Raid “easy mode” will soon be available (kind of)

[mythical.6315]

Quote

Each week, one of the seven existing raid wings will be set to Emboldened mode. Upon entry, raid members will gain their first stack of the Emboldened enhancement, which grants additional health, damage output, and improved healing to aid in their battle against each boss. Each time the raid wipes against that boss, they’ll receive another stack of Emboldened, granting up to 100% additional health, 50% increased damage, and 50% increased healing output. Upon defeating the boss, the Emboldened stack will reset to one. Emboldened mode is entirely optional, and for those who prefer the challenge, it can be turned off by visiting the Emboldened mote inside that raid.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/arenanet-studio-update-june-2022/

[anbujackson.9564]

Is the powercreep not making them already too easy? This old content cant keep up. 

[Blaeys.3102]

Elegant solution imo.

[mythical.6315]

4 minutes ago, Blaeys.3102 said:

Elegant solution imo.

It’s what at least one other MMO does although I’m curious if there will any restrictions to how easily the stacks can be acquired. If it’s strictly on fail then groups can just just intentionally fail to cap them. 

[Justine.6351]

21 minutes ago, mythical.6315 said:

It’s what at least one other MMO does although I’m curious if there will any restrictions to how easily the stacks can be acquired. If it’s strictly on fail then groups can just just intentionally fail to cap them. 

Time has a value.

[Krzysztof.5973]

It's still not enough to carry majority of the playerbase through the raids. And for the people who ask for easy mode for raids, farming stacks to get it to the max ... let's just say it won't go well. 

[mythical.6315]

57 minutes ago, Justine.6351 said:

Time has a value.

It wouldn’t take that much time to max the stacks if all you have to do is fail. This also isn’t about g/hr so time wouldn’t really be relevant by itself. 

Edited June 22, 2022 by mythical.6315

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

This combined with many more sources of Alac/Quick in the upcoming patch will make a huge difference in raid completion by random PUGs and LFGers. You'll also see alot more squads willing to just take randoms, since it won't matter as much anymore to get a clear, which is all anyone really wants.

 

The days of putting your skill to the limit in the game were over when Dragon's End was released and the devs got feedback that most of the player base doesn't want this. Just embrace it; if you want that kind of challenge there are many, many other games out there and there's always smaller group comps, wearing weaker gear, soloing and other ways to test yourself in the game without interfering with players just wanting rewards.

 

I know it sounds sad, but MMOs have always been about rewards and always will be. They're literally designed to exploit the reward structures in the brain as much as possible.

Edited June 22, 2022 by Hannelore.8153

[Biziut.3594]

I really like to have more ppls play raids, becouse since i started raiding few months ago it become one of my favourite content, and i would really like to see more resources put into it, but also i cannot help but feel that this change is a start to castrating raids for the sake of inclusivness. I really hope that this "easy mode" wings won't reward kp's. As I said i started to raid 3 months ago, with no guild, only pugs. Got build from SC --> practised it on fractals and daily stuff, --> perfected it on fractals CM's -->, watches quick guide on yt for certain wing, --> joined training run, --> joined "know mech"/semi training run, --> join "some kp" run --> join 10kp run ect. After 1 month I was able to do full clears, CM's included. I know that some ppls may find it more difficult and need more help, but i don't think that this change is the answer. Maybe some real easy mode with all mechanics to learn but not so much punishment for failing them and no or very little spare change as reward. Don't know what to think of this change but I am worrying. Raids are not so hard to begin with compared to other games, I don't want them to become like dungeons.

[Saharo.5381]

3 hours ago, Biziut.3594 said:

i cannot help but feel that this change is a start to castrating raids for the sake of inclusivness

 

Exactly! I started raiding recently and training runs/videos were plenty to help me become experienced.

Lowering the skill floor and providing the same rewards diminishes the challenge and prestige that come with raiding. Not sure that defaulting to easy mode is good for the game mode.

[Einsof.1457]

It really hurts my soul that the ultra casuals, who 99% of the game content is made for, just can't help trying to get that full 100% and just screw the folks over who enjoy the 1% of the game that actually holds challenge. 

[Foxon.2369]

I think Anet went about their problem wrong. If the problem is "how do we get more players into raids", making them easier isn't the way to go about it, especially when it affects every raider indirectly. The big problem I've heard from players who "want to raid but don't because X" has nothing to do with the raid difficulty or rewards. It's about the social anxiety that comes with trying to get into content. It could be that communities are stringy on failure (which is a form of toxicity) or there's a barrier to entry (not being in a guild, static, or Kill Proof with no effective way to get a guild, static, or earn KP).

The way to get more people into raids is to make getting into groups simpler. Guild recruiting and getting into a guild/finding a guild is a process that needs to be improved. Guilds are a fantastic less toxic way to start raids, plus there's less social anxiety if you group with people you know.

I just don't want the "it's embolden week for this so we're going to use it because it's easier" to be the new norm even among regular or "elite" raiders. I like the idea of getting more players into raids, but "dumbing down" a wing each week for the sake of new players doesn't sit well with me.

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

All personal hangups aside, I'm concerned this might make it much more inconvenient to raid.  Back when I did it, all the guilds just picked a day or two for the raid, and we hammered through the encounters for the week.  With this emboldened system, players will be encouraged to only play one raid a day.  This will also make recruiting pugs for groups harder, because the more casual groups will take the path of least resistance and refuse to run any non-emboldened raid.  

[Angelz.9713]

I am absolutely against this, there is value in learning the mechanics of a raid and being able to perform them in your chosen role. The failures are part of the learning process and are needed in order to grow and evolve as a raider. With this new 'emboldened' nobody will have to do mechanics on that specific wing for that week, they won't need to have high dps or high boon uptime. This is a disaster for the raiding community. We don't want an open world instanced raid...we want raiders who are willing to put in effort to learn the raids and grow themselves as an individual in Guild Wars 2. 
I have a Raiding Guild and we train raids multiple times a week and there is value in teaching and allowing new raiders to practice mechanics -- not enabling everyone to have the easy way out. Raids take practice and you never stop learning but this is a new level of laziness that the GW2 community will take advantage of in a way that will not reinforce what the raiding community is today.
If this is going to be a thing then minimally there needs to be decreased rewards and absolutely no KP given. 
Most of the other experienced raiders I've talked to about this hate this idea as well. Even though we've all banged our head against bosses for hours, we learned something from that, we were able to evolve and bring something out of those experiences. I foresee 'emboldened' groups forming up just to go in and fail over and over and over on purpose until its so ridiculously easy to kill the boss that its not even a challenge. This is not going to be an asset to the game, its enabling everyone to get their raid kills and kp without actually earning it, not to mention Legendary Armor. Strike Missions are supposed to be the stepping stone to Raids so why do we need emboldened?
The fact that Anet is willing to go this far to bring in any and all to Raids and cater to the open world community but just ignore their end game community is really frustrating. It has literally been years since we got any new raid content -- End of Dragons should have had a new raid wing and there are a lot of upset raiders out there that all this new content is coming in from every other aspect of the game but we in the raiding community get nothing but slapped in the face with this new emboldened mode. 
I really hope in the future Anet will start listening to their end game community, especially their Raiders. We've already lost too many good raiders because of a lack of new raiding content.

[Vilin.8056]

How nice.

I can soon enter a raid instance, quickly make 10 solo wipes, then sell  that instance for 10 gold.

Edited June 23, 2022 by Vilin.8056

[Linken.6345]

23 minutes ago, Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:

All personal hangups aside, I'm concerned this might make it much more inconvenient to raid.  Back when I did it, all the guilds just picked a day or two for the raid, and we hammered through the encounters for the week.  With this emboldened system, players will be encouraged to only play one raid a day.  This will also make recruiting pugs for groups harder, because the more casual groups will take the path of least resistance and refuse to run any non-emboldened raid.  

I read it as it was 1 wing a week that was emboldend.

So it will take 7 weeks to get all wings mate not 7 days.

[Obtena.7952]

1 hour ago, Angelz.9713 said:

I am absolutely against this, there is value in learning the mechanics of a raid and being able to perform them in your chosen role. The failures are part of the learning process and are needed in order to grow and evolve as a raider. With this new 'emboldened' nobody will have to do mechanics on that specific wing for that week, they won't need to have high dps or high boon uptime. This is a disaster for the raiding community. We don't want an open world instanced raid...we want raiders who are willing to put in effort to learn the raids and grow themselves as an individual in Guild Wars 2. 
I have a Raiding Guild and we train raids multiple times a week and there is value in teaching and allowing new raiders to practice mechanics -- not enabling everyone to have the easy way out. Raids take practice and you never stop learning but this is a new level of laziness that the GW2 community will take advantage of in a way that will not reinforce what the raiding community is today.
If this is going to be a thing then minimally there needs to be decreased rewards and absolutely no KP given. 
Most of the other experienced raiders I've talked to about this hate this idea as well. Even though we've all banged our head against bosses for hours, we learned something from that, we were able to evolve and bring something out of those experiences. I foresee 'emboldened' groups forming up just to go in and fail over and over and over on purpose until its so ridiculously easy to kill the boss that its not even a challenge. This is not going to be an asset to the game, its enabling everyone to get their raid kills and kp without actually earning it, not to mention Legendary Armor. Strike Missions are supposed to be the stepping stone to Raids so why do we need emboldened?
The fact that Anet is willing to go this far to bring in any and all to Raids and cater to the open world community but just ignore their end game community is really frustrating. It has literally been years since we got any new raid content -- End of Dragons should have had a new raid wing and there are a lot of upset raiders out there that all this new content is coming in from every other aspect of the game but we in the raiding community get nothing but slapped in the face with this new emboldened mode. 
I really hope in the future Anet will start listening to their end game community, especially their Raiders. We've already lost too many good raiders because of a lack of new raiding content.

This really doesn't make sense. This change isn't FOR the current raiding community to begin with. It's for the people that DON'T currently raid. Anet IS listening to their endgame community; primarily the portion that see raid difficulty as a BARRIER to even trying it. If you are LUCKY, enough people might start doing raids to JUSTIFY new raiding content, though I'm doubtful of that. What amazes me is that somehow you haven't made the connection between why Anet are 'not listening' to raiders and the fact that raids are simply not engaging enough with the playerbase to make it worth their time to give them more attention. 

What your guild is doing is great but be realistic here and realize that just being available to train people is enough to revive this content. The fact is that there just isn't enough people interested in spending time training for a casual gaming experience. I myself am not convinced this change will do much ... if I understand correctly, it requires multiple attempts at the current levels of difficulty to progressively dumb down the encounter. I have a feeling the people that don't want to be trained are also the same kind of people that will spend their time progressing through failure to succeed either. 

Edited June 23, 2022 by Obtena.7952

[SlayerXX.7138]

51 minutes ago, Angelz.9713 said:

I am absolutely against this, there is value in learning the mechanics of a raid and being able to perform them in your chosen role. The failures are part of the learning process and are needed in order to grow and evolve as a raider. With this new 'emboldened' nobody will have to do mechanics on that specific wing for that week, they won't need to have high dps or high boon uptime.

Yes on release. Now there just not enough people. I am willing to wipe on a boss multiple times to learn the fight. Finding 9 more people in Lfg for that NOW is near impossible. Also many mechanics are near instant death mechanics so people will feel the mechanics even with a 100% buff. I would have liked a easy training mode more(without LI, dont scream at me), but i take it.

5 hours ago, Biziut.3594 said:

Raids are not so hard to begin with compared to other games, I don't want them to become like dungeons.

True. I'm not a raider but I did kill vale guardian a couple of times as healer and dps. The hardest thing by far was seeing the teleport in all the visual clutter, not the fight itself. Right now there is no feasible way to learn raids without a guild. An easy mode with reduced rewards always seemed like the obvious solution.

1 hour ago, Angelz.9713 said:

I really hope in the future Anet will start listening to their end game community, especially their Raiders. We've already lost too many good raiders because of a lack of new raiding content.

If they listen to the people who have the content on farm->reduced chance the changes will attract new players->reduced chance to get new content. Giving the wider player base the opportunity to learn raid fights via LFG will increase the chance for new raid not decrease it.

[Artemis.8034]

8 hours ago, anbujackson.9564 said:

Is the powercreep not making them already too easy? This old content cant keep up. 

This is for beginners and honestly I dont have a problem with it if it lets people who have never raided before learn how then im all for it. The more interest in raids and the more people want to do them the more probability they add a cantha raid wing, and we get new blood in raids . Its a win win imo. Lets face it raid population is starving you dont see near the amount of groups as before, just a ton of raid sellers. Letting people learn a new raid wing a week hurts nothing, its actually beneficial in that it keeps the content going, and maybe just maybe people will see its pretty fun to raid.

[Artemis.8034]

1 hour ago, Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:

All personal hangups aside, I'm concerned this might make it much more inconvenient to raid.  Back when I did it, all the guilds just picked a day or two for the raid, and we hammered through the encounters for the week.  With this emboldened system, players will be encouraged to only play one raid a day.  This will also make recruiting pugs for groups harder, because the more casual groups will take the path of least resistance and refuse to run any non-emboldened raid.  

Raiders will still do their thing, I will still do my weekly terror toppler, its one wing a week for novice players to learn and not be afraid to try a raid. They have a week to clear the wing, if it draws new blood into the raid scene im all for it, and if that interest means anet will add a new wing im all for it. We are stagnating here, both my statics have bailed on the game, I see less of the raiders that used to be in aerodome  and lfg , its getting pretty deserted , less raiders on my friends list logging in. 

[Artemis.8034]

2 hours ago, Einsof.1457 said:

It really hurts my soul that the ultra casuals, who 99% of the game content is made for, just can't help trying to get that full 100% and just screw the folks over who enjoy the 1% of the game that actually holds challenge. 

How is this screwing you over? Will you stop doing the cms? stop killing the bosses, why? Im also pretty sure this toned down raid is meant to let people learn and get their feet wet, its not for regular raiders. Im also pretty sure the rewards will be dif, and the legendary will not be tied to it, its a stepping stone so people can advance if they want. You will still have your challenge. 

[Hotride.2187]

9 hours ago, Hannelore.8153 said:

The days of putting your skill to the limit in the game were over

Skills to the limit in pve, lol. Go show those npcs how its done.

Sorry I don't have anything to say to the topic, I was reading out of curiosity and then I saw that.

Well actually I do have something to say, will the "easy" mode have the same rewards? Cause that would be dumb. Np getting a trainer mode to learn an encounter, but why would you get loot?

Edited June 23, 2022 by Hotride.2187

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

4 minutes ago, Hotride.2187 said:

Skills to the limit in pve, lol. Go show those npcs how its done.

Sorry I don't have anything to say to the topic, I was reading out of curiosity and then I saw that.

As a long time hardcore WvWer and PvPer, I can tell you: Players are often easier than NPCs.

[Krzysztof.5973]

5 hours ago, Angelz.9713 said:

If this is going to be a thing then minimally there needs to be decreased rewards and absolutely no KP given. 

The rewards could stay the same honestly, they are terrible anyway plus you will wipe a lot of times. Just make it so it does not reward LI/KP. 

[Cyninja.2954]

My initial reaction was disagreement. Having slept over this inevitable change, here is how I feel about it today:

 

1. having 1 wing per week actually benefits pooling players into that wing. This can potentially ease the entry into raids for players. The main benefit here lies with using this buff to actually reach consensus among many players as to which wing to run. That's good.

 

2. bar any bugs, and there is a HUGE potential for bugs here and I fear we will see a ton of them. More challenging achievements will remain barred from this new mode (well challenging before the power creep from all these years).

 

3. some fights will get hilariously broken with this buff potentially leading to players learning incorrect mechanics when transitioning into regular mode for that wing. A side issue I guess since the main goal here is to get players to try raids to begin with.

 

4. my hope is that raid rewards will see some kind of pass and rework with increased participation. Suffice to say, LI and LD are useless to most long-term raiders and even with having spent 1,650 on 6 legendary armor sets myself, my bank is nearing 2k LI again (saved by the material expansion temporarily). I know other regular raiders who are already wasting bank space. Maybe some kind of repeatable achievement, doesn't have to grant AP, which grants resources could be implemented or so, as to keep potential leaderboards on ge2eff in tact.

 

I guess we have to face that raids are legacy content by now going the way of the dungeons. Doesn't have to be all bad IF this leads to a steady development of good content in the future. Strikes might be just that, we will see.