the average player feels they can't do. I feel like that was anets mistake making the bridge between core and heart of thorns a 0 to 100 in difficulty. Apparently the heart of thorns maps got nerfed in difficulty because of how hard it was for the average player to push through. 

That being said, I believe the way people act in instanced content is something that can only change culturally, and not have anet police the lfg. (Unless we're talking relocating raid sellers to the achievements lfg tab).

For normal mode strikes, culturally, the player base should allow anyone to join the lfg, and not block new players or unconfident players to join. The normal mode strikes are fairly easy as they teach basic mechanics only and have no enrage timer.

The expectations in the lfg are entirely subjective (apart from kill proof) in what the commander thinks is acceptable in someone's performance or build (experience and roles). I think this creates uncertainty about whether the newer/unconfident players should join.

When it comes to challange motes, raids, or tier 2-4 fractals I think you can block as many people off from joining your group with expectations as these contents require a basic understanding of mechanics, as well as, additional encounter specific mechanics. So in this case make your own group so you don't have to deal with the toxic elites.

Also, maybe I'm wrong here but it seems that guilds that do raids don't do a good job at advertising themselves in the lfg to the peeps that want to get into raids. Raid sellers are all over the raid lfg in comparison.

[firedragon.8953]

I like raids and I like the lore and explorable wings they bring. But I can't fully agree with your opinion here.

Most raiders repeat (farm) raids for loot, achievements, legendary armor, etc. Lore and exploration is really only "enjoyed" the first few times. With a small fraction of GW2 gamers even willing to try raids, I don't think this is viable/sustainable. I also don't think toxic elitists are more prevalent in raids than any other game mode. Most "toxic" encounters are when there a members of a group that join another group that do not hold the same "expectations". We as players must respect other's expectations for group content. Nothing permits another to flame someone, but there are definitely reasons to kick someone from a party.

Anyway....
Strike Missions appear to be more sustainable in the sense that hey have lore that people can solo (story). Players can "relive" the lore without having to focus on it, making it easy enough with PUGs without feeling like you're "missing out" on the story when everyone just burns through to fight. They are also tiered in difficulty! Then you have CMs which are definitely raid-level difficulty. Strikes also have the benefit of being able to easily access any boss without having to worry about clearing certain bosses in an instance. 

Again, although I love raids and in my dream world I would love to see new wings (maybe one day), I can totally understand why pursing the strike mission model is more viable. Anet really just needs to figure out their end game reward structure [painfully obvious with the new EoD strikes, although the bump in gold was nice]. Maybe some collections, another leggy trinket or two (another ring maybe, first aqua breather, etc.).

Fractals....
Speaking of lore though, I'd argue that Fractals can do this MUCH MUCH better. That's exactly what they are "fractured echoes in time." I mean, you could have them set in the past, present, future. They are even set in tyria, space, wherever! They can be stand-alone and/or episodic. Anet really really could make fun, repeatable lore rich content in tiers staggered to player ability (T1 - T4 [CM]) and it makes me kind of sad that this is somewhat being abandoned or have really REALLY slow development (or so it seems). 5-man content is also easier to organize than 10-man content. Anet really made a good system ripe for creativity with fractals, and it feels like such a shame that it doesn't get more attention.

Edited May 21, 2022 by firedragon.8953

[Wolfshade.9251]

22 hours ago, Renegated.4132 said:

 

I was here when the raids where born, so i can agree about the thing of stop caring about the dialog, but still, the fact of being with friends and suddenly find something that shouldn't be there and have to pick your jaw from the floor because of the shock it's something that strikes don't give you xD

 

Also, "all welcome" 99% of the time is jumping to a pool without knowing if the pool has water or not, that happens on all games xD

 

When I refer to elitism i talk about things that happened back in the day, that comms would kick you for doing 1K less of damage on the boss even if you took down the boss with 3+ mins of time remaining, kicking someone for using things that where not in the metabible despite of working well (my minstrel temp saved a lot of tries just for the fact of being able to tank while healing) or refusing to use resources of the fight because "it's for noobs", like Gorseval's updrafts on phase 3.

I see what you mean now. Sorry about the assumption, "elitist" gets thrown around a lot with various meanings.

 

I prefer raids over strikes as well, but for me the new environments, specialised roles, mechanics focused on something else than fractal-like aoe circle spam and filling out world map art are the biggest reasons. Probably because I didn't play a lot of GW1 yet, so I'm not as invested in the older lore.

[maxwelgm.4315]

I don't think it's a good idea in general for Anet to invest in raids (and I love them, and currently do FCs with a static). Just reading other topics in this forum is enough of a hint. People who play raids are somewhat annoying about their love for raids and especially so they are super annoying about how much other people don't know about the game as much as they do. I'm not even talking about elitism here - it's just annoyance over content that should not have been so difficult and "raiders" go on and on about how easy it really is while at the same time going on and on about how good their gameplay is in comparison to "open world plebs" to make it seem this easy. 

 

This is not Anet's fault and not even the playerbase's fault. The problem is that Raids are inherently a social game mode much more so than anything else in this game. Strikes in fact take advantage of how they reuse assets from the main episodic content in order to prevent any kind of social gatekeeping - yes, you're not enjoying the feel of experiencing fully new content that can only be enjoyed together with your buddies, and that's intentional, you're just doing a Boss rush mode that was super easy to develop and is super easy for random pugs to get into. Anyone who plays raids for very long is unlikely to have pugged for years on end - at some point they probably had some static action or at least a raiding guild/raiding discord to fall back to from time to time. And this social aspect is something which really limits accessibility in a game where otherwise you can literally play what you want even if it does 200 DPS and still feel like you're playing with others in open world metas even if your chat is turned off. In sum, raids are very nice but GW2 and its playerbase is not social enough for them - CM strikes becoming popular will not change this either.

[chronometria.3708]

Give me an easy mode for old raid content and less rewards. I would play the heck out of that and I am sure many other players would too. 

[Obtena.7952]

On 5/20/2022 at 11:22 AM, Renegated.4132 said:

 

Raids are not dead, raids got killed, that it's different.

Even more reason to stop asking for them. They were killed for a reason or even several, probably all good ones related to how they (inadequately) supported the game as a business.